by Aiden Bates
My knuckles cracked behind him, fingers curling into fists. It was the only sound of warning the redhead got before I dragged him up out of his seat.
“Hungry?” I asked, giving him a sharp-toothed grin as I turned him to face me.
“What the—” the redhead huffed, face contorted in confusion.
“How about you snack on this?” I suggested—and then I drove my fist so far into his gut that I felt every molecule of air in his lungs leave it in a deep, guttural moan. He hunched over, huffing—then straightened, apparently not willing to go down without a fight.
In that case, I’d give him one. I dodged the cheap shot he took at my jaw and cracked my knuckles against his brow, feeling the skin split beneath my fist.
The man dropped forward into his seat just as I kicked it away from me, toppling man and chair both onto the floor. Unfortunately for me, the redhead’s buddies seemed to take some kind of offense to the way I’d just disabled their loud-mouthed friend. They rose, rolling up their own sleeves as they prepared to teach me some kind of lesson—or so they thought.
Whatever. I didn’t start fights that I wasn’t prepared to finish. But as I squared my shoulders and cracked my neck, ready to take all three of them on at once, I felt a strong arm hook beneath mine, dragging me away before I got a chance to complete the lesson I was planning on teaching them.
“Hey—what’s the big idea?”
I glanced over to the man who was pulling me away from the table, expecting to see the bouncer. Instead, I was met by a pair of cornflower blue eyes, clear as a summer day.
Bluest fucking eyes I’d ever seen.
“Stopping you from getting your ass beat,” Damon huffed, yanking me back as the Ballroom’s bouncers closed in around the table full of jackasses. “What kind of idiot tries to take on three men at once?”
I opened my mouth to answer him, but found that I could only grin. Damon. I hadn’t thrown that punch to get his attention, but apparently, I had it now.
“The kind of idiot that was trying to get you to notice him,” I said with a smirk as Damon marched me out through one of the emergency exits.
“Yeah, well…” Damon sighed, slamming the door behind us as we poured out in the cool city breeze. “You’ve got my attention now.”
4
Damon
“I’m Nathan. Nathan Garnet.” The man’s grin was impossible, unrelenting as he dragged his fingers through the inky black waves of his hair before offering me his hand to shake. “I’ve been trying to buy you a drink all night.”
Nathan Garnet. He had one of those names that left me practically tasting his entitlement as I weighed it on my tongue. He was cocky, persistent, and goddamn—he knew how to throw a punch.
I’d never met a more infuriating jackass in my entire life.
“Damon Bishop,” I returned, staring at his hand without shaking it. He had rough palms for a man with such a fancy name. Calluses ridged across his skin beneath his fingers, suggesting that he knew what physical labor felt like—although judging by the cut of his suit, that was a lie. “I’ve been turning you down.”
He laughed, a sharp, Playboy sound that lit up his entire face. “I’ve noticed.”
“And yet…” I raised an eyebrow.
“And yet, here I am.” He shrugged. “Must’ve taken a fancy to you or something.”
Overhead, the night sky was so clouded over, I couldn’t even see the moon. The city lights painted the clouds a dull, muted navy. They called New York the city that never slept; it rendered our heavens perpetually starless.
But I didn’t need the constellations or the Milky Way to tell me that whatever Nathan Garnet wanted from me, things between us were star-crossed from the start. For one thing, he liked me a whole hell of a lot more than he should have. He was a regular Wall Street Adonis, all shiny shoes, sleek hair and clever eyes. And me—well, I wasn’t much to look at. My muscles were just a distraction. Beyond them, I knew how plain I was.
For another, I’d met enough men like Nathan before to know better than to be flattered by his advances. I’d known it when he started sending me drinks; seeing him standing here in person only verified what I’d already suspected. He was the kind of man who was used to getting what he wanted, which only made me want to tell him to fuck off even more. I wasn’t just something to be owned—I was my own damn person. I didn’t need his approval or his affections.
