I glanced up and down the hallway just outside the auditorium door and tried to see if the scent was coming from was anyone around me. But it was useless because I never even saw the guy last night. The only way I would know if it was his was if he was standing right in front of me and I caught his scent.
I wondered if maybe I still had his scent on my clothes, but I’d changed everything after I took a shower. But still, I stood there smelling my shirt like a weirdo for a minute until someone walked past me and opened the auditorium door. When the scent from inside the room hit me I just about passed out.
He was in the auditorium. The man from last night … Hawthorne … was here.
Chapter 4
Austin
Well, now I’m screwed, I thought to myself as I took as many back roads as I could home. I knew I was being overly cautious but I didn’t want to worry about anyone following me. I had just knotted inside one of my students and I was beyond terrified. My only hope was that he was on some form of birth control.
It was possible, because he didn’t smell like he was in heat. But that didn’t mean anything. Birth control had been known to fail. Besides, the whole point of knotting inside an omega was to ensure pregnancy, and it did it’s job really well.
I tried to console myself with the thought that he hadn’t seen my face. He didn’t know who I was. But that didn’t do anything to alleviate my anxiety. There was no way I could, in good conscience, ignore the boy once his stomach started growing. There was no way I could live with myself if I abandoned an omega that I had gotten pregnant.
I finally made it home and inside my house, but I couldn’t relax. I kept pacing the living room, attempting to drown my fear in Scotch, but that didn’t seem to be helping either. I knew it was way too late to bother anyone, but I was too anxious to think about being considerate. I needed advice and I needed it now. So I called the only person I felt like I could be completely honest with. The person who took me to my very first BDSM meet up, many years ago. The one who taught me almost everything I know about being a Dom. My mentor, Brad.
“Did I wake you?”
“No, I was just reading. You rescued me from an overly hysterical fake break-up in the climax of a romance novel I’m reading.”
“How can you read those things?” I asked, already feeling a little calmer just hearing Brad’s voice.
“They’re fucking hot, man. Some of the sex in these books is off the charts. Plus it’s nice, mindless reading before bed. Helps put me to sleep. What’s up?”
“I think I just made the biggest mistake of my life.”
“You think or you know?”
“Jesus,” I said, wiping my face with one hand. “I know I did. I really fucked up.”
“Do you care to be more specific? Or do you want me to play a guessing game with you?”
“Sorry, I’m going out of my mind a little bit right now. I just knotted inside one of my students.”
“Holy shit. How did that happen?”
“It was a hookup. Totally anonymous, gas station men’s room, glory hole, separate stalls—like I always do. And it was way the hell out past Scapoose, almost to St. Mary’s.”
“Shit that’s almost an hour and a half outside of Portville. Did he know it was you?”
“No, no, I didn’t figure it out until after I left the bathroom. I went out to my car and I sat there for a few minutes. I was freaked out to begin with over the fact that I’d just knotted inside a stranger …”
“Yeah, that’s not a good idea at all.”
“I know! It was insane. I just … I don’t know what happened. I couldn’t control myself. I know that’s no excuse, but man, I’m telling you, his scent just about drove me out of my mind.”
“Look, we’ve all been there. Scents can be really powerful. Was he in heat?”
“No, he wasn’t. And that’s the weird thing. I feel like I should have recognized his scent if I saw him every day in class.”
“Yeah, that’s kinda weird. But I have heard of scents changing when the person is really turned on, or, you know …”
“What?”
“When an alpha and omega are really compatible. It’s not too common, but it does happen. Was the sex really hot? I mean, was it better than your usual hookup?”
“Yeah,” I said, running my hand through my hair. “It was.” I shook my head to clear it a bit, trying futilely to get the memory out of my head of how incredible the sex actually was. It was beyond hot.
“So, you knotted in him. Then what?”
“I got the hell out of there. I went to my car and sat for a minute, trying to figure out what the hell had caused me to lose control like that. Plus, I kind of wanted to see what he looked like.”
“Yeah, I’ll bet you did. So, then you freak when you see one of your students walking out of the bathroom.”
“Exactly. I just about had a heart attack.”
“But he didn’t see you, right? He has no idea it was you?”
“Yeah, but he might have recognized my voice.”
“You talked to him? I thought you didn’t do that, that it was one of your rules.”
“It is. Everything was completely silent in the beginning, just like always. But after he sucked me off he asked me if I wanted to fuck him. And, I don’t know, I just lost my head for a minute. I managed to say no. I told him everything had been perfect and we should just leave it at that, but then he grabbed my cock and started sucking on it again, and before I knew it …”
“Before you knew it you were getting someone pregnant.” Brad said with a laugh. “This sounds an awful lot like a story a horny teenager would tell his parents after getting caught.”
“I know. You don’t have to tell me that. I’m fully aware of how ridiculous this is, and just how much trouble I could be in.”
“So you just need to find out if he knows it was you. It’s as simple as that. If he doesn’t, then you’re off the hook. “
“Not if he’s pregnant.”
