Pump ‘N Dump

Chapter 1

SOMETHING’S AMISS

Elias

Something was happening to me. Something bad. Massaging my aching pecs, I stared at my reflection in the mirror.

Were they more swollen today than yesterday? I couldn’t tell. They hurt, though. And tingled, almost. It was strange.

It had been almost a week since I started feeling this way. Since I noticed the pebbling in my nipples, since I noticed the deep ache that spread from near my armpits inward.

I’d been avoiding my phone since three days ago. That was what I got for trying to find out if my symptoms were normal. It wasn’t rare for people to get breast cancer. Though it was far more prevalent in omegas than alphas.

It couldn’t be ruled out, though, and a chance was still a chance.

Sighing, I refocused on what I was doing. Massaging helped, but not for long. It basically only seemed to help when I was actively doing it. I’d even caught myself doing it at work. After a strange look from Link, my roommate and best friend, I had stopped. Or I’d at least tried to be more covert.

But fuck, it hurt. And if the only relief I got was this, then so be it.

The tingling started back up when I pinched my peaked nipples between my finger and thumb. It was relief mixed with sweet agony, and I didn’t quite know what to make of that.

A knock on the door startled me, making me yelp. “Bro, come on. You’re gonna make us late for work. What are you even doing in there?”

“Uh…” I dropped my hands, double-checking in the mirror to make sure that everything looked normal before opening the door.

Link stood on the other side, his hand raised like he was about to knock again.

His eyes fell to my exposed chest, and he quirked an eyebrow at me. “Have you been working out?”

“What?”

His gaze stayed on my chest. “Your pecs look bigger. Have you finally been taking advantage of the equipment?”

I shook my head. Unlike Link, who was a personal trainer at the gym we worked at, I didn’t feel the need to spend my days working out. “You know I haven’t.”

I tried to push past him into the hallway, but he stopped me. He was intense. Intense in a way I wasn’t used to. Not from another alpha, anyway. Over the years, I’d just chalked it up to Link being Link.

He crossed his arms over his chest, making the large tattoo stretched around his bicep bulge. “You sure?”

“Why would I lie about working out?” My heart pounded against my rib cage. If my swollen pecs were noticeable to him too, what did that mean? Maybe I needed to go to the doctor. “C’mon. You’re worried about being late, so let’s go.”

I brushed past him into the hallway so I could go to my room and put a shirt on. His

eyes followed me the whole way.

Link

Elias seemed… off. Everything about him was off. He looked different, he was taking longer and longer in the bathroom, and he was a lot more fidgety about me being in his personal space and hugging him. And then there was his scent.

Fuck, his scent. We’d been friends for long enough that I could pick his scent out of a crowd immediately, but lately?

It’d taken on an almost sweet undertone.

Like an omega’s. An omega’s scent was one no alpha could ever get confused about.

Though each person smelled different, it was always lighter.

An almost vanilla or almond undertone. They made perfumes to try to replicate it in the big stores, selling them for thousands of dollars per bottle.

Elias’s new scent could sell for hundreds of thousands.

He walked down the hallway and into his bedroom, closing the door behind him.

He’d hurried away from me, like he was trying to hide something.

I didn’t want him to hide. I wanted him to stay right there in front of me so I could inhale the scent straight from the source.

Something in me desperately wanted to shove my nose into the crook of his neck and sniff.

What the fuck was happening?

Shaking my head, I walked to the front door, nodding at Elias as he came out of his room. His uniform was tight around his chest, accentuating the shape of his pecs. It was the proof I’d needed to make sure I wasn’t going completely crazy. They’d gotten bigger.

“You ready?” I asked.

He shrugged, pushing a stray blond hair out of his face. “Yeah, we don’t wanna be late, do we?”

We were definitely going to be late, but I let it go for the moment. What I couldn’t let go of was how overwhelming it suddenly was to be in the car with him. The smell of him spoke to some depraved part of me that was lurking deep in my gut.

I gripped the steering wheel a bit tighter than I usually would, the leather cracking beneath my palms the entire way to the gym.

The moment I parked the car, Elias jumped out like his ass was on fire, leaving me behind. He’d never been so eager to get to work before. I grabbed my gym bag and headed inside, nodding at the other trainers and staff.

After dropping my bag off in one of the lockers, I met my first client of the day by the treadmills. Elias was already at the front desk, checking people’s memberships.

I tried to stay focused. Truly, I did. But it was so fucking hard when all I could think about was my best friend and how nice his uniform looked on him and how good I knew he smelled.

If only I could get closer to him. Stand right by him and take a whiff, inhaling the scent I hadn’t been able to get out of my mind for the last few days.

Instead, I was forced to steal glances when he wasn’t watching or when he was talking to a member. I just couldn’t keep my eyes off him.

My client was running on the treadmill, giving me time to look over at the front desk.

Elias lifted his head, glancing from side to side, not seeming to notice that I was staring.

When he looked back down, his hand cupped one of his pecs, gently massaging it.

I furrowed my eyebrows. Did his chest hurt or something?

It’d make sense if he’d been working out, but he claimed he hadn’t. I tilted my head, watching as he squeezed and poked around. Right in the center, a dark spot started to form on his light blue shirt. It looked like it was right over his nipple.

As my client started to run faster on the treadmill, his feet pounding against the machine, Elias shot up from his chair at the front desk and started to run toward the employee bathrooms. He looked frantic and confused, and I wanted to go after him.

I wanted to see what had startled him so badly.

I was just about to step forward to run after him when I heard a yell and a thump.

I turned to see my client on the floor, having fallen from the treadmill while I wasn’t looking. When I looked back over my shoulder, Elias was gone.