On the other hand, he’d saved me from the jerks at table nine. Telling him to fuck off after he’d thrown punches on my behalf—well, it just wouldn’t have been polite, and my fathers had raised me right.
“Look,” I began, crossing my arms over my bare chest to fend off the coolness of the breeze. “I appreciate what you did back there. I’ll be sure to mention it to Foster—he owns the place. He’ll be happy to comp you for the trouble—free drinks, VIP table, whatever you want.”
Nathan raised his dark, thick brows and took a step closer to me. “And if I’m not interested in free drinks?”
I blinked. “Then I don’t know what to tell you. I’m not on the menu tonight.”
“Birthday privileges, huh?”
My eyes narrowed. “How do you know it’s my birthday?”
“Someone mentioned it.” He cocked his head to the door we’d just exited. “Why don’t you go throw your clothes back on and let me take you out for dinner? Least I can do to make up for the way those dicks were treating you.”
“What part of not on the menu don’t you understand?”
He laughed. “Then let’s go somewhere with a different menu. Birthday treat—I’ll buy.”
I hugged my arms around me a little tighter, all too aware of the way he was looking at me. Not my body—I’d spent enough years dancing at the Ballroom to know a pair of wandering eyes when I saw them. No, he was playing the perfect gentleman—or as much of a gentleman as a man like him could muster. But he was staring at my mouth like an actor waiting for his cue. I supposed in his mind, I should’ve been swooning in his arms, lips gently parted so he could lay a kiss on them.
Unfortunately for him, I was working from a different script.
“I’ve got a shift to finish,” I explained, shouldering past him. “Thanks again.”
Before I could get to the door, though, he stepped in front of me again.
“You’re shaking,” he pointed out.
I glanced down at my hands. He was right.
“Yeah, well. It’s cold out here.”
He cocked his head toward the door again. “You were shaking in there too.”
Again, he wasn’t wrong. But I resented him for pointing it out. It was impossible not to be shaking after dealing with strangers grabbing at me like I was something that could be owned. Adrenaline was like that. It stuck with you, even after the worst of the encounter was over.
“I’ll get over it,” I said with a shrug.
“You will,” he agreed. “But a slice of pizza and a beer would probably help you along.”
I blinked at him again in disbelief. “You really don’t know how to process the fact that I’m not interested in you, do you?”
“Nope.” His grin endured, teeth impossibly straight and white as a tablecloth at a five-star restaurant. “You don’t get as far as I have in life without learning how to turn a no into a yes, Damon. Or without taking a few chances, for that matter.”
“And you expect me to take a chance on you? Some stranger I barely know?”
“Why not? I’m a very good-looking stranger, if you haven’t noticed.”
I snorted. “My Daddy always told me not to talk to strangers. Good-looking or not.”
“Then how the hell are you ever supposed to make any friends?”
My eyebrows inched higher. “That’s what you’d like to be? Friends?”
“It’s a start.” He shifted out of my way, opening the door for me. Like I said—a gentleman. Or at least, he was playing like one. “Get some clothes on. I’ll go find your manager. Let him
know you’re ducking out early for the night.”
I huffed in frustration. “You’re really not going to drop this, are you?”
“Probably not, no.”
It was ludicrous, this kind of persistence. Even the slimiest of my exes had enough smarts to know when he was beat. But this guy—Nathan fucking Garnet—he didn’t know how to lose.
It would’ve been attractive, if it hadn’t been so damn annoying.
“Fine,” I relented. I was too tired to keep fighting this same battle—and, as my stomach was quick to remind me, too hungry in the wake of all that adrenaline to care about surrendering to Nathan Garnet’s whims. “Pizza, then. You’ll have to slip the manager some cash, though. I’ve already got dances booked in for the night.”
He winked at me as I slipped back inside. “We’re in luck, then. Cash is one thing I’m not exactly short on.”
I didn’t wait for him once I was back in the club. If he wanted to track down Noah and bargain my way out the door that evening, he was on his own.
