by Bates, Aiden
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.”
“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.
I caught him glancing at the suits and ties of the other diners—some male-female couples, but mostly Alphas and Omegas like us. “You could have warned me about the dress code.”
“Please. They don’t care about that here.” Or at least, they wouldn’t for us—considering I owned the place. “If you’re uncomfortable, I can always let you borrow my jacket.”
He tugged his t-shirt down a little as a waiter helped him into his chair. “You left it in the car.”
“Ah, but for you, mi amor—”
“Don’t call me that.”
“—I could always run back out and get it.”
“No,” Damon said with a sigh, glancing nervously at the cloth napkin on his plate, all the forks and knives. “No, it’s fine. I’m fine.”
I ordered us two pizzas—a margherita and a quattro formaggi. They arrived with thin, slightly blackened crust from the wood-fire oven and a bottle of white wine.
“Aren’t you having any?” he asked as I placed my hand over my own wine glass. His had already been poured.
“You were nervous enough in my car when I was sober,” I pointed out. “I’m hardly going to drive you home wasted on wine.”
He eyed his glass suspiciously. “Well, I’m hardly going to drink alone.”
“It’s already been poured.” I nudged his glass toward him, careful not to get my fingerprints on the thin frost that had formed on the bell. “And it’s your birthday, remember? We can switch you to a red, if you don’t like white.”
His eyes narrowed. “Mr. Garnet, if I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were trying to get me drunk.”
“No, Mr. Bishop,” I corrected him. “I’m trying to get you to enjoy yourself. Try it. It’s a Gavi dei Gavi.”
He blanched as I pronounced the brand in perfectly accented Italian. Apparently, my showboating wasn’t hitting the mark. But when the wine hit his tongue, I saw the hint of a smile curl on his lips.
Not impressed by my Italian, but he warmed right up to fine Italian wine.
“Now, the pizza.” I pulled up a slice of the quattro formaggi, enjoying the way the cheese stretched as I moved it toward his lips.
“I can feed myself, you know.”
“I’m sure. But where’s the fun in that?”
“You and I have different ideas of fun.” Still, he blew gently on the tip of the slice before allowing me to slip it between his lips.
“Good?” I watched carefully for his reaction.
“Fuck,” he swore all too loudly, his mouth still full and chewing. He turned red as he realized he’d done it—said a curse word in my fancy restaurant and spoken with his mouth full to boot.
“I’ll take that as a yes, then,” I said with a laugh. As I passed the rest of the slice over to him, our fingertips brushed against each other—coated in the corn meal the chef used to lubricate the pizza while it baked on the stone, warm from the heat of the crust.
“This is easily the best pizza I’ve ever eaten,” he murmured, careful to finish chewing before he spoke this time.
“Good. Then you can stop complaining,” I teased.
His gorgeous blue eyes raised to me, hooded beneath his dark gold lashes. “I’ll consider it, Mr. Garnet.”
“I appreciate it, Mr. Bishop.” It amused the hell out of me, this formality. Good pizza and fine wine were usually enough to make most Omegas warm to me instantly—but here he was, still so tentative, so reserved.
It was fucking cute, was what it was. He’d given me my little in. Allowed me to bring him into my world. But he was also making it clear that if I wanted any more of him, I’d have to earn it.
Luckily, earning things was my entire job description.
“Do you normally spend your birthdays at the club?” I asked, daring to pry.
“I normally spend my birthdays locked in my room with my books,” he countered. “Personnel changes at the club interrupted me tonight, though.”
I raised an eyebrow. Books, huh? “Romance, mysteries, or sci-fi?”
“Textbooks.” He patted at his lips with his napkin, careful to place it back onto his lap when he was done. “Pretty much all the reading I get done anymore, really.”
“You study?” I didn’t know why I was impressed—he was clever, after all. He’d already proven that. Dancing must have been more of a means to an end for him than a lifelong passion.
“Physical therapy.” He cracked the ghost of a grin. “Almost as diligently as you were studying the dancers tonight.”<
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“Only one dancer,” I reminded him, my eyes on his fingertips as he nearly brought them to his lips to lick them clean.
He caught me staring and dove for the napkin again. No dice. “And why was that, Mr. Garnet? You don’t seem like a one-dancer kind of man.”
“I told you I’d surprise you.” I reached for my glass, taking a sip of the ice-cold water within. “You’re an interesting study. I couldn’t seem to help myself.”
He blinked. “And what makes me so interesting?”
I leaned back in my chair. Now, we were getting somewhere. “Maybe it was the way you told off those Alphas when they were first cat-calling you during your dance. Or your choice of music—I’ve always thought Flashdance could’ve been improved with an Omega lead.”
“Or maybe you’re just a horny old bastard and I looked like the most vulnerable piece of meat on the menu tonight.”
I laughed. “I already told you—I don’t see you as a piece of meat. And as you told me—you’re not on the menu.”
“I’m not,” he agreed, going in for another slice.
“Even now, you’re fascinating to me, Damon,” I admitted, enjoying watching him enjoy.
“And why’s that?”
“Why do you find it so hard to believe that an Alpha might just be interested in you for you?”
At that, he nearly choked on his pizza. I waited for him to compose himself before he answered.
“I already told you,” he said, mimicking my earlier tone as he repeated my words. “I know your type.”
Fuck, he was enchanting. The little tricks he used to spin the conversation in circles. The ways he found to make me work for every bite-sized piece of information I drew out of him.
I didn’t normally consider myself a player. Usually, because this kind of thing wasn’t much of a game. A few clever witticisms from me had most Omegas laughing at everything I said that followed—whether it was actually funny or not. A glance at the cut of my suit normally would’ve had him back at my place within the hour with both our clothes on the floor.
But Damon wasn’t most Omegas. I’d known it the moment he came out on the stage at the Ballroom earlier, that impossible mix of charisma and vulnerability radiating off him like light off the morning sun. Everything else I’d learned about him after had just sweetened the deal—and now that I’d had a taste of him, it was only in my nature to want more.
