by Willa Okati
Seriously. Kill him.
“But then again, who knows. Maybe you like being the way you are, with all that sexual tension boiling underneath. You two were too busy fighting last night? Or, you know, screwing like rabbits? Like I said, I’d have won that bet. That whole dorm stank like sex.”
Coby covered his face with both hands. “Oh my God,” he said behind them, muffled. Darian winced with embarrassment on his behalf. Virgin that he’d been, he probably didn’t realize others could smell what they’d been up to.
Oscar continued as if he’d never been interrupted, gazing thoughtfully at his cigarette ember. “I’d have won a bet that you’d fuck it up as soon as you could too. Stubborn bastards, both of you. After you’ve finished stuffing your faces on my dime, maybe try talking to each other instead of shouting. Works better.”
“Nope. No. Not doing this.”
Coby unfolded and stalked away. Even left his unfinished biscuit behind, but the back of his neck was as red as a sunset and he shudder-stumbled with a hitch of breath every few steps. No man who didn’t have the most inconvenient boner of his life moved that way, and Coby confirmed as much with a quick glance over his shoulder before turning back.
“Damn.” Oscar whistled. “How good was the sex?”
Darian calmly, slowly, reached out and put one hand around Oscar’s throat.
Oscar knocked it easily away. “Like you would, dog. You’re all bark and dick.”
“I can change if I want,” Darian growled. “What the fuck did you do that for? He was pissed off enough before. I’ll be lucky if he hasn’t moved all his shit out of the room before I get back.”
“Will he?” Oscar took the last drag off his cigarette and let it fall where it could keep burning until it reached the filter and the dirt. “You want him. I can smell it. Judas fuck, man. Why’d I do that? So he’d figure out how much he wanted you too, even after whatever happened. Anyone could see that if they weren’t being stupid on purpose. Sound familiar?” He knocked Darian upside the head, very much not gently. “Stop being stupid. That Omega’s mad as hell at the thought of anyone even talking about having you.”
Darian stared at him, struck dumb for the second time in one morning.
“I swear I can hear you thinking, what do I do?” Oscar snorted. “Go after him, dipshit. See what happens next.” His grin went evil again. “Or are you chicken?”
Darian punched him in the ribs, hard enough to knock him sideways.
“Yeah,” Oscar said from down in the dirt. “That’s what I thought. And it was worth it.”
* * *
So there were a few things he could do in response to that. There were always choices. Darian thought about getting right back on that train, drop-off to hell be damned, and hauling ass back where he’d come from where things were slightly more sane. Thought about going to the housing office and asking for another room ASAP. An Alpha changing his mind about rooming with an Omega? Nobody’d ask questions, not even Nutcracker Jaw. He spent the longest time wondering if he could pull off going back and pretending nothing had ever happened, not even the sex, and spending the rest of the session ignoring Coby until Coby did the same thing.
In the end, Darian did what he’d known he would all along, really. He went back to their shared rooms with all his sleeves rolled up, mind and body, ready to throw down however he needed to.
Not that he knew -- still -- what exactly he was fighting for. Just that he needed to fight for it.
The trick would be how Coby felt about it all. With his hand on the doorknob, Darian paused long enough to shake his head. Who even was he now, and what even was his life? Fuck.
He could taste Coby’s scent right through the door. He was in there.
Darian squared his shoulders and turned the knob.
Coby sat on his bed, pretty much the way Darian had figured he would -- but not with his back turned. He’d perched himself in profile, where he could keep an eye on the door, and rested his chin on his hand as he watched Darian walk in. “Hi.”
Darian eyed him. Hard to tell what he was thinking, from the look on his face. Definitely wasn’t playing to his strengths and it sure hadn’t worked before, but he might want to tread carefully. He grimaced at the thought, then waved off Coby’s worried glance. “Random thought. Not related.”
Coby scoffed quietly. “Until now, I never believed all that about being able to smell lies.”
Super. “Fine. Not unrelated. Still random. Mostly.”
Coby cocked his head as if curious, then made an okay, that tracks face. Then it was straight back to neutral with almost concealed worry lingering in his eyes.
