A Is For Anonymous Ch 04

A/N no smut again ya'll but grand reveals AND smut is COMING v soon BIG SMUT THE SMUT U ALL HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR

I'm checking my hormone tracker when Mandy pauses in front of my desk, the familiar bright blue flash of the business credit card wedged between two fingers like a cigarette. I startle and fumble my phone, hiding the screen before she can see it.

She doesn't notice. "TGIF coffee run. You want?" She grins, then hesitates, concern pinching at her brow, "Are you okay? You seem flushed."

I press my lips together and smile. She's right - I've been feeling feverish all morning. The app I have for tracking my cycle indicates that I might be ovulating soon, but the onset isn't usually this harsh. I've been flushing hot and cold since I woke up, and I can't seem to bring myself to eat anything.

I'm about to tell her that I feel fine, that I just dressed in too many layers, when I remember what happened the last time I ignored my symptoms just a few weeks ago - I was lucky to have made it home before I started vomiting.

"Actually," I say, and my voice sounds weak and husky. I clear my throat. "I'm not feeling very well. Is it okay if I..." I glance at my computer with remorse.

"Of course," Mandy assures me, nodding emphatically, "Go home, get some rest. Let me know if you're not feeling better before Monday."

I love Mandy. She's a beta, but once told me after too many drinks at a staff function that her wife is an omega, so she understands exactly how our cycles can dictate our lives. Plus, she takes empathy leave without a crumb of remorse as soon as her wife needs her, so it's not like she's going to point fingers anytime soon.

The air in the train is one thousand degrees, and my fingers are so sweaty that the screen of my phone won't cooperate, a rainbow smear following the frantic swipes of my thumb. I wipe it away on my sleeve again and again until the friction allows me to open my cycle tracker again. I swipe through the graph and zoom out to confirm what I already know; my heat isn't due for over a month.

But this feels suspiciously similar to the early stages of my heat.

A hollow but sweet pang in my abdomen makes me fold over, and a man eyes me, half concerned and half something else. "Okay, doll?" He asks, and it's innocent enough, but still has me cringing away in distaste.

Aiden. I want Aiden. I want him holding my hand as I press my face into his neck. I need him to hold me like he did through the tidal waves of pain and nausea that came with my period. I wish I had his number. I wish I knew what he looked like.

I know what he smells like (so vividly that sometimes I imagine I can pick up his scent in my office building); maybe I could roam around the city like a beagle hunting drugs, sniffing the air until I find him. Or I could just go home, to my bed, where the sheets still carry his scent faintly, and sleep until I feel less rabid.

The muscles in my legs tingle as I drag myself up the flights of stairs in my apartment building, ready to snap and give out at any moment.

My centre of gravity feels swollen and taut, hot in my belly.

When at last I see the baby pink of my duvet, it takes all of my restraint not to flop onto the mattress. Instead, I hold my chin up and march past the bed and right to the bathroom, knowing I'll feel better once I've showered the outside world from my skin and can burrow properly. Plus, I'm worried that my perfume will mute Aiden's faint musk.

Ten minutes later, I'm sweating despite having had a purely cold shower, guzzling water from a bottle almost full of ice cubes from the freezer, and rubbing my thighs together to feel the slip of Aiden's silk pyjama shorts against my skin. I stuff my face into the pillow he used, and it sends a cruel thrill of heat through me.

When I roll over to reach for the drawer of my bedside table, I'm reminded of his mean joke and groan loudly. Tug on the handle of the drawer uselessly, the clatter of the lock filling the room and probably startling any neighbours home at midday on a Friday.

I don't want anything inside you except for me.

"Aiden," I whine, defeated, hoping he'll reply. He doesn't, so I curl back into his pillow and try to fall asleep.

Of course, I dream of Aiden fucking me. It's all I dream about these days. The worst part about the dreams are that even though they're not real, I still don't get to see him. His silhouette blurs out of focus, or I'm so worried about keeping my eyes closed that I don't focus on the rest of it.

I always wake up wet and needy, so that isn't a surprise. What's different about this time is that even on the precipice of waking, I still feel his lips against my shoulder, pecking down to my ribs. I don't even try to cling onto the dream - instead, I gravitate towards the waking world, pressing back to feel a firm chest.

I murmur his name, wary but hopeful.

"I'm here, baby," his reply is like adrenaline in my veins. I hum with relief and something else, something needy and sharp. It makes him laugh into my neck, which in turn makes me arch back into him.

