The Scent of Love

Chapter 10

Sean just vanishes. He just drops off the face of the planet. After their wild, drunken one-night-stand, he was just. Gone. 

So she does exactly what she told Pam she’d do: She finds someone else.

Blake is… young. Very young. Legal, of course, but a good four years younger than her. Barely able to drink. But god, did the guy have stamina. He’s thick in a body builder way, bulky, very strong. His scent is… pleasant enough, even through her suppressants, and his. The s*x is nice enough. He even respects her boundaries, like a gentleman. 

It happens exactly three times, and then she never calls him again. It’s just not the same. Mortifying as it is… she misses Sean.

It will go away, Beth tells herself. It’s a crush, fueled exclusively by chemicals and pheromones and other biological bs, and it one-hundred percent does not matter. The fact that they maintained an odd sort of friendship leading up to this, and that they behave with some small measure of civility when they run into each other now, is a miracle. He obviously doesn’t want anything to do with her, so her crush is bound to go away. 

Any day now. 

Really. 

She’s still trying to convince herself to let it go the day she feels a soft heat coming on, and downloads one of those god-awful heat matching apps. Josh— who’s over helping her clean more often than not, with her recent depressive swing— rolls his eyes and watches her from the kitchen, where he’s being kind enough to do the dishes that have piled up during this newfound low. 

It’s a hassle, bypassing all the creeps and the dude-bros and the guys who obviously have never had s*x in their entire lives, not to mention other Omegas and Betas. She’s got so many knot pictures and tomato-eggplant emojis in her messages she thinks she might vomit. None of them are going to do it for her. 

Josh helps her narrow her search in the settings, disses several perfectly good looking Alphas for her, and then exasperatedly goes back to refilling her silverware drawer. Her skin is itching when she finally gets a match— Alpha, only five years older than her, willing to stay on suppressants and blockers, down to get a room at a heat hotel. She swipes right, and then—

Skellingtonkey: Hey. I’d be happy to take care of you for your heat. I’m clean and on good suppressants and blockers. Let me know. 

It’s basically like walking into a romance novel. She wonders if his obvious reference to Nightmare Before Christmas means he’s a hardcore goth, a Disney fan, or both, but at this point, she’s too tired and her skin is too tight to find out. The only picture on his profile is from the neck down, in an impressive leather jacket, open over a fairly nice set of abs, but hell. It’ll do. 

BunnyBette: It’ll have to be tonight or early tomorrow. I know a hotel and I can book the room right now. 

Skellingtonkey: I’ll cover the hotel, it’s no problem. You just bring whatever food you like and anything you’ll need if you nest. 

Whoever this man is, she might marry him. 

BunnyBette: thank you. I’ll send you the link for the hotel. I’m Bette, btw. 

Skellingtonkey: Hi Bette. You can call me Jack, if it makes this easier. 

BunnyBette: What, not Bone Daddy?

Skellingtonkey: Ha. If you want. 

BunnyBette: I’ll probably be busy calling you Alpha, but thanks. 

Skellingtonkey: Fair. Hotel is booked. See you around 7 or 8?

That might be pushing it, but Beth agrees. 

“This is dangerous,” Josh says, helping her throw a bag together. “I’m driving you, and staying for the first hour in case he’s weird and you need to escape.”

“Alright, okay,” Beth says, stuffing her favorite blanket into her bag to nest with. “It’s a soft heat. It will be milder and shorter than my last heat, and there’s no chance of me begging him to mate me.” 

“Good. Thank god.” 

He drops her off at 7:13, right when “Jack” texts her the room number. “Call me if it’s weird,” Josh tells her before he goes, “or just come out and bang on my window.” 

“Right.” She’s starting to get feverish now, it’s edging on too late for her to care. I hope he’s not a psycho. 

She walks in and asks the nice, ancient concierge lady for room 208, and the Beta winks at her and sends her toward the elevator with a, “Have fun with that one, Pumpkin!” Beth almost rolls her eyes— any Alpha gets that reaction, even from Betas.  

She unlocks the door as her skin starts to burn, her womb cramping just slightly— soft heat, more like being trapped in a too-hot bath for three days with cramps. 

“I’m sorry you had to wait,” she says, closing the door. “And I’m sorry we won’t exactly get to know each other beforehand, I left this kind of late—“ 

She turns around, and freezes. 

