Archive of Our Own

He didn’t smell like any one thing. His scent was the darkest chocolate, the fullest-bodied wine, the strongest coffee, the indefinably delicious bitter taste that lingered on the back of her tongue after drinking a rich, foamy porter. It was a scent that she would recognize no matter how much time had passed since she last saw him, forever imprinted into her mind.

Alpha. 

Rey had known he would be here--it was his father’s funeral, for god’s sake--yet nothing could have prepared her for his overwhelming presence. She felt her spine straighten as he walked past her, her back to him, to approach the open bar. Flustered, she swept her free hand down the black, clearance-rack sweater dress she had found at Target, a small voice she usually could ignore whispering she should have splurged more.

Alpha, look at me.

She dared a peek at his retreating back, his shoulders even broader since she had last seen him, and he was cloaked in an expensive wool coat and Italian suit. Her breath caught in her throat when she caught sight of the equally imposing woman beside him, towering above him in black heels and looking absolutely stunning with a severe platinum bob. Further proof that the life Rey had was wholly different from his.

Rey looked away, disappointed with herself for hoping. Of course, he had moved on. She was no more to him than a dim memory from five years ago, and she had accepted a long time ago that she wouldn’t let herself be hung up on Ben Solo, of all people. They had that fateful, humid June after graduating from Chandrila High, but he had left for Coruscant and all the power the city offered when summer had ended, and she went to Illenium. She had come home after getting her Bachelor’s degree, and he had remained in his glittering world; he didn’t need simple people like her--or his parents for that matter--to get what he wanted. 

I’m right here, Alpha. Please.

Rey cursed her own pitiful desperation. She had moved on from this, hadn’t she? She had dated that Snap guy, and Poe’s friend, Beaumont--though she had regretted it before their first date had concluded, the annoying mansplainer--Rey was better than this...this stupid, childish crush! She was better than Ben Solo!

So why did it feel like her soul was being crushed the longer he looked away from her?

She had liked Han, had respected him, but somehow this was the first time she felt like crying today. Her hand trembled as she lifted her glass of bourbon to her lips, praying the alcohol would help soothe the tension. It was watered down slightly from the ice but she didn’t much care for bourbon anyway so it went down easier, filling her belly with dulcifying warmth that spread down her limbs. She sighed. That was better.

When she glanced over at the bar again, her tall, dark, and handsome tormentor was no longer there. His scent still permeated the whole room, but there was no helping his virility. Rey knew exactly how much an alpha’s alpha he was, beneath those perfectly tailored layers of black. 

She could only wish her traitorous mind would stop reminding her how heavenly he had made her feel, split open on his cock and writhing around his thick knot.

That desperate, ravenous little voice didn’t care that Ben had obviously found someone more his type.

Rey shook her head. This was completely inappropriate for the middle of a funeral. He had just lost his father and her dopey, omega brain only cared about his knot. She stalked towards the extensive bar, meeting Leia there, who was pouring something syrupy and vividly green into a flute.

“How are you doing, Mrs. Organa?” Rey asked, watching as the older woman splashed a substantial serving of champagne into her flute, the slightly opaque, green-tinted fluid nearly spilling over as foam bubbled up the glass.

“Please, call me Leia, darling,” she insisted, throwing her head back as she emptied a third of her glass in a long gulp. Sighing, she continued to say, “I’ll be just fine. Absinthe covers up a world of hurt.”

Leia chuckles at her own joke, but her voice cracked when she spoke again. “Han used to smuggle the stuff, you know. Before it was legalized again. I never liked it much, but he’d always tell me Hemingway used to drink it with champagne...I don’t think Han even knew who Hemingway was. He just knew it was a good line to throw around.”

Rey smiled. “That sounds like him.”

“Doesn’t it?” Leia laughed. “Would you care for one? The champagne really tones down the flavor.”

Maybe it would tone down her ever-present need too, Rey surmised.

“Sure. I’ll try anything once.”

“Attagirl!” Leia said, preparing a flute for Rey. “Han would have hated this somber affair. He used to joke that I wasn’t allowed to give him a funeral at all--just chuck him off a cliff into the sea, or something equally irreverent. But I couldn’t do that.”

