by D. J. Heart
“Good night,” Mick said. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
Mason got off the couch, his legs stiff, and walked up the stairs to his room. He locked his door, just because he could, and went into the bathroom. He brushed his teeth in the shower, and when he was done with that he just stood under the hot water and let his mind go blank.
It felt really good, and after a few minutes he started fondling his balls and playing with his cock. It felt really good, and Mason started jerking himself off for real.
He didn’t have any shower gel or soap, but that didn’t matter. His foreskin was intact, so unlike Chris, he could jerk off to his heart’s content without ever needing lube.
He shot his load all over the shower wall, images of Chris running through his mind. He pictured the alpha’s strong arms, his muscular pecs, and his perfect, beautiful cock—all the while wishing that Chris was there in the shower with him.
He bet Chris would have fucked him so hard, giving him his knot and filling him up just like he needed.
Balls drained, Mason felt even more tired than when he’d entered the shower. He turned off the water and dried off, climbing into bed while his skin was still damp. His wet hair was cold against his pillow, and it felt amazing.
Sated and worn out, Mason curled up with his knees against his chest and fell asleep.
***
Chapter 19
Mick woke up before Mason, and by the time the omega came down Mick had worked out, made breakfast, and called Chris.
Chris had successfully grabbed the guy his boss was after, and now he was going after the more difficult of his two targets. Mick wasn’t worried. Chris wasn’t really good at undercover work—which was just another reason his plan to infiltrate Rover had been so stupid—but snatch-and-grabs he excelled at.
“Good morning,” he said as Mason came into the kitchen. His hair was sticking straight up on the left side of his head, and he still looked half-asleep.
“Hi,” Mason said, sitting down and helping himself to a waffle. “Did you make these?”
Mick nodded.
“They’re good,” Mason said, complimenting him.
“Thank you,” Mick said. He watched the omega eat, amused by how zoned out he was. Mason definitively wasn’t a morning person. “I talked to Chris. Everything is going well and he should be here by tomorrow night.”
“That’s good,” Mason said, eating his waffles with a mechanical sort of determination, shoving them into his mouth like he wasn’t even tasting them. “I miss him.”
Mick made himself a plate of waffles and sat down, agreeing with Mason’s sentiment. As he poured himself a cup of coffee, he noticed that Mason was looking a little flushed. Subtly sniffing the air, he noticed that his scent was a little more pronounced than usual too.
His balls tingled in his jeans, and he shifted uncomfortably. Perving on Chris was bad enough; he didn’t need to start having those kinds of thoughts about his omega, too. There was a limit to how pathetic he could be.
“Are you okay?” he asked, ignoring the tightness in his balls. “You’re looking a little piqued.”
Mason shrugged, spearing a huge piece of waffle on his fork and shoving it into his mouth.
“I think I might be getting a fever,” Mason said as he chewed, not looking concerned. “I tend to get sick after I’ve been stressed. I’ll have a cold for a few days and then I’ll be fine.”
Mick accepted the explanation with a small nod. If stress made Mason more prone to getting sick, it was a miracle he wasn’t sitting there with pneumonia. It didn’t get much more stressful than getting sold to an omega brothel.
He got up and made Mason a glass of orange juice. “Here,” he said, handing it to the omega. “Vitamin C, right? That’s good for when you’re coming down with something.”
Mason accepted the glass and drank it all down in one go, and Mick got a strange feeling in his chest. Almost like butterflies. The sight of Mason sitting there eating the food that he’d made and drink that he’d provided... it made him feel good. There was no other way to describe it.
Giving himself a small shake, Mick ignored the weird feeling and went to get his computer. If Mason was going to ignore him in favor of his food, he might as well start coordinating with the rest of the team on how they were going to handle Chris’s list.
***
Mason finished the waffles on his plate, and then helped himself to both seconds and thirds. He drenched the golden waffles in syrup, and by the time he was done eating he felt stuffed.
When he woke up he’d been starving, and now that he’d had food he felt weird and restless. Putting his plate in the sink, he lingered by the counter and watched Mick. The alpha was sitting at the table with his laptop, typing away and drinking his coffee without paying Mason the slightest bit of attention.
Sure, Mason might have ignored him a little bit during his bout of gluttony, but now Mick was just being rude.
“We should go for a hike today,” Mick said, looking up and startling Mason. He’d been staring, but he hadn’t thought the alpha noticed.
“A hike?” he asked, the idea sounding about as appealing as eating a brown banana.
“Yes. It would do us good, don’t you think? Get out and get some fresh air.” Mick closed the lid of his laptop and took a sip of his coffee.
“I guess…” he said. “Or we could just go watch some more movies?”
Mick grinned and shook his head. “We can do that after. I’m not saying we have to go out all day, but a few hours will do us both good.”
