Control (Knot Club #4)

Finch

Itold myself I wouldn’t come back.

Five months ago, I stood in the shower with the water cranked up way too hot, scrubbing at my skin until it was red and raw, just trying to get his scent off me.

Spoiler: it didn’t work. Three days later, I could still smell him on my wrists when I rolled over in bed.

That mix of dark honey and clove, and something else I can’t even name.

Not really a smell, more like a feeling.

Like being claimed, or just knowing you belong to someone before you even realize it.

I kept telling myself I was done in the weeks after, even when my hands shook during fourth period and I had to grip my desk just to stay upright.

All it took was a memory of his scent and my knees would nearly give out in front of a bunch of eleven-year-olds.

The first solo heat two months later was hell.

My body had something to compare it to now, and it wouldn’t let me forget it.

Toys didn’t help. My own hands didn’t help.

Nothing worked because nothing was him, and my body knew it, loud and clear.

The second solo heat was even worse. I called in sick for three days. My coworker left soup outside my door, and I just lay there crying into a pillow that didn’t smell like anything. Just empty.

I kept telling myself I wasn’t going back. I didn’t need it. I didn’t need him. If it ever got that bad, any alpha would do. Not that it’s gotten that bad. I’m fine.

So now it’s eleven at night on a Thursday, and I’m standing outside Knot Club in pants that are already getting damp.

Clearly, I’m not fine. I was never fine.

The whole 'any alpha will do' thing? Biggest lie I’ve told myself since 'I can handle my heats alone.' I sat in my car for forty-five minutes arguing with myself about it, but let’s be real, my body always wins. I’m just the last one to admit it.

The beta at the door recognizes me. I can tell because she looks up from her clipboard and her eyes linger on me just a little too long, and her mouth almost smiles.

She doesn’t say anything, though. No 'welcome back,' no 'long time no see.' That’s not how it works here. They just check you in, hand you a mask, and let you walk right back into the mess you swore you’d never touch again.

“Heat?” she asks.

“Yeah.”

She checks her list, taps something on her tablet, and hands me a mask. Matte black, full face, the elastic already stretched out. Same kind I wore last time. Same kind that let me hide my face while I begged some stranger to fuck me.

My hands shake as I pull the mask on. The elastic snaps against my head and suddenly I’m nobody again. Just another omega with slick on his thighs and a heat he can’t handle alone. I should feel free, right? Last time I did, for about thirty seconds, until everything went to shit.

The bass hits me first. It’s low and heavy, vibrating up through the floor and right into my chest. I’ve only been in this room once before, but my body remembers it.

Not the layout, just the feeling. The air feels different here, heavy on my skin.

Even before my eyes adjust, I’m already flushed, my nipples tight, cock thickening in my jeans, slick pooling between my legs all over again.

The floor is alive. It always is on heat night.

That’s the whole point of this place. Knowing that and actually standing here are two different things, though.

Blue and purple lights cut through the dark.

Bodies everywhere, moving together, tangled up.

The sounds hit me next—moans, skin slapping, a low growl that makes the hair on my arms stand up.

The bass is still there, steady like a heartbeat.

Beta staff just move through it all, calm and professional, like they’re stocking shelves or something.

One with a shaved head is picking up empty glasses near the bar, stepping right over a puddle of slick without even looking down.

I don’t go any farther in. Not yet. I just hang out by the entrance, back against the wall, trying to breathe through my mouth so the pheromones don’t hit me so hard.

Doesn’t help. The air is thick with scent—alpha musk, omega heat, sex, and something darker I can’t even name.

Just a whole room full of people desperate enough to end up here.

My heat reacts instantly, like someone hit a tuning fork inside me. Everything’s buzzing.

I scan the room. I’m not looking for him. Seriously, I’m not. I’m just looking for anyone—any alpha with a strong enough scent to drag me onto the floor and get me through this heat. Then I can go home, pretend I’m fine, and try to make it another five months without this shit.

There are alphas everywhere. One huge guy in the middle of the floor, shirtless and covered in tattoos, and his scent is so strong I can practically taste it—metallic and hot.

Two more by the bar, both lean, both watching the room like they know exactly what they’re doing.

In an alcove, an alpha and an omega are already locked together, the omega’s legs wrapped tight around the alpha’s waist, mouth open against his neck, making noises that barely sound human.

Near the stairs, another alpha is circling an omega who looks about ready to fall over, hands pressed to his thighs like he’s trying to keep himself together.

Any of them would do. Any alpha with a knot and a heartbeat could get me through this. My body doesn’t care about the details. It just wants to be full, knotted, held down, and—

No. That’s bullshit. My body knows exactly what it wants, and it’s been stuck on the same thing for five months. That’s the whole fucking problem.

I push off the wall and step farther in.

The pheromones hit harder, and my heat cranks up another notch.

I’m so slick now I can feel it on my thighs, hot and messy.

An alpha by the bar turns my way. His scent hits me—pine, clean, sharp—and my body reacts like I’ve been dying of thirst and someone just handed me a glass of water.

Good enough. Close enough. He steps toward me, I step toward him, and my body is screaming yes, this will work, this will get you through the night—

Then I smell it.

It’s not coming from in front of me. It’s behind me, off to the left, somewhere near the bar or the wall—somewhere I wasn’t looking, because I was trying so damn hard not to look for this.

That same dark honey and clove, and that thing underneath I can’t name.

