The Scent of Love

Chapter 9

She hasn’t heard from Sean in two weeks. Not a word.

Beth chews on her nail while Pam braids her hair. They don’t spend much time together these days, between both of their new jobs, and Beth being— well, with Sean, mostly. It’s strange, how something so small as changing her meds can cause so many changes. 

“I’m so excited to see your stage debut,” Pam says, twisting Beth’s hair with deft hands.

“I’m excited to make it,” Beth admits. “It only took, what— twenty auditions?”

“Twenty-two,” Pam corrects her, already tying off the end of her braid, “but who’s counting?” Beth snorts. “Hey, how’s that guy you were seeing? You haven’t mentioned him.” You don’t smell like him, is what Pam means, but she’s always been too polite to say things like that. 

Beth shrugs, shifting around on Pam’s bed to face her. She may be an Omega— probably Beth’s only Omega friend besides Josh— but her designation starts and ends with her scent. Any Beta who saw her would think she’s an Alpha, from her short cropped hair, to the tee shirt and cargo pants she’s wearing, to the assertive (borderline aggressive) way she holds herself. Her whole aesthetic screams butch lesbian, too. 

Pam nudges her. “Well? The guy? What was his name, Sam?”

“Sean.” Beth shrugs again. “We weren’t seeing each other, really. He saw me through a heat, and we were kind of f**k buddies for awhile.”

“God, Alphas,” Pam snarls. “They think they can take whatever they want.” She pauses, eyes going wide behind her cat-eye glasses. “You won’t be working with him, will you?” 

“He’s a sub, so it’s possible.” Beth sighs and rests against the wall, tucking her feet underneath herself. Pam’s got a TV in her room, but the crime show they’re watching hasn’t held Beth’s attention all night. “I mean, it’s not really probable. There are, what, four other male subs they could call at any given time? The benefit of a long running show. Plus, he could be called on my day off, or I could trade days with someone, or—”

“Right, slim to none,” Pam cuts her off. “I’m sorry.”

Beth scowls. “Why? He’s the one who decided he didn’t feel like talking to me for two weeks. Besides, we weren’t a couple.” 

“No, you just saw each other multiple times a week, every week, for like… a month. Nothing couply about that at all.”

Beth grabbed the nearest pillow and swung it, nailing Pam in the face. “Oh, who asked you?”

Pam burst out laughing, and grabbed her own pillow. 

Despite the fun, the laughter, the five minutes of sheer chaos that ensues, Pam’s words seep into Beth’s brain, clouding it like muddy waters. Was Sean distant at all, throughout their— their meetups? Were there any signs? She doesn’t think so, looking back. Then again, maybe she doesn’t remember them because she was reading too much into their… affair. 

Maybe that’s all it had been to him. A wild, fleeting affair. A short fling. 

Well. That’s— fine. Totally… yeah. Fine.

“You know,” she says to Pam sometime later, “I think maybe I need to find someone else to help me out.”

A slow smile spreads onto Pam’s face. “Now you’re talking.”

***

He finds her already hammered at the bar. 

“Sean!” Her eyes are glassy but bright, her smile staggering. She’s hugging him before he can piece together why she’s even bothering to talk to him— considering their last run in, and the fact that he’s been purposely ignoring her, trying desperately to purge her from his mind and failing spectacularly at doing so. 

“Uh…” he carefully wraps her in a hug, avoiding touching anything gland-related. “Hey, Beth.” 

“Hi!” She giggles as she tilts her head up on his chest to look at him. “I’m drunk.”

“I can see that.”

“Did you just get here?” She steps back and takes his hands, and he really doesn’t have a choice but to follow her to the two empty bar stools in front of them. 

“No,” he tells her, signaling to the bartender for his check. “I was just coming to get my check.” 

“Oh!” Beth’s delight isn’t exactly out of character, but it’s still a surprise, considering— well. He hasn’t talked to her in awhile. Shouldn’t she be… mad, or something? She looks into her empty glass, and pouts. “I’m out of cider. I think I’ll have another.” 

Yeah, Sean thinks. No. “I don’t think you need any more alcohol,” he says. “Maybe some water.”

Her pout deepens. It’s almost funny, except— except Beth never drinks this much. She wasn’t even this drunk when they first hooked up, and he was basically slammed that night. “Aww. But aren’t you getting more?”

Jenn drops off his check just as she says it. “Nope,” he says, signing off the receipt for his tab. “Have you closed your tab?”

“But you said—” she pauses, frowning as her sentence reroutes. “Uh. I think so. You’re leaving?” 

“I was planning on it.”

