Chapter 5
5
LANDON
No fucking chance in hell.
My molars are dust, and there’s a heavy, spiked boulder rolling around in my stomach.
I’ve never been this on edge.
Not. Once.
That sharp twist of lemon twirled around a warm, buttery shortbread cookie lingers in my nose and on my clothes, maybe even soaking into my skin.
I gasp at the fresh air, but it doesn’t help.
The omega’s scent won’t fuck off.
I’m jostled around by people shoving past me on the sidewalk before I duck into an alley and brace my hand on a brick wall, my chest heaving.
I focus on the bite of the jagged edges against my palm and pull a shuddered breath in between my clenched teeth.
Cinnamon flares in the dark alley as my scent spikes again.
The smokiness of it is no match for the citrus that I can almost taste on my tongue or the pasta still all over my front.
I’m drowsy, swaying on unsteady legs as I flare my nostrils and inhale another hit of it.
My knot pulses in my slacks, cum wetting my briefs.
Fuck . I need to go back there and?—
No.
I’m going the fuck home.
Grip unforgiving, I turn my back to the street and palm my cock.
A soul-deep groan flies up my throat at the relief I feel, even from just one squeeze.
The world swims in my vision, the alley closing in around me as I fight to keep my feet glued to the filthy gravel.
I rip my fingers through my hair and cringe at the clumps in it.
That fucking omega did far more than mess with my cock.
She’s responsible for the current filthy state of my clothes too.
My cell vibrates in my pocket.
I ignore it, knowing it’s most likely Dash.
He tried to come with me tonight, and if I wasn’t in need of some time alone, I’d have let him.
Now, I’m grateful for my desire for loneliness.
If he’d been here, that omega would have been with us right now.
I wouldn’t have been able to escape alone.
The soft-hearted beta is too similar to Jasper for his own good.
Both of them want an omega to fill a gap in our pack that I’ve become fan-fucking-tastic at ignoring.
Releasing my groin, I thump my head back against the side of the brick wall and pull my phone free.
There are two missed calls, but only one came from Dash.
The second name isn’t one I expected.
Ronan’s cold baritone is instant when I call him back.
“Get lost?”
“No.”
Fuck, I sound as messed up as I feel.
There’s not a snowball’s chance in hell that he won’t notice.
Ronan doesn’t care much for words and instead prefers to read too much into other people’s.
Even when we were kids, Jasper always spent more time speaking on Ronan’s behalf than he did his own.
We’ve hardly ever been able to hide a damn thing from him.
“What happened?”
“There was a mix-up.”
“At the restaurant?”
“Yeah. I’ll figure something else out.”
A weighted pause.
“Did you get pulled over again, Lan?”
“That was weeks ago. I didn’t know the taillight was busted.”
“You were speeding.”
I roll out my shoulders and squint at the bright street ahead of me.
“The highway should have been marked as a hundred, not eighty. Who drives eighty on a major highway, Ronan? We both know the cop only pulled me over to be a dick.”
He releases a long exhale.
“How long is this going to take?”
“Tell Dash that we’re ordering in next time.”
“Yeah, he heard. So?”
“So, I’ll be a while. I’ve got to find replacement food.”
“Just come home!” Dash shouts from somewhere close to Ronan.
“I’ve already opened my bag of emergency chips!”
“He doesn’t have emergency chips,” I mutter.
Ronan grunts. “Tell him that.”
“I’ll find something else and bring it home.”
“We’ll order something,” he argues, falling in line with Dash and most likely Jasper.
I grit my aching teeth and peel a clump of pasta from my shirt before tossing it across the alley.
“I’ll take care of it. My mess, my fix.”
“Too late! I’m putting in an order for donairs,” Dash sings.
I can already hear Coach’s chastising for not sticking to our meal plans.
If Dash had it his way, he’d survive off all-dressed chips, ice cream, and Sour Patch Kids.
“Fine. I’ll be home in twenty,” I grouse, my jaw ticking with frustration.
“Bye,” Ronan says before hanging up, not waiting for a reply.
I step out of the alley and thank fucking god that the rush of people has died down.
It’s easy to cross the sidewalk to the curb where I’ve parked the giant mammoth of an SUV Jasper forced us to buy last year.
