by Aiden Bates
They reached the city as the afternoon turned toward evening, the sky growing darker above the car, and Luke pulled into the lot of a motel. It was a decent place. Some friends of his had stayed in it once. He knew it was clean, and well looked after, and he didn’t think Jason was the type to go looking for the most expensive place in town. He was almost reluctant to reach over and wake him, laying a gentle hand on the Alpha’s shoulder.
“Jason,” he said.
The Alpha woke with a start, turning to look at him with his hair still a little messy from sleep, and Luke hid a smile.
“We’re here.”
Jason looked out the window at the hotel.
“Thank you,” he said.
Luke shivered a little with the warm pleasure of pleasing Jason.
“Not a problem,” he said, forcing it to be casual. “I was glad to help.”
“I’m sure we’ll meet again,” Jason said, opening the door and sliding out of the car. “I look forward to it.”
And then he was gone, moving around to get his bag, slinging it over one shoulder to walk inside. Luke watched him go.
He wanted Jason. Wanted him in a way he had never wanted an Alpha before. It was a startling realization. But then, no other Alpha had treated him the way Jason had. No other Alpha had been so open in front of him so easily, and Luke found himself wishing that he had taken the Alpha home instead of dropping him off. But that was stupid. He didn’t need an Alpha. He didn’t want an Alpha. There were other things to focus on. Shaking his head at his own idiocy, Luke pulled out of the motel lot and turned toward home.
Chapter Three
Luke didn’t see Jason again for nearly three weeks. He hadn’t forgotten the Alpha. Hadn’t forgotten the way the scent of him had made him feel. Though he would never admit it, Luke dreamed about him sometimes, those big hands on his skin, looking up into warm brown eyes.
They met each other for the second time, once more, completely on accident. Luke was in the grocery store, looking over the selection of apples. He glanced up, and caught sight of Jason in his peripheral vision. His hand went still, fingers still curled around the fruit he’d been examining.
The Alpha was standing just a few feet down from him, dressed, as he had been before, in flannel and jeans, the shirt rolled up nearly to his elbows. He looked better, now. Rested. Luke found himself glad to see it. He watched Jason pluck an orange from the display and drop it in a produce bag.
Luke caught a telltale movement of Jason’s eyes and he quickly turned around before Jason could catch him staring. He pretended to look more closely at the apples. His heart beat a little faster. With any luck, Jason wouldn’t recognize him. Wouldn’t realize that he had been watching.
He glanced back over and Jason was still there. Still standing next to the oranges. His attention was forward, his gaze distant. Luke wondered what he was thinking about. What had taken his mind away from the grocery store where they both stood? Jason stirred suddenly, reaching out for another fruit, and Luke’s mouth went a little dry at the sight of the muscles shifting under the sun-browned skin of his forearms.
Jason looked up. Luke, flushing, dropped his gaze. Staring like a stalker wasn’t exactly appropriate behavior, and he knew it. But when he looked up again, Jason was standing just beyond arm’s reach, looking down at him with the hint of a smile in his expression.
“It’s nice to see you again,” he said. “I apologize for last time. I wasn’t exactly the best company.”
Luke glanced down. Up again.
“That’s okay,” he said quietly. “I knew that you were exhausted. How long had you been camping?”
“I walked from Wyoming,” Jason said, and Luke felt his eyebrows lift, his eyes widening. That was a long ways to walk. No wonder the Alpha had been exhausted when he arrived.
“You travel often, then?”
“As often as I can get away with it,” Jason said, and for a moment there was something behind his eyes that seemed sad and distant, but it was gone again before Luke could really catch sight of it, and he didn’t think he had much right to ask about it. They didn’t know each other well enough.
He nodded. “I want to travel,” he said, confessing something that he didn’t tell most strangers. Something he certainly didn’t tell a lot of Alphas. “I want to be a wildlife photographer.”
Jason smiled, then, genuinely. It was a warm expression. Luke felt it almost like a touch, right down to his toes.
