The orgasm had worn me out – I should have gotten up, found a cloth, tried to mop myself up a bit in the tiny private bathroom that was my privilege as camp director.
But I was too tired to care. After all, it wasn’t as if anyone was going to barge in and find me, half naked and sticky with my own come. I could clean myself up in the morning.
Jim
Here’s the thing: I hate being told I can’t have something. I guess in that way, I’ve never really gotten past childhood.
And Zachary? Had more or less told me I couldn’t have him.
Well. Screw that.
Literally.
Plus, I had a pretty good idea how to prove to him that I was totally capable of doing exactly what he thought I couldn’t.
Chapter Five
Zachary
The first year I’d been running Camp Alpha-by-the-Lake, campers would break into my cabin on average of twice a week, determined to prank me one way or another. They did the typical camp-prank things – short sheet my bed, replace my toothpaste with glue, plastic wrap over my toilet. One of my favorite pranks – those first few weeks when I was impressed with the creativity – was when they covered the door with plastic wrap and filled the space in between with water balloons, so that when I opened the door on the other side, the balloons came tumbling down and soaked me to the skin.
I would have been mad, except the temperature had topped 90 with 60% humidity. I relished the sudden coolness of being wet, and made ‘em clean up the mess.
The second year, after the third straight prank involving every single roll of toilet paper in the camp, I stopped oiling my door hinges. As it turned out, it never made a sound as it opened – but everyone could hear the screech as it closed clear across camp. Prank frequency went way down, very quickly, after that – especially when pranksters were given KP duty when caught.
So the screech that my door made, while it woke me up, didn’t entirely alarm me. Why would it? All I had to do was wait for them to incriminate themselves and then catch them in the act. I stayed in my bed in the same position I’d woken in, because one thing I’d learned was that kids could be short-sighted in the middle of the night, high on their hope for Prankster Glory.
I listened, keeping my breath shallow and slow, as the person at the door paused. They waited for a moment or two, and after they realized I wasn’t moving, continued on their path.
Only one set of footsteps. Interesting. Most of the older campers had formed enough of a tie to their fellow cabinmates to want to pull a prank together. And younger alphas, even if they hadn’t formed a tie, valued safety in numbers.
Soft footsteps – whoever it was couldn’t have been very heavy. They clearly hadn’t been in the cabin before, either, because I heard them bump into a chair at least once, and then a table, cursing in the dark.
“Shit! Ow, damn, ow ow ow….”
My heart and my stomach momentarily switched places.
I knew that voice.
“Jim, what the hell—”
I rolled over to turn on the light – and the minute I did, I remembered why that was a bad idea.
I was half naked, my dick hanging out, and my own semen dried on my stomach. Normally, alphas can’t smell their own pheromones – but I could smell the sex on my skin. No doubt Jim could smell it too.
“Oh, hi, um—” started Jim, still hopping on one foot as he clutched his knee, which undoubtedly had been the cause of the banging and swearing. “I…. um. You’re naked.”
Fuck.
“Yeah, well, it’s my cabin, my rules,” I said, trying to sound irritable, but I don’t think that’s how Jim took it, because his eyes got really wide as he lowered his foot to the ground.
“Oh,” he said. “I should… just….”
“What are you doing here, Jim?”
Jim swallowed. “No one saw me coming here.”
I didn’t say a word.
“I wanted to show you. I could. Without anyone knowing.”
I couldn’t smell my pheromones – but I could smell the lake water on his skin, I could see the way he was drifting closer to me. In another minute, he’d be close enough to touch.
“How – the canoes. You paddled over here.”
“You said canoes are always drifting over here,” explained Jim. “Well. Tonight, one just happened to carry me with it.”
In another minute, he’d be close enough for me to reach, to pull him in, to straddle him on my thighs and…
Dammit.
“Look,” said Jim. “I just….”
I couldn’t do anything about how good Jim smelled. I couldn’t stop listening to his voice, either, or the way that it was making my blood race through my veins.