The safety features are the best of the best , he said.
Because we take so many road trips outside of a plane.
The doors beep when I unlock them and hover at the driver’s side, staring down at my red-splattered chest. It’s too easy to strip out of my shirt and leave it on the street.
Without it on my body, only two smells linger.
The pasta is gone, but the lemon .
. . that’s still far too fucking obvious.
It’s like it’s been rubbed so deep into my skin that I’m going to be bleeding it soon.
At least I’d be rid of it that way.
Yanking on the door handle, I ignore a surprised squeak from the sidewalk before sliding inside, away from the public eye.
I hide behind the tinted windows and start up the engine.
I’m still filthy—even without the soiled shirt—and I’m already dreading the moment Jasper sees the stained seats.
I’ve never hated white leather so much before.
Or my own skin.
I roll down both sets of windows to try and air out the scent of that omega.
Still rock hard and fighting a battle within myself to go back to that restaurant, I speed off down the street, praying that by the time I get home, the only thing I’ll be able to smell is my pack.
Nope.
Even out of the SUV, all I can smell is lemon shortbread.
I’m pretty sure my face is blue from the lack of blood and oxygen in my upper half, considering it’s all in my fucking dick.
I got halfway home before I had to pull over on the highway and jack off.
An orgasm only made everything worse.
Not only did I come enough to have to use a damn near entire pack of tissues to clean myself up, but now it just reeks like jizz and that cursed omega in there.
Not to mention my hyper-inflated cock that’s so far beyond normal I’m seriously considering calling the team doctor for advice on how to get it soft.
A bleach bath sounds incredible.
That or burying my nose in one of Ronan’s tuna salad containers.
“Are you Dash Montgomery?”
I stall on the long, three-car-wide driveway.
Bare-chested and with a very short fuse, I turn around and snatch the bag of food hanging from the hand of the teenager staring at me.
His eyes bulge as he stands frozen, mouth gaped.
“No,” I mutter gruffly.
“But this is my food. Thanks.”
“Yeah—yeah, sure. You’re welcome,” he rambles, still not moving.
I stare at him blankly.
“You can go.”
“You’re Landon Montgomery,” he whispers.
It’s the worst outcome for a terrible fucking day.
Dash knows better than to use our last name when he orders anything, let alone to our house.
This delivery boy is one minute away from whipping his phone out and recording me on the driveway.
It’s not like we live in some guarded castle, but we don’t exactly livestream on our front lawn with our address for all to see.
Privacy is important to me.
I had too little of it growing up.
I really can’t do this today.
I’m one blown fuse from drop kicking this kid into the neighbour’s yard.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I bite out, leaving him there in a rush to get inside.
His footsteps pound on the cement as he chases me.
“That’s the Montgomery pack tattoo! It’s right . . . here!”
The finger that jabs into my left shoulder blade flips that last fuse.
My lip curls as I pivot on my back foot and swipe in the direction of the guy.
Instead of a shirt, my fingers clutch air, and I glare at where Ronan now stands, clutching the delivery boy a few feet away.
“Don’t,” he chastises me while giving the kid a rough shake.
I don’t bother hiding how pissed off I am.
Each word is spat from behind my teeth.
“Don’t. What?”
The delivery boy continues to stare at me in awe despite being seconds away from tasting the rocks on my driveway.
It makes me uneasy, but it’s not the first time I’ve experienced this, and it sure as shit won’t be the last.
Ronan might look worse off than I do with his shoulders approaching his ears and eyes narrowed.
Even wearing a ripped tank top and a pair of loose sweatpants, he’s the more intimidating one.
He’s the guy who constantly finds himself in my current situation.
I have a gut feeling he’s going to use this strange occurrence against me someday.
I may be an asshole, but it’s very rare I get violent.
Today is a rarity in every single possible way.
A stiff wind pushes past us, forcing the lemon scent from my skin and into the air.
I hold my breath, refusing to take any more of it into my lungs as my cock throbs to the point of pain once again.
Bitter cinnamon swirls when my scent spikes, and I lurch back from Ronan and the random fuckface who’s still on my goddamn driveway.
