We stay like that for a long time, the only sound the hum of the HVAC and the distant, muffled noises of the university outside. Eventually, the swelling begins to recede, as Jorak pulls back slightly, his eyes still dark but softer now, a lingering tenderness in the way he brushes a stray hair from my forehead.
"You're still shaking," he says, his voice a low rumble.
"It’s the aftershock," I murmur, my voice sounding like it's been dragged over gravel. I grimace as he pulls out completely, cum and slick pooling between my legs. I reach down and pull my shirt together, though the missing buttons make it a futile effort. "Jorak... what are we doing? This is... this is a disaster. Academically. Politically. Biologically." I look around the office, the reality of our situation finally beginning to settle back in. "It's a career suicide note," I continue, my sarcasm returning as a defense against the vulnerability. "I’m going to be fired, and you’re going to be sent somewhere, and the ESA will probably turn us both into a cautionary tale in a textbook I used to teach from. Or I’ll end up in a lab but I just... I need you and I... used to hate that."
Jorak doesn't smile, but the corner of his mouth twitches. He reaches out and cups my jaw, his thumb tracing the line of my lower lip. "Let them try," he says, and there’s a cold, lethal certainty in his voice that makes my skin shiver for an entirelydifferent reason. "They don't know what you are, Asa. They don't know what we are together. I won’t let Mercer hurt you."
"But how does this work?" I ask, the mathematician in me looking for a formula where none exists. "How do we bridge the gap? S-class, F-class... professor, student... Enigma, Omega. The variables don't add up. Something is going to break sooner or later and this need, it’s... they won’t let you go and I can’t work like this." I gesture down to my cock that’s already half-hard again.
Jorak leans in, his forehead resting against mine. He pulls me close, his arms wrapping around me with a strength that’s no longer frightening, but purely, devastatingly protective. "Then we’ll build a bridge for it when we get there," he says. "Right now, we’re just two people in a locked room. Let that be enough."
I close my eyes and lean into him, the scent of cedar and whiskey finally settling the last of the tremors in my hands. “And when it’s no longer enough?”
“Then I will find us a bigger room.”
I hate how certain he sounds, how sure he is that he’ll be able to protect me. And yet, I just curl into his chest tighter. “I need a change of clothes,” I mumble after a few moments. He just laughs, the sound rumbling through me and slowly turning into a purr. “And my nest.” His hands move to the underside of my thighs, Jorak carrying me to my office grouping of pillows and blankets. “And you,” I finish selfishly.
“I’ll stay as long as I can, Asa.”
Jorak
The idea of leaving Asa feels awful. I can feel the heat of Asa’s skin through my shirt, the way his breath is finally slowing against the junction of my neck, but the office is too small, the air too thin, and the world outside the locked door is starting to wake up.
I pull back an inch, staring at him curled up against me in the nest. The slick, wet sound of our bodies separating makes my jaw ache. I want to growl at the loss of him, to reach back out and haul him back into the cage of my arms where the Black Current is currently humming a low, satisfied purr.
Asa’s eyes are hazy, my beautiful Omega looking wrecked and claimed. The scent of vanilla and pear is so heavy in the room it’s almost viscous, swirling with the dark, heavy musk of my knot. It’s the smell of a secret that’s about to get us both killed.
"Jorak," he breathes. His voice is a thinned-out rasp, lacking its usual academic sharp edges. He twists around looking at the curtain cordoning us off from the rest of his office and then backat me as I watch the exact moment the professor comes back online. The haze vanishes, replaced by a frantic, jagged spike of alarm. "Oh, god. The door. Is it locked? Tell me you locked it. You said you did but fuck… "
"I locked it, Asa." I reach out, my thumb catching a stray smear of slick on his hip.
He whines into my chest as I rock forward, my cock slipping between his thighs. The whine heightens before cutting off, Asa patting softly against my chest. “What time is it?” Asa’s gaze darts around the space before landing on a small alarm clock on the table beside the nest. “Fuck, we have five minutes," he says, his fingers shaking as he tries to navigate away from me. That just pushes his ass into my face, the urge to dip my nose to his slick hole almost unbearable. "Maybe less. The department head passes through at ten past. If he hears... if he smells..." He stops, his face flushing a deep, bruised crimson. He looks at his shirt—the buttons are gone, ripped away in my haste to get to him. "My shirt. Jorak, you destroyed my shirt."
"Baby, I'll buy you ten more," I say, my voice sounding like gravel as I push to my feet, searching for my clothing as well. I discarded them the moment I brought Asa to the nest but the urgency and panic in his expression has me moving faster.
Footsteps in the hallway have me freezing as I catalog the sounds, two people stopping just outside the door.
My vision narrows. The Black Current lurches to its feet, ready to tear through the wood and the bone of whoever is standing out there. Halfway into my pants, I move between Asa and the door before the handle can even rattle, a low, vibrating growl tearing out of my chest.
"Jorak, stop!" Asa’s voice is a sharp whisper. He’s standing behind me, clutching the edges of his ruined shirt together. "It’s just faculty. You can't kill the Associate Dean of Mathematics because he’s looking for a stapler."
"They shouldn't be here," I mutter. I can see the shadows of their feet under the door. One of them lingers. I can smell the faint, chemical scent of ESA-grade suppressants. It’s not just faculty. I know that smell. It’s the smell of the leash I haven't quite managed to break yet.
"Get your clothes on," Asa commands, his voice regaining that stubborn, irritatingly brave edge he uses when he’s terrified. "And stop growling. You sound like a turbine about to explode. If you want to keep me safe, help me look like I haven't been spent like currency on my own office floor."
I force my hands to unclench, though the pressure behind my eyes is building. I grab my tactical jacket from the chair, throwing it on to hide the sweat and the evidence of our friction. I watch him as he uses a binder clip from his desk to hold the front of his shirt together, then pulling a heavy wool cardigan over it.Clever.
"Better?" he asks, adjusting his collar. He still smells like me. No amount of wool can hide the fact that an Enigma just knotted him three feet away from a chalkboard covered in design theory. He looks at me, his eyes searching mine, and for a second, the sarcasm fails him. "You have to be calm, Jorak. If we walk out there and you look like you’re ready to dismantle the building, they’ll know."
"I’m calm," I lie. The thought of him walking out into that hallway, exposed and scented, makes me want to lock the door again and never open it. But he reaches out, his hand hovering near my arm, offering the anchor I need. The static in my head recedes just enough for me to breathe.
"Okay," he whispers. "On three. Look bored. Look like a student who’s failing calculus."
I don't tell him that I don't know how to look like anything other than what I am right now:his. I just nod and follow him as he turns the deadbolt. He steps out first, his shoulders back, theperfect picture of an overworked academic, and I fall in behind him, a shadow with teeth.
We’ve only made it ten paces before the air changes. A man is waiting at the end of the corridor, leaning against the brickwork of the department entrance. He’s wearing a charcoal suit that costs more than the car they lent me, and his eyes are the flat, dead gray of a stabilization tank. I recognize him instantly. Miller. One of Mercer’s personal aides. The kind of man who doesn't exist on paper but handles the things Mercer doesn't want to get on his hands.
My pulse jumps again as the Black Current surges, a dark, oily heat coiling in my gut. Miller isn't looking at the architecture. He’s looking at Asa with a clinical, predatory interest that makes my vision go red at the edges.