Backstage smelled the same as it always did: the chemical coconut of instant tanner and the bitter florals of overpriced hair gel. But as I made my way back to my locker, I felt a strange energy from the other dancers that seemed to cling to my skin with every glance they gave me.
“Hey,” Anders said, catching my arm as I brushed past. “We’ve been worried about you—you okay?”
I sighed. “I’m fine. A little shaken up, but…”
Anders grinned. “But you had a knight in shining armor waiting for you in the wings. Blake came back looking for you, you know. Wanted to apologize for not getting there sooner.”
“Doesn’t matter. I’m okay. Besides, I’m sure he had some other belligerent idiot to deal with.”
Anders rolled his eyes. “You have no idea. Some Omega and his pimp trying to sell strange up in the VIP room. Blake was having a hard time convincing them that we’re a theater, not a brothel.”
“Seems like a lot of our guests tonight have been making that mistake.”
“You sticking around? Noah mentioned that it’d be okay if you fucked off early, all things considered. You could go grab a few drinks while the rest of us finish up, then we could head back to our place and—”
I groaned. “Don’t say party.”
“Why the hell not? If there’s one thing you need tonight, it’s—”
“Quiet time and some sleep.” I popped open my locker. “But actually, the guy who took care of table nine for me has…well, I guess he’s invited me out for dinner.”
Anders’ eyes lowered as I slipped out of my G-string and pulled boxers on in its place. “Oh, yeah? Seems like he made quite the impression on you, honey.”
I followed Anders’ gaze down to my crotch. To my surprise—and dismay—my cock was as stiff as a strip pole. Either the thought of grabbing pizza with the spoiled Alpha who’d thrown a punch for me was having more of an effect on me than I’d thought, or…
“Adrenaline.” I explained the hard-on away as I stepped into my jeans. “Nothing more. I’m not an idiot, Anders. Cocky Alphas are bad news and I know it.”
“And yet…you’re letting him buy you dinner.”
“He wasn’t exactly taking no for an answer.”
Anders clapped me on the shoulder, tutting gently as he plucked my halo off of my head. “Whatever you say, Damon.” He smirked. “Just call me when you decide you’re going to spend the night at his penthouse tonight.”
“Not my style,” I insisted—but as my cock twitched at the thought of stumbling into Nathan Garnet’s luxury apartment, the taste of oregano and cold beer on our tongues as they tangled together, for a moment not even I believed myself.
As Anders sauntered off to make his rounds of the main ballroom, I was left with my shirt half-buttoned across my chest and my halo on the floor. Why was I agreeing to dinner with this gorgeously persistent Alpha? It had been hard to tell him no, sure, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t slip quietly out the back door now and catch the subway home without having to see him again.
Even better question: why the hell did he want to go to dinner with me? It wasn’t my looks, obviously. My personality wasn’t much to write home about either, as far as I was concerned—not that Nathan would know it. He didn’t even know me. But for some reason, he’d zeroed in on me like a sniper perched on a hillside nonetheless.
Maybe that was it—I looked like an easy target. Hopeful, puppy-dog eyes and that je ne sais quoi about me that told him he’d have me in love with him by midnight, too naive to realize he’d be gone by morning.
I found Nathan waiting for me outside the club, his jacket slung over his shoulder with one hand and a shiny silver lighter in the other. He flicked it open, bringing the flame to light one moment then extinguishing it the next.
“You smoke?” I asked, still looking for a reason to back out of this—god, I needed to stop thinking of it as a date.
“Used to,” he admitted. “Quit years ago. Some of the old habits just die harder than others.” He flicked open the lighter again, offering me its flickering fire. “You?”
I shook my head. “Not my thing.”
He grinned. “Good. Where we’re going, there’s no smoking section anyway. Come on—I’ll drive.”
And there I went, following him to the parking lot like a lamb to the slaughter in the thick of the night.