I could stop looking at how close he was, though. And I could remember every single damn lecture I’d given my oldest campers about self-control and not responding to primal urges. I screwed my eyes shut. That made it easier to hold myself still, to keep from reaching out and pulling him in.
“Just go,” I said, my voice breaking.
“I like you,” said Jim in a rush. “You talk to me like I matter.”
What?
I was so surprised, I opened my eyes without thinking. “You do matter.”
Jim laughed. “Not really. I’m an inert omega. I’m in a constant state of limbo. I belong and I don’t belong. No one has a fucking clue what to do with me or what to make of me, and sure as hell no alpha has ever had a conversation with me, not as long as the one you and I had last night. I just… I wanted to have that a little more, you know?”
The longing in his voice… “You’re lonely.”
Jim didn’t say anything. He sucked in a breath, and then let it out in a long stream. “So are you. Or you wouldn’t have—” He nodded to my stomach.
“That was your fault.”
Jim’s eyes widened. “Well. I should help with it, then.”
I was in a daze, watching as he knelt down in front of me. His hands were warm as they touched my stomach, holding me on the side, and then he leaned in. My cock twitched – but it wasn’t my cock he licked. Instead, he drew the flat of his tongue over the dried come on my stomach. It tickled, more so when he sucked the skin on my chest into his mouth as his hands slid down to rest on the bare skin of my hips.
“Oh, fuck,” I groaned, because now my erection was slowly warming back to life. I could feel the blood coursing through my veins, as if every drop wanted to be in on the action. My arms were trapped behind me, the only things that kept me from falling back on the bed. “Jim…. You don’t know. I’m an alpha, I’ll—”
“I do know,” said Jim, his voice harsh. He reached around my torso and gripped my forearms with his hands, which had the benefit of flattening his chest up against mine. I swear, I could feel his heart hammering in his chest, just as hard as my heart was hammering in mine. “Why are you so afraid of me?”
“I’m not afraid of you,” I snapped at him, practically shouting. “I’m afraid of me.”
Jim drew away a little bit. The loss of his warm body against mine made me shudder. “Afraid of… you?”
I took a deep breath and tried to move my arms so that I could pull him back to me. But I couldn’t budge them, though whether that was entirely because of the position I was in, or because he was really that strong, I didn’t know. “You know what happens to an alpha, when they get a whiff of an omega in heat.”
Jim nodded cautiously. “Yeah. You go into a sexual frenzy. It’s near impossible to stop you.”
“Nothing matters, but the sex. Not you, not what you want – not what I want. And that’s what I don’t want. Why the hell should I want to be a slave to desire? Or put myself into a situation where sex is the only option? That’s why you have to get away from here, Jim. It’s not that I don’t like you – it’s not that I don’t want to kiss you and talk to you and feel you under and around me. It’s that I don’t want to lose myself to having that. I don’t want to lose myself. I can’t…
I just can’t.”
“That’s not going to—"
The blood boiled under my skin. “Don’t you dare. I spent ten years of my life after my mother died, watching my father bring home one omega after another because he couldn’t deal with being alone. He was addicted to the pheromones but couldn’t bond a single damn one of them because they weren’t hers, and it got to the point that he couldn’t even admit there was something wrong. I’ll be damned if I give into the same addictive desire, so don’t you say it won’t happen with you. You’re an unbonded omega, just like they were.”
Jim’s eyes were wide, staring at me. He took a breath. “Okay. I hear you. Okay.”
And then he kissed me.
It was… exactly as good as I remembered it, but this time I could feel the rough fabric of his polo shirt rubbing against the hair on my chest. The coolness of his mouth which still tasted of lake air and the faint hint of toothpaste. His lips were chapped, but soft under that, and all too quickly, the kiss was over as he pulled away, just enough for us to share a breath before he spoke.
“What’s the square root of pi?”
Huh? “You can’t find the square root of an irrational number, Jim.”
