Chapter 5
As much asshe wants to stay home the next day, unfortunately, Alice can not avoid going in.
The department has a huge meeting to solidify plans for the first quarter and, as usual, she’s put in charge. Despite having literal engineers and IT professionals one floor away, Logan acts like she is their only saving grace for setting up the technology.
Like, yes sure, she’ll plan the meeting, keep everyone following the agenda, and set up the TV’s in the boardroom again. It’s not like there aren’t interns and department assistants running around getting paid to figure that out.
Sure, sure.
When she gets in, she walks straight to her desk, not sparing a glance to where she knows both Caleb and Grant are already set up at their new cubicles. Now that she’s scented Caleb, Alice can’t get away from his scent lingering in every corner of this place. It makes her crave gingerbread and cinnamon rolls, and she keeps daydreaming about curling up in front of a fireplace on Christmas afternoon.
It’s hard to believe that the rest of her coworkers can’t smell him when it’s a heady cologne that infects the air and makes her equal parts dizzy and comforted. The latter feeling is what concerns her.
As soon as she’s sat with her laptop open, she receives two new messages in quick succession.
Caleb Everett
Good morning.
Can we talk?
Alice doesn’t respond at first, taking her time to get out her planner, write down tasks on her list, and mark off a few from the day before. But she can’t help but feel as though someone is watching her. When she looks across the office, sure enough, Caleb is standing, leaning against Grant’s desk staring right at her. Grant is watching her, too, but he looks a lot less intense about it.
It’s indecent, really. People in the office love to gossip, and anyone seeing Caleb look at her like she’s his next meal is sure to make the rumor mill light the fuck up.
She watches him type something into his phone before her chat refreshes with another message.
Caleb Everett
please
Alice sighs and hovers her hands over the keyboard. No punctuation or capitalization? He’s obviously in a bad way about this.
Caleb knows what she is—and what she is to him—and wants to talk about it. He probably wants to start bossing her around and introducing her to his family. Or maybe he wants to tell her that he’s already happy in his current relationship and is definitely not looking to add an Omega into the mix.
Alice didn’t dare tell anyone other than Olivia what had happened yesterday. Her mom would have flipped out and shown up with her three dads at her door with congratulatory balloons just waiting to meet their future son-in-law.
Alice Walton
About what?
Caleb Everett
You know what.
Alice Walton
My bandwidth isn’t great today, but feel free to send any requests to my inbox and I can try to fit them in this week.
Caleb Everett
I can swing by your desk.
Alice’s eyes widen at the threat and her fingers fly over her keyboard.
Alice Walton
Please, please do not.
If he came that close, she would fully scent him again, and from that alone, she would start perfuming her own horny Omega pheromones, enough to fill the whole floor. Caleb smelling this would probably result in his scent growing stronger and stronger, and nothing good could come from that cycle. Her dreams had been fitful, full of imagining exactly that. The imagining was against her will, she might add.
Alice Walton
I think that would be a very, very bad idea.
Caleb Everett
Alright, then when?
Alice Walton
I need to get through today. After the meeting. Please steer clear of me until then.
Caleb doesn’t respond for a few minutes, and when she looks up at him, he is still looking at her—as if she’s a puzzle he can’t quite crack. Grant is watching, too, Alice can tell that he knows.
Caleb Everett
Fine.
Fine.
Even when talking with his scent match, he can’t bring any liveliness to a message.
It was a long eight hours of avoiding getting any closer than a yard away from Caleb or Grant. Alice didn’t think Grant was any harm, but with her suppressants hanging on by a thread, she didn’t believe they’d do any good with another potential Alpha in the mix.
Staying away from Caleb doesn’t mean that she’s not currently as uncomfortable as she’s ever been, though. Her clothes don’t sit right on her body, the lights are too bright, giving her a blaring headache, and every perfume or cologne in the office that isn’t Caleb’s scent makes her nauseous. She wants to be home in her own bed, her nest, for all intents and purposes, with the blackout curtains drawn as she’s buried beneath three blankets minimum.
The meeting was great, but Caleb being in person meant that he could get under her skin in real-time. As they were wrapping up and defining action items, he kept taking things on her list and reassigning them to someone else in the room.
“Scott, you have bandwidth for that right?” or “Lisa, since you were in charge of that project for a similar client, would you take that over?” By the end of the meeting, Alice had three action items, about the same amount or more as everyone else, but it still felt wrong when the bulk share of the work was originally expected to be done by her.
Does Caleb think being an Omega makes her so incompetent? She can’t humor the idea without her eye twitching.
