IF YOU LET ME (MM Omegaverse Romance)

CHAPTER 1 - Justin

It’s a really bad fucking time to be going into Heat.

I’ve got two violent fugitives to catch, a corpse that still needs a name, and a boss who likes his paperwork perfect down to the last checkbox.

I do not have time to deal with my body and its insane, single-minded need to fuck just because my hormones decided today was the day.

I stand in front of the open fridge longer than I need to, cold air spilling over my face, staring at the neat row of pre-filled syringes in the door like they might offer a better answer if I look hard enough. Suppressants. I already took one this morning. It should be holding. It isn’t. The familiar ache is still sitting low in my gut, a slow heat starting to crawl under my skin, and the thought of another dose is right there—easy, tempting. One more and I could maybe force it back down for another cycle.

But if my doctor finds out I’ve been stacking them again, he’ll cut me off. He’s already given me the lecture twice. I can still hear the clipped way Harris said it: You’re not twenty-five anymore, Kavanagh. Your body keeps score. You need to let your body do what it’s made to do.

I slam the fridge door hard enough that the bottles inside rattle. A string of curses comes out under my breath, low and vicious. My hand finds the gun on my hip without thinking, checks the retention, the familiar weight. I shrug into my jacket, grab the keys, badge, phone, wallet from the counter, and I’m out the door before I can change my mind.

If I’m careful—if I stay moving, stay focused, don’t let anyone get too close—I can probably make it through the day.

Then I’ll take the time. Hole up. Ride it out. Sure, I could probably just keep working, grit my teeth. But every Alpha in the station would pick up on it the second I walked through the bullpen. That’s one of the hazards of working in an Alpha-heavy industry. They smell Heat the same way I can smell other people’s emotions.

I park in the precinct garage and jog down the stairs, skipping the elevator. The stairwell smells like damp concrete, gas fumes, and the scent of almost everyone that passed through in the last hour. Instead of turning toward the office, I push through the side door and walk the single block over to the closest coffee shop.

My standards for coffee are high. The good shit. Sweet enough to hurt. Scalding. Strong—triple espresso strong. I want to feel my pulse in my teeth. Anything that might cut through the static starting to build under my skin.

Could get some at the office but Ginger—the office admin—got that fucking Keurig installed last month and only buys the bougie shit that tastes like someone decided to turn old potpourri into a liquid form. I’d rather drink motor oil.

The girl behind the counter catches my eye when I step up. Omega. Sweet. Always smiling. Remembers everyone’s name and order.

“Mr. Kavanagh, the usual?”

I grunt and hand her the cash. She doesn’t bother with change. She knows better. The rest is a tip.

Two minutes later the cup is in my hand, first scalding sip hitting my tongue as I stride toward the door. Sweet and strong. Just like it oughta be. The caffeine bites. For half a second it almost helps.

I shoulder my way between a set of suits yammering on their phones, just a few strides from the door when it hits.

A scent.

Intense, heady, impossible to ignore. It slams into my chest like an RPG.

I barely stop some strange sound from choking out of my throat. Almost a groan.

Paper—the expensive kind, like in old books—lemon sugar cookies, strong tea, with an underlying spice that steals my breath.

Alpha.

Not just any Alpha. One that my body, apparently, thinks smells fucking delicious and needs to explore thoroughly. Naked. Badly. Right Now.

I have to clench my teeth the second the scent rises. It hits harder and my cock gets involved without asking permission. Lust, need, whatever the fuck this is, surges up so fast and so sharp that I stagger from the sudden weakness in my knees.

The backs of my legs hit a chair at one of the small café tables. I drop into it harder than I mean to, trying to clear the sudden haze and force air into my lungs. It doesn’t help. The scent only grows, wrapping around my throat like a hand trying to choke me.

The shop is busy at this hour. Packed with students from the university across the street, men in suits checking their phones, a couple of other cops I recognize from the precinct. Normal noise. Normal people. None of it registers the way it should.

I can’t stop myself from searching every face. Not because I want to. Biology is a bitch, and right now it’s running the show.

It takes a moment.

Then I find him.

Our eyes lock.

Fuck me.

He’s standing at the counter, waiting.

