The Scent of Love

Chapter 11

His apartment is just like she remembers it, cluttered but clean, masculine, homey. She’s chugging a Powerade to get the taste of two Taco Bell burritos out of her mouth, but Sean didn’t seem to mind what her mouth tasted like during her last heat, so maybe—

“Are you still hungry?” 

He’s so patient. So sweet. She can’t remember, just now, why she didn’t come here in the first place. He’s already called out for her again, and sent the same I’m in heat and taken care of text from last time, and responded to all of the immediate interrogations from her closest friends with a Snapchat of them curled up in the hotel bed. He even had the decency not to ask her why Pam thought she was mad at him. 

“No,” she says. She’s already starting to sweat, heat pulsing inside her, making her brain go all fuzzy. “I just want you.”

He tosses his keys on the bartop counter, then toes off his shoes, not taking his eyes off of her. She’s never felt more desirable in her life, not even dressed up to the nines or wearing full on lingerie. Just the look on his face, as his eyes drift down her body, is enough to simmer her blood in her veins again. She knows he can smell her, how badly she wants him, and his nostrils flare and his scent spikes, and—

“Did you mean what you said?” She blurts out, before her Omega hindbrain can kick back in fully.

Sean’s having trouble focusing, it seems, because he’s staring at her breasts, at the gentle rise and fall of them as she breathes, and his pupils are blown wide, and he looks downright hungry— “What?” His voice is thick as he struggles to pull his gaze back up to hers.

“When you said you wanted to fight other men who look at me.” This… this shouldn’t be foreplay, or dirty talk, discussing his ridiculous Alpha posturing. The Omega in her is practically purring already from the memory of those words against her skin. She thinks of that night at Player One, the way he wedged himself between her and Chris, a literal protective wall. “Did you mean it?”

Now he’s meeting her eyes. He might very well be looking into her soul, honestly. “I would slaughter anyone else who tried to claim you,” he says— but it’s not him, she doesn’t think. Not really. His voice is deeper, huskier. It’s that Alpha part of him that wants to claim her, to make her his and his alone. She trembles under his gaze, and she feels so hot, and her womb is starting to ache from the emptiness. “I saw that other Alpha putting his hands on you, and Jenn had to talk me out of walking over there and ripping his head off. All I could think about was dragging you away to put my scent all over you, so that he wouldn’t dare to come near you again.” His pupils are blown so wide, his piercing green eyes are almost black. “That’s what sent me into rut. I had to mark you to keep him away.”

She’s so wet she can feel the slick running down her legs like a river. In a daze, she hears herself say, “I loved it when you marked me, Alpha.” 

It’s over, after that. 

His bed is so much bigger than hers, and it’s still soaked through after the first day. He f***s her harder, deeper, saying things that can’t be true, that his Alpha brain is forcing from his lips in his pheromone-induced delirium. Things like Mine, and Made perfectly, especially for me, and You smell so much like me, no one will ever touch you again. She comes every time he speaks, practically, until the pleasure is blinding and all bleeds together. 

During the lull before her hard heat really hits, he surrounds her with pillows on one side, arranges his own massive body in front of her, and covers her in blankets until she feels cocooned and safe and small. 

“I thought this was supposed to be a soft heat?” he murmurs against her hair. She burrows into his chest.

“I think it’s you,” she admits. “It was supposed to be a soft heat, but the second I smelled you, it got so intense, I just…” she trails off sleepily, inhaling his scent until she feels it swirling in her lungs. 

“I don’t mind.” He strokes her hair, and it’s so soothing, her Alpha, petting her as she falls asleep. Taking good care of her, providing for her, marking her as his. A perfect Alpha.

She hums, a little noise of agreement, and presses herself closer to him. “Love you.”

“What?”

She drops off to sleep before she can register what she’s done. 

***

Beth doesn’t wake up first this time. 

In any other circumstances, she would be terrified. If her Alpha’s smell wasn’t drowning her, she’d be screaming and struggling— but no, this is safe, this is right, this is exactly where she wants to be, pressed down into the mattress as her Alpha rocks between her legs. He’s not even inside her yet, and she’s already  ready to fall over the edge. He licks at her scent glands, nuzzling and nipping at them, then kissing the sting away. She moans and rolls her hips back, and he growls on top of her, squeezing them.

“Alpha,” she purrs. His growling increases, and he nips the nape of her neck, stilling her. His hand tangles in her hair, dragging it to the side, out of the way of what he really wants—

Ah.

Perhaps her nerve endings reroute there. Perhaps her brain shoves him into every filthy, private fantasy she’s ever had. Perhaps her scent spikes, and her cunt clenches. Perhaps. 

What definitely does happen, whether she wants it to or not, is when her Omega hindbrain takes over her mouth, begging and pleading and promising, without her rational mind’s agreement. 

She sucks in a breath as his lips ghost over her mating gland. Every nerve in her body reroutes, split between her gland and her c**t as he presses light kisses into her skin. It’s like nothing else. Indecent. Impossible.

He licks right across her gland, and her vision whites out from the pleasure. His hands tighten on her hips, trying to pull her closer as his knot swells and locks him inside. Even in the midst of her orgasm, her pleasure quadruples, and she feels like maybe she might pass out— but the contentment spreads through her, hot and sweet and liquefying her bones beneath her Alpha. 

She’s sure she tells him— demands him, rather— to bite her. There. Over and over, possibly for hours. Maybe only seconds, stretched out so long they feel like an eternity. 

Please Alpha. I’ll be so good for you. I want you to. Please. 

He makes this noise, a primal sound she couldn’t even describe. And then he grazes his teeth over her gland, so close to what she wants, but not quite. Not enough. 

Beth must be missing chunks of time, because she lands on her back without realizing he had even pulled out, and then he’s knotting her, his teeth sinking so far into her scent gland that she’s bound to be bleeding. 

I’m sorry Alpha. 

His disappointment is thicker than morning fog around her. She can smell it, taste it, feel it like her own. It mixes with the scent of her heat around them as Sean holds her. 

You are not pleasing your Alpha, that Omega part of her sneers. She shuts her eyes against it, trying to get closer to her Alpha, to cover herself in his scent. It’s a mockery of what they both so clearly want. You are not good enough. 

Beth swallowed, pressing her face into Sean’s neck, and forced her stupid Omega hindbrain to shut up. She’ll enjoy what she gets, and it will be good enough, damn it. 

It will have to be.