The scent of an omega in heat was good enough to make a man lose his mind. Even with his lungs already full of pheromones, it wasn’t enough — Yuhan gnawed and bit along Jinwoo’s shoulders and back as he moved through him.
“Hng! Ha, mnh… ugh, ah…!”
Yuhan worked his cock against the inner walls that had grown sensitive from Jinwoo’s recent climax, dragging against them with every thrust. The walls that clenched and swallowed him showed no consideration for their owner’s state — they welcomed him without condition. There was truly nowhere left to run. Yuhan’s body was pressed over Jinwoo’s from behind, and the sheer weight of him made it impossible to move.
“Ah! Hng—!”
Unlike Jinwoo, who had already come several times, Yuhan hadn’t reached his peak even once. The thick release of a dominant alpha would fill an omega completely — and after that, it was only a matter of time before a child followed.
Not a rough pounding, but a slow, grinding roll of the hips, his cock stirring deep inside and pressing into the very deepest part of him — it felt both good and terrifying at once. No matter how much Jinwoo begged him to stop, Yuhan paid no attention. Pheromones poured off him without end as he gnawed at the back of Jinwoo’s neck.
“Ugh! No, it’s too much, my stomach—!”
“Don’t go.”
The sensitized inner walls clenched and gripped his cock tight, and Jinwoo did nothing but cry and try to escape. Yuhan pressed his full weight down on him, and a broken gasp tore out.
“Hgh—! Hng, ahh—!”
Whether his strength had finally given out or he had simply decided it was useless, Jinwoo stopped resisting. Yuhan gripped his hips and lifted them. With Jinwoo positioned for easier penetration, Yuhan didn’t hesitate — he drove in without pause. The wet, rhythmic slap of skin against skin was relentless. And all the while, pleas kept spilling from Jinwoo’s lips.
“Stop… hk, please, please, ugh—!”
With the change in position, he could see the flushed, swollen inner walls pulling outward along his cock with every withdrawal, then taking him back in. It looked as if Jinwoo were holding onto him — and that satisfied him deeply. The release he had been holding back to his absolute limit surged forward all at once.
Just before his eyes rolled back and he blacked out, Jinwoo felt a scorching flood fill him to the brim from the inside.
“Hah…”
A heavy sigh brushed past his ear at the same moment. Yuhan had finally come.
“Ah… ah, hh…”
Yuhan steadied his breathing and checked on Jinwoo’s state.
He gathered Jinwoo’s completely collapsed body into his arms and moved shallowly inside him. The thick release that had flooded him seemed to shift with every motion.
“Ahh…”
He took Jinwoo’s limp, drifting hand in his and pressed his lips to the back of it, then lay down on his side. He pulled Jinwoo’s waist and chest firmly against him and slid his leg between Jinwoo’s thighs — and as if that wasn’t so uncomfortable, the tension drained from Jinwoo’s body.
For Jinwoo, there was simply no strength left. The sex with Yuhan had only been a few hours, but he had already spent half a day holding on by himself before Yuhan arrived. He was on the verge of letting go of the last thread of reason when —
“Hgh—! What is this… ah, it hurts, take it out… please…”
The sensation of something that felt like it might split through the thin skin of his stomach jolted him back to consciousness in an instant.
“I’m sorry… if I pull out now, you’ll get hurt.”
Even the gentle hand stroking his stomach became another source of pain. Yuhan held him tightly to stop him from moving, whispering sorry over and over. The tears that had barely stopped came flooding back.
“Ngh… it hurts… I don’t want this, Yuhan, please…”
There was nothing Yuhan could do about it by will alone. Knotting was an entirely instinctual, natural process — there was no way around it except to wait. Jinwoo knew this in theory, but experiencing it firsthand was something else entirely.
Having gone through both his first time and a knot in the same night, Jinwoo groaned under the weight of his grief toward Yuhan and the pain consuming his body — and at some point, he slipped into unconsciousness.
Jinwoo opened his eyes. Or rather, tried to.
His eyes stung so sharply it felt like they might tear, and tears came on their own. Only after blinking several times was he able to figure out where he was. His and Yuhan’s pheromones were mingled together, but it was unmistakably Yuhan’s room.
The room was dark, though a single sliver of light came in from somewhere. The blackout curtains had been drawn, making it look like the middle of the night. He forced his barely-cooperating body upright and looked around the room — the neat, orderly arrangement looked just like its owner. Yuhan was nowhere to be seen.
