Heaven's Ballroom

by Aiden Bates

  What I’d wanted had been love, not obsession. Love meant safety. Security. Comfort and warmth. Obsession, though—obsession only meant living in fear.

  Something that I wasn’t willing to do. Not for my stalker. Not for anyone. Not anymore.

  “All right, then. Here we are.” Blake found a rare parking space right outside my apartment and effortlessly parallel parked the truck into an impossibly tight fit.

  “Thanks,” I sighed, reaching for my seatbelt. “You don’t need to walk me in or—”

  But Blake was already out of the truck and jogging around to the passenger’s side to open my door for me.

  “Do you have to be so disgustingly gentlemanly about everything?” I asked, groaning in frustration as he offered me his hand to help me down.

  Blake only grinned. “Yeah, pretty much. Part of my charms.”

  “What charms?” I grumbled, but nonetheless took his hand. There were no running boards on Blake’s truck, just a long jump from my seat to the ground. His palm was rough, but warm in mine, his calluses rubbing against the softness of my skin as he helped me down.

  “Oh, I’m sure you’ll come to recognize them eventually. You know, trustworthy, handsome, protective—”

  “Overprotective, if you ask me.” I looked up at him, suddenly surprised by his height. I’d known Blake for long enough, our three-inch height difference normally wouldn’t have struck me so hard. But on the sidewalk outside my apartment like this, for some reason those three inches suddenly felt more like six. “Well, here I am, then. You’ve gotten me home safe.”

  “Yep,” Blake agreed, offering me his arm. “Now I walk you in.”

  I laughed, not because it was funny, but because he was being ridiculous. “It’s ten feet to my door. What do you think’s going to happen, the stalker’s gonna jump out of the bushes next to the stoop and kidnap me there?”

  Blake stroked his chin in contemplation. “Good point. Ought to secure the area first, I guess.”

  I watched in annoyed agony as Blake canvassed the space surrounding the apartment building’s front door, peering behind the bushes and only waving me up toward the door once he’d determined that it was safe.

  “Neutralize all those pesky threats?” I asked disdainfully.

  “I think your bushes have aphids—but otherwise, yes. Totally safe.” Blake held his hand out for my keys and sighing, I handed them over. There was no fighting him on this—lest he determined that he needed to start carrying me places again.

  The pantomime continued as Blake unlocked the door and made his way to my apartment. He’d been there a handful of times before, arriving at after-parties for big events at the Ballroom, casual movie nights and Superbowl Sundays. He’d always shown up with some devastatingly gorgeous Omega hanging off his arm and on his every word. A man-bunned art student from NYU. A PhD candidate in existential philosophy at Columbia. That Ukrainian wunderkind neurosurgeon who’d just signed on at Mount Sinai Children’s, all cheekbones and elegant wrists. I’d always envied them a little, their passion and drive and successes—not too much, though. Back then, I’d still been pulling high-rolling stockbroker Alphas, Alphas whose entire closets had been purchased from designers so brilliant and obscure that even I hadn’t known their names.

  But that had all been years ago now. I hadn’t dated anyone since this whole stalker thing came into my life. I felt too vulnerable to deal with that shit—and there was never any telling who I might have been letting in.

  As for Blake, for all I knew he was still dating charming Omegas with more passion than they had sense. Maybe that was why he’d been so hesitant to look at me earlier—if he had a boyfriend waiting for him back home, he’d be remiss to spend his time devouring his lonely stripper friends with his eyes. Or otherwise.

  Which didn’t explain why he was wasting his time pulling this whole protective schtick with me right now—or how he still remembered which door was mine.

  “It’s been a while, huh?” He turned my key in my lock, frowning as he realized that it wasn’t clicking right.

  “Long enough that the lock was still working the last time you were here.” I brushed past him, pushing the door open as I slipped my keys back out of it. “There was an, uh. Incident. Lock’s been broken ever since.”

  “Incident?” Blake’s brow furrowed with concern as he followed me in. “What kind of incident?”

