Beg Me Like You Mean It, Captain

Reid stared down at me, and then he just laughed. It wasn’t a polite chuckle; it was a rough, dry sound that cut right through the quiet cabin.

​He snorted, shaking his head.

​"You really don’t get it, do you, Cap?" Reid said. He took a slow step forward, crowding me until my lower back hit the edge of the wooden table.

He was still in his sweaty base-layer shirt, looking massive and entirely too comfortable. "You’re standing there on legs that look like wet noodles, literally smelling like me, and you’re still trying to read me the rulebook."

​"I’m setting the boundaries, Reid," I said, keeping my voice as flat as possible. I clamped my jaw shut to keep it from trembling.

​"You aren’t setting shit," Reid muttered.

He reached out, his thumb pressing hard right against the fresh bruise on my collarbone. I couldn’t stop the small, sharp gasp that slipped out of my throat, and his smirk only grew.

"Go ahead. Tell Devin we’ve been hooking up. Tell the whole team. I’m twenty-one and the top draft pick—the league isn’t throwing me out over a locker-room rumor. But you? You’re the one who’s going to be exposed as an Omega. Let’s see how long you keep your Captain patch after that."

​He leaned down, his face close enough that I could feel the heat radiating off his skin. My stomach did a weird, nervous flutter, my body stupidly wanting to lean into him instead of pushing him away.

​"Let me tell you how this is actually going to go," Reid whispered, his grey eyes dead serious now. "You’re going to need me. Your body is already burning through those blockers. By tomorrow afternoon, you’re going to be sweating, dizzy, and realizing that my scent is the only thing keeping the guys from smelling what you really are."

​He let his hand slide down to my hip, his fingers digging into my hip bone just hard enough to remind me of how he’d held me against the door earlier.

​"And when you finally realize you can’t get through the afternoon practice without me, you’re going to come back to this cabin," Reid said, a slow, arrogant grin pulling at his mouth. "But I’m not going to make it easy. When you need your next ’dose,’ Evans, I’m going to make sure you beg a hell of a lot more than you did today."

​He let go of me, the sudden cold making me freeze. He grabbed his heavy team jacket off the wall, throwing it over his shoulders like he hadn’t just completely upended my entire life.

​"I’m going to get us some snacks," Reid said, grabbing the doorknob. "If I were you, I’d start practicing. Your ’please’ was pretty weak earlier."

The moment the door slammed shut, I slumped to the floor.

My knees finally gave out.

I sat there on the cold wooden floor, gritting my teeth so hard my jaw ached, cursing every pathetic sound I’d made earlier.

​I hated that I’d begged. I hated that I’d been so weak under him, and most of all, I hated that no matter how I looked at it, I had the short end of the stick.

He was the one with the power, the one with the scent I apparently needed right now, and the one who didn’t have a decade of lies to protect.

​But I didn’t want to be beaten. I wasn’t some rag he could just use and toss aside.

​Still, my body... I could feel it acting up again. A slow pulse at the base of my spine. The heat wasn’t over. It was just waiting after the first dose.

​"Fuck!" I hissed under my breath, my fingers digging into the floorboards as I struggled to get back up. "I don’t need you, Reid. I don’t need your fucking pheromones."

​But even as the words left my mouth, a shiver raced down my back, and I let out a sharp, involuntary gasp. My skin felt like it was breathing, and I was conscious of every pore on my body.

I had to get out of here.

It wasn’t night yet, but the thought of staying in this cramped space, listening to his obnoxious remarks and watching that smug grin, made me want to scream.

​But where could I go?

​I looked at the door. If I went out there now, I’d be walking into a lodge full of Alphas. My own scent was masked, sure, but it was buried under his.

I smelled like a rookie’s conquest. I smelled like I’d been thoroughly claimed. If I walked past Russo or Miller now, they’d know within seconds that something had happened between the ’Perfect Captain’ and the new guy.

​I leaned my head against the edge of the bed, closing my eyes. I was trapped. If I stayed, I had to deal with Reid’s psychological warfare. If I left, I risked the whole team figuring out the truth.

​Was this really my only option? To just sit back and... take it? To wait for him to come back with whatever new way he’d found to humiliate me?

​The orchid scent under my skin gave a desperate, needy little pulse, and I realized with a sick feeling that a part of me—the part I couldn’t control—was actually counting the minutes until the door opened again.

It makes me sick.

I felt a wave of nausea that had everything to do with my pride.

I was the Captain. I was the one who kept the Seattle Serpents from tearing each other apart like a bunch of brainless jocks, the one who handled the media, the one who led the drills.

And yet, here I was, huddled on the floor of a drafty cabin, waiting for a twenty-one-year-old brat to come back and feed me like a pet.

​I looked at my hands. They were still shaking. My inner Omega was pacing, whining, practically wagging its tail at the thought of that frozen pine scent returning to fill the room.

​"Get it together, Kain," I whispered, the sound of my own voice small and pathetic in the empty room.

​I forced myself to stand up, my muscles screaming in protest. Every inch of me felt bruised, not just from the scrimmage, but from the way Reid had handled me.

My back felt raw where it had been pressed against the floor, and then the wood, and the weight of his knot was a ghost-sensation that wouldn’t leave my lower abdomen.

​I dragged myself toward the small window.

Outside, the sun was dipping low, casting long, orange shadows across the snow. I could see the main lodge in the distance, the lights glowing warmly.

My team was in there.

My friends.

People who respected me.

If they saw me like this—sweaty, scent-marked, and unraveling—that respect would turn to pity, or worse, disgust.

​The thought of Russo’s face if he found out made my throat tighten. He looked up to me. They all did.

​I turned away from the window, my eyes landing on my duffel bag. I scrambled toward it, dumping the contents onto the bed. I was looking for anything—a stray pill, an old patch, even a bottle of heavy cologne to mask the smell of Reid’s claim.

But there was nothing but crumpled clothes and hockey tape. The vials in the woods were all I had brought with me, and they were currently soaking into the dirt at the bottom of a crack.

​"Check the floor," I muttered, my voice hitching.

​I went back to the bathroom, checking the cabinets, the floor, and even the trash for some weird reason. Nothing. I was completely at his mercy.

I was at Reid’s mercy.