She handed Rey the glass with a flourish. “Enjoy, darling. I hope we can talk again soon, but I think Chewie will need a good hug right about now. I had better check on him before he starts tearing arms off.”

“Of course,” Rey said, lifting her glass in cheers. 

The bubbles tickled down her throat, accompanied by a light, licorice aroma that stuck to her tongue with a candy coating. It was nice, she thought, slow heat buzzing through her. She liked it more than the bourbon she had been handed before.

Rey was feeling giggly by the time she had finished her first glass, which probably was insensitive to the other mourners but with Leia’s stamp of approval, she wasn’t going to let herself feel guilty about it. She had her own hopes and fantasies to grieve, her own disappointment to swallow.

She was pouring herself a second flute when an obnoxiously large hand gripped the bottle of absinthe at its base, preventing her from tipping it into her glass. A deep, familiar voice spoke into the shell of her ear, sending her senses spinning.  His scent was too much, her mind in a tipsy fog of lust and hurt.

“What do you think you’re doing, Rey?”

She sucked in sharply. It wasn’t fair that he could affect her like this still, years after he had last touched her. 

“Don’t do that,” she whispered, shoving her back into his chest to create space between them. He was solid and warm and it made her want to cry. “It’s too late for that.”

Alpha, please. Touch me.

He gripped her bicep to twirl her around. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. What are you doing here? Besides trying to get drunk?”

“You might not appreciate them, but I happen to care about your family,” she told him, glaring over his shoulder. “I’m allowed to pay my respects.”

When he growled, it took all of her self-restraint to not rub her thighs together. His pheromones floated around them in a dizzying, tantalizing cloud, and she could feel the beginnings of arousal dripping into the white cotton of her gusset.

Could this get any more humiliating? It wouldn’t take much for him to scent her like this.

“You don’t get to say that kind of shit without looking me in the eyes.”

Rey frowned, letting him pull her into his gaze. His eyes were black with fury, his irises eclipsed by his pupils.  His face was exactly as she remembered it, long with a soft jaw, large nose, and plump, full lips, though now he had more freckles dotting his cheeks like stars. She moved without thinking, lifting her hand to graze her fingertips over the strong slope of his cheek, memorizing the sensation of his smooth skin speckled by beauty marks.

“I don’t know what you want from me, Ben. I’m not the little girl who doesn’t know how to handle her heat, anymore. And you’ve clearly moved on. She’s very beautiful, by the way. You’re a lucky man.”

He was silent for so long, she felt she couldn’t breathe. Her skin was tight, her limbs tensing to flee at the next given opportunity, but he kept her stationary with a withering stare. 

“I am lucky,” he acknowledged at length, and her heart twisted painfully at the admission, “to have a friend who is willing to put up with family drama so that I didn’t have to return home alone. You don’t get to act so wounded, Rey. You moved on quicker than I ever could...I should have known you were like every other fickle Omega I’ve ever known.”

Someone cleared their throat nearby, but it seemed Ben was beyond politeness, snapping, “I’m having a conversation here!”

The elder woman, likely one of Leia’s many friends, scoffed at him, mumbling under her breath about bullheaded Alphas as she retreated.

“That isn’t fair,” Rey hissed, struggling to break his unyielding hold. But she couldn’t use her full strength him, not when every nerve ending in her body was flaring with desire, longing for him. It was impossible to fight.

“No? I think it’s perfectly fair--”

Rey yanked herself free with a grunt. “You were the one who didn’t call me back, Ben. I was going into heat and alone and I called you for help, but--”

He sneered. “Oh, please. I already know you went to the next available Alpha since we’re all interchangeable to--”

Their heated argument was mercifully cut short. “Ben? It’s time for the eulogy, are you ready…?”

Leia paused, taking in the hostility between them. “What’s this about?”

“Nothing!” they snapped in unison. A delicate brow rose on Leia’s forehead as if to beg otherwise.

Rey stepped back, taking advantage of his distraction to attempt an escape, to no avail. He snatched her wrist, preventing her from getting very far.

“Well, make it quick. Lando is plying Chewie with whiskey and they’re drinking it as if they have funnels in their mouths. I want to be done with speeches before everyone is too weepy.”

Leia pointedly looked back and forth between them, speaking without words in a way only she could.

Ben seemed to sag as his mother left them alone once more. “I don’t want to fight, Rey.”