After the day is technically done, she procrastinates at her desk by answering emails, squeezing her neon green stress ball, and otherwise doing things that could absolutely hold until Monday in the hopes that Caleb will just give up and leave.
But no, of course not.
At 5:30 on the dot, Caleb approaches her desk. He doesn’t stand too close, but close enough that his scent greets her full force. She hates that this immediately helps lighten her headache.
“You got here early, you shouldn’t stay late,” he says. He’s got a brown messenger bag slung over his shoulder and carries a red scarf on his arm. It looks soft, but Alice pointedly turns away from it before she can do something mortifying like asking if she can have it.
“Thanks for the concern, Mother.” Alice is being short, trying to convince herself that part of her isn’t thrilled about his worry for her. The traitorous part. None of her managers would tell her to work less, and in fact, they’d applaud her dedication and team spirit.
Caleb narrows his eyes on Alice, but she forces herself to look away from him as the blush creeps up her neck.
“I’m packing up.” Alice kicks off her pumps and retrieves the boots she commutes in on really snowy days, stuffing her feet over the backs until her heels slip in.
“Did you walk here? I’ll drive you home,” he says.
“Bus,” Alice says. “I prefer it.”
Caleb looks as though every bit of him wants to insist she never take the bus again, but he holds his tongue. He must recognize that when it comes to Alice, they are already on rocky ground as it is.
Alice pulls on her coat, despite being on the verge of a heat flash the whole day. “Let’s talk on the roof.”
Again, if Caleb wants to object, he doesn’t. He blindly follows behind Alice at a safe distance as they pass through the mostly empty floor and towards the stairs. They pass Grant who smiles warmly but doesn’t follow.
“Are you and him a pack?” Alice asks once they’ve climbed a flight of stairs.
“Yes,” Caleb says. “We’ve been together for a long time.”
Alice doesn’t know if he meant together as in just living together or together as in. . . together. . . Biblically, or whatever. It’s not uncommon for two Alphas to be in a relationship, but rarely for long without an Omega joining the mix. Her own fathers shared romance through their whole unit, not only with her mother.
“What about you?” Caleb asks as Alice pushes open the door onto the roof. Cold air touches her face, and she relishes in it. “Do you have a pack?”
“No,” she admits. “Lone wolf.”
Caleb obviously is unable to hide just how startling this news is to him.
“How old are you?”
Alice walks to the wall, him following behind a step closer than she’d like. The concrete bricks are frigid beneath her palms as she looks out over the city. During this time of year, the sun is already half set by 5:30—it’ll be mostly dark within the hour.
“I’m twenty-six,” she says, ever aware of her spinster status. It’s rare to meet an unmated Omega her age, and she’s never met someone who’s delayed their first heat as long as she has.
“Who helps you through your?—”
“Nobody,” Alice cuts him off before he can say the word heat. Just the fact that he’s thinking about her in heat is doing strange things to her body. She takes a step further away from him. “And really, that is none of your business.”
“Don’t you think it is now? At least a little?” Caleb leans closer. She steps backward again until her lower back is pressed against the wall. She’ll explode if she gets too close to him, she knows that she will. “You feel it, I know you do. You’re my scent match.”
“I don’t see why you being my scent match means you now have a say in who helps me through my heat.” Caleb huffs a laugh like she might be joking, but her expression tells him that she in fact couldn’t be any more serious.
“I don’t know where you grew up, but where I’m from, Alphas are supposed to be the ones to help their Omegas through their heats. Isn’t that what you want? Instead of some sterile heat clinic? How can you not be happy about this?”
Alice tries not to scoff because Caleb truly has no idea. He’s just like her parents and every other Alpha or Omega she’s met, ushering her to settle down, to be happy to find an Alpha who will look after her so she doesn’t have to work.
Like breeding is all she’s good for when she has a lot more to offer. Plus, doesn’t she deserve an Alpha who actually likes her? One who picks her for her finer qualities and not just how good she smells to them?
“I’m an Omega, Caleb, but that doesn’t make me your Omega.”
“The scent match indicates otherwise!” Caleb finally loses the cool composure he wears so well. Alice says nothing, just crosses her arms, and looks out at the city.
He will never understand what she feels, and she was stupid to even humor him being able to. How could he? A scent match is a life sentence to him, one he wouldn’t dare try to fight.
Caleb takes a few breaths and looks out at the city, too. Lights inside of apartments and offices shine through windows as the sky turns a deep periwinkle.
“I’m just as surprised as you, but don’t you think we should at least investigate this? I mean—just—you’re my scent match.” He says this like it’s a wonder and a miracle, instead of the heady burden and affliction it feels like to Alice.