The scent I’ve been catching on my own skin for five months, in the shower, on my pillow, on my wrists at three in the morning when I wake up hard and reaching for someone who isn’t there.

My whole body just stops.

Like someone yanked the power cord. The pine-scented alpha in front of me? Gone. The floor, the bass, everything else? Gone. Every scent in the room collapses into one, and my body just knows, like it’s always known, and I was an idiot for pretending otherwise:

Him.

The heat slams into me all at once. Not the slow build I’ve been fighting all night—just instant, full-body overload.

My vision whites out at the edges. Slick pours out of me so fast it soaks through my jeans, hot and humiliating and impossible to stop.

My cock gets hard so fast it hurts. My hole clenches on nothing, and my knees buckle.

I reach for something to hold onto and miss.

I’m on my knees on the concrete floor at Knot Club, coming just from a scent.

It’s not even a real orgasm. Not like when you’re knotted, not that long, drawn-out thing.

It’s just a wave—sharp, fast, ripping through me from the inside out.

My cock jerks in my jeans and I come, not much, just enough to make the wet spot worse.

My whole body shudders, and I let out this choked, desperate moan that bounces off the walls.

And yeah, people definitely heard it. People are looking.

The beta with the shaved head appears beside me. She doesn’t touch me, just crouches to my eye level, and her voice is calm and professional.

“You okay? Can you stand?”

I can’t even answer. I’m shaking so hard my teeth are clicking, thighs clenched, kneeling in a puddle of my own slick.

Every alpha in the place can smell what just happened.

They can smell the orgasm, the desperation, five months of pent-up need all spilling out in one humiliating moment on my knees.

“Take a second,” she says. “Breathe.”

I try to breathe. It doesn’t help. Every breath just brings more of his scent, and every breath makes my body clench and ache and want so bad it makes my solo heats look like nothing.

I’ve been starving for five months, and what I was starving for is right here.

My body just made that painfully obvious.

I get a hand on the wall and push myself up. My legs are shaking so bad the beta hovers nearby, ready to catch me. I wave her off. If I can’t stand on my own, I should just crawl out and never come back, mask or not.

I manage to stand. My pants are ruined, thighs wet, cock still hard and pressed painfully against my damp underwear.

The orgasm is still echoing through me, little aftershocks running up my spine.

And the heat is already building again, even worse this time, because now my body knows he’s here and it’s not going to settle for anything else.

I look up. Across the floor, past the shifting bodies and the colored light and the smoke-thick air, a man is leaning against the bar with a beer in his hand.

He’s watching me.

He’s not surprised. His body language is all wrong for that. No tension, no sudden attention, no leaning forward. He’s just leaning back, relaxed, one elbow on the bar, one foot crossed over the other, head tilted like he’s watching something he knew was coming. Like he’s been waiting for this.

Even with the mask, I can see his shape.

Tall, but not huge. Lean muscle, the kind you get from actually using your body, not just showing off.

Shoulders broad enough, but not trying to prove anything.

Tattoos that I remember tracing with my fingers.

He looks way too comfortable here, like someone who’s been coming to this place for months.

Because he has. He’s been coming here for months. For me.

I know it the same way I know his scent.

Nobody had to tell me. My body just reads his from across the room, and it’s obvious.

He’s not cruising, not scanning the crowd.

He was waiting for the door, saw me come in, and set himself up so his scent would hit me first. He just watched me come on my knees in front of everyone, and he’s not even a little bit sorry about it.

My hands curl into fists at my sides. I’m pissed and I want him, both at once, and I can’t even tell which is stronger. He did this to me. He put himself right where his scent would hit me, waited, and watched me fall apart. I can’t see his face, but I can read the rest of him. He looks satisfied.

Satisfaction. The calm certainty of a man whose patience just paid off.

Another wave of heat hits and I grab the wall, holding on.

My hole clenches on nothing, desperate and pulsing, slick running down my thighs, cock leaking through my ruined jeans.

I'm embarrassed that he's doing this to me.

I'm mad that he knew I'd come back. And I'm mad at myself even more, because he was right.

He picks up his beer. Takes a sip. Sets it back down. Pushes off the bar and starts walking toward me.

The unhurried stride of someone who knows exactly where he’s going and exactly what’s going to happen when he gets there.

Every step brings his scent closer, and every step makes my body tighten and ache.

My heat is screaming, actually screaming inside me, months of deprivation collapsing into a singular need so intense that my vision narrows to the shape of him moving through the dark.

He stops right in front of me. His scent is everywhere, drowning out every other alpha, every other option, every lie I told myself about 'any alpha will do.' I can feel myself swaying toward him, fists unclenching at my sides.

He reaches out and his fingers find my jaw, tipping my face up. The touch sends a jolt of heat straight to my cock and I gasp. His thumb rests on my chin. He tilts his head.

“There you are,” he says. Low. Warm. Smiling behind the mask — I can hear it in his voice. “Five months, three days. I stopped counting the hours around month two.”

I should push his hand away. I should tell him to fuck off. I should walk past him, find the pine-scented alpha or literally anyone else, and pretend my body didn’t just out itself in front of a room full of strangers.

I don’t do any of those things. I stand there with his hand on my jaw and his scent in my lungs and slick running down my legs, and I say the only honest thing I can think of:

“I hate you.”

He laughs. Quiet, warm, and completely unrepentant.

“I know,” he says. “Come here.”