Chapter 15
Chase
After that one morning when Killian had attacked Chase after his shower and fucked him back into smelling like a leather-and-cherry explosion, the alpha had generally been more chill about Chase leaving his house scentless.
And Chase particularly hadn’t been expecting a problem this morning because he’d already stayed one night longer than he was supposed to, letting Killian pamper and fuck him intermittently until he’d basically forgotten his own name, let alone what day it was.
He was kind of surprised his roommates hadn’t called the cops after him—it was already Sunday, and he hadn’t seen them since after their classes Friday afternoon.
Although, Spencer and Noah were blowing up his phone now, so maybe they were starting to consider drastic measures.
Chase had planned to text them his reassurances over breakfast, but as soon as he walked into Killian’s kitchen—freshly showered and ready to be fed a ridiculously wholesome morning meal before heading home—Killian sniffed the air and growled.
Chase froze mid-step, his body reacting to the alpha threat before his brain could. “Um. Everything okay?”
Without a word, Killian took the pan of eggs he’d been scrambling from the stove and turned off the burner. He stalked over to Chase, blue eyes blazing.
And then Chase found himself turned around and bent over the kitchen table, his hat tugged off and thrown onto the floor, his sweats and underwear unceremoniously shoved down. Killian kicked Chase’s legs apart roughly with a frustrated grunt.
“Um …”
“Color?” Killian’s voice was gruff, practically unrecognizable.
But Chase’s answer always seemed to be the same. “Green.”
And then Killian spit on him.
He spit on Chase’s hole, to be exact. He spread Chase’s cheeks wide, and he spit right in the center, rubbing it in with his thumb with another wordless grunt. And then he did it again. And again.
He’d already fucked Chase that morning, a slow, sleepy grind when they’d both been barely half awake. So Chase was relatively loose and open already, his tender skin hypersensitive to Killian’s rough, commanding touch.
“Need my cum back in there,” Killian mumbled, and Chase honestly couldn’t tell if the alpha was talking to Chase or to himself.
Chase was prepared for the next thing at his entrance to be a hard, alpha cock—nothing about Killian’s current vibes were shouting “slow seduction”—but instead, Killian dropped to his knees behind him and shoved his face right into Chase’s crease, tonguing him furiously.
Chase groaned at the hot, wet touch. His dick was being crushed against the kitchen table painfully, but he could still feel himself hardening despite the discomfort. Killian’s mouth was just so … hungry. Greedy. Messy.
The alpha kept pausing to rub his face over Chase’s cheeks and upper thighs, scent marking his lower half like it was an urgent need. Killian hadn’t shaved yet that morning, and his stubble prickled at Chase’s skin.
When Chase was soaked with spit, inside and out, Killian rose back up, notching the fat head of his cock at Chase’s entrance. He paused there, like he was waiting for permission. Like for once, Chase’s color hadn’t been enough. “Need my cum in you,” he growled again.
“Okay,” Chase soothed, or maybe whined, who the fuck could say. “You can fuck me, Alpha.”
Killian let out a rumbling purr of satisfaction, and then he pressed in.
It was a slower drag than usual without any extra lube to ease the way, but it wasn’t painful. Chase was open enough from earlier, and he’d been half-assed about cleaning himself out in the shower. And Killian had worked enough spit into him to fill a fucking swimming pool, so …
Chase choked on air as Killian started driving into him roughly, pulling back and slamming in again over and over.
There were none of his usual whispered words, no seduction.
It was a mindless, determined rutting. Like he was completing a task, not fucking Chase so much as doing what he’d said he needed to do: get his cum back inside.
And for some reason, it was driving Chase just as wild as the low, crooning praise he usually received. His hard cock ached where it was pressed against the table, and the low, punched-out moans he was letting out with each thrust of Killian’s hips were loud enough to echo in the large kitchen.
It didn’t take long; Killian was too worked up. After a few more frantic pumps, he drove in hard, his hips shuddering against Chase’s ass.
Filling him up, just like he’d promised.
