6. Wren
Wren
Eventually, it becomes too awkward to keep standing by the bathrooms, so I gently move us out of the way.
The hallway outside the café is one of those dead spaces nobody uses on purpose: bulletin boards papered over with tutoring flyers, a recycling bin, a water fountain with a slow drip.
There’s an alcove near the emergency exit where the wall juts out for a utility closet.
Soren trails behind me with his hand still on my arm.
Carefully, I touch his hand and spin around to face him.
His eyes are wet. Not quite crying, but a bit glassy. His bottom lip is bitten red, and his shirt’s slipped to one side, showing off his neck. I turn his hand over in mind, nostrils flaring at the faint marks still there from where Polo’s fingers dug in.
“That asshole.” I’m growling again, but he doesn’t seem scared. He lets me cradle his wrist and turn it in my hand. My thumb traces the edge of his pulse, and it hammers under my fingers.
“It’s fine,” Soren says. “He didn’t—it’s just a grab.”
“It’s not fine. These are gonna bruise.”
“Probably.” He lets out a breath. “I’ve had worse from opening jars.”
I don’t like that he’s trying to make light of this, but I am so fucking glad he’s okay. His breathing’s evened out, and he’s giving me an oddly focused, intense look.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “For—back there. Coming on strong. I didn’t mean to—“
“You didn’t.” His fingers curl around mine, stopping the apology in my throat. “You really, really didn’t. You were—“His eyes track across my face, and he breathes in, deliberately deep. His pupils are so side he looks drugged. “You smell—”
His lips part, and before I know what’s happening, he’s pressed himself up against me. My arms automatically come up to hold him, one hand finding the back of his neck, fingers sliding into the soft hair at his nape. His mouth crashes into mine.
It’s terrible at first. All teeth and the wrong angle. His nose bumps mine, and I feel his surprised exhale. Somewhere in the back of my brain a voice goes smooth, real smooth. Then his hand fists in my shirt, and he makes this little moaning sound that drives me absolutely crazy.
I kiss him like I’ve been starving. I have been.
All this time, watching him, carving birds at two in the morning because I couldn’t sleep for thinking about him.
And now he’s here, and he smells amazing.
Mine, that voice whispers inside me now, louder with the feeling or Soren’s tongue sliding against mine. Mine, mine, mine.
I break off, panting. “Okay? Is this—“
“Yes.” He chases my mouth, rising up on his toes demandingly. “God, yes, don’t stop.”
And I definitely growl this time, but based on his little squeal, I think he likes it.
I press him into the wall, bracing my arms so I’m not putting all my weight on him.
I slot my thigh between his legs, and I know he can feel how hard I am too.
His breath hitches and his hips roll forward, and then we’re grinding against each other in a campus hallway like we’re seventeen and stupid and I don’t care.
I drop my hand from his neck to his waist. His shirt has ridden up and my fingers find the strip of bare skin above his waistband, warm, impossibly soft, and Soren makes that little noise again.
He starts wiggling, pressing his mouth wherever he can reach.
My jaw, my throat, my neck. I’m losing track of what’s real.
“Hey.” I cup his face. Both hands, thumbs on his cheekbones. His eyes flutter open, dazed. “I need to—we should—names.”
“Soren,” he says. Breathless. “Soren Patel.”
“Wren,” I say. “Wren Lau.”
His lips twitch. “Wren,” he repeats, deliberate this time, tasting it. “Like the bird.”
Like the bird. God I’m a fucking dumbass.
“Yeah,” I manage. “Like the bird.”
He laughs. Shaky and wet and perfect. Then he pulls me back down and kisses me again, softer this time, slower, his fingers threading through my hair.
I let him set the pace. His hips find mine again, a slow grind that’s less frantic and more deliberate, like he’s figuring out the angle that works best. And when he does, when his cock lines up against my thigh through his jeans and his whole body shudders, I help.
My hand drops to his hip. I guide him, matching his rhythm, giving him something solid to rock against. “That’s it,” I say against his mouth, barely a voice. “I’ve got you.”
He whines. High and needy and muffled against my lips.
His scent is changing on me. Going darker, heavier, and then there’s a new note under it: he’s wet. For me. It hits the back of my throat and my cock kicks so hard I have to lock my jaw to keep from groaning.
I want to drop to my knees. I want to press my face between his thighs and taste the source of that scent until he can’t remember his own name. I want to rut against him until we’re both wrecked and dripping and I can’t think anymore.
Instead I hold him steady. Plant my feet.
“Good,” I tell him, because I can tell he’s close, his thighs shaking, his grip on my hair gone tight enough to sting. “That’s good. Take what you need.”
“I can’t—“ His voice cracks. His hips stutter, lose their rhythm, find it again harder. He’s grinding against the seam of my jeans now. “Wren, I’m—”
“I know.” I press my mouth to his temple. My hand tightens on his hip, steadying him, giving him the resistance he’s chasing. “Then don’t. Right here, baby. Let me feel it.”