I couldn’t see Jim’s grin, but I could feel it, a millimeter against my lips. “Do you think you would have been able to answer that if there were omega pheromones in this cabin?”
There wasn’t a chance of it. I probably wouldn’t have been able to tell him my name.
“Zach. You’re not going to lose your mind with me. As long as I’m not in active estrus, my old bond is inert.”
“That’s why you don’t smell right,” I realized. “No pheromones.”
“Which means I’m safe,” said Jim. “From you – from anyone in this camp. You’re not going to lose yourself, Zach. You’re not—”
I didn’t let him finish – I reached up, and kissed him. His grip on my forearms loosened, and then I was able to free my arms to wrap around his back, pull and tug at his clothes.
“Yes, off,” he gasped, helping as much as he could, as much as I’d let him. Stripping Jim of his clothes hadn’t been in my fantasy earlier that evening – but just then, it was exactly the fantasy I wanted. Threads snapped as I tugged at his shirt and shorts. The sound only made me stronger, more anxious to have his skin up next to mine.
Naked skin, yes, mine mine, gotta have him, so good…
No. No.
I stopped with my hands on the waistband of his boxers, just breathing.
And that was the thing – I stopped.
An alpha in a lust frenzy – they can’t stop. They wouldn’t have the strength. Hell, they wouldn’t even realize they should.
I could stop. I could feel the way Jim was trembling under my hands, the rapid rise and fall of his chest against mine. The damp warmth of his breath against my shoulder. I could stop and note these things.
I wasn’t in a frenzy – everything I felt for this man straddling me – that was real, not induced by pheromones. I could trust in it. I wasn’t my father, unable to remember the name of the omega he’d brought to his bed the night before.
I could trust in me.
“Zach?”
I turned my face toward his and found his lips again. It wasn’t a gentle kiss – but it wasn’t a rough and anxious, greedy kiss again. I kissed him and eased his boxers down until his cock sprang free, and then grasped it with my hand just to hear Jim’s moan in my mouth. I could feel my own cock, thicker and heavier than his, budge up against my wrist. I was about to loosen my grip to enclose it as well, when Jim beat me to it.
Jim’s hand on my cock was enough to nearly send me over the edge. His touch was firm but gentle. He stroked up and circled my cock, pressing it up against his own, pressing them both against my open palm, so that we were sandwiched together between our hands. Every idea I’d had that Jim would know how to touch me was true – and then some, because I hadn’t quite imagined this, the fact that we’d be in it together, each an equal part of whatever was going on between us.
His hand moved steadily, neither too slow nor too fast, and I copied his speed as we kissed messily, our mouths and lips sliding against each other’s, teeth and tongue. I’d come earlier that evening, sure, but I was more than willing to come again. And despite the steady sureness of Jim’s hand, I had the idea that he was more anxious to come than I was, given the hitches in his breath, the way his kisses grew increasingly sloppier as we spiraled closer to a climax. When he came, I felt every muscle in his body go tense and still, the cry in his throat high and tight and so loud that I had to kiss him deeply, just to make sure that none of the campers, if they were still awake, heard it.
The splash of his come on our skin, the feel of it on my cock – that was all it took to push me over into orgasm. Jim swallowed my cries. In that moment, I wanted to swallow Jim whole, to hold him as tightly as I could, to never let him go.
I might have lost myself in the swirl of pleasure that was coursing through me, the heat of my blood and the smell of Jim’s semen. Or at least I lost myself in Jim’s kiss, the wetness of his teeth and tongue, the salty-mint taste of him. Either was a good place in which to be lost.
We tumbled backwards to the bed, both still gasping and pressed against each other, our hands on each other’s bodies.
Jim was still panting when he finally spoke. “Thanks.”
It was such a ridiculous thing to say, I had to laugh. “What?”
“For not biting.”
“Huh.” Truth was, I hadn’t even thought about it – which was probably the most ridiculous part of the entire experience.