  “Nothing you need to worry about,” I lied—because at the rate he was going, if I told him what had actually happened, he’d do nothing but worry. I didn’t need to be on a Blake-imposed code red lockdown just because of something that had happened once years ago and not again since. “It’s a non-issue. The building’s got front door locks. It’s safe enough.”

  “Yeah, until your stalker lies about forgetting his keys and some well-meaning grandmother lets him in.” Blake crossed his arms over his chest, turning to glare at the lock. “You tell your landlord he needs to fix it?”

  I shrugged, tossing my bag down on my couch and putting my keys in their designated bowl on the coffee table. “He’s aware of it. Says he’ll get around to it when he has time.”

  “Not good enough.” Blake prowled deeper into my living room, scowling at everything from my couch cushions to my curtains. “Do you seriously keep your windows open like this all the time?”

  “It gets hot in here.” I crossed through the living room into the kitchen, pulling out an ice cold bottle of water from my fridge. “No AC. Only makes sense. Why?”

  Blake’s shoulders heaved in a frustrated sigh. “You’re on the first floor, Anders. No screens on your windows—anyone could’ve climbed right in while you were away.”

  “Suppose you’ll need to check behind the shower curtain after all,” I quipped, popping open the bottle and sipping at the icy cold water within. “Down the hall, second door on the—”

  But Blake was already headed to the bathroom, his boots clomping loud enough that I was grateful I didn’t have any downstairs neighbors. I poked my head around the corner just in time to see him reach for the wrong doorknob, which sent my heart thudding and leaping up into my throat.

  “I said second door, Blake, don’t—”

  But it was too late. Instead of opening the door to my bathroom, Blake pulled open the door to my hallway closet, sending a precarious tower of cards, letters, half-dismembered stuffed animals and dying flowers tumbling to the floor at his feet.

  The look of concern knitted in his brow only deepened as he picked up the one thing I would have preferred to keep completely hidden from him—a razor-sharp butcher’s knife with a ribbon wrapped around its handle and a card attached. He didn’t even give me a glance as he opened the card, reading what I remembered quite clearly to be a note from my stalker—one of the worst ones I’d ever gotten.

  “Anders…this is bad,” Blake said, looking up at me with sympathy in his eyes.

  I gave a wince of agreement. “Yeah…” I sighed, knowing good and well that there was no brushing him off now. Not now that he’d seen all the gifts that my stalker had sent me through the years. Not now that he’d seen that. “Yeah, I know.”

  5

  Blake

  “You’re not staying the night,” Anders insisted, which was funny—because yes, I was.

  I crossed my arms over my chest, drawing myself up to my full height. I didn’t have a head on Anders like I did on most of the Omegas I’d known—something that I thought about on occasion, though I didn’t like to admit it. He had a stalker problem so serious that he hadn’t even felt safe dating in the last few years. It wasn’t exactly the right time for me to go around thinking about how nice it would be not to have to do so much kissing down for once.

  “Why not?”

  “One bedroom. One, Blake. One bedroom, one bed.” He pointed down the hall to a closed door that I could only assume was where the magic happened—or, in the case of Anders’ current predicament, hadn’t happened in a while. “Where would you even sleep?” />
  “Couch looks nice enough.” I grabbed his duffel bag, shifting it to the floor so I could flop down on the couch’s plush leather cushions. Immediately, I regretted it. It was a pretty couch, but obviously old enough that it wasn’t prepared to suddenly bear the weight of two hundred pounds of muscle and cock. Something shifted badly beneath me as soon as my ass hit the cushions, creating a loud thump followed by the sound of what I could only assume was a spring popping. “Or, well. I’ve slept on worse.”

  “But you’ve got your own place, surely. Your own bed, your own Omega to go home to…”

  I chuckled, kicking my boots off and swinging my feet up onto the cushions as I lay back. “Two outta three ain’t a bad guess. But no—don’t you worry. I don’t have a boyfriend waiting at home wringing his hands waiting for me.”

  “But you do have a boyfriend,” he insisted. “Hand-wringing or not.”

  “No boyfriend at all,” I clarified. “Haven’t for, hell. Two years? Three?”

