Chapter Three
Igroan when my alarm goes off the next morning. I stayed up entirely too late last night, getting to know my first four suitors.
Dinner together had been pleasant, and there were only a few times that either me or Koda perfumed. After that, we’d gathered by the pool for some drinks, and while I’m close to perfecting my scent-canceling swimsuits, they’re not there yet. All of that bare skin on display had set me off, and that had set Koda off. Let’s just say that Cora, Skylar, and Jagger are very familiar with mine and Koda’s scents at this point.
The hardest part of last night had been not inviting Koda back to my room. It hadn’t really been about sex—okay, it was a little about sex, but more about wanting to surround myself with him and his scent. I’m determined to not make any rash decisions, if I can help them, and something tells me that if I had invited Koda back to my room, we’d have bonded.
I’m looking forward to our group date today, but I’m also glad for the break from Koda. It sounds terrible, I know, but I can’t think with his scent surrounding me. We’re not even supposed to be able to smell one another that well. I wonder if this is what alphas feel like after they meet a compatible omega. If so, I feel sorry for them. I feel like my mind is fogged by his scent, and I’m not sure if it’s my omega that’s attracted to him or me—or both. Hence the need for space.
I already warned my suitors that I’m adventurous, and the dates I have planned definitely fit that bill. It might seem cruel of me to force them into activities they might not enjoy, but I need to be sure they can keep up with me. If they freak out because of the things I like to do, then they’re not the person for me. I need to see how they react, and if they’re willing to participate in the things I like to do. I’d hate to fall for someone only to find out that they alpha out when I try to go base jumping or something.
With that being said, today’s date is actually the tamest of them all. I’m excited about what I’ve planned, but I probably would’ve gone more extreme if Bree hadn’t asked me to roll it back for at least the first date. Something about liabilities and some other nonsense from the network. But she did manage to get them to approve all the other dates, so at least there’s that.
Glancing at the time, I see that it’s ten and startle before remembering that I’d chosen to skip breakfast to get more sleep. I’ve got about an hour until we have to head out for our first adventure, and what an adventure it’ll be.
I jump in the shower, clean off the night before, and then head for my closet. Today won’t be a day to dress up—there’s no way I’m dressing up for this date, but that doesn’t mean I won’t look damn good doing it. I pull on a pair of leggings and a tank top with a sweater over it. We’re in the desert during early spring, which means it’ll be nice during the day, but the temperatures start out low before rising. It’s always best to dress in layers.
Throwing my hair up into a high pony, I realize just how hungry I am—but I’m the one who made the choice to skip breakfast. At least lunch isn’t too far away. No one wants to see a hangry omega.
There’s a knock on my door, pulling me from my wandering thoughts. Another glance at the clock shows that it’s already eleven. I really let time get away from me, didn’t I?
I slide my feet into my sneakers and hurry over to the door. Throwing it open, I grin at Skylar, Cora, Jagger, and Koda as I reach down to grab my bag with my change of clothes. I made sure to not only wash with scent-canceling soap and shampoo, but I also doused myself in scent-canceling products, and I’m once more in my scent-canceling panties. Something tells me that with Koda around, I’m going to need the extra layers of protection. Let’s just hope that they work today.
“Good morning!” I step out, closing the door behind me as I glance between them. “Did everyone sleep well?”
Skylar nods. “That was probably the best sleep I’ve ever had. I don’t know what magic they worked to get those mattresses so soft, but they’re amazing. Though, the pack suite is wasted on the two of us since we just need the one bed.”
Cora giggles, nodding beside her. “And the bed is massive.”
“Yeah, Bree and Tessa really outdid themselves with this place.” I grin, turning my attention to Koda and Jagger. “And the two of you?”
“They gave me one of the pack suites too—talk about wasting space, but Bree said it’s because I’m an omega, and they wanted to make sure that I had everything I needed. One of the smaller rooms was even turned into a nest for me.” Koda shrugs, ducking his face as a blush blooms across his cheeks. “I didn’t expect them to put too much effort into a room for me.”
I smile, loving that they put so much thought into making sure he was comfortable. “It’s never wasted space if it makes you more comfortable being here.”
He nods slowly. “It definitely helps.”
“Good,” I say as I focus on Jagger, who just smirks and nods his head. I shake my head with a laugh. “Well, then, we should get going to our first destination. I see Bree let you all know the dress code.”
They’re all dressed in breathable clothing with layers. Cora and Skylar are dressed almost exactly as I am, with leggings and comfortable shirts. Koda and Jagger are both wearing T-shirts and sweatpants—yes, gray ones.
Yummmmm.
“And you’ve all brought a change of clothes?” I glance between the four of them, grinning when they each hold up a bag. “Excellent.”
“Are you going to give us any clues about what we’re going to be doing?” Jagger asks in that growly voice of his.
I shoot him a grin as I shake my head. “Nope. You’ll just have to be patient and find out when we get there.”
Heading for the front door, my smile only grows at the mutters I hear behind me. We all pile into an SUV and head into town. It doesn’t take us long to pull up outside of Airy Aerials.