It’s… it’s Sean. Sean is her heat-app Alpha. 

She’s still processing that fact when he stands from the bed, in just jeans— jeans that dip low on his hips and show the deep V that leads to what she really wants— and slowly makes his way to her. 

“Sean,” she manages. Her voice feels so small. The smell of him hits her, musky and rich and wonderful. She’s going to come already, and he hasn’t even touched her yet. 

“Beth.” He reaches out to cup her jaw, running his thumb across her bottom lip. She shivers. “A heat app? Really?”

She might have responded. Honestly. Might have told him exactly how she felt about asking him to see her through it, and then ignore her again like he has been for weeks. Might have thrown in some cursing and crying, too. Instead, she feels like she’s doused in boiling water. 

Hard heat. It’s not supposed to be a hard heat. For a moment, she panics, blindly reaching out for Sean as she cries out, doubling over in pain. He reacts instantly, hoisting her up into his arms, smelling like heaven. 

He has her pressed into the bed before her brain completely shuts down, and she’s so glad she thought to wear a dress, because he doesn’t even take it off of her, just pushes it up and shoves her panties to the side, and—

“Sean.” It’s different, during heat. It’s good outside of heat, but here, when her Alpha is making the pain stop, this is so much better. 

“You’re always so tight,” he groans into her neck, and she feels the slick pulsing out of her. “Let me—“ he shoves a hand under her hips and pulls them up. “Wrap your legs around me.”

Anything— anything her Alpha says, if it means the pain will stop. 

Except— except she can’t let go, even in the throes of her heat. She can’t comprehend that he’s here, that he’s the one seeing her through this, that he—

“I can’t get you out of my head,” he growls, and it does something to her, something sweet coiling in her womb. Her breath catches. “I’ve tried, I’ve done everything to get you out, but no one measures up to you. I can’t sleep without dreaming of you.” 

Something about his words should be disconcerting, but the omega part of her brain is too busy burning itself to a crisp. She’s already on the edge, and tears run down her cheeks, and she wants to get him to please stop talking, and at the same time please, please don’t stop. 

“Every time I see you and you don’t smell like me, I want to carry you off and mark you, over and over, so that no one else will touch you. No one but me, ever again.” He thrusts particularly deep, and she arches her back, crying out. “I see other men looking at you, and I want to fight them, to stake my claim, to show them you’re mine—“

Screaming, Beth shatters around him, her mind going perfectly and completely blank with the pleasure of it. She can’t see— not that it matters, because she’s memorized her Alpha, the slopes and planes and lines of him, and when he locks inside her, coming and coming and coming, she just burrows against him to wait it out. 

When she resurfaces, she’s straddling him, his knot still throbbing inside her as he sweeps his hand over her spine. Possessive. Claiming. 

At least her mind is back to something resembling functional. 

“Did you know?” She murmurs,voice hoarse. Her cheek is sticky against his chest. 

He doesn’t need to ask what she’s talking about. “Josh told me.” 

Josh. No wonder he was being so nitpicky on her app. 

“He may as well have yelled at me,” Sean continues. “He was furious that I hadn’t offered to see you through your heat. I told him you hadn’t asked.” 

“I wasn’t going to,” she admits. 

“I know.” He sounds… but then again, there’s always that sort of drop to his voice, so she shouldn’t be reading into it. “I made a profile and told him what it was, what you should look for to find me.” 

“I’m surprised you didn’t use something Captain America themed as your screen name.” 

“Too obvious,” he admitted. “I didn’t want you to realize and turn me down. And don’t say you wouldn’t have.” 

He’s right. She doesn’t bother denying it. 

“I promised to see you through your heats,” he reminds her. “All of them. Any of them. Whenever, wherever, I will take care of you.” He’s moving again, slow, drugging thrusts that have fire racing up Beth’s skin again. She moans into his chest.

He pulls her off of him and rearranges them, her on her tummy and him behind her, so deep inside her she can feel him, like a hook, behind her belly button. She moans again, arching her hips for him. 

“I’m gonna take care of you until the first break,” he says, bent over so that his lips brush her ear, “and then I’m going to drive you to my place, and I’m going to take care of you in my bed. Where you belong.” 

She’s already on the verge of coming again.