  “Looking the way you do?” He raised an eyebrow, looking me up and down in a way that made my blood damn near boil.

  I was used to Omegas looking at me like that, sure. They came into the Ballroom on the arms of their fat cat Wall Street sugar daddies, laughing half-heartedly at the decidedly unfunny things that their older dates were saying while they sized me up like a piece of meat. But having an Omega like Anders look at me in that way… Hell, it gave me goosebumps so bad, I had to smooth my hands down my forearms just to tame them.

  “You don’t have a boyfriend either,” I pointed out. “Looking the way you do and all.”

  Anders let out an exasperated laugh. “Okay, yeah, good. We’ve both established that we’re very attractive. But Blake, come on. Why the hell do you need to sleep here? All that’s gonna do is give you a bad back.”

  “It’s late,” I reasoned, nodding to the streetlights on outside the window.

  “So take the subway home. It’ll get you there in, what, half an hour or something?”

  “Late,” I continued, “And the hardware stores won’t be open again until morning.”

  “What does that have to do with anything?”

  “Well, I figure I’ll be walking to one come first thing tomorrow morning and picking up a new lock for your door, for one.” I shook my head as I continued to gaze out the window, scoffing at how shit-for-brains Anders’ landlord had to be to let this place go so unsecured for so long. “And some screens for your windows too, I think. Metal ones, the kind you can’t cut through with anything short of a blowtorch. Hell, I’ll pick up some bars if I can find them.”

  “This is an apartment, Blake. Not a jewelry store.”

  “Dunno. You’ve got a pretty shiny quality to you.” I grinned up at him as he came around the couch, obscuring my view of the street.

  “Because I’m sweating, asshole. Not sparkling.”

  “Potato, potat-oh. You need better security here is my point.”

  “So come back here tomorrow morning, if you have to!” Anders pointed at the couch beneath me, which was already bowing from my weight. “All you’re going to get from sleeping on that couch is a crick in your neck, idiot.”

  “A crick in my neck is a small price to pay for giving you a little peace of mind.”

  He laughed again, high and annoyed. “Peace of mind? How do you think you could ever give me that right now? I’ve got a murderous stalker and—”

  “And a first-floor apartment with so many infiltration points it’s a wonder that you’re not being robbed nightly as-is.” I shifted on the couch, moving my feet so I could pat the cushion next to me. “You’re free to sleep out here with me, if it’d make you feel any better.”

  “That couch can barely hold you.” Anders cast a dubious glance at the cushions beneath me.

  I grinned wolfishly. “We could always share your bed.”

  “Ugh. In your dreams, Blake.” Anders was trying to play that one nice and cool, but I could see the way the tips of his ears were turning pink at the mere thought. “Seriously. You think your presence here is going to stop some knife-obsessed psychopath from slipping through my windows at night and killing us both?”

  I blinked up at him for a moment, then shifted off the couch and back up to my feet again. Our heights were even more similar now that my boots were off—but I was still one of the biggest, baddest looking motherfuckers on Manhattan, combat boots or no.

  “Five years with SEAL team three,” I recited like a line from a poem, my gaze shifting to seriousness. “Three Bronze Medals. Two Silver Stars. One Purple Heart. A Presidential Unit Citation and a few commendations besides.” I nodded to the windows behind Anders with confidence. “Any fucker even tries to come into this apartment without an invitation and it’s him you should be worried about, not me.”

  “I—well, I…” Anders struggled for a moment, obviously flustered. But as he discovered he didn’t have much of an argument at all for that, he finally deflated with a sigh. “Okay. Fine. Just one night, though.”

  My grin returned slowly, softer this time. “Just one night,” I agreed. “I’ll secure the place first thing tomorrow. Help you sleep a little sounder, at least.”

  “Yeah…yeah, I guess you’re right about that.” Anders blinked slowly, his own exhaustion finally reaching his eyes. “Thank you, Blake. You don’t have to do any of this, but…”

  “It’s the right thing to do,” I reassured him. “And I’m happy to do it. You tired enough to sleep?”