Darian shoved his hands in his pockets, but so help him, he couldn’t hold it in. “All I want to do right now is kiss you. Push you down and fuck you harder than I did last night. Just so you know.”
Coby’s lips parted. He licked them and nodded once, very carefully. “But first.”
Yeah. “First,” Darian said, resigned.
“You need to understand, Darian. I fought like that with my family all the time. Not about sex! I mean.”
“Jesus, I’d sure hope not.” Darian sat on the edge of his bed, directly across from Coby, and rested his elbows on his knees. “You mean you fought about stupid shit instead of…” He winced again. “Talking about it.”
“You know you make ‘talk about it’ sound like ‘deliberately trying to catch gonorrhea,’ right?”
Catching feelings, catching STDs, what was the diff… okay, there was plenty of difference. Darian spread his hands, palms up, and shrugged. “I’m trying.”
“Yeah.” Coby looked down, biting at his lip. “This is all so weird. Can you listen for a while?” His mouth crooked in a hint of a smile. “I mean, you might rupture something from not talking for a few minutes, but if you could give it a shot.”
What Darian gave him was a rude gesture, but he settled back and indicated, go ahead.
Coby took his sweet time about it, drawing in a few deep breaths and moving his lips as if sorting through ways to put it and discarding them one after another, then finally gave a frustrated growl and went for it. He looked up at Darian, hawk eyes so fiercely locked on his that Darian damned near lost his breath -- not from being taken aback, but with a shock of pride in Coby’s newly rediscovered backbone that rocked him from brain to dick and took a return trip all the way up. “Are you listening?”
Darian nodded.
“I didn’t explain myself well this morning, and then you made it worse by pissing me off. Emotional STDs or not, if we’re going to make this work, whatever it is, we can’t throw words at each other like they’re knives and expect no one’s going to end up bleeding.”
Darian blinked. “Damn. Shit, sorry, still trying.”
Coby shook his head, but like he was doing his best not to laugh, before he went on. “I need to know something. Did you set all that up with Oscar on purpose?”
“I don’t understand.”
“Did you try to make me jealous, I mean.” Coby held his arms open at his sides. “Did you know I would be?”
“No,” Darian said. No hesitation. “You can smell that that’s the truth.”
“Yeah.” Coby rubbed his knuckles against his chin. “I didn’t consciously know myself until it happened. But -- I was. I am. Is that part of the whole Omega thing? You didn’t stamp yourself on me, but I stamped you on me? You learned a lot about the ways Omegas work. I didn’t, and I still don’t get most of it.”
“There’s… not a lot to get, aside from the obvious, and what happened last night. I don’t know most of it myself. I mean, you could have done that.”
There went those hawk eyes again. “If I had, would you mind?”
And there went Darian’s breath too. He hesitated, knowing if he went too long that smell or not anything he said would sound like a lie, and hell, he had to go for it too. “No,” he said. “I wouldn’t. And I don’t know that I didn’t stamp myself on you either. I didn’t
plan on it. Fuck knows I didn’t.”
“But it happened,” Coby said. “I didn’t know it was going to be like that, Darian. Like the second I let myself think I want him I was -- gagging for it. I would have gone down on my knees if you’d pointed at the floor and said ‘heel.’”
“Holy shit, don’t say things like that if you don’t want them to happen.” Darian pressed a hand to his groin, because he wasn’t lying about that either. “Fuck, Coby. You don’t pull your punches sometimes, do you?”
Coby really laughed this time. “No promises, but what do I have to lose?”
Well, fair point. Darian gestured at him, asking him to go on.
“As long as you remember you asked for it.” Coby shivered like a man on the very finest edge of coming. “I felt like I was going to die if I didn’t get your cock inside me, and when you did -- I mean, part of me still doesn’t believe it really happened, but, Darian, I can still feel you inside me, and all I want is for you to knock me down and blow my fucking back out.”
“Oh my God.”
“And so you know, you said ‘don’t say things like that if you don’t want them to happen.’ But I do.”
