Heaven's Ballroom

by Aiden Bates

  I had my own life here in Manhattan. A life I was proud of. A life I’d built for myself. And Alton—he had a kid, a career, the weight of his husband’s death still on his broad, muscled shoulders and a life of his own too. A life that, despite his occasional need for dinner dates to fancy business dealings, definitely didn’t have room for me in it.

  It would be all too easy to let myself get sucked back in. He was handsome, older, set up for life. I was hot and young and the perfect kind of arm candy for a man like him. Our sexual chemistry was through the roof—even though we’d never done anything more than share that kiss one year ago—and I’d seen how that kind of thing played out a dozen times or more since I’d started working the club scene here in New York. I’d allow him to give me all these things he seemed all too willing to bring into my life—fancy suits, the shiny black Italian leather shoes to go with them, caviar and champagne and expensive sports cars, the works—and he’d spoil me the way only men like him ever could.

  But I’d seen what wealth like that did to people like me. People like my parents. Hell—people like my boyfriend-stealing ex-roommate. We got a little taste of the good life, and we got drunk on it. Made stupid decisions. Ruined our lives, and the lives of those around us, too. My parents had ruined the lives of every employee they’d had on their books. Ben had a kid on the way and was already scoping out the next notch on his bedpost.

  Money didn’t buy happiness—I believed that to my core. What it did buy was security, and security was all I needed any more. A roof over my head. Food in the fridge. And everything I truly needed, I could already afford.

  When James and I had been together, I hadn’t let him pay my way. I wouldn’t let Alton do it for me, either.

  It was important to me that, no matter how deep things got with Alton, I remembered who I was. The man I’d made of myself. The man I was proud to be. I wasn’t some high-rolling trust fund kid, and I wasn’t a gold-digging slut, either.

  I’d go with Alton to his dinner, sure. Maybe, if it felt right, I’d even let him take me back to his place after. Sort all of our sexual tension out in one explosive evening of passion. Get him out of my system. Let him get me out of his. But in the morning…Alton had a kid, and I had my convictions.

  You only got one life to live, and I couldn’t respect myself if I lived mine in Alton’s glittery, high-class world.

  You only got one soul mate, and Alton Palmer had already had his.

  “Ready to go?” Alton asked, popping his head back into the dressing room just as I finished tucking my t-shirt into my jeans. He was clad in his street clothes too—expensive slacks and a crisp black button-down.

  “As ready as I’ll ever be.” I tightened my belt, slipping the loose end through one of the denim loops on my waistband and giving him a disarming grin. I didn’t need him thinking anything was wrong—because really, nothing was. This was a just a little fling. Some fun between two capable, consenting adults. Nothing more. “Hungry?”

  “Starving,” Alton agreed. “I was thinking, there’s this gorgeous fusion bistro up on—”

  “Actually,” I said, stopping him before he could name off some street where even the appetizers cost more than I could afford, “why don’t you let me pick the place? Repay you for all this fancy tailoring we’ve had done today.”

  He raised an eyebrow, an amused smile blooming on his perfect lips. “You know you don’t owe me anything, Eliot.”

  “Of course I don’t. But I’d like to take you somewhere special for lunch.” I wound my arm around his, feeling my cock throb at the hardness of his bicep beneath my fingers. “My treat.”

  “Your treat.” He chuckled—it must have been funny to him, the idea of an Omega like me paying his way for once. “Okay. Lead the way.”

  7

  Alton

  I had to hand it to him—I’d never been to a place like this before.

  “Order whatever you want,” Eliot said, gesturing at the menu on the wall like he’d just laid the entire world out at my feet. “I’m going to absolutely spoil you here.”

  I had to hold back a laugh as I read over the prices on the menu. Any place that I might have taken Eliot to wouldn’t have even listed how much things cost—there was an unspoken rule at my favorite haunts that if you had to ask the price, you couldn’t afford it, anyway. He’d hauled me to a deli where, he must have realized, I could have bought out the entire shop with just the cash in my wallet in one fell swoop—but if he meant to intimidate me with how supposedly lower class a backstreet deli in the Bowery was, he’d failed entirely. If anything, I was charmed by the notion of him treating me to lunch. It was sweet in so many ways—and admittedly, I’d never been on a date with an Omega where he paid for me before.

