by Willa Okati
Darius meant to say yes, or maybe to tell Jory it wasn’t that bad, to relax and let him help. “It means I like seeing you with such-like in your mouth,” he murmured instead, caressing Jory’s lip with the ball of his thumb.
Well then. Darius had no idea where that had come from, but he’d be damned if he would take it back. Now that he was in this, he meant to be in this. Jory’s blush deepened to ruby red, but his eyes glowed. He bowed his head, just for a moment the very image of a bashful Omega from the old stories, and the surge of lust that roared through Darius’s groin should have put him to shame, but didn’t. Not even a little.
He almost made use of it, his body wanted nothing more than to throw Jory down and ravage him until their muscles burned and their mouths were soft from kissing, but the nest wasn’t done, and an Alpha provided for his Omega. Darius kept working. Thick padded quilts first, to soften the floor, then more sensual things -- a cashmere throw and a furry angora blanket, to make the nest warm and enticing. Pillows for their heads and under their backs, with anything Darius knew wouldn’t be washable discreetly kicked aside.
“I was distracted,” Jory said, jolting Darius’s concentration. When Darius frowned at him Jory wasn’t looking back, but instead stared meditatively down at the half-emptied basket of food. “My suppressants…”
“They aren’t cleared yet. You said. I can smell for myself, and they’re not gone, but they are fading.”
From the way he frowned, that seemed to bother Jory more than it did Darius. “I just don’t want you to think I was lying to you. Just trying to get you in bed for no reason.”
Huh? “I wouldn’t have thought it. You’ve never lied to me.”
“This is different,” Jory insisted.
Jory wasn’t wrong. And yet, he wasn’t right either. Trouble was, Darius didn’t know how to explain that. He shook his head, pushing that aside to think about later when his hormones weren’t stealing all the blood from his brain. He tucked the remains of the food and water in a nook between two pillows, threw one more soft shawl over the top, and turned back a corner of the topmost blanket. There. That should do it.
“Not bad,” Jory murmured. When Darius glanced over at him, his eyes were still warm with desire, but with approval, too. “Not bad at all.”
Darius took a step back and studied his work. It looked like an Alpha had built it, but… no. Not bad at all. But…”Was that it?”
“Was what it?”
“The suppressants,” Darius said. He had to know. “Was that the only thing keeping your mind off the job before?”
Jory fidgeted in a way that made Darius’s pulse jump, as if he were pressing his thighs together against an instinctive body response, an Omega’s pulse of slick that eased the way whenever they were hungry for cock. Darius sniffed the air and was sure of it. Nothing else smelled quite like that, like faint honey and rainwater without the bitterness of ozone.
“That wasn’t it,” Jory said, licking his lips. His pupils were huge when he looked up. “I couldn’t stop thinking about being with you. And I can’t stop thinking about it now. Come back to bed, Darius. Later is now.”
Darius could do that. Darius wanted nothing more in the world than to do just that. A warm, willing Omega lying beneath him, begging for his cock, now that was living the dream. And it was Jory. That made it…
Darius lost his train of thought. Couldn’t help himself when Jory reached for him, coaxing him closer. He pulled Jory down from the window seat, rolled them over, and draped himself over the length of Jory’s body in one fluid, sinuous motion. The movement made Jory draw in a short, sharp breath. His pupils were huge, and the scent of Omega musk welling up was sweet and thick enough to drown in. He could almost taste it. He wanted to taste it. He licked his lips, hungry, and watched Jory swallow hard.
“All right?” Darius asked, reaching up to brush a lock of hair off Jory’s forehead.
Jory didn’t seem to have heard him. He reached up in an echo of Darius’s movement and traced his fingertips along Darius’s cheek, his jawline, his neck. Either lost in his own thoughts or lost for words, Darius couldn’t tell, but a hint of a frown had started to crease his forehead.
“Are you sure?” he asked, catching his lip between his teeth. “Do you want to wait until it’s the right time, the real thing?”