Jenn gives him a pointed look. “She’s tapped out and paid, big guy.”

“Thanks,” Sean says, handing his own signed check over. “Do you have a purse?” He says it to Beth as he stands, corralling her into standing as well. She never brings a purse— he knows her better than that— but she pats herself down as he shepherds her out of the bar. 

“No, I’ve just got my phone.” She pulls it out as they pass the girls up front and the new bouncer, and Sean waves at them. The new bouncer, an Alpha that looks like he might have just presented— what was his name? Blaine? Blaize? — looks between them and winks roguishly. Ugh. “I need to get a Lyft,” Beth continues. 

“I have a car,” Sean says, putting a hand on the small of her back. “I can give you a ride for free.”

“I should have taken Blake up on—” she looks up from her phone and registers where they’re walking as he turns her toward his car. “Hmm?” She looks surprised all the way up until he opens the door for her. “Oh. Okay.” As she climbs in, her shirt— loose hanging, obviously not designed with omegas in mind— shifts down to reveal her mating gland, and her colorful butterfly tattoo beside it, and Sean has to chew on the inside of his cheek to keep from leering at it. “Alright. Thank you.” 

Relief doesn’t come even when he closes her door. Why should it, when, the moment he opens his own, her lovely, perfect, delectable scent hits him right in the gut? 

“Seatbelt?” She’s buckled in, and leaning against the window looking more exhausted than she did inside the bar. “Close your eyes, it’s okay. You’ll be home soon.”

“Can we get tacos?”

He laughs as he starts to back out of the parking spot. “Will you be awake enough to eat them?”

“Mmm.” She’s barely even awake still. “Tacos.” 

Her words from earlier register late, when he’s already turning out of the parking lot and onto the road. “Who the f**k is Blake?” But Beth is already out cold. 

Another Alpha? Or the name of the bouncer they passed? The bouncers have been known to call taxis for the Omegas, something Jenn and Tara have always insisted on. Maybe he’d offered that to her?

Or maybe he’d offered something else.

Sean has to swallow down the spike of rage that coils into his throat.

He doesn’t bother to stop for tacos— he probably shouldn’t be driving, anyway,  considering he’s had two beers in the last hour. Best not to prolong the situation— but he takes her to her own apartment, even as something in his mind screams at him to take her to his. Beth sleeps the entire way. She sleeps as he unbuckles her, as he lifts her from the car, as he locks it up behind him. 

Then— then, of course, she stirs in the elevator, where he could conceivably put her down so she could walk by herself, but he doesn’t want to—

“Mmm. Alpha.” 

He’s hard as diamond. Instantly. It makes him go a little lightheaded. 

Beth tilts her head back, her eyes still mostly shut, and runs her lips across the gland on his neck. He almost buckles with her in his arms, almost flips her around to press into the wall, but the elevator dings and the doors open, and it’s the only thing keeping him together. The lights in the hallway are brighter than spotlights and he just wants to get her home. 

Her apartment smells like her. Obviously. Which he doesn’t think about until he opens the door and it hits him like a brick wall popping up across the chivalrous, friendly road his mind had been travelling down. 

Sean almost groans. It takes monumental effort to enter her apartment, switch on the light, and take her to her bedroom. 

He should leave. He should pull off those staggering heels of hers and then just set her on the bed and maybe cover her with that soft pink blanket she loves so much. And then he should leave, and lock the deadbolt and leave her key under her doormat. He should get out of there before he does something stupid. 

Out of all of his well laid plans, he only makes it halfway to the front door, key in hand.

“Alpha?”

Like that, he’s back in her room, standing next to her bed like an i***t, with no idea how exactly he got there. She stares up at him, a little dazed. Probably still a little drunk. 

“Omega.” The word slips out by accident. He closes his eyes, cursing everything— his designation, her scent, the three beers he knocked back at the bar what feels like ages ago that aren’t even affecting him now. She’s already sitting up by the time he opens his eyes, and before he can form enough of a coherent thought to stop her, she reaches for his belt and slides it off of him. 

“Alpha.” She’s— she’s purring, now. He can hear it, a low hum from her chest, as she curls his waistband down with the tips of her fingers. As her teeth graze over his hip bones, and the small glands there. 

“Omega.” This has to stop. She’s drunk. He’s drunk— or at least not one hundred percent sober, which is really the same thing, and he should just back out of this room and away from her smell before he does something senseless. 

“Alpha,” she sighs again, nuzzling against— oh, god. “Please, Alpha. You smell so good.” 