His body is warm and mine is freezing, trembling. "Cold," I tell him, reaching for the duvet that has been pushed to my feet.

He restrains me, "You're burning up. You'll overheat and dehydrate if we don't cool you down."

"No," I argue, knowing he must be right but hating it anyway. I hear a faint whir and realise he's turned on the air conditioning. "Aiden," I protest, but he holds me tighter, and my body is too weak to fight. I resign myself to seeking warmth from him, trying to wick it from his body.

His scent. It's thick. It's so heady it's almost too much. I want to taste him, to press my tongue against his mating gland and maybe even bite down-

Definitely

bite down.

The warmth of slick gushes from me so unexpectedly that I pull in a sharp breath. So does Aiden. He half laughs, half groans in self-deprecation.

"Madison," he says, half whispering, "You're in heat."

He tells me this like I don't know. And I don't. Because I

know

I'm not.

"It's not due for another month," I assure him, but he shakes his head against the back of my neck. Inhales. Sighs.

"I know. It's me. It's early because of me." Then, he adds, like an afterthought, "I'm sorry."

My eyes snap open and I stare at my bathroom door. The sun must have just set because there is a faint blue light streaming in from the window.

"You haven't bitten me," I tell him, more like a question. To confirm, I press my fingertips to the damp column of my throat, then the other. Clammy but otherwise unmarred.

"No, not yet," he says, sounding a little remorseful about it. He drags his nose against the exposed skin of my neck, where my own fingers had just traced, and another torrent of slick slips from me.

He audibly swallows, "But I've been..." he trails off, unsure of what he's been, and my heart twinges a little. What has he been? What are we? What am I to him? Not mate but also not...

not

. "Here. With you. A lot."

I think 'a lot' is an overstatement, considering, he's only around at night. But then again, if he has been over every night for months, even when I'm sleeping, I suppose my body could react. Possibly.

I try to sort the frazzled thoughts in my brain into an argument, but he goes on, "And I've been," the next words are against the shell of my ear, "touching you," I shiver, thinking back to the night I stayed up for him, the way he maneuvered the dildo inside of me like it was an extension of him, "and kissing you," to punctuate this, he presses his open mouth against the hinge of my jaw and I whine.

"

Aiden

," I press my ass back and find him so hard it almost sucks the air from my lungs. The silk of my pyjama bottoms are soaked, and I try not to let him feel it.

"I could tell for a while now," he admits, low, pushing his hips luxuriously against me, gathering me up in his arms and squeezing like I'm the best shape he's ever felt, like he wants to mould himself to me. "I wanted to make it special."

"What?" I ask, unfocused. Not caring. "Make what special?"

"The first time," he says, voice suddenly shy.

Oh, I am wet. I am beyond wet. I am flooded and hot and messy and somehow halfway to orgasm.

"I won't be able to keep my eyes closed," I warn him fervently, suddenly short of breath. I don't want it to be like the dreams - distracted and worried about opening my eyes, invading his privacy. "Please get the mask. Now."

He chuckles endearingly, like I am the sweetest thing he's ever tasted. It annoys me. He's wasting time when he could be taking off his clothes.

"I don't want your eyes closed," his voice is lilted but still a little shy. "I want you to see,"

Before I can process, his hand glides up to angle my jaw towards him and he kisses me with a force that winds me. I grip onto his forearm, confused, eager, using him as a physical tether to this realm.

There's a pressure, a twist, a swift demonstration of physics that I don't quite understand, and I'm on my back. Aiden hasn't broken the kiss somehow, palm cradling the side of my neck now. It throbs at the contact, feeling hot and sticky and aching for his teeth to press into the skin and mark me as his forever.

When he does finally pull back a little, dipping his chin, he keeps his forehead pressed against mine as we both draw ragged breaths. My heart races and wavers, like it does right as I'm building up the courage to pull off a wax strip. I count down, hesitate. Start over.

I force my eyes open, beyond nervous.

Pale eyelids. So pale I can make out the purple webs of veins pressed against the skin. Dark, thick eyebrows and lashes. Not curled, but straight against his cheeks, where I count three small, flat moles immediately. One on the right plane of his nose, in line with his tear duct, another perfectly centred on the apple of a cheek, and the last just beneath his left eyebrow.

Just when I'm wondering if he would freckle in the sun, like I always have, or if his skin would shed clean and porcelain anew, Aiden blinks his eyes open and the whole world stops spinning.