Did he… Darius wrinkled his nose at Jory. Talk like that, that wouldn’t do. It was like he’d said before, Jory thought too much sometimes. But Darius could do something about that. He stretched out one arm and caught hold of the wine they hadn’t opened. Biting the cork out and spitting it to one side, he took a mouthful and held it without swallowing. White, crisp, a little sweet, and still cold, delicious. Darius watched Jory watch him rest his weight on his arms, and tasted Jory’s small, desperate sound when he brought their mouths together. He let the wine trickle from between his lips and through Jory’s, drop by drop until Jory roused himself and wound an arm around Darius’s neck.
Now. Now, this was something like a proper kiss. Darius fed Jory the last tastes of wine as he deepened the kiss, tasting as much of Jory as he could. His mouth had a faint flavor of Omega sweetness that went well with the sharper wine, and that could have made him drunk all on its own. Maybe it had. He didn’t feel like himself… but better.
Darius broke the kiss to look at Jory from two inches, maybe less, away. Their eyelashes nearly tangled when they blinked, like their legs under so many tables over the years. “Feels real enough to me.”
Jory was stubborn, Darius had to give him that. “But…”
“Then call it practice,” Darius said, just as stubborn. “Practice makes everything perfect and you just watch, you’ll see how well we do.”
Jory gave him a wry look, but his resolve was weakening, Darius could tell. “When did you get so smooth?”
“You’re saying I haven’t always been?” When Jory laughed, he caught Jory’s pretty mouth in another deep kiss, and didn’t stop until he was dizzy from lack of air. “I asked you before, but I’ll ask you again. All right?”
Jory drew a sharp breath through his nose. and his eyes were wide as saucers, but he nodded. He raised one leg to hook it around the back of Darius’s thigh, and then the other, giving him a warm, slick cradle to rest in. Darius hissed at the raw contact of his cock and satiny-slippery Omega skin, but hushed and soothed Jory before Jory’s brain could kick in and send the wrong message.
“I want to taste you,” Darius said, reaching down between them. “I want to put my face between your legs and fucking feast, Jory. Someday I’m going to eat you out until you beg me to stop.”
Jory looked dazed, but his lips parted in what Darius thought was lust. His eyelids slammed shut when Darius reached his groin. Though Darius could have spent hours sucking the fine, firm cock Jory was packing, he slid below and pressed just the tip of his thumb into Jory’s slit.
His reaction -- electric. At Darius’s touch Jory spasmed, limbs clamping desperately tighter around him, slit seizing around his thumb. He was so wet he’d soak through all the layers of blankets if they weren’t careful. Darius hoped he would. Wanted Jory to be able to smell this every time he went to bed for the rest of his life. And he’d be damned if he didn’t “borrow” one to take home for his bed, too.
“More,” Jory said, panting now. His body was so slick with beads of perspiration he looked as if he’d just come from swimming, and Darius knew he must be in the same state. Their bodies glided one against the other, sleek as seals. “Darius. More. Please.”
Darius wanted to, but he couldn’t resist. He bent his wrist so he could slide two fingers inside Jory instead of his thumb, then hooked and curled them, stroking at just the spot inside he hoped would make Jory go crazy. And oh, it did, it did. It turned him wild, made him beg and rut up against Darius, and when Darius teased him by angling away, he growled and wrapped his legs tighter still to make Darius go where Jory wanted him.
“Not thinking too hard now, are you?”
Darius whispered, tracing the words with the tip of his tongue against Jory’s throat. “Say it. Tell me to fuck you.”
Jory gave a strangled, frustrated scream. “Fuck me, Darius! Fuck me hard and don’t stop, don’t you dare stop. Fuck me now!”
No one could say no to that, and Darius didn’t want to. He guided himself inside Jory, as deep as he could possibly go, and put his hand tight around Jory’s cock when he’d bottomed out. “I’ll fuck you,” he breathed. “Hold on tight, Jory. Hold on to me.”
“Say you want this,” Jory said, his cheeks red hot and his lips parted, gasping for air. He rocked up as Darius ground down, taking him deep, gripping him tight.
“You have to ask?” Darius panted. “Feel this. Feel me, inside of you. Feel how much I love fucking you.”