“Everyone should travel,” Jason said. “If you ever want any tips, let me know. I’d be glad to help you out.”
Luke found himself nodding dumbly. “I-I will,” he said, realizing that he should speak. “Thank you for offering. That… it means a lot. Most Alphas aren’t really that supportive of omegas declaring desire to travel on their own.”
That, he definitely shouldn’t have said. For the second time, he felt his cheeks heating red around the Alpha. But Jason didn’t seem angry that he’d said out loud something that was usually acknowledged with silence. He looked, in fact, like he was trying not to smile again, and Luke dipped his head to hide his own expression.
“I think everyone should travel,” Jason said again, and his voice was firm in a way that brooked no argument.
Luke looked up through the fan of his lashes, found a smile. “I agree.”
As though he’d suddenly realized that he was standing in the middle of the grocery store talking in very familiar fashion to an omega he hardly knew where anyone could see him, Jason took a step back.
“I should be getting back to work,” he said. “It was nice to see you again, Luke.”
“It was nice to see you too,” Luke said, but the words had hardly left his mouth before the Alpha was gone, spinning on his heel and disappearing down the aisle.
Watching him go, Luke wondered if he had said something to scare Jason away. He turned back to his own shopping, and tried to forget the desire that had started to rise in his belly.
It didn't work of course. Luke could still hear Jason’s voice – that low, rough Alpha rasp – on loop in his head and it was stupid, really. He shouldn’t be expecting anything from Jason. Luke didn’t want an Alpha. He didn’t need one. And certainly not the broad-shouldered sort with calloused hands and stubble along his jaw. He really wasn’t interested. At all. Which was a complete lie and he wasn’t even getting it past himself. Jason shook his head. He was an idiot. One encounter with an Alpha and he was acting like all those silly omegas he had determined he would never have anything in common with. Mooning was foolish. Useless. He had plans. Plans that didn’t include Jason. He needed to remember that.
There was no reason to feel disappointed.
He took a breath and let it slowly. Shopping. That’s what he was doing. Jason didn’t come into it.
Jason didn’t come into it, but, since he’d met him, Jason had been coming into everything, had been seeping through the cracks of his dreams. Jason seemed to be everywhere he looked.
And yet, Jason was nowhere. Jason was nothing to him.
Chapter Four
Luke couldn’t sleep. He rolled onto his back and stared at the ceiling for a long moment, at the crack in the paint that he’d meant to get fixed when he’d first moved in and just never found the time for. He pressed his hands to his belly and willed his stomach to stop rolling.
Like this, in the late hours of the night, Luke could almost admit to himself that he did want an Alpha. He wanted children. But he didn’t want them to take away the rest of his life. He wanted the family, the mating bond, and the security of another life willingly linked with his own. And he wanted his photos. He wanted to travel. Luke wanted it all. That was why he’d left home, because his father would have never let him have it. So he’d given up one dream for another, and though he’d started to think that maybe it would be possible to have both here in Duluth, under a pack Alpha like Raul, he wasn’t entirely convinced.
It used to be that when he thought of the future – th
at ever-sharpening future with a mate and children and a quiet home they could return to when they got tired of trekking the world – it was with a faceless someone. A placeholder. A bookmark. Lately though, a face had begun taking shape. A face with dark eyes and a hard jaw. A face he’d only seen twice, but already couldn’t seem to escape the thought of.
Luke shook himself and pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes, forcing the image away. He could not do this. Not today. Not ever. But his thoughts refused to stay where he put them.
Jason was different from anyone Luke had ever met. Beneath the quiet surface, something else was lurking, and Luke couldn’t help but wonder what it was. The lines on Jason’s face spoke of hardship. The Alpha had been through something. Luke had no idea what, but it didn’t matter. What mattered was that Jason survived. What mattered was that Jason understood.
What mattered was that Jason had looked at Luke. Really looked, like he had seeing something more than just an omega. And when Jason looked at him like that, it had felt good. Like someone else saw him as he truly was, saw everything he wanted to be and accepted him for it.
