Beg Me Like You Mean It, Captain

Reid didn’t reach down to help me. He stood over me, adjusting his clothes while looking down at me like I was a trophy he’d just won and was already deciding where to display.

"You’re mine now," he ordered. The words weren’t a suggestion; they were a biological fact, delivered in that heavy, commanding Alpha tone that made my skin prickle with a traitorous urge to obey. "Don’t even think about trying to erase this, Captain. Not the scent, and certainly not the memory."

I stayed on the floor for a bit longer than I should have, my back pressed against the door. My legs felt numb, and the internal ache of being knotted twice was blunt and throbbing.

"I need..." I started, my voice cracking. I cleared my throat, trying to find a shred of the authority I’d spent a decade cultivating. "I need to wash. I can’t... I can’t stay like this."

Reid still didn’t offer a hand to help me up. He just watched, a slow smirk playing on his lips as he enjoyed the view of my struggle.

I had to use the doorknob to push myself up, my knees buckling once before I managed to steady myself. Every movement was a struggle; the friction of my own clothes against my sensitized skin felt like sandpaper scraping against me.

And then there was the semen dripping down my thigh. Oh God. I bit inside my lip. How humiliating.

"Go ahead," Reid mocked, stepping back just enough to let me stumble toward the cramped bathroom. "Scrub all you want, Evans. But that scent? It’s deep in your pores now. You could drown yourself in soap, and the guys at the lodge would still know exactly who was buried inside you tonight."

I didn’t answer and just shut the bathroom door and leaned against the sink, staring at the stranger in the cracked mirror. My face was flushed red, my lips were swollen, and the mark on my neck was already darkening.

I turned on the shower, and as the steam began to fill the small space, I looked down at my trembling hands.

This was... messed up.

I never knew this would happen. I never asked for it. I never even imagined...

I clenched my fists, resting my head on the tile wall as the water washed over me. I wished it would wash away the marks that were present in my skin. The bruises from his grip and the way his scent lingered on me.

The moment I stepped out of the bathroom, steam clung to my damp skin, but it did nothing to wash away the heavy, suffocating scent of frozen pine that felt permanently welded to my pores.

I felt sick.

My legs were still shaking—a deep tremor that made me want to collapse back onto the bed. The dull, throbbing ache of being knotted twice was a constant reminder of how easily I had broken in the forest and against the door, begging him for... for... was I insane?

I was definitely insane.

​Reid was sitting on the edge of his bed, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. He looked entirely too put together, his eyes tracing the slow unevenness in my stride as I forced my spine to stay straight.

That smug, arrogant smirk was still plastered across his face. I wanted to punch it right out of his face.

​He expected me to crawl. He expected me to hide in the corner and beg him to keep my secret.

​But as I looked at him, something else sparked through the haze of my humiliation. The fear didn’t vanish, but the Captain I had spent ten years building finally clawed its way back to the surface.

I wasn’t going to let a twenty-one-year-old rookie completely ruin my life without a fight.

​I stopped right in the middle of the floor, anchoring my feet to steady my trembling knees, and looked him dead in the eye.

​"Are you really that stupid, Reid?" I asked, my voice low and surprisingly steady, despite the way my throat burned.

​His smirk faltered slightly, his grey eyes narrowing. "What?"

​"Are you not even a little bit worried that I’m going to walk right out of this cabin and report you to the board? To Devin?" I leaned my hip slightly against the small wooden table, using it to covertly ease the weight off my aching thigh. "Unsolicited aggression, blackmailing an injured teammate, violating team conduct. I can end your career before it even starts."

​Reid let out a short, mocking snort, leaning back on his hands. "Go ahead, Evans. Try it. Tell them the ’Perfect Captain’ is actually a needy little Omega who let a rookie knot him twice against a cabin door because he couldn’t keep his heat under control. Let’s see who the league throws out first."

​"I don’t care if you tell them," I shot back, taking a slow step toward him. I kept up a cold face so he would understand I’m serious and not the begging mess I was a moment ago.

I refuse to let my inner Omega flinch at the sudden spike of his Pheromones.

"But trust me, if you say a single word to anyone on this team, or anyone at all, I’ll tell them we’ve been screwing each other for a long time." I threatened. "I’ll make sure everyone knows our ’perfect’ rookie is so obsessed with his Captain that he couldn’t keep his hands to himself and his junk in his pants."

​Reid’s jaw tightened, his posture instantly stiffening. The smug amusement faded from his eyes, replaced by a sharp, dangerous flicker of surprise. He hadn’t expected me to swing back, let alone threaten to drag his own pristine reputation down into the mud with me.

If I was going down, there was no way I would go down alone. In fact, I don’t plan to go down at all. So, if I have to resort to threats, I’ll do it in a heartbeat.

​"You wouldn’t," Reid gritted out, looking at me doubtfully, and I narrowed my eyes.

​"Try me," I said, leaning in just enough to look down at him. "Your golden-boy draft status doesn’t mean shit if the front office thinks you’re a liability who sleeps with management. So here’s how this is going to go. We are making some ground rules. And the very first thing you’re going to do is apologize to me."

​Reid stared at me like I had lost my mind. He let out a dry laugh. "Apologize? For what?"

​"For starting this," I snapped, my hand tightening on the edge of the table until my knuckles turned white. "It is entirely because of you that I am in this mess. Who asked you to follow me into the woods? Who asked you to interfere with my business? Who—?"

​"Oh, I’m sorry," Reid mocked as he finally stood up, his sturdy frame instantly towering over me again.

He didn’t touch me, but the sheer, physical pressure of his presence made my inner Omega whimper behind its locked doors.

"Who asked you to be so damn secretive, Captain? If you weren’t acting like a freak, sneaking around with high-grade illegal blockers and practically begging to be caught, I wouldn’t have had to follow you." How does he even know they are illegal? "It’s not my business that your body decided to break down right in front of me."

​"It isn’t your business," I hissed, ignoring the tremor in my legs to step even closer, our chests nearly brushing. "And it never will be again. If we are going to survive the rest of this trip, you are going to learn how to keep your mouth shut and your hands to yourself. Do you understand me, McCoy?"