Chapter 3: Beth's Apartment

If Sean has ever wondered about Beth’s personality, walking into her apartment for the first time pretty much sums her up.

“Controlled chaos” is the phrase that comes to mind when he sees it. Every inch of surface space is decorated. There are several bookshelves and cubbies filled to overflowing around the living room. Her place is filled with light from an enormous set of windows, which has a sewing table and a mannequin set up in front of it. The window sill is lined with little plants.

Of course, it also smells like her. That might turn out to be a problem. He did badly enough at the party, surrounded by a hundred or so people, many of which were Omegas themselves.

Beth herself stands in the middle of the room with a frown, hands on her hips, staring up at the broken fan. It rocks violently back and forth as it spins, on the highest setting. Sean has to clench his fists to keep from compulsively moving her out from under it, out of harm’s way.

“That really just—” she shakes her head. “It doesn’t look safe. It makes me nervous.” With a sigh, she walks away— Sean’s entire stupid body relaxes— to turn the fan off at the wall switch. “If it rocks once we get it to the lowest setting, I’ll have to call maintenance.” She scowls, handing him the broken off chain and it’s extension. His hands dwarf hers almost comically. “I hate maintenance.”

“I’m sure it will be fine,” he tells her. He sets up her step stool under the fan, watching the blades slow to a crawl, then stop altogether. “If not, I can just take this whole thing down and replace it.”

God, he’s hopeless. She could ask him to remodel her apartment and he’d probably do it for her. Stupid scents. Stupid alpha hindbrain.

“Nah, I’m too poor to buy a whole new fan.” As he steps up onto the stepladder, she holds it steady, grinning sweetly up at him. He feels significantly less steady with her there. “Thanks for offering, though.”

“Sure.” If only his hands weren’t so freakishly huge. Then maybe he could connect the little beads together and get down. Maybe put some space between them. “These chains are so small.”

“Yeah, I hate this kind,” she agrees. He can feel her watching him. The Alpha voice in his head groans with dismay as he tries and fails a second time to get the chain hooked. “They’re convenient for necklaces, though. They just pop open when I want to take them off. None of those tiny clasps.”

“Don’t you hook tiny clasps for a living?” Finally, the extender hooks in. Now he just has to put the original chain back on.

Beth laughs. “No, mostly I zip people up. Though some of the hooks and eyes are a terror to work with.”

Sean actually manages to fix the chain, after all that struggling. A true alpha prince he is. He climbs down from the step stool and closes it up for her, walking it back toward the wall she retrieved it from earlier. Anything to get a little distance. It does nothing— no matter where he goes here, everywhere is drenched in her scent. “So, you also have a mirror?”

She nods, and waves a hand toward her bedroom door. “It’s against the wall.”

It seems like permission enough. Sean nods and passes her, and gets hit with her scent— only stronger.

F*ck. This is going to be a huge problem. It takes every ounce of self control he has not to pick her up and breathe her in, not to bury his face against her neck and maybe lick her gland. She loved that when they hooked up last year. He remembers getting her off exclusively by her glands, at least three times. He can do that now— press his lips against her gland and nibble a little, push his leg between hers, maybe drag her shirt up so he can cup her—

Sean blinks and realizes he’s standing in the middle of her room, staring at her bed. He can practically smell his own scent spiking. He turns, looking for the mirror, hoping Beth hasn’t noticed his… less than coherent state.

His gaze scans right over the mirror and finds her lurking in the doorway. Her eyes are wide and dilated almost to black, but otherwise, her face is completely devoid of emotion.

Yeah, she noticed.

Sean grinds his teeth and gestures to the mirror. “So, where do you want it?”

She says something unintelligible— so quiet he almost doesn’t hear it— that sounds suspiciously like “Over the dresser.”

His eyes shoot to her dresser. It’s cluttered and not very wide, but she’s small enough that he could probably fit her— “What?”

Beth’s lips twitch. She points to the wall beside her, and, rather pointedly, repeats, “Over the dresser. Please.”

Alright, time for him to go. He needs to just hang her mirror, tell her he’ll see her around, and get out. Before he does something stupid, like acting on these ridiculous Alpha impulses.

“Do you have a nail for this?” He asks. When he looks back at her, she’s already setting a hefty toolkit on the dresser in front of him, with a large nail beside it. “Ah. Thanks.”

“Courtesy of my big brother,” Beth says, gesturing to the toolkit. “I have every tool I could ever need and then some. I think I’ve used three.” She laughs as she says it. She has a beautiful laugh. It’s charming.

Christ, he needs to learn to focus.

“Sounds like a good brother,” he chokes out.

Something flickers across her face, too quickly for him to catch. “Yeah. He is.” She traces the handle of the toolkit with one slim, small finger. Sean immediately pictures her running her fingers over him, and—

Sh*t, no, his scent is going to spike, and she’s going to notice, and—

“Are you okay?” Beth sounds a little breathless. He meets her eyes, sees them still dilated, and rips his gaze away from hers.

“Yep.” He pulls the mirror back to check where he needs to put the nail. The image of him setting her naked on the dresser flashes in his mind, and he has to swallow, to focus on not getting hard and tipping her off to how badly he wants her.

It’s ridiculous, he muses as he measures out where to put the nail and hammers it into the wall. Plenty of Omegas smell good to him. Even past his blockers. Why should this Omega be so irresistible to him?

“Alright, let’s get this up for you,” he says, gesturing to the mirror. Beth eyes it, stepping back out of Sean’s way.

“I can’t even move it,” she sighs. “It’s been sitting there since I moved in.”

“Your friends brought it up here for you?” Sean tests the weight, tilting the mirror toward him with one hand. It’s pretty thick for a mirror, the frame entirely wooden.

“Yeah. It was a pretty short visit.” She runs her thumb over the gland at her wrist. Sean almost drops the mirror.“I really appreciate you coming over and—”

Her voice cuts out as he lifts the mirror. Instead, she gasps, and as he positions the mirror into place, he catches her scent spiking.

The mirror is heavier than he assumed; it takes some effort to get it into place. Sean can feel his muscles straining just slightly as he hangs it, and exhales harshly as he finally lets it go.

Beth stares at him from the doorway, her expression blank. Her eyes are trained on his neck, on the gland that starts to throb in response to her sweet, musky, intoxicating arousal filling the space between them.

“Uh…” her chest rises and falls heavily. “Right. Um. Thank you.” She nods awkwardly at him, but all he can focus on is the little pink patches of skin on her neck. “Um. I—”

Her lips taste exactly the way he remembers.

She clutches his tee shirt the moment he grabs her, her face tiny in his large hands. Her lips open to him instantly, so he swipes his tongue between them, reveling in the little sigh she lets out.

F*ck. She smells so good. He could drink her up like water. Sean trails his lips over her cheeks, over her jawline, down her neck to find what he really wants—

Ah.

This. This is better than he remembers. She’s sweet and potent on his tongue when he licks her gland. She gasps, hands sliding up to squeeze his shoulders.

Their scents mix in the air, but it’s not enough. Not nearly enough. Sean lifts her up into his arms and presses her against the doorframe. Her legs close around him— made for him— and she moans. The pressure of rubbing his throbbing shaft against her isn’t enough, either.

With a frustrated growl, Sean bites down on Beth’s neck.