Chapter 3 Rhys
Rhys
The hotel room is fine. It's totally fine. Clean sheets, decent pillows, one of those generic landscape paintings above the bed that's supposed to be calming but mostly looks like someone painted it during a hostage situation.
I keep checking my phone.
This was a bad idea. This was a spectacularly bad idea and I can still leave.
I can text him some excuse, grab my jacket, drive home, and pretend I never booked a hotel room for a stranger I met on a hookup app I downloaded on a dare.
That's a thing I can do. I'm a grown man with a functioning car and free will.
I've straightened the pillows twice. I don't know why.
It's a hotel. He's not coming over to inspect the throw cushions.
He's coming over to have sex with me, a stranger from the internet, which is a sentence I never thought I'd be thinking on a Wednesday night when I should be grading discussion posts about environmental policy.
My phone buzzes. KnotMe notification.
Five minutes away. Hope you followed instructions and got a king bed.
I look at the king bed. I got a king bed. Because he told me to. Because apparently "I follow instructions" isn't just a bio line for me, it's a whole personality.
King bed. As requested.
Good boy.
I lock my phone and press it against my forehead. What the fuck am I doing.
Here's the thing. I don't do this. Not like this.
I've used KnotMe exactly twice before tonight, and both times it was a normal, reasonable process where I saw the person's face, exchanged some basic information, met for coffee first, and then went back to someone's apartment like adults.
This? Anonymous hookup in a hotel with a guy whose face I've never seen but whose texts made me hard at my desk in the middle of grading papers?
This is not my playbook. This is not even in the same building as my playbook.
But his messages. God, his messages. He's funny and sharp and completely shameless, and when he told me exactly what he wanted, in detail, with zero hesitation, something in my brain just..
. stopped working. The careful part. The part that makes pro-con lists and checks the syllabus and double-checks the syllabus.
That part went quiet for the first time in months and all that was left was yes, whatever you want, tell me when and where.
So here I am. In a hotel room. With a king bed. Waiting for a stranger to show up and boss me around.
My grad school friends would lose their minds.
A knock on the door. Sharp, confident, two quick raps like he's not even a little nervous. I wipe my palms on my jeans, which is embarrassing, and open the door.
He's shorter than me. That's the first thing I notice.
Maybe 5'8", lean, wearing ripped black jeans and a cropped graphic tee that shows a strip of golden-brown skin above his waistband.
Dark hair with copper streaks, an undercut on one side, a septum ring catching the hallway light.
Eyeliner. Chipped black nail polish. He looks like trouble walked into a Forever 21 and said make it hot.
He grins up at me. Wide and bright and a little dangerous. "So you're the hand guy."
"I'm the hand guy," I confirm, because apparently that's who I am now.
His eyes drag down my body. Slow. Not subtle. He takes in the glasses, the rolled sleeves, the fact that I'm clearly nervous, and his grin gets wider. "Huh. You're hot. That's annoying. I was prepared for a letdown."
"Thanks. I think."
"It's a compliment. Take it." He walks past me into the room like he owns it, drops his jacket on the chair, and turns around with his arms crossed.
His eyes are brown and sharp and they're sizing me up like I'm an equation he's about to solve.
"Okay. Ground rules. No names, like we said.
If either of us wants to stop, we stop. And if you're half as good as you texted, I'll consider leaving you a five-star review. "
"On what platform?"
"I'll figure it out." He's still grinning. He hasn't stopped grinning since the door opened. But there's something underneath it. A flicker. Like the grin is a wall and he's checking to make sure it's still standing.
I don't say that. Instead I say, "So. You're the one giving instructions tonight. That was the deal."
His eyes go bright. "Yeah. That was the deal." He sits on the edge of the bed, leans back on his hands, and tilts his chin up. Challenge and invitation and something raw all at once. "Come here."
I come. I stand in front of him and he looks up at me through those dark lashes with his ridiculous eyeliner and his bitten lip and I think, very clearly: I'm in trouble.
"Kiss me," he says.
I lean down. Cup the side of his face with one hand.
His skin is warm and smooth and he smells like cologne and something citrusy and underneath that, something I can't quite place yet, something warm and sweet that makes my head swim for a second.
