He shudders, the tremor running from his shoulders all the way down to his hips. My arms tighten around him. His hands grab my forearms, nails digging in, and I just let him.
“Fuck,” he whispers.
“Yeah.”
His heat crests. I feel the second it hits—his whole body arches in my lap, his scent goes nuclear, and the sound he makes is desperate as hell, the kind of noise that sticks with you. My rut surges up to meet him and for a few seconds we’re both just gone, nothing but bodies and need, his heat calling, my rut answering, and my brain shutting off.
I pull him tighter into my lap, his back pressed to my chest, my cock hard against him. I reach down between his legs and he’s so wet my hand is soaked right away, slick everywhere. He bucks into my hand and moans, his cock rock hard and leaking. I wrap my hand around him and stroke, and he almost comes right off my lap.
“Stay,” I tell him. My other hand is flat on his stomach, holding him down against me. “I’ve got you. Stay.”
I lift him. He helps, his knees finding the platform on either side of my thighs, and I line up and pull him down onto my cock, and the sound he makes hits the ceiling and comes back to us. I hear someone on the floor stop what they’re doing to listen.
He’s facing the floor. The gallery. Everyone.
I know I’m making a choice here. I could turn him around, make it private, take him to a room. But I don’t. I keep him in my lap, facing out, legs spread over my thighs, my cock buried in him, and everyone on this floor and in the gallery can see exactly what’s happening. His cock is hard and dripping, his stomach tight, his head tipped back against my shoulder, mouth open behind the mask. All of it on display.
The other alpha is watching. I can see him over the omega’s shoulder, arms still crossed, and he hasn’t moved. I meet his eyes, and I hold them while I roll my hips up into the omega in my lap, and the omega moans so loud the sound carries to the gallery.
I should probably feel bad about this. The part of me that helps people knows this is a show, knows I’m putting this omega ondisplay for the alpha he wanted. But the rut part of my brain doesn’t give a shit. That part wants every alpha here to hear him, see him, smell him, and know he’s mine. Both parts are me. I’m not pretending otherwise.
I fuck him slowly. Slower than the first time, which was all urgency and collision. This time I know his body. I know what angle makes him clench and go silent, what pace makes him loud, where to put my hands to make him shake. I use all of it.
And it’s costing me. Every thrust sends a jolt up my spine that has nothing to do with technique and everything to do with how he fits me, like he was made for this. Every time he clenches, I lose a little more of the control I’m faking. My rut is screaming at me to go harder, faster, pin him down and fuck him until we both break, but I keep it slow. It’s the hardest thing I’ve done all night. Harder than the first round. Harder than watching his other alpha step back and knowing I was the reason.
I wrap my hand around his cock and he jolts, full-body, the sound he makes high and desperate. He’s hard and leaking, and when I stroke him in time with my thrusts, he starts shaking so hard his teeth chatter—I can hear it even through the mask. My hand’s slick with him, precome and everything else, and the slide of my fist matches the slide of my cock inside him. He makes a noise that almost finishes me. My hips stutter, just once, rhythm breaking, and I hear myself make a sound I didn’t mean to, low and rough. I have to close my eyes and breathe through it before I can get back on track.
“Look at them,” I say against his ear. Low enough that only he can hear me over the bass. “They’re all watching you.”
He whimpers. His eyes are open, I can tell, because his body responds to something he sees in the gallery, a flinch and then a moan, and then his hips grinding down onto me harder.
“You’re the hottest thing on this floor.” My hand slides up his chest, over his throat, and I feel him swallow against my palm.“Everyone up there wishes they were me right now. And the one by the wall—” I roll my hips up, and he gasps. “He knows what he lost.”
His head drops back against my shoulder and the sound he makes is just wrecked, like something inside him broke. I hold his thighs open with one hand, stroke his cock with the other, and fuck up into him. He’s so far gone in his heat he’s meeting me on every thrust, riding me in front of everyone, his cock sliding through my fist, slick running down my thighs, the wet sounds of us filling the room.
“Everyone can hear you,” I tell him, because it’s true and because his body clenches around me when I say it. “Every omega on this floor can smell how wet you are for me. Every alpha out there knows you’re taken.”
He grabs the back of my neck, yanking me closer, and the sound he makes against my jaw is half moan, half sob. His body’s riding me on autopilot now, thighs shaking against mine, his cock twitching in my hand. He’s close. So fucking close.
“That’s it.” I press my mouth against his shoulder. “Let them see you.”
He comes. I feel it before I see it—his body locks down on my cock so hard my vision whites out, and then his cock is pulsing, come hitting his stomach and chest, and he’s shaking so bad I have to hold him up. The sound he makes isn’t a moan, it’s almost a scream, broken and raw, so loud the alpha by the column actually uncrosses his arms and takes a step before stopping himself.
My knot swells. I pull him down tight and hold him there until it catches and locks, and he sobs, full-body, the kind of crying that’s way past pride. I wrap both arms around his chest and hold him against me, my knot pulsing, the two of us tied together. His body’s on display, his face tipped back against my shoulder, and somewhere in the gallery, someone’s watchingthe omega who walked in looking so confident fall apart on a stranger’s knot in front of everyone.
His cock is still twitching, way too sensitive, and I just keep my hand on him, not stroking, just holding while my knot pulses and his body shakes with aftershocks. His thighs are trembling against mine and he’s making these small, helpless noises with every pulse, probably doesn’t even know he’s doing it. I hold him tighter, press my mouth to his neck, and say things I’ll probably regret later, low and rough. Telling him he’s perfect, he’s mine, he’s the best thing I’ve ever felt. I mean it, even if it’s mostly the rut talking.
I bury my face in his neck. His scent gland is right there, swollen and pulsing, and I breathe him in. Something in my chest cracks open, and I don’t even have a name for it. It’s not just rut. It’s not just wanting to own him. It’s that feeling I get at work sometimes, when someone who was crashing finally stabilizes under my hands and I know they’re coming back. That moment where you think:I’ve got you. You’re okay. I’m not letting go.
Except I’ve never wanted to breathe in a patient until they replaced the air in my lungs.
His hand finds mine on his chest. He laces his fingers through mine and squeezes, and his crying quiets down to something softer. He turns his head and presses his masked face against my jaw. We don’t say anything for a long time.
Over his shoulder, the leather mask alpha watches us for another minute. Then he turns and walks toward the exit. He doesn’t look back.
I watch him go and something settles in my chest. It’s this quiet certainty that whatever this is, it’s not over. The heat will break, the rut will fade, and this omega will walk out of here, and I’ll have to figure out how to live in a world where I know his scent is out there and I can’t chase it.
But that’s later. Right now, he’s in my arms, his fingers laced through mine, his heart beating against my palm, my knot still pulsing inside him, and neither of us is moving.