MACKENZIE
Mackenzie
I patted the wall, searching for the light switch in the darkness. The hallway’s glow barely penetrated the room, but Theo’s coconut scent was everywhere, in a way that should have been overwhelming. But it wasn’t. It felt… safe? That couldn’t be right. Omegas were only supposed to feel safe with alphas. That’s what Daryl always said. Omegas needed alphas for protection. Yet here I was, drunk and giggly with a stranger who somehow didn’t feel strange at all.
“Here, you have to put your key card in,” Theo said, ending the sentence with an adorable hiccup. The card reader beeped, and warm light flooded the cabin. His coconut scent had grown stronger with the drinks we’d shared.
“This way, you always know where your card is,” he added, demonstrating with exaggerated care as he slipped the card into the slot next to the light switch.
“I can guarantee you I’m going to lose my card a thousand times before this cruise is over,” I said with a giggle, stepping around the luggage that had been left by the door. I stopped at the foot of the bed and put my hands on my hips. Theo wove his way into the room with only slightly unsteady steps and stood next to me.
The bed looked just as inviting as it had when I first walked in, the navy comforter crisp and perfect, but it was still only one bed. The steward had forgotten to convert it to two.
“We could rearrange it ourselves?” Theo asked, his voice lifting with uncertainty.
“Or just go with it?”
We looked at each other, burst out laughing, and I pushed him onto the bed. I squealed when he grabbed me, pulling me down with him, the mattress bouncing beneath us.
“Oof, Mackenzie,” he groaned with a laugh, the sound turning into a chuckle as my elbow jabbed into his ribs. I slid off him and nestled into the crook of his arm.
“Why is it so fucking hot?” I sat up, plucking at the collar of my dress where it clung to my skin with a thin sheen of sweat.
“You’re not…” Theo’s eyes widened in concern, his scent sharpening with anxiety.
“Heat? No, just finished my cycle last month.” And I absolutely did not want to think about my next.
Theo blew out a relieved breath, his coconut scent settling back into something softer.
I chewed on my lip for a second, considering. Well, we were roommates. And omegas. The alcohol made everything feel possible.
“Fuck it,” I muttered, going to pull my dress over my head but stopping as my face flushed with sudden shyness. “Oh, sorry. I really shouldn’t curse.”
“I don’t fucking mind,” Theo said, shifting his weight. The movement sent another wave of his scent washing over me.
“You just seem proper. You know, have your shit together. Not a hair out of place. Your underwear drawer is always organized.”
“Underwear drawer?” Theo sat up on his elbows. I covered my mouth like monkeys had just flown out of it.
He nodded, solemnly. Or tried to. Three seconds later, he broke into snorting laughs. “So proper. Fuck that.” He over pronounced the words, and I lost it.
I wiped laughter tears from my under-eye and checked to see if my mascara smudged and wiped sweat from my forehead. “Well, since we’ve established we are not proper and fuck is acceptable…” I struggled with the dress, the fabric twisted around my shoulders. Theo helped me strip out of it, his hands gentle and careful.
“Do you think they have laundry on cruise ships? I don’t think I brought enough panties. I’m going to soak through at least three pairs a day.” I sat up straight, my eyes going wide. Oh my god, Mackenzie, what is wrong with you? “That should have been an inside thought. I’m so sorry. That was TMI.” My face burned. Daryl would have been mortified. But Theo just laughed, and it wasn’t a polite laugh. It was real and loud and made me want to say more inappropriate things just to hear it again.
“My dick is so hard it could break glass.”
We looked at each other and said, “Alphas,” at the same time, then burst out laughing, falling back onto the bed.
“Why do they have to smell so good?”
“I thought you said cruise ships had scent-dampening technology.”
“They do, but I guess it doesn’t really help.”
“And we were outside almost the entire time. How are we going to get through a sit-down dinner?” I moaned. Theo stretched and unbuttoned his pants with a groan.
I eyed the tent that had formed in his pants and squeezed my legs together. It did nothing for the ache. I knew it was an urban legend that omegas could actually die from horniness, but right now, it felt true.
I looked Theo up and down, studying him with an entirely different kind of hunger than I was used to. He was boy-next-door pretty, soft in all the places alphas insisted on being hard. He didn’t have a body sculpted in the gym, but rather an honest sexiness about him, like he’d never tried to be anything other than exactly what he was. And he smelled so good. It was not the overwhelming, heavier scents of an alpha that demanded attention, but something sweeter, inviting. The kind of scent that asked instead of commanded.
“Maybe…” I stopped myself. This was insane.
“Maybe what?” he said, tracing lazy circles on the small of my back.
“Well, I mean, no, this is crazy.”
“No, tell me.” He sat up and gave me his full attention.