“You are two words away from the deepest dicking of your young life, dude.”
“Yeah. I know.” Coby sobered. “But I need to know this too. I think it’s an Omega thing neither of us knows much about it, but it keeps beating at my head and I have to at least ask. This thing -- is it going to last?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never been there before. Didn’t know I would now. I’m kind of an asshole. I could change my mind tomorrow. Or you could, yourself.”
“Maybe,” Coby mused to himself. “Maybe not. I guess we find out. That’s the only thing we can do unless we find some other Omega to ask, and I know you’d rather be slow roasted on an open fire. I’m lucky you’re talking this much with me.”
“Not luck,” Darian said, too abruptly but there was no taking it back after the fact. “It’s just us, how we are.”
“Is it all too fast?”
“No. Fuck, depending on how you look at it, it’s been years in the making.” Darian rubbed at his forehead, where the tension in his jaw was giving him the start of a fine-ass migraine. That, and the sexual tension that kept getting resolved and then unresolved, and if Coby called him on that… “It’s just us. How we are.”
Coby smiled. Small, but sweet, almost like the boy he’d been when they met. “Can you keep teaching me? Or when we come up against something neither of us gets, can we work it out together?”
Darian considered that, then jerked his head in agreement. Seemed fair.
And it satisfied Coby, who nodded. “Okay. Then can I do something?”
Curious, Darian leaned back to look at him. “Like what?”
“Like this,” Coby said. He stood, slid easily across the small gap between their beds, and straddled Darian’s lap -- and kissed him, long and deep and slow.
Mmm. Darian liked it. Except --”Goddamn it,” he muttered into the kiss. “We’re out of condoms.”
“No, we’re not.” Coby bit the tip of Darian’s nose and, when he pulled away, Darian got another peek at that shy little grin of his. “I bought a twelve pack.”
“You are fucking amazing.”
“You’re amazing at fucking,” Coby said. “So can we?”
“Twelve times, if we want.” Darian’s hands found their home at Coby’s hips and pulled him in tight, grinding up slow and deep and long.
Yeah. He’d been right. This was them. How they were.
As for what the rest of that meant, they would find out.
Should be a hell of a lot of fun, actually. He was kind of -- no, strike that. He was fucking absolutely looking forward to seeing what came next. As he lifted them both, then gave Coby a good hard push back onto his bed and climbed on top of him, Darian didn’t even give a damn about being careful what he wished for.
He’d probably wish later that he’d known better. But that would be then. This was them, and this was now.
And there was going to be fucking within the next few minutes so seriously. No complaints.
Chapter Five
Two weeks later
Oscar leaned back on his hands, squinting up at the sun. “Fancy seeing you again. I was starting to wonder if you’d ever come up for air or out of your Omega’s ass.”
Darian snorted without looking up from his study guide. Couldn’t seem to get much studying done in the room, so he had to make do with the great outdoors. And the occasional bit of company that took way too much pleasure in razzing him.
“You know, getting laid on the regular’s making you downright fucking mellow.”
“Oh, bite me,” Darian muttered, looking at his book.
“Yeah,” Oscar said, lighting up. “You say that, but you know what?”
“What?”
“You’re smiling when you do.”
* * *
Maybe he was. So what? If any Alpha ever had a damn good reason…
Because it wasn’t only sex on the regular. Oh hell no. Sex on the regular implied, he figured, falling into a routine. Hey, it’s time for bed, want to dick down first? Not with Coby. Once that fuse had been lit, there was no telling when he’d pop off and Darian was 100% there for every last crack he got at that ass. Coby walked around twenty-four/seven smelling like he’d just gotten some and wanted more, and the looks he got now weren’t weird -- they were straight up envious. Some confusion got added to the mix when Darian walked next to him, sure, but Darian didn’t give much of a damn. He liked seeing Coby lift his head and walk tall and grin when he saw people mentally crash and burn wondering what the hell that was about.
And he liked being the one who knew for sure.