And then Killian jerked Chase upright, his back against Killian’s chest, and stroked Chase’s cock like a man on a mission. It was rough and kind of painful, and Chase came almost immediately, spurting all over Killian’s fist, barely able to breathe as he let out a strangled, gasping cry.
Fuck. His knees were weak with it.
Killian grunted his approval, then pulled up Chase’s sweats and underwear, wiping the cum coating his hand onto a spare paper towel.
Killian’s own cum was still seeping out of Chase’s ass. Chase’s underwear was going to be wet and sticky until he could get home and change.
Killian turned Chase around by the shoulders. His eyes were still hot, and his dark hair was in disarray, with color high on his cheeks. He looked kind of wild. Feral.
“You can’t shower here,” he told Chase, his chest rising and falling rapidly.
Chase blinked at him. “Okay.”
“You can shower when you get home. When I’m not there.” After a beat, Killian added, “Sorry.”
“It’s no problem.”
Killian let out a harsh breath. “It’s possible I’m close to my rut.”
Chase raised a brow. “You think?”
Killian laughed ruefully, rubbing a hand over his face. “I thought I’d be good until summer break, but it seems to be arriving early. I’m guessing in a few days at best.” He lowered his hand, meeting Chase’s gaze squarely. “I’d like you to be here. To spend it with me.”
For just a moment, something indescribable twisted in Chase’s chest. It was a big deal, to be invited for an alpha’s rut. Chase knew more than a few couples who’d spent them apart in the early days, worried the intensity would be too much for a fledgling relationship.
Chase squashed the weird feeling down. Hard.
He and Killian were no strangers to intense sex; that was all. It wouldn’t be as big of a deal for them as for some people.
Killian misread Chase’s hesitation. “I won’t let you get hurt, Chase.”
Because Chase was a beta. Because Killian would need to knot him.
Killian’s going to knot me.
All Chase’s blood rushed south, and his spent dick twitched.
Chase swallowed. Cleared his throat. “I’m not worried about that. But, um, isn’t it you that could get hurt? If I can’t … satisfy?”
From what Chase knew, it was painful for an alpha to go through an unresolved rut. There were some who wouldn’t even try with a beta or another alpha. They considered it better to go it alone—with medication and the proper toys—than be left unsatisfied.
Killian’s eyes blazed with something unreadable. “You’ll satisfy,” he said, low and rough as a whispered promise.
“Okay. Yeah.” Chase found himself nodding. “I’ll spend your rut with you.”
Killian’s whole body sagged with relief.
He really must not have liked spending ruts alone.
“Good,” he said gruffly. He set Chase’s cap back on his head, brushing a hand over Chase’s neck in a much more casual scent marking than his earlier efforts.
“That’s good, then.” He turned back to the stove.
“Sit down. I’ll start a new pan of eggs. ”
And when Chase left that morning, he left with Killian’s cum trailing down his thighs and a key to Killian’s house burning a hole in his pocket.
Chase had already known he wasn’t going to get away with it. It was almost noon, and both his roommates were definitely home; they’d been texting him nonstop about joining their Mario Kart marathon while he’d been finishing breakfast with Killian.
So Chase wasn’t surprised to find them both out in the common area when he arrived. And obviously Chase smelled like an alpha’s cum dumpster so …
“Someone’s been getting laaaaid,” Spencer sang out the moment Chase stepped into the living room.
Noah laughed, all beaming smiles as he had been ever since he’d told them about Miller. Then he stopped, wrinkling his nose. He sat up from his slouch and set his controller down. “Wait. Is that—?”
Chase cleared his throat. Now or never, he supposed. “I’m fucking Professor Burke.”
He was 90 percent sure at this point that he was allowed to admit that to his roommates. Killian had told his friends almost months ago, and he no longer seemed all that concerned with secrecy in general.
Chase had already thought about telling them before, that weekend after the disastrous dinner with his parents, but something had stopped him. It had all felt too … sensitive, then.
“What?” Spencer asked, dropping his controller on the floor. “Wait, what?” He looked around the room for some reason, as if Killian might be there, hiding behind the couch. “What?”