When Jason looked at him, Luke felt like he mattered.
And he wanted Jason to keep looking at him.
At the thought of Jason, Luke dropped his head back against the pillow, fingers tugging at his hair.
He wondered what Jason was doing, if the Alpha thought of him at all. His hips shifted restlessly, and with a low, frustrated moan, he gave in.
For all his gentleness, there was something fierce about Jason, shimmering just below the surface of his kind good looks. He found himself thinking back to the chance meeting with the fair-haired Alpha, remembering the way Jason’s body looked in motion, the ripple of the muscles in his forearm, the hard line of his jaw.
Luke made a little sighing sound and rolled over in his bed, suddenly all too aware of the coarse feel of the sheets under his bare legs, the scratchy quality of the pillow under his cheek.
He felt hot, too hot—he pushed the sheet off of himself, shifted his legs.
There was a growing ache deep in his belly, a shivering, desperate feeling. This time he started differently, pushing his hand down between his legs and wrapping his fingers around himself.
As he closed his fingers around himself and began to stroke, a small groan escaped his lips.
He pressed a hand to his mouth to stifle any further sounds—the walls in the apartments were as thin as paper, and Luke didn’t want the neighbors overhearing. He’d heard enough of their business himself, and he certainly wasn’t eager to return the favor. They didn’t need to know that much about him.
Under his hand, he bit his lip, hard, forcing his mind away from thoughts of the other inhabitants of the building and back to the thought of Jason’s hands on him, so strong and so warm, guiding him.
Luke tried to imagine how those hands would feel on his bare flesh, stroking his flanks, holding him down against the bed, and he slid his hand down, then, circling his fingers around his hole. He was slick already, warm and wanting, and two fingers slid in easy.
Instead of his own hand, he imagined it was Jason’s hand pressed against his mouth, silencing him. He imagined Jason bending low against him; his lips warm against Luke’s ear as he murmured hot words into the curve of it. He tried to think how Jason’s voice would sound in his ear, hushed and private, only for him.
A shudder ran through him at the thought of it, and a new rush of slick wet his fingers. He pulled them back and pressed in deep again, whimpering, imagining Jason’s hand there, his touch hungry, reverent.
He imagined Jason’s lips on his throat, hot—searching, his hands moving over every inch of Luke; he imagined Jason’s lean thighs straddling his own, imagined the hard lines of muscle as they flexed, as Jason bent to kiss Luke’s mouth, his hand moving faster.
It was the thought of Jason’s mouth on his that pushed Luke over the edge—his body stiffened, and he felt the hot pulse of his hole around his fingers as he found release.
For a moment he lay still, just breathing. But he was still thinking of Jason. Of the Alpha’s knot. He wanted it. Wanted something bigger than his fingers. Better. With a low whine, he shifted in the sheets, already aching for more.
He shouldn’t be so needy again this soon. Had he triggered the heat? Had Jason?
His body felt tingling, awake and yearning all over again.
Luke thought about Jason in bed beside him, Jason lifting his strong body up over Luke’s, holding himself up by his arms, the weight of his groin coming to rest heavy and welcome between Luke’s legs. He imagined the way it would feel, the length of Jason against him — blood-hot and hard as steel. He thought about Jason, grinning down at him with white teeth, dark eyes glittering in the low light. That look, both soft and bright at once, would tug at him. It would be so easy for Luke to push up with his own hips, push back against Jason and feel the sweet slide of their erections coming together. Jason would moan above him — low and rough and wanting —as he pushed back against Luke. He thought about how the muscles in Jason’s arms would stand out as he lowered himself down against Luke, speaking in a rush of heat against the side of Luke’s neck, commanding him. He would make Luke tell him how it felt. How good he felt.