But what he liked best was never knowing when the powder keg was about to explode. Could be anytime, anywhere. They’d gone at it in bathroom stalls in the middle of the day and behind trees late at night where it would be so easy to get caught that the excitement made Coby lose his voice, trying to keep those sweet, sweet noises he made stifled behind his hand.
Then, there were nights like this. Ordinary? Maybe to someone on the outside, looking in. They’d called it early, stuffed full of some actually damn decent cafeteria sandwiches with no bullshit dished out on the side, and they’d topped it off with a pot of coffee Coby brewed -- and Coby knew the fuck his way around how to make coffee so strong it’d strip your stomach lining, make your mouth cry for mercy, and keep you awake as long as you wanted.
“Hit me again,” Darian said, buried in the same textbook he’d been scowling at earlier. He held his empty mug out in Coby’s general direction without looking. “I swear to fuck, whoever wrote this had some sick hard-on for confusing people. Or they were high. Or a bastard.”
“Sounds about right.” Coby slid his chair back and snagged Darian’s mug. “Sugar? Cream?”
“Sugar, yes. Cream, no.”
“You change it up a lot,” Coby said with a shrug. He carried both his and Darian’s to the tiny kitchenette, though honestly his arms were long enough he could have reached from where he was sitting, but watch Darian complain. Go on, watch. He leaned back in his chair and enjoyed the view of those long legs and that fine, fine ass.
Coby’d come pre-installed with a pretty good sense of when he was being watched, and it’d only gotten keener. He slowed his roll mid-fill and glanced back at Darian with a hint of a gleam in his eye.
Darian knew that gleam. He liked that gleam. He arched an eyebrow and let Coby see what taking in the whole picture did for him.
Coby licked his lips as he put the mugs carelessly down. “Yeah?”
“What the fuck do you think?”
Another thing: Coby knew, now, how to separate the profanity from the profound, and he knew what Darian meant no matter how it sounded. The gleam in his eye brightened from intrigued to predatory and hot damn, they were off to the races. Three long steps took him from kitchenette to Darian’s chair an
d straddling his lap, his hot mouth on Darian’s before he’d even fully touched down. Quick learner, that Omega -- and that was another thing. The more he let his inner Omega out, the more he learned he liked, the more Coby shone. He appreciated what he could do now, and he was hungrier than an alley cat in winter for more, more, more.
There were things Darian had learned too. As Coby kissed him, mouth open and eager, he ran his hands lightly up and down Coby’s sides. Made him shiver, always, and arch toward Darian. He tilted his head back to let Darian kiss down the side of his neck and slid his fingers through Darian’s hair to scratch at the back of his neck. His feet dragged on the floor and Darian had to raise himself up, but: worth it.
They broke for air, eyeing each other up. This was the fun part. One among many, but one of the best, the well? What’ve you got in mind?
The gleam in Coby’s eye turned downright wicked, and Darian only had one split second to appreciate it before Coby used all that athlete strength of his to lift, twist, and drop. Laughing in surprise and appreciation, Darian wrestled back before Coby could KO him and landed more or less on his feet. He grabbed Coby around the waist and twisted him back where they’d come from, but oh no, Coby didn’t go easily. He slid one of those long legs between Darian’s and overbalanced both of them, whirling them sideways until gravity took over and they collided with Darian’s back to the wall and Coby looming over him.
Darian lifted himself on his toes to find Coby’s mouth with his own, eyes closed but knowing by heart, by now, where and how to find the collars and hems and drawstrings he needed to work loose to get Coby as naked as he could as fast as he could -- except Coby stopped him this time.
Curious, Darian opened his eyes as Coby pinned him against the wall and buried his face in Darian’s chest to kiss bites and bruises across his ribs. “Watch it with the teeth, Cujo,” he said, giving him a light shove. “What am I, your chew toy now?”
“You love it.”
“Fuck you.”
“If you play your cards right.” Coby pulled a move Darian had only seen strippers and Omegas ready to pop with lust pull off and slid down him as gracefully as he would down a greased pole. He stopped halfway to the floor and looked up at Darian with that gleam in his eye gone downright feral. “I was daydreaming about something today. I want to try it.”