“I don’t want that,” Alice says. “I don’t want to join a pack and be the perfect little Omega, I’m. . .” she trails off before she can admit how broken she feels when she compares herself to other Omegas. Like somehow when she was designated as an Omega, she wasn’t bestowed any of the sweet, trusting, and demurring instincts she knows she should have, or something went wrong when she was born and she got all of the strong-willed stubbornness and none of the other traits that she was meant to have as an Omega. “I don’t want my scent to dictate the rest of my life. I want to choose my path, my people.”
Alice finally peers at Caleb.
He really is exceptionally handsome. The downturn of his brows and his mouth, the slight curl to his hair at his neck. He looks calm enough, but the frantic searching way he looks at her belies his confusion and desperation. Alice understands the feeling; her entire body aches to move closer to him, to let him wrap her up.
“And please, you don’t even like me, and now you want to take care of me through my first heat?” Alice laughs, but it’s hollow.
“You haven’t had your first heat?” Caleb asks.
“No, but again, not your business.”
“And just what makes you think I don’t like you?” Caleb demands after a moment of processing her assumption. “We just met on Monday.”
“We did not just meet Monday,” Alice spouts. “I’ve been working with you for months! You’re constantly picking apart my work, or trying to get my tasks reassigned to someone else. It’s pretty obvious what you think about me.”
Caleb blinks at her words before shaking his head. “I’m the Quality Assurance Manager, Alice, it’s literally my job to be meticulous about the work we send out,” he reminds her. “Do you think I’m just marking up your work for fun? Christ, you should see the notes I send back to Scott!”
“Then why would you reassign my tasks to him?” They’re both shouting now, loud enough that if anyone else was on the roof they would certainly be concerned. “I know that I can do a better job than him, and in half the time.”
“Because you do triple the work of any male colleagues in your department on any given day. I can assure you that you are working harder than them. Yes, it’s easier when you do the work, and yes, Scott needs two more iterations than you do, but you get paid the same, if not less, and do way more fucking work. It’s not fair.”
Alice’s jaw hangs open for a moment, but she snaps it shut. She knows the work distribution is uneven, but she thought it was because she’s the best. It’s easier to just do the tasks than to go back and forth with others on the team who haven’t picked up on it yet. And she didn’t believe that this problem was something any of her male colleagues could even grasp, much less try to mitigate.
“You don’t do yourself, or your team, any favors by doing everything,” Caleb says. “You can only do everything alone for so long before you burn out.”
She knows that they’re talking about work, but she feels like the last remark was pointedly also not about work.
“But your emails. . .”
“Oh no, I’ve seen you so sorry about that! and no worries if not! matters that are definitely not your fault and are definitely worrisome if not—I email you like I do because I’m direct and I respect you.”
“Well it makes you unpleasant and terse,” Alice says. She’s inched closer to him in her indignation.
“Well, I’d rather be unpleasant than an underpaid people-pleaser busting my ass for managers that don’t see my value.”
They’re closer than she realized, less than a foot separating them on the cold rooftop, and in his frustration, Caleb is scenting unintentionally. The effect on Alice is immediate, filling every sense and gliding over her skin. It’s like nothing she’s ever experienced, being near her scent match like this. Her own scent starts to perfume out of her, mingling with his and making her lightheaded.
She staggers backwards from him, and Caleb brings his hand to her arm to steady her. The touch is like a live wire, even through her coat. She feels her slick between her legs just as he smells it.
Something ignites in his eyes, and without intending, a whine escapes from her throat.
“Get away from me,” Alice snaps. Her stomach cramps hard, making her almost double over in pain. She hisses through her teeth at the sensation and Caleb takes a step toward her.
“You’re going into heat,” he says, alarmed.
“I know, just—I need you to get away from me. Please.”
“Don’t do this. You’ll hurt yourself, just let me?—”
“I can stop it,” Alice lies through gritted teeth. It’s wishful thinking more than anything. There’s a clinic a few blocks away, she can make it there if she leaves right this moment, maybe. Hopefully.
It would have to do.
Alice clenches her fists until her fingernails dig into her soft palms. “I’ll take care of it. Don’t touch me.”
Caleb looks pained, like he’s going against his every instinct, but he backs away from her by a couple of steps.
“Please, d—don’t follow me.”
Alice retreats as quickly as her feet will let her, and heads for the roof’s access door and down the first flight of stairs. She wrenches off her jacket first and foremost, then reaches into her bag to retrieve her water bottle. She chugs it with shaking hands, a few drops escaping and sliding down her chin and onto her neck.
