Chapter 5
ASHER
Fuck. Fuckkkk. Fuck. Townhall went too damn long.
I was trapped in an enclosed room with him for over an hour.
His anger hinted in his scent. Crisp pancakes.
Delicious. Tantalizing. And of course I sat right behind him.
Because I simply cannot resist the omega who, thanks to some cruel god out there, is my scent match.
Matching me to the one omega who hates the very idea of mating and packing up. Hope those gods are having a good fucking laugh.
My feet feel like lead as I shamble toward my apartment. I just have to make it to the staircase outside the Bar and go up them. They may as well be Mount Everest.
Just. Keep. Moving.
I chant in my head, trying to focus on anything but the problem, I am growing in my pants.
One of our prospects, Roadkill, jogs to catch up to me. “Ash, what time should we be ready?”
With a silent curse to the gods of scent matching, I push myself faster, needing to reach my room before someone notices my very personal issue.
He and the other two prospects, Cyclops and Trainwreck, follow me up the stairs.
I want to roar at them to leave me alone, my alpha taking over my brain.
Somehow, I hold myself back. Grasping the little sliver of control I still have.
“When I tell you,” I growl as I finally make it to my room. I slam the door shut behind me. Maroon walls welcome me as I turn on the warm-light LED stripe that moves in waves along each wall. The green plants covering my place do nothing to soothe the growing pain under my skin.
An insistent ache in my balls makes me lean over, another rut coming on with no way for me to stop it. I’ll have to handle this myself.
My mind fights as I crawl to the bed, trying to reach the nightstand. My meds, my meds that barely fucking work, sit in an orange container and I try, I try my damnest to reach them. Despite knowing they’ll do nothing.
With as many different medications as I’ve tried since I presented as an alpha, you’d think I would’ve found something to work. Since finding my scent match, my condition’s gotten even worse. The ruts are stronger, and satisfying them is harder.
“Fuck,” I grunt as my hips grind against the edge of my mattress.
No. No.
How damn weak.
My hips jut again, and the relief is minimal. I yank myself from the bed.
Hell. No.
I am not a goddamn teenager getting a boner for the first time. I am a grown man, six-foot-six and built. I am not rutting into the side of my mattress.
It’s not my fault this happens. This I know, and yet…
God, his scent is everything. It lodges itself under my nose, in my skin.
I can’t move enough to escape it.
Reed Nightwell.
His scent tortures me as much as I love it. An addiction I rarely get to indulge in.
My fingers itch as the familiar sparks flare in my… groin, and I moan. Flipity fuck. It’s here.
And my scent match, the one person who could help me, hates me.
The door to my room rips open, and like I’d summoned him by sheer desire, the man who’ll either make my suffering so much worse or so much better stares down at me. My savior and my damnation illuminated by the hallway light.
“Shut the damn door.” My voice sounds drained and tired from trying to suppress the oncoming rut.
“Don’t tell me what to do,” Reed snaps even as he obeys.
My scent match slowly walks into the dark room.
His blond hair a shining beacon of my need and his sharp brown eyes glaring at me as he toes off his boots.
My alpha tries to pry the last shard of control from me, wanting to tackle Reed and rut the fuck out of our—
Not our omega.
Reed pulls off his shirt. “How long?” His deep black tattoo decorates his chest and abs, trailing up his legs and over his arms like bands. They almost look like black magic grabbing him.
The black magic must be his omega nature.
At least that’s what I’ve always thought.
He got the piece a week after he presented.
Being an omega threw Reed in a weeklong depression where he didn’t leave his room.
The moment he came out of his room and down to the Bar for the first time, his scent called to me in an unimaginable way.
A way I don’t think he’s even realized.
Scent matches are tricky. Don't always reveal themselves until the biology deems it right. That moment he sat next to me at the Bar, my biology let me know.
His…didn’t.
I wish I knew why. But something in my gut says it's for a reason. A reason I can’t figure out yet.
To this day I haven’t told him. Even after we started this arrangement.
Him letting me fuck him, him getting to fuck me right back.