5
Nathan
As I drove us to my favorite pizza place in Manhattan, one hand on the wheel and the other shifting gears, it struck me that Damon Bishop was the cagiest man I’d ever met in my life.
He was hiding it well, sure. It wasn’t like he was keeping his hand on the door handle, ready to tuck and roll at the slightest provocation. But I saw it in the way he glanced at the digital glow of the miles-per-hour on my Ferrari’s dash. In the way he wedged himself on the far side of the seat, careful to keep his knee out of reach just in case I dared to reach over and place my hand on it. It was in the tension of his shoulders and the pressure he was putting on his lower lip with his teeth, biting down on it hard enough that I worried it would be bruised by the time the pizza arrived.
“You don’t have to be here, you know,” I pointed out. “I can swing you by your apartment instead. Just give me the cross-streets.”
“But then you’d know where I lived.”
I couldn’t help it. I laughed. “Which would be a scary thing if I was…I don’t know. An axe murderer.”
“Well…are you?”
“Unlike the Alphas at the Ballroom tonight, Damon, I don’t see you as a piece of meat.” I glanced over at him as we pulled up to a red light. “I keep all my sharp objects in my kitchen’s knife drawer, safe and sound.”
“Except for that cutting wit of yours, I see.”
I chuckled again. “How kind of you to notice.”
“Presumptive of you to think it was a compliment.”
Christ—if I needed any sharp object to get through to Damon right now, it was a chisel. His body might’ve looked like it was carved from stone, but there was still so much chipping away at him left to do yet.
Not that I minded. I’d said it before—I liked a challenge.
“It’s just pizza, Damon.” I flipped on my turn signal and took the corner nice and fast, just the way I liked it. Ferraris were so often wasted on the city streets, but thankfully, the Knicks must’ve been playing an away game or something. There wasn’t that much traffic tonight. “But if you decide you’d like to see my knife collection later, just let me know. Always happy to humor.”
He turned slightly in his seat, twisting beneath his seatbelt to face me. “You must think you’re pretty charming, huh?”
“I’ve been accused of as much from time to time.”
He exhaled sharply through his nose. “Well, I just want you to know I’m not buying it. Other Omegas might buy this whole ruggedly suave thing you’re pulling right now, but I don’t.”
I grinned. “You think I�
�m suave?”
He crossed his arms over his chest, turning away again. “I think you’re driving too fast.”
“Mm.” I eased off the gas a little, bringing things down until we were nicely below the speed limit. “I can take things slow too. If you prefer.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I caught him rolling his. “I don’t think you’ve ever taken things slow a single day in your life.”
“Now who’s being presumptive?” I shifted gears, taking another turn down a side street. The soft yellow glow of the street lamps turned his skin golden as we passed between shadow and light, shadow and light. “Wait until after dinner to make any decisions about who I am and what I’m capable of. I might surprise you.”
Another eye roll. “I’ve met enough men like you before, Nathan Garnet. Given past experiences with your type, I doubt it.”
He meant it as an insult, I was sure. I didn’t take it as one. In fact, it just told me one very important thing about Damon Bishop:
I was his type.
We parked a block away from the pizza joint. As I came around to open his door for him, I could sense his urge to let the eye-rolling continue. To my pleasure, he found some way to hold himself back. I liked that in a man. A little self-control never hurt anyone.
Anyone other than me, anyway.
When I offered him my arm, to my continued pleasure, he took it. He was just as tall as I was—rare in an Omega, but again, very much a positive as far as I was concerned. I had theories about Alphas who got too caught up in the act of kissing down. All it had ever given me was a kink in my neck—and I preferred to keep my kinks to the bedroom, thank you very much.
Unfortunately, Damon’s ability to play nice ended when we got to the restaurant.
“This isn’t a pizza joint,” he hissed into my ear as we came inside. More low lighting. More golden, incandescent skin.
“They serve pizza here,” I assured him as the maître d' took us to my favorite table.