She can feel her slick between her legs, the fire burning beneath her skin and behind her eyes. She’s going into her first heat, and it’s making her delirious. All she can think to do is go, get out, escape, and if she can’t, then she wants to bury herself in a closet and hide. Scenting Caleb like that pushed her over the edge, her suppressants didn’t even stand a chance.
Alice is down three flights when another whine escapes from her throat, this one louder than the last. She has to stop for a moment and grip the banister for dear life. There’s wetness on her cheeks and she swipes at them realizing it’s tears.
Above her, Alice hears a door slam open and she forces herself on. It didn’t sound like the heavy metal creak of the roof door, but she can’t be too careful. Her underwear is soaked, embarrassingly so, and she needs to get out, get home, or get to a clinic immediately.
Before she can make it down another flight, she hears a deep voice calling her name— it’s Grant, she recognizes it, and he eats up the distance between them quickly. When his hand falls on Alice’s bare forearm, her knees almost go out beneath her.
“Oh my God, Alice, are you—” He comes closer and his scent pulls another whimper from her chest. Him too? She thinks she might faint, his scent is so strong with hers, more woodsy than Caleb’s, but nonetheless, it feels all the same. His eyes ignite, realizing it too.
Another. Fucking. Scent match.
“I’m going into heat,” she confirms, panting. “I”m not supposed to be.”
“I could smell it from my desk, why aren’t you with your pack?”
“I don’t have a pack,” Alice barks, but another wave of his scent hits her and this time her knees really do go weak beneath her. Grant slides an arm around her waist and pulls her close to hold her upright.
“I can get to a clinic if I really—” Alice gasps because this is when the pain starts in earnest. It’s not light, or a gnawing ache, it’s a sudden and intense bolt of agony directly in her abdomen that makes her whimper.
“How? On the fucking public bus? You won’t make it,” Grant says. Even in her distressed state, she knows that he’s right.
She won’t be able to walk to a clinic, even if it was right next door she wouldn’t manage it. There is no stopping this, and she was delusional to think there was.
“My suppressants aren’t working,” she cries.
“You’re still suppressing? How old are you?—”
“Too old, I know, okay? This is my first heat, so if you’re not going to shut the fuck up and knot me, then I need you to drive me to a clinic or get far, far away from me.”
Grant’s eyes rove over her face for a moment before he curses, then supports her weight as they move towards the door on the third floor.
“Go to the second,” she says. “The developers are remote on Fridays.”
Grant listens, pulling her down another two flights until they’ve reached the second floor. He swings the entry door open. Sure enough, it’s completely quiet, the lights are off, and there’s not a soul in sight. Not even a janitor is around to see them sneak into the bathroom and lock the door behind them.
“Tell me what you need,” Grant says, as soon as they’re inside, and another high, keening noise comes from Alice.
“I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know,” she whines, though she does know. She knows in a primal way that the only way she’ll find relief right now is if he knots her, and fast. “My clothes—everything.”
His hands descend onto her, pulling her shirt over her head, and then kneels as he slides her slacks down her legs, the cold air on her skin offering no relief. Grant stares wide-eyed at her mostly naked body for a moment. If she was any more in control of herself she might have felt self-conscious at the way his gaze travels across her curves.
“Alice,” he says, and there’s a strain to his voice that wasn’t there before.
“It hurts, Grant. It hurts so much.”
“Tell me what you need,” he repeats, his voice now two octaves lower. “Say it.”
He lifts beneath Alice”s thighs and deposits her on the cold stone countertop. His face comes to her neck, his lips kissing and sucking at her burning skin, making her internal inferno rage even hotter. She bites down on her lower lip.
“Tell me what you need, Alice. Tell me it’s okay that I take care of you.”
“Your knot,” She says. “Take care of me. Please.”
As a reward, he pulls her soaked panties aside and presses one thick finger into her, met with no resistance. He curses again and Alice feels herself clench around him.
“God, you”re good, aren’t you?” he asks.
She wants to tell him that no, she is not good. She’s a nightmare and the least eligible Omega in the great state of Massachusetts, perhaps the entire country. Instead, she whimpers as he adds another finger and begins to pump.
“More,” she manages to say through the pain cinching around her stomach. “Grant, I need more.”
“I’ll give it to you,” he says. “ I’ll take care of every little thing you need, you’ll never need to want anything again.”
No, no, no.
“Please,” she doesn’t deny his claim that he’ll take care of her forever, she can’t right now. Her ego was left on that rooftop when she went into heat in front of Caleb.