“Me either,” she mumbled back. “Not today, of all times. You should be spending time with your family, comforting your mother, not...whatever this is.”

He barked a wet laugh. “Yeah, no kidding. I didn’t even hope to see you again.”

Rey gazed into his dark eyes, finding herself slipping deeper in their depths until her head fell beneath the surface. It was so easy to drown in him, to let herself be swept away by the current of his rich scent, just as she had all those years ago.

I’m here, Alpha. I’m yours.

“Ben!” his mother cried from the other room.

His voice rumbled, darkening with a tone of command. “Don’t you dare leave, Omega. We’re not finished yet.”

The compulsion vibrated through her, ringing in her ears and making her feel light-headed. No one had ever used an Alpha command on her before and though she had expected the sense of obligation to follow it, she hadn’t anticipated the sudden rush of slick drenching her underwear. They were ruined now, and even a Beta would be able to smell it on her.

He wasn’t in her proximity anymore and his scent still burned in her throat as she drew in more air. It was unbearable. It was the sticky fever of mid-June at dusk without air conditioning. It was heat. 

Which was impossible, so she knew it was all his fault.

She should have never come. What had she been thinking?

Rey wobbled in her shoes, thankful she had worn ankle-boots with a chunky heel, fumbling to the closest fold-up chair before she collapsed. Each step was torture, her labia too slippery with slick to allow for the friction she desperately needed. She needed to get away before she triggered some unsuspecting Alpha’s rut before she found herself in a truly compromising position, but Ben’s command forced her muscles to clench, the synapses firing in her brain unable to connect to the rest of her unresponsive body.

Tears trickled down her cheeks to leave pink tracks of makeup-free skin, her mascara bleeding like ink in water. It hurt to be so empty, and she didn’t have a nest to burrow into until her Alpha returned to her. She was an exposed sore, the air around her stagnant and smothering. She couldn’t breathe, or think, or even move and it was worse than that first heat by herself. 

Rey could feel a sob building in her chest, threatening to burst free the longer he was elsewhere. She could hear his voice as he gave his eulogy but was unable to make out the words he said and it was sweet torture, knowing he was so close yet not nearly close enough.

She whimpered, pulling her legs to her chest in a hopeless attempt to soothe herself. Maybe if she curled into herself enough, she would disappear entirely.

Rey didn’t know how long it had been, everyone was still in the other room, though it wasn’t Ben’s dulcet tones floating towards her anymore when a large hand covered the round of her shoulder. His scent encompassed her once more and she unfolded, blossoming open for him.

“Ben…”

She looked up at his looming figure, his nostrils flaring as he caught the scent of her slick and his eyes fixing on her with determination.

“Are you--”

“Yes,” she cried. “Please, Alpha. I need--”

“I know exactly what you need,” he interrupted, crouching over to gather her in his arms, scooping her up off the chair as she wrapped her arms around his neck. “I’ll take care of you, Omega.”

She moaned, dragging her fingers through his hair. 

Rey didn’t know how she could be in heat--she had just had her last one a little over a month ago--but there was no questioning the burning in her core, the desperate need to be fucked and filled with an Alpha’s come. Just thinking about it made her squirm, more slick gushing from her cunt.

“Fuck, Rey,” he growled, his hold on her tightening as he carried her towards a grand split staircase. “How is this happening so quickly?”

“I don’t know,” she wept, “I don’t know, it’s so hot. I can’t think, I don’t have a nest--”

He shushed her, nosing at her swelling scent gland. “I know, Omega. I’ll help you, okay? This isn’t the most ideal place but you’re safe here, I promise.”

She wanted to cry, he was being so nice to her. She didn’t get it, after their argument she had assumed he hated her. Rey had suspected as much since what happened her freshman year at D’Qar University. She had needed him then and he hadn’t shown. Why would he care now? Or perhaps this was just a convenient opportunity for him to fuck a frenzied Omega.

It shouldn’t matter, he had vowed to take care of her. He was a powerful Alpha and she knew he was fully capable of tending to her needs. Rey didn’t even want to think about all the perfect Omegas he had snagged for his ruts while living in a glittering city like Coruscant, but it was difficult to not imagine their flawless skin and alluring curves, draped in expensive silk and lace. 

