4. Chapter 4 #2
I try to smile coyly, channeling every omega I’ve ever seen work a room, and slip quickly past him into the suite before he can say anything.
The space is enormous, with floor-to-ceiling windows and expensive furniture.
I set the overnight bag down by the door and turn to face him, trying to look demure and available instead of like my heart is about to explode out of my chest.
Suha closes the door behind him, his frown deepening as he looks me over more carefully. “You’re bigger than the omegas I usually request.”
Shit. Of course he’d notice. I’m taller than most omegas, broader in the shoulders, and even in Wooil’s borrowed clothes I can’t hide the lean muscle I’ve built from years of fighting. I shrug, going for casual. “Maybe the agency thought you might like a change of pace.”
His eyes narrow with suspicion as they track over me, taking in details I can’t hide.
The combat boots I forgot to change out of.
The tattoos crawling up my neck from beneath the collar of my shirt.
The way I’m standing with my weight balanced and ready, too much confidence for a submissive omega who’s supposed to be here to service an alpha in rut.
“You’re not an omega at all,” Suha says flatly. It’s not a question. “Are you.”
Well. Fuck it.
I let my pheromones flood out in a wave, dropping any pretense of hiding what I am.
The scent of dominant alpha crashes into the space between us, heavy and unmistakable.
I watch Suha’s eyes go wide for just a second before his expression transforms into something dangerous, something that makes every survival instinct I have scream at me to run.
His own pheromones flare in response, so powerful they slam into me like a wall. My knees want to buckle. My body wants to drop and submit to the stronger alpha in front of me. But instead I grin, letting the thrill of it all rush through my veins like the best kind of drug.
“I heard you needed someone to help with your rut,” I say, my voice coming out rough. “Thought I’d volunteer. Figured surely a big scary crime boss can handle a little competition.”
The effect is instantaneous.
Suha moves faster than I can track. His hand shoots out and wraps around my throat, slamming me backward into the wall hard enough to rattle my teeth. The impact knocks the air from my lungs but I’m laughing, breathless and giddy, even as his fingers tighten around my windpipe.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?
” he snarls, and I can hear it in his voice now.
The edge of rut creeping in, his control fraying at the seams. He’s already started, probably has been for hours, and the scent of another dominant alpha’s pheromones in his territory is sending him into a fury.
Perfect.
“Go on, dominate me then,” I manage to get out, my voice strangled but still defiant. I meet his eyes, refusing to look away even though every instinct screams at me that I’m staring down an apex predator who could kill me without breaking a sweat.
His grip tightens and black spots dance at the edges of my vision.
His face is inches from mine, so close I can see the gold flecks in his dark eyes, can feel the heat radiating off his skin.
He’s burning up with the beginning of rut, and I can smell it on him now, that heady scent that makes my mouth water and my body ache.
I release another wave of pheromones, stronger this time, a direct challenge to his dominance. Come on, I’m saying without words. Show me what you’ve got. Prove you’re strong enough to take what I’m offering.
Suha’s control snaps.
He moves like violence given form.
One second I’m pressed against the wall with his hand around my throat, the next I’m airborne.
Suha hurls me across the suite and I crash into a side table, sending a lamp and some expensive-looking vase shattering to the floor.
The impact drives the breath from my lungs but I’m already rolling, already pushing myself up as he stalks toward me.
His pheromones hit me in waves, each one stronger than the last. They’re suffocating, overwhelming, the kind of alpha presence that should have me cowering and baring my throat.
My body wants to submit. Every instinct screams at me to drop my eyes, to make myself smaller, to show this apex predator that I’m not a threat.
Instead I laugh.
“Come on,” I gasp out, wiping blood from my split lip. “I’ve taken harder hits from guys half your size.”
His eyes flash with fury. He closes the distance between us in two strides and I barely have time to brace before his fist connects with my ribs.
The pain explodes through my side, sharp and bright and absolutely perfect.
I double over with a wheeze, clutching my side, and feel the grin splitting my face wider.
