That’s when it hits me.
I don’t have a better word for it. It just hits. One moment I’m standing with my hand on his chest and my heat is under control, and the next my whole body goes wild. My knees buckle. I grab his shirt to keep from falling. Slick floods between my thighs, sudden and so much I feel it soak through my trousers. I go from half hard to aching in seconds, my cock straining against my zipper like my body is reaching for something my mind hasn’t found yet. My heat jumps from a simmer to a boil so fast I gasp, out loud, right there on the floor.
The man in the leather mask catches me. His hands grip my arms, holding me up, and he’s saying something, but I can’t hear him over the roar in my ears. My body feels out of control. Whatever just happened took every careful stage of my heat and squeezed it into ten seconds. I’m left shaking, dripping, and unable to think.
I can’t think.
There’s something new in the air, something that wasn’t there a moment ago. It’s a scent I’ve never smelled before, and my body reacts to it like an alarm. It’s heavy and dark, nothing like the warm cedar I’m used to. It smells like smoke, iron, and something wild underneath. Every part of me is desperate to find where it’s coming from.
His hands are on my face now, trying to get me to look at him. I see confusion and worry in his eyes through the mask. A minute ago I was fine, and now I’m shaking in his arms, slick running down my legs, my pupils probably huge.
I don’t want to leave him. I chose him. I drove across town for him. I thought about him for three months and came back for him. He’s right here, he smells good, and he was supposed to be enough.
But my body pulls away anyway. My hand drops from his chest and I turn toward the new scent, unable to stop myself. It feels like someone is pulling me in by a cable through my chest. The man in the leather mask reaches for me, his fingers brushing my wrist. I feel him trying to hold on, but my body doesn’t care. All I want is to find the source of that smell.
“Wait,” he says behind me. This time I hear him. His voice sounds off.
I’m already moving. I’m soaked, shaking, and my heat is so far gone I can barely see straight. Somewhere on this floor is something my body wants more than anything, and I can’t stop myself from going toward it.
The crowd moves aside for me, or maybe I’m pushing through them—I can’t tell. My vision narrows to a tunnel. The bass pounds in my chest and I breathe through my mouth, because every breath of that scent makes my legs weaker. I can’t let myself fall, not here in the middle of the floor where everyone can see me losing control.
I’m about to find out what I’ve been moving toward.
Perry
He’s already looking at me.
That’s what I notice first. Before I see his mask, his shoulders, or how he stands, I realize he’s already facing me. It’s like he sensed me before I sensed him, or maybe we both did at once, turning toward each other as if drawn by the same pull.
His mask is shinier than some, but still blank. No expression, no details, nothing to read. Just a dark surface and eyes behind it, fixed on me. He’s big—taller and broader than the one in the leather mask. He stands completely still while everything around him moves with the music, the scents, and the crowd.
I should stop walking. I know I should, because I didn’t come here for this person. I came for the warm alpha with the leather mask and patient hands, who’s somewhere behind me, probably wondering what just happened. I should turn around. I should go back.
I keep walking.
Every step closer makes it worse. His scent grows stronger as I get nearer. My body reacts with a kind of hunger. I need more, I need to be closer. My skin is hot, my pants are ruined. I’m sohard that every step hurts, but I keep going because my body refuses to stop.
He moves. Finally, he comes toward me with a purpose that doesn’t seem like a choice. It’s as if we’re both being pulled by the same force. He doesn’t circle or show off like the other alphas I’ve seen here. He just closes the gap between us, like it’s something he has to do right now.
We meet in the middle of the floor. His hand touches my jaw and I flinch—not from pain, but because the contact is overwhelming. The feel of his fingers on my face sends a shock through my whole body. His hand is big and warm. His thumb presses into my jaw and tilts my face up, and I let him. I’m shaking so much I can see it in my hands.
Up close, he smells intense—smoke, iron, and something raw I can’t name. His scent fills my lungs and my heat surges again, another wave that makes my thighs slippery and my face burn with how obvious it is. I’m completely undone in the middle of a crowded floor with this stranger’s hand on my face.
His other hand finds my hip and pulls me in. I go because I have nowhere else to go, and my body is already pressing against him. My chest is against his, my face tipped up into his palm. The sound I make when his face nears my neck is new to me, deep and uncontrollable. I’d be embarrassed if I had any embarrassment left, but I don’t. All that’s left is want, heat, and his hands on me.
Someone touches my shoulder from behind.
Leather mask. I know it’s him before I turn because I can smell him, the cedar scent that ten minutes ago was the best thing in this room. His hand is on my shoulder. He’s trying to pull me back toward him, not hard, not aggressive, just a confused attempt to reclaim the omega he thought was his for the night. His fingers tighten, and there’s a question in his grip.
I can’t answer it. I can’t even turn around.
The black mask’s hand leaves my jaw and reaches past me. I don’t see what he does, but I don’t think he touches the leather mask. He just puts his hand out, palm flat, like stopping someone in a hallway, and whatever his scent does is enough. The hand on my shoulder loosens and falls away. Leather mask steps back, once, then twice, and the cedar scent fades under the stronger smoke and iron. My body doesn’t miss it at all. I barely notice it’s gone.
But my brain notices. Underneath the heat, in the small part of me that’s still Perry and not just reacting, something twists. That was my alpha. My plan. My safe, patient alpha who held me through a knot, got me water, and came back for me like I did for him. And my body just let him go because this stranger with the black mask smelled better.
I don’t get to sit with that feeling because the black mask’s mouth is at my ear.
“I’ve got you.” Low, rough, barely a voice at all. Three words and I can feel them vibrate through his chest into mine.