Mick rose from his chair and carried his mug to the sink, setting it down next to Mason’s plate after rinsing it out. Standing this close, Mason could smell the musky scent of alpha radiating off him, and for some reason it made him want to move closer.
“Mason, did you hear what I said?” Mick tapped him on the arm and Mason shuddered. He blinked, wondering when he’d moved so close, staring at Mick’s wide chin and aquiline nose.
“What did you say?” he asked, shifting his gaze to the chest hairs peeking out of the top of Mick’s shirt. Chris didn’t have chest hair, he remembered. His pecs and abs had been smooth and firm, and Mason suddenly wondered what it would feel like to run his hands through the soft fur on Mick’s chest.
“Let me feel your forehead. Maybe going out isn’t the best idea,” Mick said, oblivious to Mason’s wandering thoughts. He reached out and put his big hand on Mason’s forehead, feeling his temperature, and Mason leaned into the touch with a moan.
“Oh, wow. You’re burning up,” Mick said, sounding worried. “I think we should get you back to bed.”
Mason swallowed an overflow of spit in his mouth, nodding his head. Mick pulled his hand away and Mason nearly toppled over, but the alpha caught him.
“Okay. No hiking today,” Mick said, shifting his grip so that he was holding Mason under his arms. “I’ll help you upstairs.”
Mason didn’t really need help walking, and though he felt flushed and a little hot, his nose wasn’t congested and his throat felt fine. Other than a little soreness in his muscles, he didn’t think there was anything really wrong with him.
Still, he leaned heavily on Mick as he walked him up the stairs.
“Think you can get undressed and get into bed without help?” Mick asked, stepping back and letting go of Mason’s body. Mason swayed for a second, but then he found his balance and nodded.
He could do that. He started stripping and Mick turned away.
“Great. I’ll just go get you some water and aspirin. That should help get your fever down.” Mick opened the door and headed into the hall, disappearing before Mason could call for him to stay.
He stared at the space where Mick had just stood, confused, before crawling under the covers. The quilt was soft and airy, like lying under a cloud, but the minute Mason pulled it over his body it felt like he was suffocating. He pushed it away, lying down on his stomach and rubbing himself off against the mattress un
derneath his body.
He froze, his hips lifted so that just the head of his cock was resting on the mattress. The sweating, the fever, the clinginess—they were all symptoms of going into heat.
Bolting off the bed, Mason ran to the door and locked it shut. He stood there, naked, his heart beating fast. He couldn’t be going into heat. He’d just bonded. He shouldn’t be going into heat for another four months.
At least not a real one.
The heat shot he’d been given by Dr. Bisol was still in his system, though. Who knew how long it would be before it wore off.
Wiping his forehead, Mason tried to think. For an unbound omega, heats were unproblematic. You either jerked off and fucked yourself with a dildo while you rode it out, or you got an alpha to knot you and kill it in its tracks. But for a bonded omega it wasn’t so simple. Going it alone wasn’t an option, and the heat would only get more consuming until his alpha finally fucked him.
But if this wasn’t a real heat, did it still work like that?
Mason had no idea.
The handle on the door turned down, and Mason jumped.
“Mason?” Mick called, trying the handle again. “Is the door locked?”
“I’m going into heat!” Mason said through the door. There was silence, and Mason could just picture what Mick looked like standing there—with his big muscles and his thighs straining the denim of his jeans—trying to figure out what to do.
His cock throbbing, Mason closed his eyes. Why the fuck was he fantasizing about Mick? He had an alpha, and it wasn’t him.
“I’ll call Chris, okay?” Mick’s voice was calm. “Just hold on.”
Mason heard him walk away, and he had to resist the impulse to open the door and throw himself at the retreating alpha.
The instinct to pursue and to entice Mick into fucking him was overwhelming.
That settled it. The heat had to be purely chemical, otherwise Mason would never in a million years have thought of Mick in the way he was doing now. He wouldn’t want to ride his knot and submit to him like he did.
Going back to the bed, Mason lay down on the sheets and started jerking himself off and fingering his hole. If this wasn’t a bonding heat, then he should be able to make it through just fine without the help of an alpha.
Or so he hoped.
***
Chapter 20
Mick called Chris, but the phone went straight to voicemail. After leaving a quick message explaining what was going on, he walked back up the stairs and stopped outside of Mason’s door.
The scent of omega in heat wafted into his nose, and he wondered how he could have missed it earlier. It smelled like vanilla and cinnamon and slick, and it made Mick’s cock strain against the front of his jeans. Adjusting himself, Mick knocked on the door.
“Are you okay in there?” he called. He’d never met an omega who was in heat before, so he wasn’t sure what Mason needed.