“Yeah, there is that,” Brad said, laughing again.
“I’m glad you find this all so hilarious.”
“Oh, come on. You would too if you had a little distance. I’ve been telling you for years you need to find someone to settle down with. Sneaking around and trying to avoid getting caught by the faculty, administration, and students of a big college like Portville State is insane. You had to know that eventually someone you knew would wind up on the other side of one of those stalls.”
“I really thought I was being careful.”
“Fearful is more like it.”
I hated hearing those words come out of Brad’s mouth, especially because I knew they were true. I’d been acting out of fear for years, and it was all catching up with me in one night. “All right, I’ll let you get back to your trashy romance novel.”
“Look, Austin, I don’t mean to be so harsh, but I’m worried about you. I have been for a while. You just seem like you’ve been avoiding anything having to do with feeling … well, anything. You can’t avoid your emotions forever. Eventually something’s gonna snap and you might wind up with road rage or taking your anger out on some innocent cashier. You never know, this might be exactly what you needed to help break you out of your funk.”
“I don’t know about that. It sure as hell has shaken me up, that’s for sure.”
“I hope it’s done more than that, for your sake.” There was a long silence, then I heard Brad sigh. “All right, well, if you need anything you know where to find me.”
“Yeah, sure, I’ll talk to you later. And Brad?”
“Yeah?”
“Thanks. I really do appreciate the advice, even though I’m not sure I can take any of it right now.”
“No problem. Talk to you later.”
I ended the call and stared at my phone for a full minute before moving. I tried to think about the things that Brad said, or what I was going to do to try to keep the situation under control, but I couldn’t focus on
any of that. All I could think about was that kid’s voice, his incredible scent, and the way that moan melted from his throat when I was knotted inside him.
I went and grabbed my student files and used the process of elimination to narrow it down to one name. I didn’t have pictures of any of my students, but I did remember some of them. I had notations next to some of the names that reminded me what kind of student they were, and I was pretty sure I knew which one he was. Shane Ackerman.
The name was familiar but I had never really attempted to put any of my student’s names to a face. Not unless they came to meet with me privately, and Shane Ackerman had never done that. I’d only had him for one other semester, this last spring, and he was taking my summer American literature course along with fifty other students who used the short summer semester to get ahead on their degree requirements.
He always got good grades and turned everything in on time, never came in late, or disrupted the class by getting up to throw his coffee cup away. These were things I took note of throughout the semester next to the student’s names. I wouldn’t refer to myself as a strict professor, but I had standards and I liked order. And Shane was quite the obedient student on paper. That’s what made him stand out to me, and what made me think he might be the sub from the bathroom.
I’d always done everything I could to keep strict boundaries between myself and my students, especially the male omegas. And because I could always detect omegas by scent I would immediately put up a wall in my mind that ensured I’d be professional and impartial and distant.
That was probably why I didn’t recognize his scent. I was able to turn my alpha hormones off to a degree when I was teaching, but in that bathroom it was another story entirely. All my defenses were down and I was in full alpha mode. I let myself get pulled in by all of his omega attributes, as well as his incredible skills at sucking cock, and by the time I was inside him there was no turning back.
As I poured over Shane Ackerman’s records and thought back about the way he was in class—and the way he was on the other side of that stall—he struck me as a particularly submissive, and obedient, omega. He might even be the perfect sub.
But as soon as that thought filled my head I dropped his file on my desk. The fact that Shane Ackerman might be submissive, and a very good one at that, didn’t mean a thing to me. It couldn’t. I was the professor—the responsible party in this situation. There was no way I could take advantage of my position of power over one of my students. Not just because it would mean my job, but because it was, plainly and simply, wrong.
It didn’t matter that I’d knotted inside him, or found his scent irresistible, or that I couldn’t seem to stop thinking about him. I couldn’t let my alpha hormones get the better of me. I couldn’t let anyone see a change in the way I treated him or reacted to him. I had to keep my shit together and stay in control.
I got to the classroom early the next day, as I usually do, and I waited. I wasn’t sure how things were going to play out, and I compulsively ran every possible scenario through my head over and over. Maybe he knew exactly who I was from the very beginning and he had set me up. Maybe he figured out who I was, and was going to report me. Maybe he had no idea who I was, but would eventually figure it out somehow.
Maybe it was fate, I thought to myself, then clenched my jaw and my fist to try to squeeze that ridiculous thought out of my head.
But it didn’t matter how many times I ran each imaginary scenario through my head, or how many times I told myself to calm-the-fuck-down, absolutely nothing prepared me for the moment when Shane Ackerman walked into the classroom the morning after I knotted inside him.
Chapter 5
Shane
When I stepped into the auditorium the alpha scent overwhelmed me. I looked around and saw a sea of students and completely forgot my plan of sleeping at the back of the room. I had to sit down and I had to do it immediately or I was going to wind up face down on the floor.