Grant halts the movement of his fingers and unzips his trousers before pulling free what might as well be the most beautiful thing she’s ever seen. The only thing that will offer her any peace.
She’s seen a hard dick with a knot before, even hooked up with a few Alphas back home, but the sight of it now, with her body raging and burning, feels like enough to set her aflame.
“Please what?” Grant strokes his shaft up and down, then grips his knot.
“Please, Grant.”
“Try again.” She searches his face, this one harder to say. She begs him with her eyes not to make her call him the one thing she’s spent the last decade trying to avoid. “Alice. . .”
“Please, Alpha,” she finally bites out. Grant’s lips curl up into a smile. Not so golden retriever, after all, Grant is devious. He licks his fingers clean, something she never thought she would be this into before he notches the head of his cock at her entrance. Even the promise that he’ll move makes her breath hitch, the precipice of pure relief.
“Again.”
“Please, Alpha, please knot me.”
His little smile turns to a full grin and in an instant he slides home. He pumps his cock into her, his knot bumping against her entrance with every thrust. Alice’s pleas turn into a chant as he rocks into her, begging him to keep going, to go farther, to knot her, to help her feel better, please, please, please, Alpha, please.
Beneath the white light bulbs of the bathroom, Grant’s knot breaches her entrance and expands, locking him in place as he begins to rut, grunting and murmuring right into her ear about how perfect she is, how she was made for him and Caleb, how he couldn’t wait to give her every single thing and make her his world.
The niceties slide right off of her skin as she reaches the relief of a blissful climax, coming around his cock and squeezing his knot into an orgasm of his own. It makes her vision darken at the edges and her ears feel like she’s underwater, but the pain in her abdomen and head lessens and she’s not so frantic.
Alice is delirious as she comes down, Grant locked inside of her cradling her slightly shaking body against his, her naked chest to his clothed one. They’re both panting and it feels like she finally can have a moment to breathe without catching fire.
Five minutes pass like this before Grant tenses, “Shit, you’re on birth control right? Fuck, I couldn’t even think?—”
“Yes,” Alice breathes. “IUD.”
“I should’ve asked,” Grant says. She’s too out of sorts to assure him that the only thing he should’ve done was exactly what he did.
She knows it’s not over, the relief will be short-lived. That intense feeling will be back soon, consuming her with pain and fever for as many days as it takes for her heat to break. This is why she doesn’t fight Grant when he pulls back to look at her face and says he’s going to take her home.
He pulls her head onto his chest and peppers some kisses against her sweaty hair then takes out his phone to make a call. She can just hear Caleb’s surly voice through the line.
“Where is she?” He sounds crazed.
“The second floor bathroom. Get the car, we’ll meet you downstairs in ten.”
“On it.”
The line beeps closed.
“It’s your weekend,” Alice murmurs and Grant just strokes his hand up and down her back. Between his touch and his scent, she’s ready to fall asleep right here.
“Baby,” Grant says. Alice forces open her heavy eyelids. She doesn’t know how much longer has passed, but his knot has shrunken enough now that he’s not stuck inside her. “I’m going to come out of you and then I’m going to help you get dressed, alright?”
She blinks a few times as she nods. Her body craves the connection and comfort of him, and a little whine escapes her mouth the moment he pulls out of her.
“I know baby,” he soothes. He gets them both relatively cleaned up and her clothes back on her body, though everything feels horrendous against her skin.
“We’ll be home soon and then you can get comfy.”
Grant slides her bag onto his shoulder and takes her hand, so weak in his, before leading her out of the scent-filled bathroom, down the stairs, and into the cool parking garage. Caleb is already waiting for them and climbs out of the car to help as soon as the door opens.
His gaze doesn’t leave Alice as he approaches.
“Oh, Alice,” Caleb murmurs, a sweet and sorrowful empathy in his eyes.
Alice sniffles, and lifts one of her hands toward him, silently rescinding her command from the roof not to touch her. Caleb lets out a big breath and pulls her to his chest. His scent is mollifying. It soothes every stress racing through her skull. Her hands slide up his sides and grip the fabric of his shirt, admittedly relieved that he’s here.
“We need to get her home,” Grant says. He drops her bag and coat into the trunk, then opens the back door up. Caleb loads her into the back seat. She thinks Grant will join her there, but Caleb follows in after and pulls her back to his chest. For all of her protestation on the roof, his touch quiets the distressed parts of her. How could she have ever tried to deny him?
Caleb doesn’t speak as they drive. He just holds Alice with his palm beneath her shirt, resting on her stomach, touching her searing skin. They don’t even get to the freeway before she’s asleep.