Chase took me to a quiet room, just as lush as all the others, all gold and ivory and marble. I was distracted by the scent of him, so strong and alpha, and then by his strong body as he crowded me in, pushing me up against a wall.

I could smell a hint of the other omega on Chase.

“I don’t like smelling Brian on you,” I murmured, my lips a little too loose for my own good. It was the combination of the alcohol and the intoxicating effect of being around Chase; together they made me babble, speak truths I shouldn’t. I appreciated the Cartwrights’ open-bar policy and healthy stash of luxury liquor, but it was too easy to get more drunk than I meant.

Chase nodded in agreement, an excited, boyish glint in his eyes. “They’re not getting how into each other we are,” Chase said to me. My stomach jolted at how sincere he sounded. “I need them to feel it.”

Feel it. Not just know it. Not just see it. Feel it, feel it in the very air surrounding them. Something so palpable they could no longer ignore it.

Chase suggested it like it was nothing, but it made the foundations shift beneath my feet. “We should mark each other,” he said, the words echoing in my hungry ears.

Scent marking. Rubbing on each other. Marking each other as claimed.

There was no pretense or hesitation from either of us. Chase pushed into me and I pushed back, pressing my body fully against his, all the contact we could get. Chase kissed my throat, scraping his teeth over my pulse point, and a needy gasp escaped from my lips.

I dragged my hands up the back of his shirt, trailing my sensitive fingertips over his burning skin, tracing his spine as if to learn every piece for my own. I couldn’t get enough, grinding, feeling his thick cock against my own aching erection.

Suddenly, in the height of it, I had an idea. A better idea.

“Wait,” I whispered, and he growled, reluctant to stop, his fingers clawing into my hair. But I was insistent. “There’s a better way to mark each other,” I pointed out suggestively.

Coming on each other, rubbing it in. I couldn’t believe I was saying it. I was used to saying shit like this to clients, getting alphas fired up by appealing to their possessive instincts, but there was something about it with Chase that made it feel all too real, too intimate, too significant.

Chase nodded against the crook of my shoulder, breathing his agreement into my skin. He grabbed my shirt, shoving it up, and pulled my pants open roughly. I reached for him, almost tearing his belt open with my eager fingers, seeking the burning heat of his hot alpha dick.

I gripped him and felt his hand close around me, and together we stroked, kissing each other to bite off the moans slipping from our mouths. In the frenzied heat, he looked into my eyes, and things got out of hand.

It was no longer just jerking off. Chase looked at me like he owned me, his deep brown eyes seeing into my soul. There was friction in our touch, sparks between us.

The eye contact went on too long, until I could feel his heartbeat pulsing against my own, right down to our cocks, and then he kissed me, really kissed me, almost like a lover. With hitched breaths, we both jerked against each other, shooting a slick hot mess that smelled like alpha and omega and nothing else.

Dazed, breathless, covered in semen, I leaned against the wall for a minute. Chase couldn’t speak either, resting against me, and I could still feel it. The ghost of Chase’s knot was nudging against the underside of my hand.

I would’ve grabbed it, back when I’d had the chance, would’ve squeezed it, but I knew what that did to an alpha. I was pretty sure I’d have been a wet, shuddering mess on the floor if I had, wrung out to dry by an alpha overrun by instinct.

It was a loss, I thought, that I hadn’t.

Chase rubbed his seed all over me, and then silently dressed me, and I got a dirty thrill from it, some instinctive pleasure from being covered in an alpha’s cum.

After fixing our clothing and washing up (our hands, at least), we made our way back through the hall to the party, very quiet.

Everyone could smell us. Everyone knew what had happened. They could feel it.

The parents were quietly furious, staring us down. Brian, usually a very eager omega, wrinkled his nose and switched seats. Chase gave me a grin, obviously thrilled, and had Richard pour us each a glass of whiskey to celebrate.

I sat near him, practically in his lap, and tried to remind myself that I was doing it for the money. For the new car. Not because Chase was the hottest alpha I’d ever met.

We drank through the night, but my buzz was slowly being ruined by the insistent vibration of my phone in my pants pocket. Michael. Again.

I pulled it out and switched it off completely. I needed to distract myself, and I had to wonder if a moment alone with Chase would bring us back to where we’d been when Richard interrupted, Chase reaching for me, ready to fold me in two and make me his own.

Remembering the open bar, I got an idea. Chase seemed to have a thing for whiskey, and maybe if I could get him alone, and a little looser, he would let down his guard enough to finally take me like we both wanted.

Making my way around the room, I swiped a full bottle of whiskey from Cartwright, Sr.’s stash. I found Chase and straddled his lap, cornering him.

“Let’s get drunk.”