Jory’s suppressants might not have fully cleared yet but his slit recognized an Alpha cock when it felt one and began to swell, tightening in a seal around Darius’s dick and locking him there, a trick of the body that all but ensured fertilization. Oh, Darius could slide loose, but wasn’t it fine to pretend otherwise? To imagine they could come and stay locked together for hours, knotted like wild creatures, coming again and again until they were dry.
Darius bit his lip hard, hoping the stab of pain would keep him from coming now, but it wasn’t far off and he knew it. He tightened his hold around Jory’s cock and jacked him without grace or mercy or gentleness, knowing it was what Jory wanted right now, as much as he wanted to be fucked so hard the floor beneath them creaked.
Something was happening, he could tell. Jory’s muscles flexed and quaked around him, and he keened as if each thrust hit something so good he had to scream with each stroke. Darius had fucked before, Alphas and Betas and Omegas on suppressants, and it’d never been like this. Hell, Jory was hot for it, wasn’t he?
“Darius,” Jory gasped, running his name together in a chant as fast and hard as a heartbeat. “Darius, Darius, Darius, Darius Darius, oh God!” He bucked up, his cock jerking in Darius’s hand, fresh spunk adding its own tang to the thick smell of sex in the room, and Darius couldn’t take it. He bowed his head and put his teeth to Jory’s neck.
Only at the last second did he remember not to bite there like a mate would, but it was a near thing. So near he could taste the salt on Jory’s skin. His friend chanted his name over and over, the sound echoing in his ears: Darius, Darius, Darius! until he came hard. Then, there was nothing but blackness until his lungs seized and drew in a deep, lusty breath of cool air.
Darius opened his eyes, dazed. He’d rolled onto his back and somehow carried Jory along with him so Jory’s head rested on his chest, and he couldn’t have been happier about that. And yet he could sense a change in the air. The frantic urge to rut until they were both raw had passed. They could still fuck, and Darius hoped they would, but they’d have more choice about it now.
Jory looked up as Darius looked down. “It won’t have worked this time. Not with the suppressants still hanging on,” he said dazedly. “But damn, Darius. You fucked me like you were going for triplets. Who knew you had that in you?”
“You,” Darius replied promptly. “Because you just had it in you.” He grinned proudly when Jory groaned and covered his eyes, and dropped a loud smacking kiss on the top of Jory’s head. “So it was good for you?”
“I can’t feel my legs. Yes, God yes, it was good.”
Darius hummed, pleased, even more so when Jory let his hands fall to gaze fondly at him. “And?”
“If you have to ask if that was good for me, you haven’t been paying attention.” Darius brushed the back of his hand against Jory’s cheek, then relented. “Best I’ve ever had.”
“Flatterer.”
“Truth,” Darius countered. “And so what if your suppressants haven’t worn off yet? I’ll still be here when they clear out. I’m in, Jory, still in, and you won’t be getting rid of me now.”
“I don’t want to,” Jory said. “I won’t, ever.”
“Good,” Darius replied, pleased down to his toes and warming back up, a gentler simmer, from the inside out. He bent his head to lick Jory’s mouth open, ready for more. “Good.”
Chapter Four
“So what do we do now?” Jory asked the next morning, hands wrapped around a mug of steaming coffee. He took his black as night, while Darius liked his pale with cream and sweetened with a dollop of honey. “What comes next?”
Darius took his time to consider that, sipping the hot coffee, wisps of steam curling up around his face.
Jory watched him, strangely content. No urge to hurry him up, to prod at him and make him think faster, to do something else. Just… content. Glad to be there, and with him.
“We wait,” Darius said at last, his smile lopsided. “Wait, and see. You don’t know. It might have worked.”
Jory shook his head. He could still smell the suppressants working their way out, and nothing of fertility, and though he’d expected nothing less, he hadn’t realized what a disappointment it would feel like. “I’m an Omega. I’m pretty sure I do know, and it didn’t work.”
“Then we try again.”
“It’ll be a busy week,” Jory warned him. “I know I’m tied up, and from what I remember you are too.”