  “Pastrami on rye, then,” I told the clerk across the counter. “Extra pickles.”

  “Make it two.” Eliot unfolded a crumbled twenty from his pocket and slid it to the clerk. “And two Cokes.”

  “Coke.” Now, I really could laugh. “I thought Omegas like you only ordered diet.”

  “It’s a treat, not a habit,” Eliot countered, taking two ice-cold glass bottles from the clerk along with his change. He passed one to me, tilting the mouth of his uncapped bottle against mine in a cheers. “As long as you enjoy it, it’s worth the calories.”

  “I’ll endeavor to enjoy it, then.” I sipped at it, feeling the fizz of its bubbles prickling with sweetness on my tongue. Growing up in my family, soda had been an object of shame and scorn. If you wanted something nice and fizzy on the Upper East Side, you drank San Pellegrino, not carbonated corn syrup water.

  But as it turned out, Eliot was right. The soda was a treat, just as much a dessert as it was a drink. We nipped at our bottles while we waited for our sandwiches to be prepared, casting occasional glances at each other, then looking away as soon as we noticed the other was staring, too.

  It was a stark contrast to how things had felt in the tailor’s shop. There, everything had been sensual. Luxurious. Entirely of my world. I felt in control in any room where I knew I was the one with the most buying power—which meant most rooms, given my pedigree and my bank account. But here in the deli, I was out of my element, whereas Eliot was so obviously in his. It put butterflies in my stomach—even more than the carbonation of the soda did.

  It felt like a first date, I realized. A real one. As we walked down Second Avenue through Little Italy, our mouths too full of rye bread and thinly sliced meat to make conversation, a pleasant warmth rose up in my chest and flowed through my shoulders that I couldn’t quite place.

  Contentment, maybe. Or maybe, I just liked the way he smiled up at me when he didn’t think I was watching him out of the corner of my eye between bites.

  “This is nice,” I found myself saying.

  Eliot’s tongue darted out from the corner of his mouth, licking away a speck of spicy brown mustard from his lips. “Is it?”

  “It is, yeah. Feels…good. Strangely right.”

  “That’s funny. I thought nice for people like you meant lobster Thermidor with champagne on the side.”

  “Oh, we can do that later,” I assured him. “Trough of beluga caviar and some gold-leaf Tahitian vanilla ice cream for dessert.”

  “Take another bite of your sandwich and tell me you don’t secretly prefer this anyway.” His eyes glinted with challenge.

  “It’s not even a secret,” I admitted. “But God, you should see the way the brokers sneak back into Hayward Financial after lunch—trying to act like they didn’t just duck into the bathroom to clean the mustard off their overpriced ties.”

  “Not a snob, then.” Eliot laughed at the realization. “Or at least, a snob who’s able to admit that he doesn’t mind slumming it every once in a while.”

  “I’m not slumming it.” The idea brought a sneer to my lips. “How could I be, wandering around the city with an Omega like you on my arm?”

  “I’m not on your arm just yet,” he pointed out.

&nb
sp; “That’s only because your hands are full,” I countered. “But come Saturday, when we show up at Hayward’s penthouse together…”

  “Oh, of course,” he agreed. “Arm candy of the highest quality. That is why you’ve invited me to this dinner, isn’t it?”

  “Because I think you’ll look good, hanging off my elbow and laughing at all my jokes?”

  “Because,” he corrected, “You want to make that boss of yours insanely jealous over what a hot piece of ass you’ve managed to haul over to his place for the evening.”

  It was a funny notion, making Hayward jealous. On one hand, the man was so up his own ass that part of me wondered whether he’d even notice how insanely attractive Eliot was. If he knew what was good for him, Hayward would only be concerning himself with his own date—or, even better, the mess he’d made of our company, and the importance of appeasing Mickey Montgomery enough that we were able to push said mess under the rug before our shareholders found out what he’d done.