No strings. He wants me, at least a little.
Why else would he agree to this? He walked in on me one time, my scent leading him right to me, and his omega brain switched on.
Afterwards, I realized we were both only acting on instinct.
We both had needs that needed to be fulfilled so he created our agreement. He helps me. I help him.
But his heats were only his. He didn’t want me there, so he says, but I think his omega does. I think the fact his omega does scares him into pushing me away. We’re scent matches. There is no way his omega doesn’t want me there.
So I don’t tell him. Don’t try to claim him. Lest I scare him away permanently.
I can’t handle a rejection. Fate has already crushed me under its boot with my rut condition.
I can’t take any more beatings.
“It’s been… I don’t know how long.” I grip the floor under me, trying not to think about dicking down Reed.
“You can’t rut my face until you tell me how long it's been since your last one.”
My brain hurts. All reason flees as my cock gets painfully hard.
He’s tracked my ruts since he first found out about my condition. For what, I’m not sure. They don’t happen on a schedule. Basically any time I get turned on, a rut follows. I can’t be fucking chill. I can’t move on until I rut.
Just stuck in this vicious circle of being painfully turned on.
Seeing his broad chest and the back of his head, his tantalizing scent must have done it for me today. I scoff at the thought. I’m so severely fucked if just seeing him turns me on.
“Reed.” He hates being called his road name with me. I’d like to pretend it's the scent match magic, wanting to be close with me, but I know that’s not the reason.
Somehow, he’s bought into the lie that he wasn’t the right man when he was with me. He wasn’t a man who could be a biker, a Prez of an MC—hell, a man worthy of breathing air.
With me, Reed was at his weakest, most vulnerable. He hates that. Maybe it’s why he hates me, because I can bring it out of him.
I try not to think about it too much. I can’t handle the thought of him not actually liking me.
All I wanted was him to see the version of him I see. That he’s just as worthy as any other version of him. I want him all. He could do it all. But he doesn’t, won’t, believe it.
He sighs when I don’t answer. “If I have to pull out the journal…”
Just the implication is enough to induce a mild panic. I know this threat. This threat of him taking me first and getting his release before I get mine. Outside a rut, I fucking loved it, but not right now.
I shake my head no, trying to get past the fog. The reason he even asks me. To keep me here. Grounded. Fuck.
“Three days.”
“The date.”
I groan at the demand in his voice. Fuck the date. He squats in front of me. Hovering between my legs. He’s nearly as tall, at six-four. Tall for an omega, but he'd punch me if he ever heard me say that. He hated being compared to other omegas. Any reference to being an omega in general.
His fingers trail over my jeans. I can hardly feel his featherlight touch, but knowing it’s there is a delicious kind of torture.
“Please,” I beg.
“The date.” His fingers press harder as he gets closer to where I want him. He unbuckles my jeans. I help him slide them down to my knees, but he doesn’t let them go any further. “We won’t be long.”
“Um…the date, the date is September."
He takes my cock out of my boxers. Precum already drips from my slit, and he uses it to give me one quick pump.
“September what?”
“The–the first.”
“Are you sure?” He raises an eyebrow, a smirk on his face that has me rethinking everything.
“Yes. Yes.”
He slowly moves his hand up and down my cock. Squeezing just right as my head falls back. My light brown skin has a sheen of sweat, I’m sure. The white t-shirt I have on is sticking to my skin.
“Good boy,” he murmurs, finally—fucking finally—leaning forward and taking my cock fully into his mouth.
I hate this position. It’s so much harder to rut and he fucking knows it. Did it on purpose, the little shit.
His mouth is hot and welcoming. His tongue is flat against the underside of me as he slides back up, sucking extra on my tip, and fuck. It feels fucking amazing.
“Reed,” I moan. He clicks his tongue as my hips try to chase. The alpha fighting to escape my tight control is winning this battle. Every labored breath brings me closer and closer to the edge. Point of no return.