A little shorter than my six-two, lithe but not skinny, the kind of build that looks less until you notice the quiet strength in the way he holds himself. Khaki dress pants and dark brown dress shoes. A white oxford open at the collar. Brown wool blazer that fits him well. A worn leather messenger bag crossed over his torso. Blonde hair, thick and wavy, a little too long. Wire-rim glasses frame expressive eyes. Handsome in a pleasant, unthreatening way.

Looks like a professor. Or a grad student who reads more than he talks. Not my type. At least not the type I usually go for.

But his eyes catch mine and the entire world drops into a vague, foggy haze. The rumble of voices around me sounds like it’s coming from underwater. Everything narrows to the space between us.

His eyes widen a fraction. His mouth parts. I can’t help the way my gaze drops to it—full lips, soft-looking, perfect for kissing, for wrapping around my—

Someone says his name, but I miss it, and then nudges his arm with a cup.

“Oh—huh, t-thanks,” he stammers. Red floods his cheeks so fast it’s almost violent. He grabs the cup like he’s never seen one before and all but sprints for the opposite door, the one on the far side of the shop from me. The door rattles as he rams his shoulder against the it, and lets it slam behind him.

I blink, almost panting a little.

I watch him through the glass as he hits the sidewalk, head down, still moving too fast, and dodges across the street toward one of the University buildings that sits on the corner.

Slowly, I get to my feet. My mind is still full of his scent. My body is humming with a need sharp enough to hurt.

I stand there like an idiot for three full seconds, cock throbbing against my zipper, the man’s scent still thick in my nose.

My pulse is doing something stupid in my throat. The early Heat that had been a low, manageable ache all morning is no longer manageable. Roaring. Needy. Focused on one specific person who just fled toward campus like he was trying to escape a bomb.

I force air in through my nose and out through my mouth, slow and controlled, the way I do after a fight when the adrenaline is still looking for somewhere to go. It barely takes the edge off. My skin feels too tight. The back of my neck is hot. Every Alpha’s instinct in a three-block radius is probably kicking into high gear, and I’m standing in a public coffee shop with a half-hard dick and a full-blown Heat taking over.

Fuck me.

I need to get out of here.

Outside, the morning air is cooler, but it doesn’t help. I can still smell him—faint now, already thinning on the breeze, but enough that my body tracks the direction he went without permission. Toward the Holston University Library.

I start walking toward the precinct.

Except, somehow, I end up on the sidewalk outside the library instead.

The scent is still there, ghosting along the edge of every breath, and the worst part isn’t the lust. The worst part is the quiet, traitorous thought that surfaces before I can kill it:

I could follow him.

Just to the library steps. Maybe inside. Long enough to get his full name. Or… maybe just speak to him, only for a minute, ask him…

What the fuck is wrong with me?

I clench my jaw until my teeth ache, force myself to turn, and cross back over the street. Back to the parking garage, to my Tahoe. The walk feels longer than it should. Every step is a deliberate refusal of the pull sitting under my skin.

I call the boss while I’m on the way home and explain. Heat. Starting now. I’m out.

He grumbles—something about the caseload and the timing and how this always happens when the paperwork is already behind—but he doesn’t stop me. He can’t. Federal law guarantees employees paid time off for Heat, Omega or Alpha, no exceptions. Just because I’m almost forty and don’t have an Alpha at home to handle this with me doesn’t matter. I still get my time.

Besides, it’s safer. Can’t have an Omega in Heat running around with all those Alphas. Even if none of them are mine and none of them would touch me without permission, they can’t help their need to do something. Omega in Heat equals Alpha must help, even if they’re limited to just asking are you okay eight thousand times. It’s in their DNA.

I manage to stumble through my door and lock it behind me. Strip until I’m naked, clothes left in a trail across the floor. I stand under the shower until the hot water runs cold and I’ve jerked off enough that I’m empty and shaking. It doesn’t help. The need is still there, lower and meaner now, coiled tight in my gut and refusing to die.

With an embarrassing whimper I refuse to acknowledge, I curl up on the bed, buried in the covers, skin still damp, lock my jaw against anything else that might try to come out of my mouth, and set myself to wait out the next three days.

When I finally fall asleep, his scent follows me into the dark.