Suha grabs a fistful of my hair and yanks my head back, forcing me to meet his eyes. His pupils are blown wide, more black than brown now, and I can see the rut taking hold. His control is slipping. Good.
“You have a death wish,” he snarls.
I surge up against him instead of pulling away, pressing my body flush against his, even as his grip tightens painfully in my hair.
I can feel the heat radiating off him, can feel the tension coiled in every muscle.
I release another wave of pheromones, letting them wash over both of us, a blatant challenge to his dominance.
“Maybe,” I say, my voice coming out breathy. “Or maybe I just know what I want.”
He throws me again. This time I hit the couch and flip over the back of it, landing hard on my shoulder.
The borrowed shirt tears at the seam and I hear something in the furniture crack under my weight.
I’m laughing as I scramble up, dizzy from the pheromones and the impacts and the sheer insanity of what I’m doing.
Suha vaults over the couch after me. I dodge to the side and his fist punches through the drywall where my head was a second ago.
Plaster rains down, and I use the opening to dart in close, pressing against his back and running my hands up his sides, feeling the muscles bunch and flex under my palms.
“You’re going to have to do better than that,” I murmur against his shoulder blade, then bite down hard on the curve of his neck.
The sound he makes is inhuman. He spins and catches me around the waist, lifting me off my feet and slamming me down onto the coffee table.
Glass shatters beneath us and I feel something sharp slice across my back, but I don’t care.
I’m too busy fighting to get my hands free, to keep pushing, to make him angrier.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Suha demands, pinning my wrists above my head with one hand while the other wraps around my throat again. His weight crushes down on me, all that muscle and fury pressing me into the wreckage of the table.
His grip tightens, and the edges of my vision start to go dark. But I can see the war happening behind his eyes, the way his rut is screaming at him to dominate this challenger, to put me in my place. I arch up against him, rolling my hips, and watch his control fracture a little more.
He releases my throat and I suck in a desperate breath, coughing. Before I can recover, he’s hauling me up and throwing me toward the bedroom. I stumble through the doorway and catch myself on the doorframe, spinning around just in time to see him coming for me again.
We crash together in the middle of the bedroom.
His hands are everywhere, grabbing and shoving and trying to pin me down.
I fight back, but not to escape. Every time he gets a grip on me, I slip away, only to press back against him from a different angle.
I’m deliberately making this harder for him, making him work for it, pushing every single button I can find.
When he manages to get his arm around my waist from behind I grind back against him, feeling his cock hard and straining against his slacks. The growl he lets out vibrates through my entire body.
He throws me onto the bed. I bounce once and try to roll away, but he’s on me too fast, his weight pinning me down.
I buck and twist, managing to get one arm free and rake my nails down his side hard enough to leave marks.
He catches my wrist and slams it back down, then does the same with the other one.
His pheromones surge, and this time they hit me like a truck. My body goes weak, my limbs turning to jelly as the sheer force of his dominance washes over me. He uses the moment to flip me over, pressing my face into the mattress and pinning my wrists behind my back with one hand.
I can feel him shaking with barely contained fury, his pheromones so thick in the air they make my head spin.
“You want to play games?” he snarls against my ear, his voice gone guttural with rut. “Fine. You asked for this. Now I’m going to teach you some fucking manners.”
His free hand fists in the back of my borrowed shirt and he yanks.
The fabric tears like paper, buttons scattering across the bed and floor.
The sound of it ripping makes something hot coil in my gut.
He doesn’t bother being careful, just shreds the shirt off my back and tosses the ruined pieces aside before moving to my pants.
The button pops off when he rips them open.
He drags the slacks and my underwear down my thighs in one violent motion, not even bothering to get them all the way off, just shoving them down enough to bare my ass.
The air hits my skin and I shiver, anticipation making my cock throb where it’s trapped against the mattress.
I hear his belt buckle jingle, the rasp of a zipper.
My heart hammers against my ribs as I wait, every nerve ending on fire.
This is it. This is what I’ve been chasing for months, what I’ve been desperate for.
A dominant alpha strong enough to actually dominate me, to make me submit not through my own choice but through sheer overwhelming force.