  “Yeah, probably. Just let me grab some spare sheets from the closet and a pillow from my bed. If you’re going to make yourself miserable for my sake, I might as well try and make my shitty couch as comfortable for you as I can.”

  Half an hour later, I was settled beneath the sheets on Anders’ couch with a dinner chair jamming the lock of his front door and a pillow lightly scented by his shampoo beneath my head. Not exactly comfortable, maybe—but it wasn’t my comfort I was worried about. It was his. Besides, what I’d said earlier had been true. I’d slept in worse conditions in Syria, and not even a New York summer could hold a candle to the heat of Iraq.

  Hell, if I’d had the favorite pillow of a gorgeous Omega burlesque dancer nestled beneath my head every night back then, I probably would’ve slept better than anyone else on my squad. Anders’ scent, the bergamot and amber of his hair, wafted gently around me as I laid my head down, guiding me off to sleep.

  Unfortunately, it wasn’t a peaceful one.

  I dreamed in the staccato burst of machine gun fire, the sun flaring up overhead only eclipsed by the contrail of a rocket as it launched from the roof of the compound. Sometimes, the dream was in Syria. Sometimes, Iraq. Sometimes I even dreamed it here in New York, explosives obliterating the boulders of Central Park. But no matter where my idiot subconscious placed it, the dream itself was always the same. Chest heaving, boots laced tight on my feet. Sweat on my brow, dripping down to sting my eyes. I wiped it aside as I raised my gun, firing two shots at the sniper I’d clocked in the compound’s tower. That was the name of the game—shoot him before he shot one of me or mine first. I was a marksman. He was the mark.

  But marksmanship stood no chance against bad intel. The raid had been a set-up. The firefight, an ambush. We’d been told they had one sniper. Wet behind the ears. Lousy shot. He had been. But there’d been another, one that I’d only glimpsed by the flash of his sight the moment right after the moment when he’d taken his shot.

  Not at me. Not at mine. But at the C4 he’d laid out, just where he’d been expecting us to take cover—I looked to Griff, to Pilot and Romeo and Marx, my mouth open, screaming, “Fall back!” only to find that my voice wouldn’t make a damn sound and—

  “Blake,” a voice called out, impossibly far away as my body began to convulse.

  My eyes popped open, adrenaline blurring my vision and rushing through my veins so hard and fast I could hear my heart beating in my ears. There were two hands on my shoulders, shaking me, and while my bra
in was still scrambling, trying to rationalize why, my subconscious jumped to the only conclusion it knew and took the reins.

  Hand to throat. Fingers to wrist. I had him thrown down on the floor, pinned by my weight before I even knew who him was. My fist clenched threateningly around the man’s neck, tightening instinctively while my hips held his steady, making it impossible for him to squirm away until—

  “Blake,” Anders choked, clawing at the hand strangling at his windpipe. “Blake, it’s me.”

  I blinked as the world came rushing back around me, snapping me out of the dangerous headspace my dream had left me in. Pushing myself back, I released his throat and threw myself off him instantly, a dozen, “I’m sorry, I’m so fucking sorry”s pouring out of my mouth as fast as I could say them.

  “Jesus,” Anders said with a cough, rubbing at the marks my fingers had made around his Adam’s apple. “What the fuck was that about?”

  “I’m sorry,” I said again, running my fingers through my hair and feeling how damp with cold sweat the dream had left my scalp. “I was having this awful nightmare and—”

  “I know.” Anders nodded, his eyes soft with concern as he pushed himself up into a sitting position. “You were yelling in your sleep, and I thought—”

  “I didn’t mean to hurt—”

  “Blake, I know, I know you wouldn’t try—”

  “Christ,” I swore, a slick metallic nausea settling into my gut as I combed through my hair anxiously with my fingers, raking them across my scalp over and over again. “I’m an asshole. How the hell are you supposed to feel safe around me when I can’t even—”

  “Stop,” Anders said firmly. He leaned forward, grabbing my wrists and pulling them down to my sides. His eyes were bright and clear, not a flash of fear in them. “You didn’t mean to. You were having a bad dream, and you reacted. I should’ve known better.”