Rey gasped as she was roughly deposited onto a bed. It was his childhood bedroom, the walls still plastered with emo band posters and pictures he had taken during his black-and-white photography phase in high school. The bedroom they had sequestered themselves in for a week when his parents had gone on that vacation to Naboo with his uncle he had refused to join them for.

He tugged the comforter out from under her, then retreated. Rey didn’t allow him to go very far, grasping his tailored jacket. 

“No, don’t leave me, please--”

He gently pried her fingers free, leaning down to capture her lips in a violent, too-short kiss, his hair falling into her face. He sucked on her lower lip as he pulled away, his eyes black and full of promise.

“I’ll just be a minute. I need to grab things from the linen closet and let someone know what’s happening. I’m not going to leave you here.”

She nodded weakly, her chest heaving.

His voice lowered. “When I get back, you better not be wearing a single thing.”

“Yes, Alpha,” she answered automatically, squirming on the bed to wrestle out of her sweater dress.

She wanted to hate how quickly she responded to obey his order, but he hummed at the sight of her, pleased with what he saw. 

He stormed from the room, and Rey was left to arrange the bedspread and loose sheet to her liking, moving the pillows to fill in the gaps. Her soaked dress and underthings joined the nest, more for Ben’s benefit than her own, and she lay trembling in the middle of it, waiting for him to bring her more blankets to weave together, to make it just right. If only he would hurry!

It felt like hours had passed when she heard him walking back down the hall, and she had coiled herself into a ball, as if it would protect herself from the throbs of pain in her uterus, hyperventilating as tears trailed down her face without restraint. It was too hot, she needed release, but working herself through an orgasm would only make her wetter, and she needed to be stuffed to the brim on his knot--nothing less would satisfy the madness of heat.

He was speaking to someone on the phone, but she didn’t have the attention span to catch everything he said. 

All she heard was “Phas...omega in heat...yes, her... my mom…”

Then he pushed the bedroom door open, and Rey turned onto her back, her throat dry and scalding. She let her legs fall open for him, exposing just how much she was dripping and shiny red, ready for an Alpha to take her.

He didn’t say anything else to whoever he was talking to, ending the call and tossing his phone on the floor, his eyes fixated on the slick soaking into his sheets already. His chest rumbled with a deep growl, and she moaned back, lifting her hips slightly to give him a better view of how much she needed him.

Ben stomped across the room to fling the stack of blankets he had brought her onto the corner of the bed, never looking away as he forcibly tore off his tie and ripped his shirt open, little, white buttons bouncing on the floor. He shucked the shirt and his jacket onto the floor in one fluid movement, followed shortly by his dress shoes and slacks. His cock tented his black briefs, straining towards her without shame.

She scrambled to sort the soft things he had gifted her for the nest, unfolding blankets and tucking them into the arrangement she had started. He crawled onto the bed, hands encircling her hips as he loomed over her crouched form, pressing his length against her slit from behind with a teasing jerk that rubbed her clit just right.

Rey whined, abandoning the nest to rock back into him, coating his cock with her dribbling arousal. 

“Show me, Alpha,” she gasped, tilting her pelvis to better receive him. “Show me what you’ve learned.”

He didn’t say a word, and for a second, Rey thought she had done something wrong, but then he was sinking into her, skewering her on his dick so she had nowhere to go. Her mouth fell open in a drawn-out keen. It had been a while, but had he somehow gotten bigger since the last time they’d fucked? Was that even possible?

His arm snaked under her body so he could cover her throat with his massive palm, not tightly enough to cut off her airway but enough to drive her insane, his voice dangerous against her ear.

“Quiet, Omega,” he grunted, thrusting even harder into her, their hips colliding with wet slaps that jostled her entire body. “You don’t want everyone downstairs to hear you, do you? Then everyone would know what a needy slut you are for me. They’d know how desperate you are for my knot, for me to stuff you full with my come.”

“Oh!”

She could feel her eyes rolling back at the sharp lunges of his length slamming into her, bordering on pain.

“Or maybe you want them to hear you,” Ben hissed. “Do you want them to hear how much you love being fucked by my cock? You dirty, little exhibitionist, I bet you do. I bet you want everyone to know just how much you’re mine.”