There’s a shift around us, a telltale sign that something’s about to go to hell only a second before Ronan’s snarl tears through the yard.
“What is that?” he snaps, stalking across the distance between us.
Without a shirt to help disguise the smell, there’s no chance of me avoiding this.
Ronan’s the only one of the guys who’s nearly my height, standing an inch shorter than my six four.
He’s also the only one who I know with absolute certainty would and could kick my ass if he knew the truth behind the secondary scent that won’t leave my skin.
Jasper would take a more emotional route, which may even be worse.
Ronan’s nose twitches as he paws at my shoulder and sniffs me.
The brown of his eyes gets swallowed up in a sea of black when he gets a good lungful of the omega.
A flush builds up the middle of his neck and behind his ears as his entire body quakes.
“What. Is. That?” he repeats, wilder this time.
“Who?”
Panic flares low in my gut.
The lie escapes before I’ve thought it through.
“I don’t know. Maybe it was someone at the restaurant.”
Ronan cocks his head and watches me, a threat creeping into his pupil-blown eyes.
“You’re lying.”
“I was a little preoccupied having our dinner dumped all over me to be paying attention to smells, Ronan.”
He lifts his gaze to my hair, as if only just realizing the messy state of it.
“Someone threw it at you?”
“You could say that.”
“Why?”
“I don’t fucking know. For fun? An accident? I didn’t linger long enough to ask.”
No, I only stayed long enough for the omega to fuck with my head and threaten my pack’s trust in me.
“What’s going on out here? Are you inviting the delivery guy to stay for donairs? I’m afraid I only ordered enough for us,” Dash says, strolling toward us at a leisurely pace.
He tilts his head, focused on my bare chest. “Where’s your shirt?”
Jasper bypasses us, too concerned with the stranger lingering to pay attention to what’s going on with us.
He takes the delivery guy by the arm and swiftly guides him down the driveway.
“Thanks, Jas!” With a loopy grin, Dash leans back on a heel and inspects me.
“So, seriously, where’s your shirt? And did you stop to take a bath in my rigatoni? Is that why we had to change dinner plans?”
“Don’t you smell it?” Ronan asks him, still leaning into me, chest heaving.
There’s more focus in his gaze now, like the omega’s scent has weakened in the outside air.
Dash sniffs. “The only thing I smell is Landon.”
“Try harder,” Ronan demands.
“Try harder to smell what, Ro? I’m a cinnamon fan, but it’s like someone’s burning a candle and has left it on so long it’s melted all the way through. Wanna chill a bit?” Dash asks me, crinkling his nose slightly.
I’ve hit my limit. Without saying another word, I leave them on the driveway.
If, somehow, Jasper gets a whiff of the omega when he returns, I won’t have a chance to disappear like this again.
Not without getting the fifth degree from him.
Lying to Ronan is bad enough.
But Jasper? Especially about an omega?
Fuck. All he’s wanted since the moment I met him when we were ten was an omega of his own.
The facts of the meeting won’t matter.
He’ll assume she’s something she isn’t and that it was more than just a terrible mess.
Our pack is already weak enough without adding yet another crack in our foundation.
The mess from earlier isn’t important.
I don’t want anyone getting the idea that it could be.
“Wait up, Lan! I’m sorry about the comments about your scent. I’ve just never smelled it like that before. Are you okay?” Dash asks, rushing up behind me.
“Did I upset you?”
When he gets to my side, he subconsciously rubs his arm against mine.
I release a tight exhale and hand him the bag of food.
He takes it eagerly, continuing to glance at me.
“You didn’t upset me. I just had a shitty evening. Need to shower, and then I’ll be good.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah. I’ve got pasta in my hair.”
A light chuckle.
“Yeah, I see that.”
“Thanks for checking in, D.”
“That’s what pack is for. I’ll get the food dished up for us for when you’re done de-pasta-ing.”
“Alright,” I mumble, exhausted.
I swing the front door open and let the familiar, comforting smell of my pack soothe me.
Every step inside helps, and once I’m in my room, I’m out of my pants and in the ensuite shower, the hot water cranked.
My wrist is sore by the time I step out, and while the lemon shortbread scent may have swirled down the drain, I stay rock solid for the rest of the night.
And the following days.