Darius only shrugged. “We wait for next weekend, and we try again then.”
“You make it sound simple,” Jory said, marveling at how Darius was taking it all in his stride. “You’d be willing?”
Darius laughed, then bent to brush a kiss over Jory’s lips. He left behind a hint of honey taste. “Three guesses. It’s just us, Jory. It’s just life as usual, with a little something extra.”
And that was true, wasn’t it? So he needed to shape up. They’d wait. And they’d see. And either way, they’d each still have their best friend. Could anyone really ask for more than that? Even if they wanted to?
* * *
They had breakfast together Sunday morning rather than fill up on coffee and marzipan dicks, their legs tangled comfortably under the table just like always, but Jory could still feel Darius deep inside. From the way Darius blushed when Jory glanced up and caught him watching, he thought maybe Darius could still feel what it was like to be inside.
And he wanted more. Jory could smell that. And he knew Darius could smell how much he wanted it too. They might have to wait a week, but exactly how were they going to make it? Jory would be damned if he knew.
* * *
“You made love all weekend long? Are you serious?”
Jory gave Kit the very lightest of pushes. Not enough to knock him off the sidewalk they were headed down, two abreast and headed for lunch during their mutual breaks, but not exactly gently either. “All weekend long.”
“How many times?”
“Honestly? I lost count.”
“And you’re walking?” Kit sounded awed. “Upright and functional and not requiring ice packs? You trollop.”
It’d been a close thing Monday morning…”Let’s just say I have very fond and vivid memories with every step,” Jory said instead, with a wicked grin. “And trollop yourself, Omega! Don’t tell me it wasn’t like that when you and Deacon first got together.”
Kit’s gaze went distant and soft, and he giggled like a teenager with his first crush. Laughing, Jory gave him another nudge.
This time, Kit pushed back, nearly knocking Jory into a boutique’s sidewalk display. They winced guiltily and stopped moving, pretending to study the scarves and bangles they’d nearly upset. There was a baby hat near the back that looked hand-knitted that caught Jory’s eye, so soft-looking it begged to be touched. He bit his lip and held back.
“And after all that, you’re so sure it didn’t work?” Kit asked. “Usually a weekender like that’s a guarantee.”
Jory shook his head. He offered Kit his wrist to sniff, an intimate gesture, but he’d be able to tell straight and clear from the scent there. Suppressants, still hanging on, the stubborn little assholes.
Kit looked disa
ppointed when he pulled back, but patted him on both shoulders in sympathy. “It’ll happen,” he soothed. “Soon. You’ll see. I bet you it’ll happen this weekend. Or! Maybe your scent receptors are off. Maybe you should take a test just to see.”
“No point,” Jory said. He turned away from the display, particularly the tiny hat that he itched to buy and take home right now. “I know my body, and I know how it feels on suppressants. They’re still active. I don’t want to build up my hopes just to get disappointed.”
“Fair enough,” Kit replied. “But what if you aren’t? Disappointed, that is?”
* * *
On Tuesday, Jory’s phone chimed during his lunch break. Saw a billboard that made me think about your nest.
Jory gave a startled laugh and fired back, Say what now? Was the billboard falling down in strips?
A pause, then the reply. Colorful. Nice.
Jory started to respond, then stopped. Darius really hadn’t minded the mess he’d made of his first try at an Omega nest, and that wasn’t just him being nice. He’d meant it. This was why he’d chosen Darius.
God, he wished he was pregnant. And fuck, he wished he wasn’t -- and that it was Friday already so they could get busy trying again!
* * *
Jory lasted almost through Wednesday before he took a pregnancy test. He couldn’t help it, he told himself. Honest. He’d used the last of his laundry detergent washing half a dozen loads of linens, run down to the bodega on the corner to get more, and they’d been on display right by the register next to the lottery cards and cigarettes. All charm, but he couldn’t have resisted the temptation any more than a smoker or a gambler might. He’d had the test in his hand before he’d known what he was doing, and then was back home and waiting for it to develop almost before he could blink.
He waited, his heart in his throat. It would be negative. He knew that. It was just… if it wasn’t…