It’s like I take a back seat in my own body. My hips jerk uncontrollably, my ass muscles on fire as Reed fights to keep up. Meeting my thrusts, trying not to catch my knot as my body keeps trying to force it into his mouth.
His pancake scent swarms me, warm and buttery and decadent. Cocoons me. I feel a bit less alone. More grounded, more present, though not enough to weaken the alpha in me.
Waves build in my abdomen and fuck I’m close.
I whimper, and Reed just chuckles. Hollowing out his cheeks, he’d be smirking if he could as I hit the back of his throat. His hands simulate a hole around my knot as it swells. I can tell it's not locking into anything real. Still, it’s enough to get me past this rut.
Curses fall from my lips as I come down Reed’s throat. The sensation of him swallowing around me gets me going again. Fuck.
“Again?” he asks, and I nod shamefully.
“Get up,” he commands, and I obey, shucking off my jeans and getting rid of my shirt. “You’re so damn beautiful, asshole. Grab that mirror.”
I turn to do so, and Reed reaches into my nightstand for the lube he knows is there. Though we don’t really need it. Not if I can get him going enough.
“Turn it around.”
Turn it so I can’t see myself.
Said so casually before he completely undresses. Said like the thought of his shame doesn’t kill me. My gut drops. Anger courses through me, the same as always when he hides from himself.
“No,” I said. “You have to watch.”
“I won’t.” He glares at me, but I don’t give a fuck.
I shove him, and he flops onto the bed and tries to turn around, but I’m on him in the next second. Stealing his scent from his neck as I kiss his skin. Grounding him on the bed. His lips attack mine, his hands rough around my neck and sliding up, wrapping around my head.
Now this, this I could do forever.
He fights for a moment, pushing me away only to drag me back. Eventually, he sags and surrenders to his omega nature.
“Who’s the good boy now, you ass,” I murmur against his ear. He growls and bucks me off. He turns us, flipping us so that I'm face down on the bed with my ass out.
“For that, you can rut the bed,” he says, running his nose over my skin. He’s taking a hit, as I did with him, but he hasn’t clocked why he likes to do that. “I’m not even supposed to be fucking you anymore.”
I scoff to distract from the sting in my chest. “Heard that one before.”
His hands find the back of my head and pull me up by my neck, my buzzcut giving him nothing to grip.
I kneel one leg on the bed as he lets go, lubing up his hands and entering a finger.
I watch us in the mirror, transfixed. His eyes are focused on me, doing everything in his power not to look at our reflection, but the sight of us is fucking ethereal.
“How’s that, fucker?”
I moan as he slowly slides his finger back out and adds another. Fuck.
“Fuck me,” I growl, my hand finding my dick as he fills me with yet another finger. “Reed.”
“Be patient.”
“I thought we weren’t gonna be long?” I say, throwing his words back at him. I need this. Need him. In me, now.
Fuck.
Maybe he’s decided he’s done with waiting too. He lines up behind me and enters me slowly at first. Not being a complete ass. He fills me so good, so damn full. I rock my hips back on him. His slick entering me and dripping between us with each thrust. God, he feels amazing.
Meeting him thrust for thrust, I can tell he’s getting close just as I am. His purrs are loud as he fucks me. I attempt to use my hand as he did over my knot, but it’s not the damn same. Never is.
He leans forward, jerking his hips in shallow thrusts as he comes. He sounds beautiful, guttural moans that are nearly growls. It’s debaucherous, and it would be enough to make me come on its own. What sends me over the edge, though, is Reed kissing my skin as he comes down off the high.
Rutting into my hand, I moan and fall, spent, on the bed. My rut has passed.
I need to wash my damned sheets. My cum and his slick everywhere now.
“Thanks,” I say on an exhale.
He nips my shoulder blade. “Don’t fucking thank me.”
For several minutes, we stay there. Reed not making any motion to distance himself from me.
It’s delusional to think it’s because he might actually like me.
I think it anyway.
Logically, though, I know he doesn’t. He can’t. Not until he accepts himself fully. I truly hope he gets to that point. So we can have these moments guilt-free.