Roses on His Collar (Perry's POV)

The heavy mahogany door slammed shut with a resounding bang, and the suffocating weight that had filled the bedroom gradually lifted with Ryan's departure.

I collapsed onto the wrecked bed, every joint in my body feeling as though it had been disassembled and jammed back together all wrong — sore to the point where lifting a single finger took effort. That one-sided assault had wrung every last drop of strength from me. I lay there staring up at the ornate crystal chandelier, dragging in ragged breath after ragged breath, until my lungs finally settled into something resembling a rhythm. Then I gritted my teeth, pressed my elbows into the mattress, and forced myself upright.

A deep, grinding ache radiated immediately from my lower spine. The scorching load that had been packed into my rectum lost its containment the moment I shifted, sliding free and dripping down the inside of my thighs to splatter onto the silk sheets — sheets that had long since lost any recognizable color. I grabbed the robe draped at the foot of the bed, wrapped it haphazardly around myself, pressed one hand flat against the wall, and shuffled toward the bathroom one slow, painful step at a time.

The cleaning was its own prolonged ordeal. I stood beneath the showerhead and endured the raw, tearing sting at my hole as I worked my fingers into the swollen, slick passage and coaxed out the thick Alpha cum that clung to the walls — all of it carrying that heavy, suffocating scent of sandalwood. The water streamed across the marble floor and swept the cloudy white residue down the drain.

He hadn't come inside my reproductive cavity, but an Omega's body in heat has its own cravings — an instinct that has nothing to do with reason. The soft tissue of my inner walls had absorbed the fluid, and it took considerable effort before I was finally clean.

I changed into a high-collared loungewear set that covered the worst of the bite marks along my neck and collarbone, then gripped the banister and made my way downstairs to the dining room.

The vast room was nearly empty. A simple American-style breakfast sat at the far end of the long table, and I had barely pulled out the chair before Ryan's chief assistant, Mark, materialized at my side. He wore a precisely fitted black suit, and his smile was exactly what it always was — polished, faultless, and entirely devoid of warmth.

"Good morning, Young Master Bain," Mark said, setting a glass of warm water and a small white pill beside my plate. "The master instructed that these be prepared for you."

I stared at the pill. My fingers tightened around the cutlery, the knuckles draining to white.

Ryan hadn't gone anywhere near my reproductive cavity last night — but between a high-volume internal release and the state my body was in during heat, the probability of conception through fluid absorption, however minute, still existed. Ryan was the kind of man who left no variable unaccounted for in business, and he was no different when it came to controlling risk in his personal life. He would not allow any unplanned outcome to emerge from a one-year contractual marriage — not even one that carried his own blood.

"Understood," I said.

I lowered my eyes, burying whatever was surfacing behind them, lifted the glass, dropped the pill onto my tongue, and swallowed it down with a long drink of water. The edge of the tablet dissolved against the back of my throat before it went down, leaving a bitterness that spread all the way to my stomach and added a fresh wave of nausea to the one that was already sitting there.

I ate a few bites of dry toast, then pushed the plate aside and stood. This was my first morning in this house after moving in as his husband — a house in one of the city's most exclusive districts. I wanted to walk through it. To at least know where I lived.

I crossed the wide living room and followed a corridor lined with heavy Persian runners toward the far wing, where a pair of ornately carved double doors in dark wood stood closed. They looked like the entrance to a private study or a collection room of some kind.

My hand had nearly reached the brass handle when Mark's footsteps appeared behind me, right on cue.

"I'm sorry, Bain." He stepped forward and positioned himself squarely in front of the doors, inclining his head in a small, courteous bow that did nothing to soften the firmness underneath. "This area is the master's private domain. His standing rule is that no one enters except himself and the approved cleaning staff. Your designated spaces are the public areas on the first floor and your own bedroom."

No one.

The word lodged somewhere behind my sternum like a splinter. I stood there looking at Mark's expressionless face and felt something hollow and almost absurd settle over me.

Of course. What kind of owner did I think I was?

I was a decorative object he had acquired through a resource exchange. A release valve he could switch off whenever it suited him. A tenant in his own house who didn't even have the right to walk freely through its rooms.

"My mistake," I said, and pulled together something that resembled a smile. "I shouldn't have assumed." I withdrew my hand, turned, and walked back to my room.

Once inside, I locked the door, sealing out the cold indifference on the other side. I opened my laptop and forced every scrap of my attention onto website analytics and traffic data, fingers moving across the keyboard in quick, mechanical bursts — anything to keep my mind from sitting still.

It didn't entirely work. The stretched, overused ache in my lower body refused to go quiet, and the hollow, spasming need that kept flaring up from my reproductive cavity — heat still unresolved, still demanding — pulled me back to the previous night whether I wanted to go there or not.

The afternoon passed in code and numbers. At three o'clock, the internal line on the desk rang.

It was Mark.

"Bain, there is a chamber dinner this evening. You are required to attend as Mr. Corian's partner. The master asks that you change into formal dress and proceed to the company headquarters now — the car is waiting downstairs."

I set the receiver down and drew a slow breath.

Ryan needed a presentable, appropriate spouse on his arm. That was the only function I served.

I changed into a well-cut white suit, layered concealer over the marks on the back of my neck and along my collarbone, applied a suppressor to keep my heat scent from bleeding through, and got into the black Bentley waiting outside.

The top floor of the building was silent when I arrived — nothing but the sound of my own footsteps pressing into the carpet. The staff at the secretarial desk rose as I passed, offering precise, respectful greetings. I kept my expression measured, my smile calibrated, and pushed open the heavy door to the executive office.

Ryan wasn't there. The room was empty, vast and immaculate, the floor-to-ceiling windows framing the entire glittering sprawl of the city below.

I stepped inside and pulled the door shut behind me — and something hit me before I'd taken another step.

A scent. Thick and immediate: roses.

Not perfume. This wasn't anything that came from a bottle. This was pheromone output, the kind that only surfaces from the deepest glands when an Omega is aroused — genuinely, intensely aroused. The sweetness of it was almost cloying, grotesquely out of place against the cold, hard lines of this office, and yet it saturated the air as though it had every right to be there.

My feet stopped moving.

The nausea the morning-after pill had already started rose again, sharper this time.

I followed the scent without meaning to, drawn forward step by step until I was standing beside the black leather sofa in front of the desk. It was coming from here — from the cushions, from the seams, so concentrated it was nearly a physical sting at the back of my nose.

Something invisible closed a fist around my chest and squeezed.

I stood there and told myself the things you tell yourself: it was probably someone who came in to report to him, lost control of their output for a moment — it happened. Probably some business associate who didn't know better. Probably nothing.

But who, in Ryan Corian's office, would dare let their pheromones run this unchecked? Who would have the standing to sit on this sofa long enough to leave a mark this deep?

I was still standing there — I don't know how long — when I heard the lock turn.

I looked back. Ryan pushed the door open and walked in.

He'd just come out of a meeting. His bespoke black suit jacket was draped over one arm, his tie loosened and pulled half-undone, the top two buttons of his collar open to show the line of his collarbone beneath. His face carried the sharp, worn edge it always had after a long session — and then his amber eyes found me standing beside the sofa, and they narrowed, just slightly.

He crossed the room toward me, and as he came closer I caught it without any effort at all: woven through his own commanding sandalwood scent, unmistakably, was a thread of that same sickly-sweet rose.

It clung to the collar of his shirt.

Right there. Plain as anything.