Use Me Up

1

hannah

It’s raining outside, and he’s wet. His hair is falling in dripping curls into his dark eyes.

His eyes are so very dark, like pools of emptiness, of anger, of rage, of the abyss, but there’s always something else in those eyes of his, hidden away, something he doesn’t want anyone to see, a little hint of his own vulnerability.

I don’t pretend that I’m the only person who can see it.

I spend a lot of time looking at him, whenever he’s around.

He almost never looks at me.

But he’s looking at me now.

It’s after midnight. I was asleep until a minute ago, when someone started banging on the door of my little one-bedroom apartment that my parents rent for me in the nice part of town.

I would have just ignored it, the banging, but it was loud and insistent and it wouldn’t stop.

So, I got up and brought my phone with me, and I typed out, 9-1-1, but I didn’t dial.

I held it in one hand and I went up to the door and I looked at the deadbolt, which was locked, and I called out, “Who’s there? ”

My voice sounded shaky and frightened.

Part of me thought I should have just called the police already. But what was I going to say? Hello, officer, someone is knocking on my door?

“It’s Ellis,” came his voice.

And, of course, I opened the door right away.

Now, I’m looking at him, at his wet hair and his wet white t-shirt, which is clinging to the outlines of his impressive chest, and he’s just standing there, looking at me. I don’t think he’s ever looked at me like this before.

The sounds of the storm filter in from outside, the sounds of thunder and the sounds of the winds howling through the streets of town. I can smell the rain on him, I can smell it coming in from the hallway—it’s an outdoor hallway with a covering, but it’s open to the elements otherwise.

“I want to come in, Hannah,” he says. “Let me in.”

“O-of course,” I say, and I move away from the door, holding it wide open. I let him in.

He steps into my apartment and shuts the door behind himself, shutting out the sounds and the scents of the storm. Of course, he always smells a little bit like a storm, maybe?

I don’t know. I’m a beta, and I’m not as sensitive to scents as people with designations, so I can’t say for sure what it is that alphas scent from him. He’s an omega, but he’s not like most omegas.

He’s tall, for one thing. Crazy tall. He’s six foot five inches tall, and he towers over almost everyone, including a lot of alphas.

Male omegas are usually smaller and sort of elfin, with this male energy that’s appealing.

He’s got that. He’s graceful, even with his huge shoulders and long limbs.

There’s a roundedness to his muscles, and he’s so beautiful, he seems like he takes up all the space in a room.

When I look at him, I can’t ever look away.

I think other people feel the same way. He’s magnetic.

But there’s that darkness in him, that abyss I fall into when I look into his eyes.

“I’m dripping all over your floor,” he says.

“Oh, I’ll get you a towel!” I say, and I scamper out of the entryway of my apartment—my door opens into the space right between the kitchen and living room.

There’s a breakfast bar that separates one space from the other.

It’s the only raised surface I use for eating. I don’t have a table or anything.

I go into the hallway and get a big fluffy towel from the closet.

He’s followed me, dripping as he moves through the apartment.

I hold the towel out.

He takes it from me. He holds my gaze as he rubs it against his neck, against the front of his soaked shirt.

I look down at myself and feel completely self-conscious. I’m wearing my yummy sushi pajamas, a baggy button-up shirt and baggy pj pants. I’m not wearing a bra. The pajamas swallow whatever figure I have, which isn’t impressive.

I’m neither fat nor thin. I have breasts, but they’re not very big.

I have hips, but my chunky thighs stick out further than the curve of them.

I have rolls of fat—on my back, around my belly—and they’re unsightly.

But if I’m dressed, I don’t look big exactly.

I’m just kind of average, I guess. I have dingy brown hair and dingy brown eyes and he’s not the only person who doesn’t look at me.

No one looks at me. Not really.

“I didn’t think you knew where I lived,” I say to him, which is a stupid thing to say.

He’s just gazing at me like he wants to tunnel into my skin or something, a really intense gaze, and he’s so fucking beautiful, I don’t know what to do with myself.

I’ve never been alone with him like this. It’s never been just me and him in a room together.

“Obviously,” I say, letting out a laugh that’s too loud, “you know.” I laugh more. I feel my face heating up. God, stop speaking, I tell myself. God, what is wrong with you?

But then, he doesn’t say anything. He just rubs that towel all over himself, down the front of his wet shirt, which is clinging to every dip and swell of him, his perfectly formed pectoral muscles and his flat, flat stomach.

He’s shaped like a V, but in that elongated way so that he looks like a dancer or a poem or everything in the world I’ve ever wanted.

Oh, fuck me, I find him attractive, but I would never deign to say that I have a crush on him, because a crush would indicate that I ever thought, in a million years, I would have a chance with him, and I would not.

For one thing, he’s an omega.

Omegas do not end up with mousy betas like me.

For another thing, he is ruinously in love with my brother’s wife.