  On the other hand, Hayward was a notorious ass-hound, and if his jaw didn’t hit the floor the moment he laid eyes on how handsome Eliot looked in tailored, vintage Armani, I’d eat my own dress shoes.

  “It’s not just your looks, you know.” It was important to me that Eliot knew I wasn’t just interested in him because he could’ve easily been a centerfold model for Omega Playboy—even though he absolutely could have been. “You’re not as low-class as you like to pretend, Eliot Ashton. You said so yourself—champagne and caviar aren’t exactly beyond your palate.”

  “Mm. Once upon a time, they weren’t. But I’ve been out of that world for a long time, Alton. If you think I’m going to be able to show up and trade witticisms about the latest issue of The New Yorker, you’re going to be disappointed.”

  “Hayward doesn’t read The New Yorker.” I cracked a wry smile. “Hell—he doesn’t even read Forbes.”

  “More of a Bloomberg kind of guy?”

  I raised my eyebrows, racking my brain as I tried to remember whether or not Hayward even read at all.

  “Omega Playboy, maybe,” I offered, unable to avoid thinking of Eliot spread out across the centerfold again. I’d seen him shirtless on the night we met, after all. One short year hadn’t been enough to forget the deep, hard lines his muscles cut into his hips. “And even then, I don’t think he reads the articles.”

  “Does anyone?” Eliot asked, laughing at the thought.

  I joined him in his laughter, closing my eyes as I listened to the sounds our amusement made as they mixed together. It had felt so perfect, being with him in those expensive suits back at Mark’s—and even though we were in our street clothes with the sour-sweetness of deli pickles on our tongues now, that perfection hadn’t faded in the least.

  “You shouldn’t worry about Hayward,” I promised him as the laughter faded. “At least, not while you’re by my side.”

  “And if I happen to wander off?”

  My brow lowered, my gaze hardening at the thought. If Hayward did notice how attractive Eliot was—and, having seen Eliot myself, I couldn’t imagine a scenario where he didn’t—then I supposed there was the potential for trouble to arise. I trusted Hayward around Omegas about as much as I trusted him with the company’s books—which, at this point, meant that I didn’t trust him at all.

  “Don’t wander off, then,” I warned him, trying to keep the mood light despite my concerns. “I don’t want you to think that I’m bringing you into a den of wolves or anything, but…”

  “Wall Streeters.”

  “Exactly. You know enough about the corporate world to know what entitled pricks men like that can be.”

  “And what about you, Alton?” he asked, cocking an eyebrow and tilting his head up toward me. “Man or wolf?”

  “Wolf,” I said, flashing my incisors with my smile. “Definitely. But entitled prick… No. Not quite.”

  “How can I tell the difference? I mean, you all work in the same places…you all dress the same way…”

  I stopped, wheeling around in front of him to halt him in his tracks as well. There was still a playfulness on his lips, but it didn’t make it all the way up to his gaze. Christ—he was a little nervous. More than the gentle ribbing from his line of questioning could have let on.

  There was something entirely erotic about that—the wariness beneath his confidence. The thought that I very well could be leading him right back into the very kind of wolves’ den that his family’s fall from grace had allowed him to escape. The idea that I could protect him from it. Guide him through it. Be the kind of strong, capable Alpha who could shield him from walking away from it without any bite marks.

  Any that I wouldn’t give him myself, at any rate.

  I needed him prepared to deal with men like Hayward and Mickey Montgomery, I knew. But I also knew that I didn’t want him worried about them—that he could trust me. That I wasn’t like those men. Not by a long shot.

  “We’re all wolves, Eliot,” I told him softly, though there was no hiding the gentle growl in my voice as I said it. “I don’t have to tell you that much.”

  “And here I am, a delicate little lamb you’re leading along to the slaughter?”

  “I’m a different kind of wolf, I guess.”

  “Mm. The lone kind? Or are you telling me you’re the leader of your vicious little pack?”

  I laughed. “I think we might have worn through this metaphor.”