“Fuck, Alpha!” she howled, her upper body collapsing into her nest, her fingers clenching into the soft fabric. It was a balm in contrast with his continuing assault on her pussy, helping her surrender to him completely.

“That’s it, Omega. Take it. Take it all. You won’t be able to walk when I’m through with you.”

The new angle had him prodding even deeper into her core, pounding against her cervix ruthlessly. It was so good she was seeing stars, unable to breathe through his harsh thrusts.

“Yes,” she choked, her voice lost in the slick sounds of their joining and his pointed grunts, a promise to gladly accept whatever he gave her. 

He released his hold on her throat to slip his hand where their bodies met, creating a V with his thick fingers to glide along the dewy, puffy flesh of her labia, stretched open around the wide base of his cock. She twitched at the unexpected sensation, her hips widening further for him. He just barely avoided her clit as he stroked her wetness, jolting into her so that his balls struck her cunt, drenched with her overflowing slick.

“Good girl,” he hummed, steadily snapping into her. “Do you need to come yet? It’s okay, Omega, you can come. You need it so badly, I can tell.” 

She did. The urge to come was blinding, as all she had needed was his gentle encouragement to finally snap, breaking apart on his cock with only his arms around her to keep her in one piece.

“There you go. That’s my precious Omega,” he crooned, fucking her through the delicious haze of her orgasm, though she could feel the way his muscles tensed, his rhythm stuttering as he approached his own completion.

She tightened more and more, stretched so thin that she couldn’t think, or see, or breathe, or do anything but feel the pleasure licking up her spine and down her limbs, her toes curling as her climax heightened.

At last, he shouted as his knot began to expand and he bucked against her with jagged propulsions until he caught inside her, too swollen to thrust further, the first gush of his spend appeasing the desperation of heat. 

“Fuck,” he whispered, sucking messy kisses into her shoulder, shuddering with every spurt of come he expelled into her slippery warmth. 

She could feel her body relaxing the more he coated her insides, and he carefully rolled them onto their sides to avoid crushing her. His arm settled into the dip of her waist, his hand cupping her breast to lightly squeeze the small mound, her nipple pointing into his palm.

“This might take longer than usual,” he admitted, his voice worn and hips jolting slightly as he spilled into her. “I haven’t done this in a while.”

Rey smiled privately to herself. “Really? I would have thought you were drowning in Omegas back in Coruscant.”

He shrugged against her, self-conscious. “There’s only one Omega I’ve ever wanted.”

She stiffened in his arms. “Who?”

He laughed, rubbing his long nose into her scent gland. before tracing it with his tongue. “You, silly. It’s always been you.”

She told herself it was the rush of hormones that caused tears to pool in her eyes. “But...Freshman year, when I went into heat--”

He sighed, and she could feel it rustle her hair. 

“I know. I broke my phone and when I finally replaced it, I got your voicemails. I raced to you as fast as I could, but I was already days late and when I got to D’Qar U, I saw you on campus holding hands with some guy...I--I figured you didn’t need me anymore. I thought I lost my chance, and I didn’t have the guts to just ask you what happened. I’m sorry.”

“Oh.” Rey sniffled. "I've never shared a heat with anyone but you, Ben. I thought you didn't need me."

They lay in silence as he continued to flood her with his come to the point of bursting.

“There’s no one better than you,” he said at length, so frankly that he must believe it was true.

“Oh,” she repeated dumbly. 

He tipped her chin up to face him, and the warmth in his round, brown eyes was more than she could take. He slanted his lips over hers, licking into her mouth to take everything he could, offering himself in return. 

It felt a lot like love and she was afraid of what that meant.

Their tongues slid together and she whimpered as his knot shifted within her, her cunt sore and oversensitive from the earlier frenzy. 

She should ask him what was supposed to happen next, or how this was going to work when they lived in different cities, but as his kiss softened, his plush lips traveling across her cheek, she decided that was a discussion for later. 

They sank into the comfort of the nest, drifting off into easy slumber, only to be woken an hour later by his mother pounding on his old bedroom door, swearing she better get a grandchild out of this after ruining Han’s funeral.

Rey giggled when Ben yelled back, his eyes still squeezed shut as they snuggled together. 

“Dad always wanted to go out with a bang and you know it!”

If she had anything else to say, they were too lost in each other to hear it.