I licked my lips. Daryl hated it when I was forward. He said it was unbecoming and needy, that I should just trust him to take care of me. But Daryl was gone now. I had to take care of myself.
“Well, you’re an omega. I’m an omega. We’re both…” I glanced at his crotch and the obvious hard-on.
“You want to…?”
“Sorry. I know I sound desperate. Right? You don’t want to…”
He grabbed my face, his tongue parting my lips. I jumped in shock and then melted.
“You smell so fucking good, Mackenzie.”
The next few moments were a blur as we tore at our clothes, trying to get them off. I broke my lips away from his with a sudden panicked thought.
“I’ve never been with an omega.”
“Me either.” He licked his lips and added, “are you… I’m on the shot.”
“Me, too.” The no babies thing was really the only thing Daryl and I agreed on. “And I…” My face flared with an odd kind of shame.
“Tell me,” he said softly, his fingers tracing my cheek.
“I’ve only ever been with one man. One alpha.” Well, not technically. My last heat didn’t count. I barely remembered it.
“Oh,” he said brightly. “Here’s a secret the alphas won’t tell you. They all pretty much work the same.”
He gestured to his crotch, then grinned. “Except, no knot with this one.”
Suddenly, I got caught up in my feelings, the past few months crashing around me. But Theo was right there to catch me. He cupped my face and kissed my lips softly.
“You first,” he said, maneuvering me gently onto my back in the middle of the double bed.
Tingles shot through me as he dragged my panties down. I didn’t even get to kick both my feet free before Theo settled between my thighs. My “oh” of surprise turned into a moan when he gently pushed a finger inside me. Daryl hadn’t been the biggest fan of oral. He was all about the knot.
“Omegas just need knots.”
The second Theo’s tongue touched me, I forgot to be self-conscious about it.
My eyes rolled back into my head. The friction of his fingers in me felt different, like he was discovering new sensitive places. The pressure of his tongue constantly changed, whisper soft at first, then more insistent.
I came up on my elbows to see what he was doing. He had one hand on my leg, holding me open for his tongue, the other was… a tiny scream escaped when he found just the right spot. I fell back and he didn’t stop. It felt like his lips closed around my clit, sucking it into his mouth. The tiny scream got bigger as I came in a blinding flash. And he didn’t stop.
“Theo!”
I grabbed fistfuls of the sheets as I fell off the cliff again and again, like that was the only thing holding me together.
“I can’t wait anymore.” Theo gasped.
Suddenly his mouth was on mine, his tongue stroking into me along with his cock. My back arched so hard it tore me away from him. I wrapped my legs around him to pull him as deep as possible, no knot between us.
“You okay?” Theo said from above me, his arms shaking.
“That was…” I nodded.
“Can we go fast?”
“Yes, fast, fuck, yes.” I babbled until the ability to even breathe left me. I wrapped my arms around Theo’s neck. The short, quick strokes hit my clit again and again. So different from a knot, more focused, more intense.
He groaned out a curse. I felt him come in me… and around me. Almost like a knot, where there was that heartbeat of togetherness, auras touching.
He sagged against me and then rolled to the side. The second he slipped from me it was like a static shock, snapping that togetherness feeling.
I stared up at the ceiling, trying to remember how to breathe.
“Is sex with all omegas like that?” Theo asked between ragged breaths.
“Slick. Is it the slick? Because that was…”
“Why are we fucking alphas?"
“Knots.”
Theo snorted. “Do you,” his voice was rough but more serious, hesitant, “ever just feel so empty?”
“All the time.” I nodded, even though he couldn’t see me.
“It’s not hunger, it’s just…”
“Empty.”
We were quiet for a while, just breathing. Maybe… Maybe Daryl hadn’t been very good at this.
“When…” Theo started. “Nevermind.” I felt him shake his head.
“When what?” I curled on my side. So did he. He brushed my bangs out of my eyes.
“I just don’t have a lot of omega friends.”
“I don’t have any omega friends.”
“When they pull out too soon, is it, like, I don’t know. Painful isn’t the right word.”
“I thought it was just me! It’s like all of a sudden the movie is in black and white.”
“And it’s worse when you’ve been on a knot.”
“He’s done, but you’re not.”
“And you just know you’re going to be empty again.”
I wiped at a spot on his chin. “You’re covered in slick.”
Theo picked his head up and looked down at the mess we made. “You’re not nearly covered enough.”
I laughed. “We will have to work on that.”
He planted his hands next to my head and hovered above me. “Male omegas have a superpower. Did you know?”
“No. What?”
“We can always go again.”
I raised an eyebrow. I trailed my hands down his chest just to watch him shiver. My eyes went wide when I found his cock and let my fingers explore. He was still hard and dripping.
“Again.”
Theo moved between my legs and hooked his arm under my knee.