Business of the Year: Holt Enterprises. CEO Daniel Holt remains vague about the secrets to his success.
Drunks and sluts: The reason high-profile alphas go downtown on weekday nights.
Darius shielded his eyes from the flashing lights with one hand and gripped his drink in the other. The bass in the background music pumped through his chest like he was one of the speakers. "It's fucking loud in here," he complained to Noah.
Noah shrugged. "The rooms are soundproof if that makes you feel any better."
"Then the sooner I get there, the better," Darius muttered. He took a small sip of the drink in his hand. It was not there for him to get drunk. He was using its fumes to clear the overwhelming maze of mixed alpha and omega pheromones from his nose.
Noah bumped shoulders with him. "Relax, man! Lighten up a little and have some fun before you get down to business!" He had already found an omega companion to his liking, a short brunette who drank cheap wine and laughed mindlessly at whatever Noah said.
Darius hated her, and she had only been sitting with them for twenty minutes. It was not entirely her fault. He had been nauseated by the idea of anyone in his life getting with a woman ever since Germany, but it was not his place to dictate his friend's sexuality. So he did his best to ignore the omega while waiting for his own to arrive. He took another sip of his drink to clear his head for a minute. As the tangle of scents crept back up his nostrils, something strong and right made him sit up. He could almost see the scent trail that ended at what his body had decreed was his perfect match. He wanted to stand up and push through the crowd to find the source immediately, but he decided to wait. To see if whoever it was would get closer. Make it easier for him. He inhaled the alcohol fumes again and felt his whole body tighten like a ratcheted bolt when the scent he craved was stronger and nearer than before. He glanced at Noah.
His friend was completely immersed in flirting with the female omega.
Darius rolled his eyes and focused on the scent again, his heart speeding up its rhythm when he realized that he did not have to clear his nose to smell it now. Out of pure instinct, he stood up and grabbed the arm of an omega shuffling through the crowd. Yes, his whole body sighed as soon as he made physical contact. This one.
The omega looked like he had come straight from a business job in his neat three piece gray suit. He jumped in surprise when Darius' hand wrapped around his arm, and he pushed away without even looking up into Darius' face.
"Playing hard to get, huh?" Darius whispered into the omega's ear, not relinquishing even a fraction of his grip.
"You've got the wrong person," the omega replied. It was not harsh like Darius had expected. His tone was one that encouraged cooperation.
Unfortunately for him, Darius was not in the mood to cooperate. He had been restraining his pheromones in order to keep away as many unwanted omegas as possible, but he released enough of them now to stop the omega mid-sentence.
The omega's eyes went vacant as his mind was blocked by Darius' pheromones, and he slumped slightly against Darius. He said nothing and just let Darius lead him back out of the club area into the hall of private rooms. His body had yielded to the perfect match Darius had sensed several minutes ago.
Darius shut and locked the door behind himself. He did not want any unwelcome visitors disturbing him, not when he was taken over by the alpha's primal urge to fuck something until it had a child in it. He tossed the omega down onto the bed and then systematically undressed himself, folding his pants and laying his shirt and jacket over the back of a chair. He did not want to walk out of this place with wrinkled clothes. That would damn his reputation more than the fact that he had come here. He did the same for the omega. He might be here to fuck his brains out, but he still had enough willpower to show a little human decency.
The omega whimpered when Darius let go of the reins he had put on his pheromones and the room filled with the scent of sweet white pine. His own pheromones, something flowery like jasmine, blended into Darius' scent. They were faint compared to Darius', but the smell set Darius on fire.
Darius was only aware of a few things after that: the fact that he physically could not stop once he started, the sexually infuriating way the omega whimpered and moaned beneath him, and the exhilarating realization that even Germany had not been this good.