  “Answer the question, Alton.” His green eyes flared with pale fire.

  “Let me put it this way, then,” I said, reaching up to his jawline and running my thumb across the corner of his lips. “There won’t be an Alpha in that room that won’t want to devour you. But I wouldn’t have invited you along if I thought you couldn’t hold your own against any one of them.”

  “And if I prove you wrong?”

  I ground my molars against each other at the thought. “Then I’ll come along and save you, won’t I?”

  “You tell me.”

  I dipped closer to him, my fingers pressing against the slightest hint of pale stubble on his cheek. “I will save you, Eliot. Pry you out of their jaws myself if I have to.”

  “And what about your jaws, Alton?”

  My lips curled deviously in a way they hadn’t in a very long time. “You want to know the difference between men like me, and men like Malcolm Hayward?”

  “I think I need to.”

  “Then here it is. If I decide to devour you—”

  “If,” he challenged, a little laugh blowing against my lips.

  “It will only be because you ask me for it,” I promised, lowering my mouth to his.

  If we had kissed just then, I didn’t think I would have stopped kissing him. I’d wanted it that first night on his doorstep. Wanted it enough that my grief had faded away into some carnal madness. That I hadn’t even hesitated before claiming him for my own. If we’d kissed just then, that kiss would have taken us back to my penthouse. Back to my bed. I would have finished what we started all those years ago—and he would have asked me for it over and over again.

  But half an inch away from sealing the deal, my phone vibrated urgently in my pocket. A frustrated sigh escaped my lungs. An amused laugh escaped his.

  “The wolves are calling,” he said, smirking. “Go ahead.”

  Groaning, I pulled my phone from my pocket and glanced at the number.

  “Shit,” I swore apologetically. “It’s my daughter’s school.”

  “Answer it.” He took a step back, giving me a gentle nod of understanding.

  “Mr. Palmer?” an annoyed female voice said through the speaker. “I’m so sorry to bother you, but there’s been an…issue with Lizzie. Do you mind coming in?”

  “I’ll be there in twenty,” I said before hanging up the phone.

  “Today was nice,” Eliot said with a sad smile, already backing even further away from me. “Maybe when you’re less busy, we can do it again sometime.”

  I blinked, a pang r
unning through my heart as it hit me what that meant. He was right—technically speaking, the date was now over. I wasn’t some Wall Street wolf seducing a hot, single Omega anymore—with the call from Lizzie’s school, I was suddenly a single dad again.

  But no—that didn’t sit right with me. I didn’t just stop being a father just because I was on a date—and I didn’t stop being a date just because I was a father, either.

  “Come with me,” I commanded, holding my hand out to him.

  He raised an eyebrow, hesitating. “You sure? That doesn’t seem like—”

  “Come with me,” I said again, unwavering.

  His smile shifted to amusement, the hesitation dissipating as he placed his hand in mine.

  8

  Eliot

  The only thing more awkward than another moment with Alton being interrupted by the reminder of his child?

  Actually meeting said child. Definitely. Absolutely more awkward.

  Fuck. What had I gotten myself into?

  “You look uncomfortable.” Alton cast a glance down toward me, pointing out the obvious as we entered his daughter’s expensive-looking private school. “Everything okay?”

  I looked up at the chandelier overhead, glistening as it lit up the school’s foyer, then down at the elaborate tile work beneath my feet. This was luxe to the extreme, even by the standards of my own high-class upbringing. High-society Atlanta had been its own kind of monster growing up. Everyone had always been buying new cars, designer shoes, more beautiful homes and more perfect noses as they tried to keep up with the Joneses. But we were in New York now, and this place? This was where the Joneses sent their babies to learn French, German and Italian before they hit first grade.

  “Not really,” I said, not bothering to hide my nerves. They were obvious in the tension in my shoulders, in the way I took each step carefully like I was afraid my shoes might sully the floor beneath my feet. I’d always been the kind of Omega who wore his heart on his sleeve, and I knew my anxiety must have been written all over my face. “This is just…a lot to take in.”