“Beth. Omega.” He threads his fingers through her hair, fully intent on pulling her away, but she presses a kiss to the hard ridge under his jeans, and he feels his knees weaken. “We— we can’t.” He swallows at her soft, petulant mewl. “Beth. You’re drunk.”

“I know,” she says, sounding delighted by the fact. “Let’s make terrible decisions, Sean.”

He squeezes his eyes shut again, because seeing her there, pulling his zipper down, mouthing at his erection— he can’t stand it. “If you can say that while you’re sober, we can—“

“I have,” she reminds him, and then licks a stripe up his entire d**k through his jeans. The room starts to spin around him. “Sean. I’d let you f**k me every night, sober or drunk, in heat or not.” He cracks open one eye, and she’s staring up at him with her lips parted and her eyes hungry. “Please, Alpha.”

Sean would love to say he has self control like no other. That he has an iron will. He prides himself on his ability to not feel the feelings or make rash decisions, just like a good Alpha should. 

Except. 

Except when his Omega, with her incredible scent and her perfectly fuckable body, begs him like this. He’s not that strong. 

She pulls him out, and his fist closes in her hair— it’s bright red, now, almost copper, like fire in his hands. Her lips close around the head of him. She’s warm, and wet, and sloppy, and it takes all of his willpower not to start thrusting into her mouth. She’s nowhere near sober enough for him to take control like that. So he fists his hand in her hair and lets her do as she pleases, sucking and licking and taking him as deeply as she can. The head of him catches on the back of her throat so many times he finds himself pulling back, trying to ease her frantic rhythm. 

“Alpha,” she moans, lips parted over his knot as it starts to swell. 

He’s not sure where the growl comes from, but it takes seconds for him to toss her onto her back and drag her leggings down and off of her. They hit the wall with a soft rustle as he spreads her legs for him, kneeling between them beside the bed. Beth squeals, and then begins to giggle, the sound breaking into a moan when he nips at her thigh. 

She tastes like— like her. Something sweet and ripe, like peaches, like berries, like everything he’s ever wanted. He feels so right, buried between her legs and making her writhe and whimper. 

Mine, that obnoxious alpha voice in his head growls. Made for me to f**k and provide for and care for. 

He’s barely thinking when she starts to come, a rush of sweet slick on his tongue and lips. Her cries are probably loud enough to wake the neighbors, and he doesn’t have it in him to care, not with her fingers gripping his hair and pulling him closer to the source of her perfect taste. He doubles his efforts, relishing in the breathless nonsense pouring from her lips— a mix of yes and please and his own name. 

Sean groans when she comes a second time, squeezing a hand around the base of his c**k, trying to hold himself together for just a little longer. His knot is almost too swollen to f**k her properly, but the thought of not being locked inside her when he comes brings him dangerously close to rut— he feels the anger surge and he can’t help himself. 

She giggles again when he pins her down, wriggling under him with bright eyes and that heart-stopping smile. 

“Omega.” He almost hates using his alpha voice on her, using her designation, but the combination has her melting underneath him, her legs falling open. All of her, open and waiting and begging for him. 

Sean can feel himself shaking. It’s a lot, having her so willing, having her enjoy it, no reservations on her face, in her movements. There was always something so reserved about her usually, and now, with her open and reaching, pulling him in— 

He grabs her leg and pushes it up, opening her as he lines up at her entrance. Her hands grip his shoulders and she raises her hips for him, and—

“f*****g finally.” The words fall out of his mouth before he can stop them. Beth just laughs, her hands sliding lazily up into his hair. He barely manages to push his way into her, his knot so thick and angry it’s a miracle he hasn’t come yet, but something— something’s still missing —

“I’ve missed this,” she says softly. Their eyes meet, and hers are clear, though there’s no way she can be fully sober yet. It still feels like she’s actually looking at him, now, actually seeing him. It shakes him to his core. “Sean. Alpha.” 

She tugs at his hair until he can kiss her, until he can taste his own scent mixed with hers on her tongue. It brings him right to the edge. He squeezes his eyes shut, trying to hold on— to her, to sanity, to something. He’s not sure what, anymore. 

She nips at his bottom lip. “I love when I smell like you.”

He just— loses it. Completely. One second he’s on a razor sharp edge, clinging to her scent and her body and her, and the next, he’s just— gone. Whited out into nothingness. 

He buries his face in her neck and groans, mouthing at her gland, biting gently into it and revelling in the slight shift of her scent. She’ll smell like him, now. Like she’s his. It’s temporary, and it will wear off in barely two weeks, but for that brief glimmer of time, she’s his. No other alpha will touch her.