I kiss him. Slow, because that's what I promised.
Thorough, because that's what he asked for.
His mouth is soft and hot and he makes this little sound against my lips, this tiny hitch of breath that goes straight through me.
His hands fist in my shirt and pull me down harder. "More," he says into my mouth.
I give him more. My hands slide into his hair and he moans, actually moans, and his legs fall open so I can step between them.
He's already getting hard. I can feel it through his jeans and mine, the press of him against my thigh.
My hands are shaking a little but the sounds he's making are worth every stupid decision that led me to this room.
He pulls back. His lips are swollen and his eyeliner is a little smudged. He looks wrecked already. "Shirt off," he says. "Yours."
I pull it over my head. His eyes go wide.
I watch them track across my chest, my shoulders, the black ink that wraps around my left ribs and climbs up over my shoulder blade.
A geometric sleeve that runs from my bicep to my wrist on the right arm, usually hidden under rolled sleeves.
More across my collarbones. His mouth falls open a little.
"What the fuck," he says. "You're tatted? Mr. Button-Down-and-Glasses is covered in ink?"
"Surprise."
"Holy shit." He reaches out and traces the line of ink across my ribs, his fingers light and curious, and my stomach muscles jump under his touch. "You're full of secrets, hand guy. This is so hot I'm actually mad about it."
I almost laugh. "You want to leave me that review now or later?"
"Definitely later. You haven't earned it yet.
" He scoots back on the bed, pulls his own shirt off in one smooth motion, and lies back against the pillows like he's posing for something.
He's lean and beautiful, warm skin over wiry muscle, and there's a confidence in the way he spreads himself out that makes my mouth go dry.
"Your move. Show me what those hands can do. "
I crawl over him. Kiss his neck, his collarbone, the dip of his throat.
He tilts his head back, giving me access, and I take my time with it.
Lips and tongue and the occasional scrape of teeth.
He's responsive in a way that makes me want to catalog every reaction.
A gasp when I bite his earlobe. A full-body shiver when I kiss the spot where his neck meets his shoulder.
His hips rolling up against mine when I pin one of his wrists loosely above his head.
"Don't be gentle," he says. Not mean. Almost surprised. Like he expected me to handle him with kid gloves. "I don't break."
"I know." I press my mouth against his pulse point. "But I told you I'd take my time. And I keep my promises."
"Oh god, you're one of those," he groans, but he's smiling, and his fingers are threading through my hair, pulling me closer.
I work my way down his body. Mouth over his chest, his stomach, the trail of dark hair below his navel.
I undo his jeans and pull them off. His cock is hard and flushed against his stomach, straining against his boxer briefs, a wet patch already darkening the fabric.
I mouth at him through the cotton, tracing the shape of him with my lips, and he says "fuck, fuck, okay" in a voice that's lost all its bravado.
I pull his briefs down and take his cock in my hand, stroking slow, thumbing over the head where he's leaking.
He's thick and cut and his hips buck into my fist.
That's when I notice it. The smell.
Not his cologne. Not the citrus thing. Something underneath all of that, something that's been building since I first leaned in to kiss him and I couldn't quite name it.
It hits me now like a door swinging open.
Sweet and warm and electric, like honey and smoke and something green, like crushed leaves after rain, and my entire body goes rigid.
My brain whites out.
Not figuratively. Not like "oh I'm really turned on." I mean the world narrows to a single point and that point is him, the omega underneath me, the scent pouring off his skin. Every cell in my body is screaming one word so loud I can't hear anything else.
Mine.
I freeze. My hands are shaking. Not the nervous trembling from before. Something deeper. Something primal that I've never felt, not once, not with anyone. My alpha is clawing to the surface like it's been asleep my entire life and just woke up starving.
He notices. Of course he notices. "Hey." His voice is careful now. "You okay? You just went really still."
I can't speak. I'm breathing him in and every inhale makes it worse.
Better. Worse. I don't know. His scent is the best thing I've ever smelled.
I want to drown in it. I want to press my face into his neck and never move again.
I want to be inside him so deep that his body doesn't know where mine ends.
"Hey." He touches my face. His fingers are gentle. "Talk to me. What's happening?"
"You," I manage. My voice sounds wrecked. "You smell..."