My brother’s omega. My brother is an alpha, and he claimed Calliope two years ago.

They had a big, big wedding, but she was already bitten, and she wore a sleeveless, strapless wedding dress that showed off her bite mark, right over her heart, right in the place where her perfectly shaped breasts start to swell.

Ellis holds my gaze as he moves the towel up to run it over his dark curls, moving them this way and that way, making them tousled and messy, but they settle in an artful way. Mess looks good on him. Everything looks good on him.

He leaves the towel around his shoulders and he takes a deep breath.

Then he breaks our gaze and talks to the floor, as if he’s somehow embarrassed or ashamed or something.

It’s that vulnerable element to him, the way he’s so self-possessed and a little unsure at the same time.

It’s intoxicating. “Uh, Calliope said things about you, and I sort of thought they were true, but now I’m here, and… ”

I wait, but he never finishes the sentence.

We’re just standing here in the hallway. My bedroom door is open. It’s a one-bedroom apartment. The bathroom is off of my bedroom, so there’s nothing in this hallway except the closet and my bedroom. There’s no reason to stay here.

“Um, maybe you want to sit down?” I say. “We could go sit in the living room, on the couch. Or you might be hungry or thirsty or something, and I could get you—”

“I want to be clear about what this is before it goes any further,” he says. “This isn’t… you know about me and Callie.”

What what is? I just stare up at him, and my heart starts beating really fast.

He shifts on his feet, and then he meets my gaze again. There’s something cocky in the way he holds himself now, something very self-assured. “Have you ever had a boyfriend, Hannah?”

“I mean, yeah,” I say, because I have. Michael and I dated for two years.

It turned out that he was gay, and that he was just dating me because he was having trouble facing that element of himself.

He took me to prom, and we stayed together for the summer after high school and part of our freshman year of college.

We kissed sometimes, but we never did much of anything else besides that.

At the time, I thought he was being romantic and waiting for the right moment.

Later, I realized it was because he wasn’t interested in me at all.

“But have you ever…” He tilts his head to the other side, sizing me up. “Are you a virgin?”

I let out another far too loud laugh, and my face is heating up again.

“Um, so, you might want, like, a hot drink or something, because you’re all wet and cold, and I could make tea.

” I maneuver around him in the hallway, which is not exactly easy, because he is taking up a lot of space, since he is enormous.

I brush into him, and he’s soaking wet, and the coldness of the rain sears into my pajamas, and I shiver.

He catches me by the arm and stops me. “Hey.”

I look up at him, my pulse thrumming under my skin.

He lets go of my arm. “I see the way you are around me,” he says. “Callie says it, too. It would piss Andrew off. I know it’s not cool, and I’m not saying you deserve it, or whatever, but I thought you might be interested.”

Interested?

“It would be, uh, an arrangement,” he says, shrugging eloquently, his muscles rippling under his wet t-shirt. “You don’t have anything else going for you. What do you say?”

I’m stunned. I try to make noise, and nothing comes out. My face is burning up, and I think I’m shaking, but I can’t really make sense of my body right now because I’m looking up into his eyes, pinned there by his dark gaze.

He swallows, and his Adam’s apple bobs in his long, elegant throat, and I feel a strange loose and warm feeling spilling all the way through my body.

“Okay,” I say, my voice a squeak.

He smirks.

I can’t catch my breath.

He reaches out and touches me. He feathers his long, long fingers over my jaw. “I want there to be pictures. On all your socials, okay? Can you handle that?”

I squeak again. “Um…” What is even happening right now?

“But also, I don’t want it to be fake. It has to really have happened.” His fingers curve around my chin. “You won’t mind, though.”

My tongue darts out and I flit it against my bottom lip. “Um…” I seem to have lost the ability to say actual words.

“You won’t mind, will you?” His voice is deep and sure and rumbling. He gently pushes me back against the wall right next to my bedroom door.

I’m definitely shaking.

“Hannah, I need you to consent.”

“Um…”

“Vocally,” he says, closing in on me. “You just need to say yes.”

I don’t say anything at all. I’m very, very confused. I think he’s saying… what is he saying?

“How about this?” he says. “You just tell me if whatever I’m doing is okay. Yeah?” He raises his eyebrows. His brushes his fingers over my jaw backwards, knuckles whispering over my skin. “This okay?” He pauses, waiting.

I let out a very noisy breath.

“Use your words, Hannah,” he says.

“Yes,” I say, finally. Obviously, it’s okay. Obviously, whatever he wants to give me, I want to take. Obviously, he’s Ellis Cirillo, and this is insane.

“I’m going to kiss you,” he says. “Is that okay?”

“Yes,” I manage, and my voice trembles.

He bends down over me—God, he’s tall—and his mouth finds mine, and he tastes like a storm, and I collapse into the wall, letting it take all of my weight.

I just settle there, moving my mouth against his as he slowly eases his tongue inside my mouth, as he claims me, and I feel myself falling apart.