Jed
The hotel room smells like lavender cleaning fluid and rich people, and I have the strongest urge to roll around in the sheets and rub my neck over the curtains until the room Aiden’s going to be sleeping in smells like me, and me alone.
It’s a weird impulse.
Not that I let it show. I spent the whole rehearsal dinner cracking jokes, pouring his aunts’ wine, and never straying too far from Aiden’s side.
After all the time we’ve been spending together, it was easier than ever to slip into my role as his boyfriend; this time, the in-jokes were real, I knew exactly which whiskey to order for him, and when his sister made a joke about his creepy childhood imaginary friend Dr Nobody, I actually knew what she was talking about.
Still, when the heavy oak door to our hotel room closes behind us at the end of the night, I can feel the anxious pheromones coming off him in waves, dulling his usual orange blossom scent.
I unbutton the top button of my shirt and flash him a grin. “I think that went pretty well. Maybe too well—your Aunt Olivia definitely has a crush on me.”
Aiden’s eyes flicker down to my exposed collarbone before flicking hastily back up to my eyes. “She has a crush on any alpha with a heartbeat and her last mate died under mysterious circumstances, so don’t be too flattered.”
He’s leaning back against the door looking completely drained, his dark curls slightly askew and his glasses slipping down his nose.
“You were brilliant though, Jed,” he continues, softly. “You have the patience of a saint. Did my dad say he thought he could beat you in a fight at one point?”
“He did,” I chuckle, unbuttoning my shirt the rest of the way and slipping it off my shoulders. This time, Aiden’s not so quick to avert his gaze. “Typical alpha dad.”
“Fucking insanity,” he says, though his voice sounds far away. “You’d turn him into paste. I’d kind of like to see it.”
“I bet you would,” I grin, winking at him and grinning even wider when he rolls his eyes at me.
We move around each other easily, brushing our teeth side by side and stripping off our stiff formal clothes.
I consider taking the floor and leaving the bed for Aiden, but it’s a super king that’s big enough for three people, and considering he’s had my dick in his mouth, I don’t think he’ll blanch at sharing a bed.
I slide under the covers just as he emerges from the bathroom, looking fresh and slightly pink.
“It’s fucking hot,” I say by way of explanation of my bare torso. “But I can put more clothes on if you’d like.”
“Not necessary,” he says, tugging off his own thin t-shirt.
I don’t bother to hide my admiration as my eyes rake over his broad chest, my head falling back against the headboard as he makes his way over to the bed and I watch the hard muscles of his abs shift with every step.
He’s magnificent. Unlike any omega I’ve ever seen, and I couldn’t look away even if I wanted to.
He takes in my gaze with a small smile, the pinkness in his cheeks deepening.
I’ve spent the better part of the last two months learning everything about this man and waiting for the moment that I learn something that makes me like him less.
When that didn’t happen, I told myself I’d exercise self-restraint; just play the part, and keep whatever these burgeoning feelings are out of it.
I really thought I had a handle on it. Until the second we clicked back into “fake-boyfriend” mode tonight, and I slipped my hand into his, and remembered just how good it feels. And I knew as soon as we were alone again, my resolve would break.
A quiet stillness settles over the room as we both lie back against the pillows, only lit by the soft glow of my bedside lamp.
It’s a stark difference from the last time we were alone in a private space, weeks ago, high on adrenaline and each others’ scents, pulling rushed, breathless orgasms out of each other before the engagement party.
Although the electricity in the air is just the same.
“Are you nervous about tomorrow?” I ask softly to distract myself from where my mind wants to go.
Aiden shifts towards me. “Yeah, but I don’t know why. I don’t have to do a speech or anything. I just always have the feeling something bad is going to happen when I’m around my family for too long.”
His crisp orange blossom scent fills the space between us as his eyes travel over my bare chest, taking in the haphazard lines of ink scrawled across my skin.
“You know,” he says. “There’s one thing I still don’t really know about you.”
I tilt my head towards him, raising an eyebrow. “Oh yeah? What’s that?”
“Your tattoos. I don’t know their origin stories.”
I snort. “They’re not superheroes.”
“I’ve always wanted a few, but I figured I don’t need anything else making me less appealing to prospective alphas.”
I twist to face him, admiring the defined lines of his torso. “Are you fucking kidding me? You’d look incredible with some ink. If we weren’t in the middle of buttfuck nowhere I’d drag you to get one right now.”