His fingers dig into my scalp. His breath goes sharp, punched-out, each exhale a broken sound against my collarbone. Wet heat spreads against my thigh, slick soaking through his jeans and into mine. His scent spikes sweet and thick, filling my lungs.
My cock throbs so hard my vision blurs. Need to rut, need to grind, need to take. I bite my tongue instead. Hard.
“I’ve got you,” I murmur into his hair. “I’ve got you. You’re so good.”
He goes rigid. Every muscle locks, thighs clamping around mine.
His back arches, fingers frozen in my hair, and he comes with a strangled sound that he buries in my shoulder.
His hips jerk in tight, helpless little thrusts.
I hold him through every second of it, my hand firm on his hip, my mouth pressed to the top of his head.
We stay locked for a long moment. Then his fingers uncurl from my hair and he pulls back to look at me.
If anyone came down this hallway right now, I think I’d probably kill them.
My cock is a problem. An aching, obvious problem pressed against his hip, and the animal part of me is being extremely loud about the fact that he’s wet and warm and right here and there’s a utility closet six feet away.
When he shifts, the wet patch on my jeans where his slick soaked through pulls at my skin, warm, cooling at the edges, fabric clinging to my thigh.
Every nerve is screaming at me to rut, to grind, to take.
I breathe through my nose. In. Out.
“Oh,” he says into my shoulder. Muffled. “That was—“
“Yeah.”
“In a hallway.”
“Yeah.”
His cheeks are flushed, and his smile is the most embarrassed, delighted, ruined thing I’ve ever seen. “I just—on your—“
“I know.”
“In my underwear.”
“Soren.” I say his name and his whole body ripples. A shiver from his shoulders all the way down. My thumb keeps moving on his neck. “You’re fine. You’re good.”
He stares at me. His hand comes up and touches my jaw, tracing the line of it like he’s checking I’m real. His fingers are cold. I turn my head and press my mouth to his palm.
We stand there. His back against the wall, my arm braced beside his head, his hand against my face. The hallway hums with recycled air and the distant thump of someone’s music through a closed door. I can smell both of us, and something new underneath that belongs to neither of us alone.
“Your phone,” I say eventually.
He blinks. “What?”
“Give me your phone. I’m putting my number in.”
He digs it out of his back pocket with shaky fingers and hands it over, unlocked.
I type my name and number in carefully because my hands aren’t much steadier than his.
I almost type something in the notes field, the hallway guy, or the maintenance idiot who can’t stop looking at you, but I just save the contact and hand it back.
“Text me when you’re home,” I say. “Please.”
“I will.” He’s looking at me like I’m a puzzle he can’t solve. “Wren.”
“Soren.”
“Thank you. For—with Derek. And for—“ He gestures vaguely between us, at the wall, at what just happened.
“You don’t have to thank me for any of that.”
“I’m going to anyway.” He straightens his shirt. “My friend Milo can pick me up. His alpha Callum has a car.”
“I’ll walk you to the pickup spot.”
“You don’t have to—“
“I know I don’t have to.”
He looks at me for a long moment. Then he pulls out his phone and texts someone, thumbs moving fast. Thirty seconds later his screen explodes with incoming messages that I can hear buzzing from where I stand. He tips the screen away from me, cheeks going pink again.
“My friends. They’re, um. Enthusiastic.”
“I bet.”
We walk to the edge of campus together. Side by side, not touching, because if I touch him again right now, I’m not going to be able to stop.
I track every person who passes us. We’re in public, but every cell in my body is screaming keep him, take him home, build him something and never let him leave.
I can’t do any of that. Not yet. Not when he doesn’t know the half of what I am to him.
The pickup spot is a bench near the main gate. We sit. His knee bounces. My hands are in my lap, still shaking, and I fold them together so he won’t see.
Headlights sweep across us after a few minutes. A dark truck pulls up. The passenger window rolls down and a big alpha with kind eyes leans across. Callum, I’m guessing.
Soren stands. Hesitates. Turns back.
“Text me when you’re home, okay?” he says, throwing my own line back at me with a crooked smile.
“I will.”
He opens the truck door. A slight omega with dark hair and a denim jacket three sizes too big is already leaning across the back seat, reaching for him, Milo I’m guessing, and the flood of omega concern that pours out of that truck is thick enough to smell from the curb. Soren climbs in. The door closes.
The truck pulls away.
I sit on the bench. My hands won’t stop shaking. I press them flat against my thighs and breathe in the ghost of him still clinging to my shirt, my skin, everything.
Eventually, my phone buzzes.
Soren: home safe. milo is force-feeding me cookies and asking seventeen questions. thank you, wren. for everything.
I read it twice. Three times.
I send: Good. Eat the cookies. Goodnight, Soren.
I lock my phone and press it against my thigh for a second, not even trying to stop the smile that explodes across my face.