Page 16 of Ignition

Humiliating. That was the only way to describe what it was like to be half-feral with want for the approval of an alpha who barely considered me to be on his level.

A sudden flash of light illuminated the world outside of my eyelids, and a boom of thunder followed. I opened them just in time to catch the rain starting in earnest, pouring from the sky in heavy sheets that bounced back upward instead of landing.

Typical Florida fucking weather.

Caleb cleared his throat, running a hand through his well-styled hair, the product starting to lose hold with his constant fussing. “Come get in the back. Maybe a little less air in your face wouldn’t be a bad thing. More, uh—comfortable, right?”

He threw his door open and scrambled to get out of the car, the rain pelting against him making his white button-down see-through.

I watched for a moment. Raindrops accumulated in his hair, running down the side of his neck to dampen the collar of his shirt, swallowing thickly. “Yeah, sure. Whatever.”

Keeping my eyes averted, just in case Caleb had somehowpicked up the ability to read minds and caught onto the less-than-friendly thoughts I had about tonguing the hollow of his collarbone, I slid out of the car, closing the driver’s side door with a heavy snap as I climbed into the back.

I was soaked through with just those few moments outside, the rain mixing with my sweat until I couldn’t bear the feel of my shirt anymore. I rucked it away from my body, tossing the t-shirt into the front seat with a relieved sigh.

It was too fucking hot for clothes anyway.

I looked up in time to catch another slow blink from Caleb, like he was trying very hard not to have any thoughts at all. Or, maybe he was just pissed off that he’d finally come across a problem he couldn’t solve with his stupid wallet. It wasn’t like a rideshare was going to pick us up all the way out here, even if I wasn’t in rut.

“Uh,” he started, and I realized he was still standing outside, trying to determine if he should even get back in the car with me.

Quickly growing annoyed with the rainwater accumulating on my freshly detailed seats thanks to the open door, I leaned toward my friend.

“Are you getting in or what?”

Irealized the mistake I’d made the second the door shut behind me, closing us into the cramped backseat of the car.

Nick’s scent hung in the air in a thick fog, not helped by the pheromones baked into the fabric of the seats from all the time he’d spent cooped up in here. It was so strong that it could be considered cloying, but I found it quite…mouth-watering. A complex mix of florals and bright orange that was almost irresistible.

Except, I had no choice but to resist it.

Nick’s friendship was too important to me to screw up over a fucking scent match.

That’s what this was, wasn’t it? I didn’t even know alphas could be a match for each other, but here we were, Nick sporting a hard-on so long it could’ve been mistaken for a fucking garden hose, and me panting after him like a freshly presented omega.

I glanced over at the other alpha, my tongue darting out to wet my dry lips as much as to steal a small taste of him from what lingered of our kiss on my mouth.

He looked way too fucking good for someone in rut, closer to a cover model than a man on the edge of his self-control.

And thatkiss. My brain couldn’t stop replaying it. At first, I was shocked. Though admittedly, Ihad—very briefly—in the past considered what it’d be like to kiss Nick because, like, who didn’t have that thought about their friends sometimes, right? I never imagined it wouldactuallyhappen.

Or that it would feel as good as it did. Why did it feel that… intense?

And now we were stuck here, and I could do nothing but stare at him. Nick had always been lean, but a couple years of steady work at the autobody shop had filled his frame with a base of muscle that thickened his arms and chest. Something I’d become intimately aware of thanks to his infrequent but heavily anticipated updates on Instagram.

There was just something about knowing that his body was built through manual labor, the practical effects of shoulders that needed to lift tires or crack a jack, instead of time spent in a weight room that made his physique feel even more enticing.

Rugged.

His fingers tapped without rhythm against his thigh, head tipped back against the seat, revealing the sweat-slick column of his throat in the warm streetlights. His eyes were closed, knees so far apart that he would’ve ended up on a Bluechat shame board for alpha-manspreading if he was anywhere else as he tried to distract himself, throat bobbing with a heavy swallow.

I was perfuming like a fucking omega.

Nick’s nose twitched, but that wasn’t the movement that drew my attention—it was the rigid press of his cock against the zipper of his jeans. The fabric strained to contain the thickened length of him, precum creating a slowly growing wet patch in the dark denim.

My face heated justlookingat it, mind running away with the desire to bury my face into his lap for a deep inhale.

Would he smell different up close?