So Spencer was broken. That was Chase’s bad—maybe he should have eased them into it.
“The stats professor?” Noah asked slowly, sniffing at the air again for confirmation.
“Yeah.” Chase tugged his cap down a little, then flipped it backward. “For a while now.”
“So you’re both dating professors?” Spencer asked.
“Fucking,” Chase corrected. “It’s not— We’re not like Noah and Eli.”
Eli, who’d hosted a pool party at his house last weekend because he was so eager to be on good terms with Noah’s people now that they were out in the open. Eli, who looked at Noah like he was all the good in the world distilled into one person.
“Okaaay …,” Noah said, drawing the word out, like he was trying to process too much information at once.
Which was silly. It wasn’t even that much information to process. Chase was fucking Killian. He was tired of hiding the pheromones. So what?
Chase slumped down in the armchair across from the couch. He really should shower, but first …
He leaned forward, resting his forearms on his thighs as he looked between his two besties. “Tell me about your ruts.”
Spencer choked on air. “What?” he asked when he’d recovered.
Chase had spoken pretty clearly, so he didn’t repeat himself. “You’re not, like, completely gone, right? You still have some of your senses?”
Noah held up a hand. “Wait, you’re spending Professor Burke’s rut with him?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
“But you’re not … dating.”
“No.” But then for some reason, that felt like a lie, so Chase shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe a little.”
His roommates exchanged a glance, and then they were silent for a while, staring at him. Chase waited them out. It wasn’t hard; he had more patience in his pinky finger than the two of them had in their whole bodies combined.
“I mean, I’ve only ever spent them alone,” Noah eventually told him, after one last glance in Spencer’s direction. “Eli and I haven’t … not yet.” And then he blushed all adorably, like he was still a total virgin talking about his upcoming wedding night or something.
Spencer sighed and scratched at his neck. “I mean, I paired with an omega through heat services once, but it was kind of embarrassing.”
“Why?” Chase asked. It must have happened over a summer or something, for him and Noah not to already know about it.
The campus heat services ran year-round for students who stayed in the area, pairing trained alphas and omegas with those who either couldn’t or didn’t want to use medication during heats or ruts. “You were too aggressive?”
“Nah. I got really needy. Whiny. I think maybe I cried?” Spencer shrugged, clearly unashamed of recounting it to his friends, at least. “I spend them alone now. Heat services gives me meds to get through them. Sometimes I use toys for funsies.”
Chase leaned back in his chair and tugged his cap back down to the front again, considering. None of what they’d told him was really all that helpful, was it?
“Um, I’ve been reading up on it to prepare for my next one with Eli,” Noah said. “There’ll be a lot of scent marking.” He gave a pointed cough, waving a hand in the air, though he did it with a smile. “Seems like you’ll be used to that.”
Chase flipped him off.
“Some alphas are big on submission,” Noah continued, ignoring the gesture. “Get real riled up if their partner isn’t, like, pliant enough to their whims or whatever.”
Chase hummed noncommittally. That wouldn’t exactly be a problem for him, would it? Killian only had to crook his finger and he’d have Chase dropping to his knees without a word.
“And if there’s a … connection,” Noah added, giving Chase an unreadable look. “There will be some mating ritual elements. Like hand-feeding and über-protectiveness and stuff. Alphas in rut like making sure their … partner is taken care of.”
Chase tugged at his lower lip, thinking all that over. So basically it would be like how Killian acted already, only with the intensity ramped up a bit.
And the knotting. He couldn’t forget the knotting.
Chase shifted in his seat, wincing at the immediate reminder of the mess in his underwear. Jesus, he couldn’t believe he’d sat down to chat like this. He needed a shower, like, yesterday.
He stood. “Okay. Thanks, guys. Lemme clean up and I’ll join the game.”
“Um, Chase?” Noah stopped him with a gentle hand on his wrist, although he didn’t try for a scent mark. “You good?”
“Yeah.” Chase gave him a vague smile, already turning toward his room. “I’m always good.”