And Luke would try to answer but he wouldn’t have the breath to speak so instead he would push up with his hips again to repeat the sensation of all that hard, hot flesh grinding down against his own, and it wouldn’t be long before the movements turned from the slow heat of their initial desire to the speed of their increasing desperation for one another, in an effort to bring their bodies still closer together, and Jason’s mouth would find Luke’s, his tongue so slick against Luke’s own, and Luke would wrap his legs around Jason’s waist as he thrust against him. Jason would pull Luke’s head back by his hair, his fingers fisting in it to bare Luke’s throat to his hungry mouth where he would suck and nip a ring of bruises into the soft skin. Claiming. Leaving his mark for everyone to see.
At the thought of this—Jason biting at the tender skin of his neck while he moved against him—Luke rolled over onto his stomach, burying his face in the crook of his arm to smother his moan.
He ran his hands down his own thighs, feeling the slick. Luke brought his fingers to his mouth to taste. Though he knew that Alphas spoke rapturously of how delicious their omega tasted, to him it didn’t taste like much at all. Still, he sucked on his fingers, his other hand teasing his entrance.
Groaning, Luke pushed two fingers inside. Already slick and stretched, it was an easy slide. Jason’s fingers would be longer, thicker. Luke rocked back against the two inside him. He could almost picture the heat in Jason’s eyes.
Suddenly, Luke gasped as his fingers brushed that sensitive bundle of nerves inside. He moved his other hand to his cock and squeezed it, rubbing his thumb over the slit and smearing his pre-come. Luke pulled his hand almost all the way out before adding a third finger and thrusting in again, rocking his hips.
Eyes squeezing shut, Luke writhed on the bed as he pleasured himself. His fingers were long but even they couldn’t quite reach the spots an alpha cock could, and maybe this time it definitely wasn’t enough. Huffing to himself in frustration, panting desperately, he withdrew his fingers. But that only made it worse. Now, he felt empty and aching. Rolling off the bed, he made his way to the closet and knelt so he could dig out the box that he kept in the back.
Throwing the box open, he grabbed the first toy his hand landed on and shoved it into himself, crying out. It was unforgiving and not at all the same as the real thing, but it eased the ache. He braced himself on the edge of the box, grinding back against the toy more than thrusting.
Jason, he thought. Jason.
And in that moment it didn’t matter that they had hardly met. Nothing mattered but the memory of the Alpha’s scent, and the way those dark eyes had looked at him. Nothing mattered but the feeling of the toy filling him up, and the wish that it could be an Alpha instead, warm
and living. He wanted hot breath against the back of his neck, wanted big hands on his hips, but for the moment all he had was his imagination.
Jason would pull him closer, take him harder. Faster. He’d lean down and suck another mark into the nape of Luke’s neck. Growl against it.
Come, the low voice would order. Come for me now.
And that was enough.
Jason came, sobbing with his need, hold tightening in spasms around the toy that filled him.
He slid the toy free and rolled over onto his back, gasping for breath. It was several minutes before Luke he felt calm again. His heart beat loudly in his ears, gradually slowing to something approaching normal rhythm.
When he finally found the strength to haul himself up and throw himself down on his mattress after, his heart beating fast from his body’s exertions, Luke was tired, but it was good. He closed his eyes, hoping that with the need sated he would be able to sleep. It had been rough, and hungry, and he wondered if his heat was coming on early.
He lay in the dark with his eyes closed, listening to the wind rustling in the trees outside his window, shivering and overcome. If he could make himself dream of Jason’s arms around him, he might fall asleep.
He couldn’t sleep.
Luke lay in the darkness, breathing slowly in and out, trying with every ounce of will to harden his heart against the tide of misery that felt as though it was eating him alive, that felt as though it was laying waste to him, body and soul.
It should have been easy for him. He’d spent his whole life pushing back at the part of himself that longed for a mate, for children. He had other things to worry about. But it was all so much harder with Jason.
Every breath he drew was more painful than the last, at the memory of Jason’s smile in the car, the lovely curl of his voice around Luke’s name, the heat of his gaze, the way Luke was so certain for a moment that Jason was flirting with him.