When an alpha and an omega mate, particularly when the omega is in heat, an alpha’s natural instinct is to bite the omega – generally on the neck, because that’s where it’s easiest to reach during sex. The first time an alpha bites an omega, it creates a bond – a lasting physical connection between the two lovers.
When I’d come, I should have had the urge to bite Jim, to mark him as mine, to bond him to me. Betas have marriage; alphas and omegas have bonding.
But I hadn’t had the urge. Hadn’t even considered it – then again, I remembered the drive I’d felt to consume Jim, and I wondered if maybe that was the same thing.
“Anyway,” said Jim, nuzzling into me, his voice muffled by my skin. “Thanks.”
“Not a good idea,” I said. “Biting you. Kind of why I usually stay away from this sort of thing.”
Jim nuzzled a little closer. I thought I could feel his arm tightening around me. “Not just losing yourself during sex, then, huh? You don’t want a bond, either.”
I shrugged. “Part and parcel, man. Anyway, it’s not like I could offer much. Can’t spend a whole summer away from a mate, and can’t have a mate here, not when it’s a camp of alphas. The job sort of dictates that I stay unbonded.”
I wondered if that would put Jim off – if he’d stiffen and grow cold and slink off back to the other side of the lake. It probably would have, for most omegas.
Instead, Jim shifted against me, resting his chin on my chest as he looked at me. “Yeah, that makes sense,” he agreed. “I mean, the whole point of your camp is to give alphas a chance to get away from omegas and betas and – I don’t know – be disgusting and burp and fart and just be alphas, right? Even a bonded omega being around sort of puts a damper on that.”
Relief was a comfortable warm wave of pleasure, from head to toe, hearing Jim say that. “Not so much the burping and farting, but yeah, that’s the idea.”
Jim nodded. “It’s why there’s no alphas at our camp, either.”
I shifted on the bed so that I was facing him. Our softening cocks brushed against each other. Jim’s eyes widened just a bit and he sucked in a breath, which made me chuckle even more.
“I don’t think that’s the only reason you don’t have alphas in your camp,” I murmured.
“Yeah, well,” said Jim, his voice a bit breathy, “good thing you’re just on the other si
de of the lake.”
My heart thumped in my chest. “So… you’d want to do this again?”
Jim grinned at me. “Well… yeah. If you’re willing.”
I rolled my eyes. “What do you think?”
Now Jim shifted on the bed, and our cocks rubbed against each other again. It takes a while for an alpha’s cock to go down – I was still semi-erect. Maybe it was because Jim was young, but his cock was already stiffening next to mine.
My cock throbbed in response. Hell, my whole body throbbed in response. I had to swallow down the urge to push his shoulders back against the mattress and crawl down his body to take his smaller cock in my mouth – it’d fit just right, the way omega cocks were meant to fit in alpha mouths. Spread his legs wide, run my tongue from his smooth, red cockhead down to his hole. Omegas didn’t have testicles – their bodies were built differently, after all – and right then, I really, really wanted to see that pretty, smooth expanse of skin from Point A to Slot B, and see if Jim’s come tasted as good as it smelled.
What did I think about Jim sneaking into the alpha camp again that summer, since he’d proved that he could?
I didn’t tell Jim. I showed him.
I’m sure he got the message.
Chapter Six
Jim
There’s a lot of omegas out there who would call me a slut for going over to Camp Alpha-by-the-Lake and sleeping with Zach when neither of us had any intention of bonding – or hell, even the promise of a second go, though he’d definitely made clear that he was very happy to see me again.
Not to mention the gasps of shock and horror that I might be besmirching Kevin’s memory by even thinking of having sex with another alpha, when everyone was so convinced that I was still in mourning for him three years after he’d died.
But honestly? The sex had been incredible – exactly what I’d needed after three long years of drought. I’d like to think Kevin would have been cheering me on. I mean… three fucking years. Not that there’d been any fucking in them. The expletive was a complete misnomer.
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