He tried to sit up properly, but couldn’t, and sank back down. The wrongness he felt from the waist down made him give up on getting up, and he let his mind drift back to what had happened the night before. Jinwoo touched his lower stomach as if in a daze.
Had he gotten pregnant?
The odds were fairly high. He thought back to the knotting just before he lost consciousness. His stomach still ached faintly, as though stretched from within. At the same time, he felt a creeping unease.
What if he really was pregnant. What if he wasn’t. Either way, the fear was the same.
The heat cycle wasn’t fully over yet, so his emotions shifted rapidly. Unable to sort through the turmoil, he grabbed the blanket and buried his face in it. As the pheromones of the alpha he had spent the night with seeped into his lungs, the tension left his body on its own. It was strange to him that even without recognizing each other as mates, this much comfort could still be found.
But it didn’t last.
“More…”
Perhaps because only sleep had happened in this room, Yuhan’s pheromones were weaker than he had expected. Not getting as much as his body craved made tears well up abruptly. This never happened when he took his suppressants — he found himself newly appreciating just how effective they were.
Jinwoo crawled his way to Yuhan’s dressing room. The moment he arrived, all the strength drained from him and he nearly keeled over. Yuhan’s pheromones were even more concentrated here than in the bedroom.
He pulled out not only the suit Yuhan wore most often, but a coat as well, and dropped them both on the floor. Lying down with the clothes spread out beneath him like a blanket, Jinwoo finally let out a satisfied sigh. The pounding in his head from the aftermath of sex and the lack of pheromones seemed to ease, and he drifted off to sleep.
Leaving Jinwoo behind as he slept like he had collapsed — going to work in spite of that — sat uneasily with Yuhan as well. He had even thought that if Jinwoo woke up while he was gone, there was a chance he might be disappointed. That could just be wishful thinking on his part, though.
The thought that he had given a young omega a bad first experience weighed on him, and Yuhan found himself sighing at intervals even after arriving at the office.
Yuhan considered himself neither a bad person nor a particularly good one. That quality served him well when dealing with people — it was an advantage, never a drawback. But right now, for the first time, he felt as though he truly was a bad person.
“Director. Shouldn’t you be heading back by now?”
Yuhan had been doing nothing but sighing and failing to focus on his work, and his secretary, Jinseok, finally couldn’t hold back and put in a word. Having supported Yuhan for a long time, there were moments when Jinseok understood him better than he understood himself.
“I’ll go once I finish this.”
“…Yes, sir.”
Jinseok was a beta. Naturally, he wouldn’t have been able to sense Jinwoo’s pheromones — let alone his own — but the perceptiveness built up over years together was not something to dismiss.
Yuhan let out one final sigh and quickly wrapped up the work he had scheduled, intending not to come in for a while. That had been the reason he left Jinwoo behind and came in to begin with — but the work had taken longer than expected.
Since Jinwoo had been with an alpha at the peak of his heat cycle, the worst of it should have passed. Still, the residual heat and mild arousal would linger for a few days, and an alpha’s pheromones were enough to manage that. As long as he didn’t lose his head and come at Jinwoo again, there was no reason for Jinwoo to suffer any more than this.
“…Let’s leave it here.”
That was what he told himself — but the restlessness was unbearable. For the first time, he had failed to hold to a line he had set for himself. That was remarkable. In all the years he had driven himself harder than anyone else under the weight of the illegitimate son title, he had never once imagined that a single person could make him do something like this.
Jinseok, too, looked visibly surprised — but quickly composed himself and began sorting through what Yuhan hadn’t finished, running through the schedule ahead. Thanks to coming in earlier than anyone else and staying later than anyone else, there was nothing left backed up. Hearing that, Yuhan said only that he was relieved, and walked out of the office at a brisk pace.
It had only been a few hours since he had passed Jinwoo his pain medication and a mild sedative while he slept. He’d had to transfer them mouth to mouth, so water had dribbled everywhere — but he had confirmed Jinwoo swallowed them properly, so the medication should have taken effect. He could only hope Jinwoo was still asleep by the time he got back.
But that hope was not granted.
“Ha…”
He had actually intended to call in Jinwoo’s personal physician and have him put on an IV drip. He was glad the thought had occurred to him that calling a doctor in the early hours of the morning was not a particularly considerate thing to do — otherwise it might have caused real trouble. Given how poor Jinwoo’s condition had been, dragging an IV stand around would have been a struggle in itself.