“I’m good,” Mason called back, sounding breathless and busy. “It’s not… ah. It’s not a real heat. They gave me drugs. I should be able to just… I just need to jerk off. Do we have any dildos?”
Mick nearly choked on his spit.
“No, sorry,” he said, his voice strangled. Imagining Mason on the bed, flushed and needy, working a fat rubber knot into his hole made Mick’s balls pull up tight and his thighs tremble.
“Can you just find something I can use instead?” Mason asked, and Mick could hear him let out a frustrated whimper.
“Let me just see what I can find,” Mick said. He ran back down the stairs and started looking for something that Mason could shove up his hole, an insidious voice in the back of his mind whispering that he had just the right tool for the job in his pants.
But doing that to his best friend was unthinkable, not to mention the fact that Mason would be totally unwilling.
After scavenging for about five minutes, Mick ran back up to Mason. In his arms he carried a remote control, a large cucumber, and a water bottle. The buttons on the remote control might be uncomfortable, and the water bottle might be too wide, but Mick thought he’d let Mason be the judge of that.
“Mason, do you still need… you know?” Mick asked, knocking carefully. A second later the door was ripped open, and Mick was blasted with the sight and scent of an omega in full heat.
His knees almost folded out under him.
“For me?” Mason asked, licking his lips. Mick was about to nod when he saw that Mason wasn’t looking at the bounty in his hands, but the bulge in his crotch. The expression on his face was pure worship.
“Here,” Mick said, holding out the cucumber, water bottle and remote control. Mason just stared at the items like he had no idea what he was supposed to do with them.
“But I want…” Mason trailed off, his voice needy, and instead of telling Mick what he wanted, he sank down to his knees and pushed his face into the front of Mick’s jeans.
Mick dropped everything in his hands.
The feel of Mason’s face rubbing over his bulge almost made him come on the spot, but he jumped away before his cock could betray him.
“We can’t do that,” he said, trying to sound stern as he pushed Mason away. Mason tried to dive in again, undeterred, and when Mick shoved him off a second time he landed on his ass.
Looking up at Mick with a betrayed expression, Mason scrambled back. Mick kicked the dildo, water bottle and cucumber into the room and slammed the door shut, hurrying down the stairs and dialing Chris again.
This was not a situation he was equipped to deal with.
***
Mason fucked himself with the cucumber for a good hour, but he only got more frustrated. Thinking he might need something bigger he switched to the water bottle, and though the ridges near the top of the bottle felt good going in, the bottle was too thick and it didn’t do anything to lessen his heat.
He didn’t even try the remote. What was Mick even thinking with that?
Mason had been through enough heats to know that this wasn’t normal. But if it wasn’t a bonding heat, and it wasn’t a regular unbonded heat, then it had to be some evil mash-up of the two.
Taking the water bottle out of his ass, he wondered if he needed Chris, or if any knot would do. After all, he had a perfectly good alpha just waiting outside his room.
Mason turned around and pressed his face into the mattress, humiliated. That wasn’t an option. Just thinking about how Mick had pushed him away when he’d gone to his knees made him burn with shame.
He’d have to wait for Chris, but at this rate he was going to burn out before he got his alpha’s knot.
A bonded heat had to be satisfied within twelve hours, or Mason was in serious danger. He didn’t know if the fucked-up chemical nature of this heat meant that he had more or less time, but with his luck he wasn’t counting on more.
Jumping off the bed, Mason struggled to get his new pants on and made his way down the stairs. He needed to know when he could expect Chris.
“Mason!” Mick exclaimed when Mason walked into the living room on the second floor, jumping off the couch and hastily shoving his cock back into his pants. Mason caught just a glimpse of his sizable shaft, and for a minute he couldn’t think.
Had Mick been jerking off? The thought made a gush of slick wet the back of Mason’s pants.
“What do you need?” Mick asked, trying to be discreet as he adjusted the huge bulge in his jeans.
“My heat, it’s getting worse. I need an alpha.”
Mason had meant to say that he needed Chris, but looking at the bulge in Mick’s jeans he couldn’t help but feel that that would do.
“I haven’t reached Chris yet,” Mick said, shifting from foot to foot. Mason closed his eyes, and wondered what Mick would do if he just pulled down his pants and presented his ass.
Mason knew he was cute, and being in heat he should be irresistible.
“I need an alpha before I get really sick,” Mason said, trying to stay reasonable. “If Chris isn’t
here soon, can you try to fuck me?”
“I can’t—”
“I could die!” Mason cut him off. This wasn’t just him being incredibly horny. Whatever he’d been injected with obviously wasn’t designed to work on a mated omega, and if his heat continued to get worse it could be fatal.
“Let me try Chris again,” Mick said, his voice panicked. Mason let out a frustrated huff, but he stayed quiet as Mick fumbled for his phone and dialed Chris.