“You’re insane.” He shakes his head, reaching out his fingers to hover an inch over the cartoon KAPOW! on my bare bicep.
“Go ahead,” I murmur. “They don’t bite.”
He drops his finger slowly until his warm fingertip is trailing over the outline of the colorful ink, the contact making my skin prickle. “What’s the story behind this one?”
“First time I knocked an opponent out in a professional fight,” I grin across at him, cradling my head in the crook of my other arm. “My lip was still bleeding from the fight when I got it done.”
Aiden briefly clamps his lower lip between his teeth, like he’s imagining how the blood would taste on my lips.
“Okay,” he drags his finger over my skin to the rose that usually peaks out just over the collar of my t-shirts. “This one?”
I laugh. “This was only my second tattoo. It was maybe three weeks after my eighteenth birthday, and I got into an argument with my dad about something dumb and wanted to piss him off. I found the nearest tattoo studio and chose something at random out of the book, and asked them to put it in the most obvious place possible. This was as far up my neck as they’d go.
I’d probably have gotten it on my face if they’d let me have my way. ”
Aiden’s whole face comes alive when he laughs.
He traces a path from my neck, over my collarbone, and down to the koi carp that curls over my pec.
His touch is light, and goosebumps erupt on my skin, my nipple pebbling despite the warm air of the hotel room as his finger rests just above it.
My next breath is audible. “And this one?” he breathes.
I don’t answer right away, too busy taking in the intense look on Aiden’s face and the feeling of his fingers against my bare skin.
“No funny story behind that one,” I say eventually, the playfulness in my voice dropping away. Aiden’s hand flattens against my chest, right over my heartbeat, which is thudding so hard against my ribcage I know he can feel it. “I just thought it was—” my eyes flicker up to meet his, “ —pretty.”
His nostrils twitch as my scent flares heavily around us, and I can’t take my eyes off him. His lips are slightly parted, his cheeks flushed, his citrus omega scent so thick it’s practically coating the back of my throat.
Slowly, without breaking eye contact, I take his wrist and draw his hand higher, until it’s resting over my scent gland on the side of my neck. The tips of his fingers brush against my jaw.
“You know something that I still don’t know about you?” I murmur, my voice rough.
“What?” Aiden says softly.
I swallow, my neck bobbing against his hand. “How you like to be kissed.”
Aiden’s breath hitches, his dark eyes dilating until they’re nearly all black, ringed with bright flecks of orange that catch in the low light. He doesn’t pull his hand away. Instead, he slides his fingers into the hairs at the back of my neck, sending a wave of heat straight to my core.
“So find out,” he says.
I lean in and press our lips together.
Whatever electricity has been building between us for the last few weeks crackles and snaps now that we’re finally alone together again, pure magnetism pulling us into each other.
Aiden’s lips are soft, but he’s hard under my hands, never-ending planes of muscle and power as he lets me push him back into the mattress.
I kiss him slowly, purposefully, exploring the softness of his mouth as our limbs slide together.
We’re both only in our underwear, and his thick thighs part easily so I can crawl between them and press my aching heat against his, drawing a slow shudder out of him.
Our tongues brush hungrily as his hands roam my shoulders and trace my ribs, gripping my waist to bring us together harder.
“Why does this always happen the second we’re left alone?” he murmurs as I nose my way down his neck, every gasp and moan he makes as I nip at his scent gland and kiss his collarbones going straight to my cock.
“Because you’re fucking irresistable,” I mutter in between kisses. “And I’m a weak man.”
Aiden groans when I suck his nipple into my mouth, flicking it with my tongue until it’s stiff and he’s squirming beneath me, his clothed cock throbbing against my thigh.
“So sensitive,” I tease, moving to the other nipple and chuckling darkly when he gasps and fists his hand in my hair.
“It’s been–ah–a while,” he stutters, and that lights up a primal part of my brain that’s desperate to have him all to myself.
“Then I’d better make it good, huh?” I rumble.
I stop torturing his chest and kiss my way down his taut stomach, across the light dusting of dark hair that leads below the waistband of his boxers.
I can smell his slick already, a heady sweetness that makes a growl rumble from my chest and my cock ache in my briefs.
I hook my fingers around them and slide them down his legs.