I took a seat in the first row and tried to catch my breath, but it was difficult. Something about that alpha’s scent was making me crazy. It felt like it was seeping inside me and getting into my bloodstream, and was making me desperate to be near him. But I had no idea who or where he was.
I scanned the room for a moment, but everyone was acting totally normal. No one was looking at me or even in my direction. Everyone was looking at Professor Dylan. And when I turned my head to the front of the room and looked into his dark eyes my entire body started to shake.
Professor Dylan was staring at me in a way I’d never seen before. His eyes were dilated and almost completely black, and they were opened wide. He was sitting behind the old wooden desk he used when we were taking a test, but I was sure there wasn’t one scheduled for that day.
“I’ve had a personal emergency,” Professor Dylan started, then cleared his throat and loosened his tie. “I’m afraid I won’t be able to stay for class today. But I’ve arranged for the TA to facilitate a discussion on The Beats and their impact on post-war America.”
There was a rumbling of low voices throughout the auditorium and some student’s got up to leave.
“You’re all expected to stay for the discussion. Roll will be taken at the end of class, so don’t try to sneak out after I leave.”
As usual Professor Dylan was firm and controlling. Always in command of the room. There wasn’t a single movement from any of the students as he got up and crossed the room toward the door, and while he was walking he looked straight ahead. Then, just as he passed by, I was surrounded by that amazing scent. The deep, earthy aroma that I had smelled in that men’s room. I turned my head and watched Professor Dylan walk out the door, and just before he closed it he turned around and looked right at me, the intensity of his stare boring straight into my soul.
I sat there in my seat practically gasping for breath. I had no idea what to do. That was him. Professor Dylan was the alpha in that bathroom last night. That deep, sexy voice, and incredible scent. I can’t even believe I didn’t realize it.
I mean, I always thought Professor Dylan smelled amazing—like the study in a Victorian house filled with leather bound books and a roaring fire—but somehow I didn’t put it all together last night. It might have been the fact that I wasn’t expecting it to be him. I would never have imagined he would be hooking up in men’s room bathrooms like that. I always thought he was so sophisticated. But maybe sophisticated people did crazy things too. Maybe giving blow jobs in bathrooms wasn’t as disgusting and depraved as I thought it was.
I sat through class in a total daze, then headed home immediately after. I hadn’t seen my roommates much at all in the last month, and I really hoped someone would be home. I didn’t feel like I could open up about what was going on, but just having someone to hang out with would help. I felt so lost and scared, and, by the way my body had reacted in class today, I was starting to worry.
But I couldn’t even wrap my mind around the possibility of being pregnant with Professor Dylan’s baby, so I pushed that thought as far out of my mind as I could. But it wasn’t very far at all because every few seconds I would picture it—me and Professor Dylan sitting in a dimly lit study in front of a roaring fire with our newborn baby in between us.
That was crazy, though. Not only was it impossible—because there was no way such an elegant and refined man would go for a kid like me—but I was pretty sure it was against the rules. Like, as in, he would be fired and I would be expelled. I hadn’t read the university handbook on their teacher/student fraternization policy, but I was pretty sure that sort of thing was frowned upon.
Especially if the student wound up pregnant.
Of course, when I got home no one was there. It seemed like everyone was off having a summer fling while I was stuck here having a summer anxiety attack. I stayed in my room for a while and tried to get some schoolwork done, but I couldn’t get my mind off Professor Dylan and everything that had happened. The whole thing in the bathroom, but also the
way he looked at me in the classroom.
He knew it was me. I could see it in his eyes.
I needed to talk to someone. I needed advice on what the hell to do. Out of all of my roommates, Alex was the one I felt the most comfortable with. Brian was awesome and I loved hanging out with him, and Holden was pretty much my best friend. But I worried about what he’d think of me if he knew what I’d been doing. I’d never told anyone about hooking up with guys online and I felt embarrassed about how often it had happened in the last year. Maybe I was the one judging myself more than anyone else, but it was hard to lay it all out to someone you really looked up to, and I’d always looked up to Holden.
But Alex had always been more like a big brother to me. I felt like I could talk to him about anything and he would never judge me, and I knew I needed that kind of support right now.
I called his number and he answered right away. He’d been on a landscaping job, but was heading home to get some sleep so he couldn’t really talk. I wasn’t planning on telling him about what happened over the phone, but there was really no way around it. He wanted to know why I needed to talk and I had to tell him the truth. And, of course, he told me exactly what I needed to hear. That I had to find out for sure if I was pregnant. He even offered to go with me to the clinic for the test, which was an incredible relief. The last thing I wanted to do was sit alone in some clinic waiting for my test results. So we made a plan to go to The Sunnyside Clinic the next day.
I know it was selfish of me, but I had hoped I would be able to spend some time alone with Alex before I went in with the doctor. But he was there with his friend, or partner, or whoever that Jeremy guy was. I’d never heard of him before, so I didn’t think it could have been going on for very long.
Portville Summer Series: The Complete Collection Books 1-4: (MM Nonshifter Omegaverse) Page 23