“Airy Aerials?” Skylar asks with a frown, turning her attention to me. “Where did you take us?”
I laugh as Ian opens the back door, holding out his hand to help me climb out. “Thank you, Ian. The class will last about two hours, and then we’ll head to grab lunch.”
“Sounds perfect, Evangeline.” Ian offers his hand to help Skylar and Cora out while Jagger and Koda climb out the other door. I can’t help the giggle that spills from me when I see Jagger offer Koda his hand, and both men just stand there for a moment in what seems to be a battle of wills. Finally, Koda huffs and places his hand in Jagger’s.
Jagger’s eyes meet mine, his smirk turning into an actual smile before he shuts the door between us. Yeah, that one is going to be trouble.
I glance back as another SUV pulls up behind us, the camera crew quickly climbing out so they can follow us inside. I bite back a sigh because sometimes it’s really hard to forget that my every move is being recorded. Since that’s what I signed up for, it’s not like I can really complain about it, can I?
Sliding my arms into Cora’s and Skylar’s, I lead us toward the building. “This will be a good warmup for us.”
“Warmup?” Cora lifts her eyebrows, glancing around me at Skylar. “I can’t decide if I’m excited or petrified.”
“Definitely excited,” I tell her as Jagger appears from behind us, swinging the door open and gesturing for us to enter. “Thank you, Jagger. You’re a true gentleman.”
“I’ll show you a true gentleman, brat,” he mutters, just loud enough for us to hear him.
I turn to look at him over my shoulder with a grin and a wink. “I might like that.”
He throws his head back as he laughs straight from his belly. I love the sound of his laugh.
“Hi, there!!”
I swing my head back around to find a pretty, petite redhead hurrying toward us. “Which one of you is Evangeline?”
“That would be me.” I lift my hand as I let go of the other women’s arms.
“It’s nice to meet you, and I’m so excited that we get to be a part of this season’s Heated for you. I’m just a beta, but it’s still one of my favorite shows. Watching how everyone falls in love. I don’t know how you make those kinds of decisions. I could never.“ She lets out a sigh before straightening up. “Oops, sorry about that. I have a tendency to ramble on. My name is Abby, and I’ll be helping you get set up for your classes today.”
“And what kind of classes would those be?” Koda asks, grinning at Abby as he shoots me a wink.
Abby opens her mouth to answer him, and I slap my hand over her mouth. “Sorry. That was rude. Koda can be patient and wait to find out what the classes are when we get there.”
Abby giggles as she glances between the two of us, nodding her head. “Of course. Of course. If the five of you will follow me. We’re going to be in the back studio. It’s the one we use for our larger classes, but Bree rented the whole place out for you, so there’s no one here but the employees. There will be two instructors at all times, though they may change throughout the time you’re here. I’ll be happy to get you anything you need—water, towels, whatever you might need.”
I lift an eyebrow as she turns on her heel, waving her hand in the air to get us to follow her. She keeps talking the entire way to the room, never really pausing for any of us to speak.
An arm wraps around my shoulders, and I jump, tensing up until Koda’s delicious scent hits my nose. I don’t know how I’m ever going to be able to smell blackberry, waffles, and maple syrup without thinking of him.
Turning my head toward him, I find him grinning. “She sure does love to talk, doesn’t she?”
“That’s okay. As long as she’s not spoiling my surprise for you guys.” I can’t help smiling as his grin stretches.
“Touché,” he murmurs as he turns his attention back to Abby but doesn’t remove his arm from me. I snuggle into his side, breathing in his scent. He really smells good.
And score one for me since I’m not immediately flooding my panties with slick. That’s a win I will take.
“And here we are.” Abby pushes open the door at the end of the hallway, gesturing with a flick of her wrist for us to enter.
“What the hell…” Koda’s eyes go wide as he takes in the room before turning his attention to me. “Are we…”
“Welcome everyone!” A beautiful dark-skinned woman steps up, clapping her hands. “Today, you’re going to get a private class on aerial arts. It’ll be up to you which you’d like to learn, but we can teach you silks, lyra, or trapeze.”
“Holy shit,” Cora squeals. “We get to learn to be circus performers!”
There’s a momentary pause before everyone bursts out laughing. Well, at least someone is excited about the date I’ve planned.
Two hours later, when we walk out of Airy Aerials, we’re all freshly showered. Luckily, they had a locker room where we could shower and change because we were all covered in sweat.
“I don’t think I ever want to do that again,” Jagger murmurs as he glances down at me with a smirk and a shake of his head. “I work out regularly, but these were muscles I don’t usually use.”
“What’s wrong?” I ask, biting back a smile. “Are you sore?”
“About as sore as your ass is going to be if you keep sassing me, brat.”
What? Oh. My eyes widen, my cheeks flushing as my perfume fills the air. Shit. They hadn’t had any scent-canceling products, so there’s no hiding how much that thought turned me on. If anyone checked my panties, there would really be no doubt.
“You like that idea, do you, omega?” Jagger’s voice somehow gets deeper as he adds more growl to his words. There’s a flash in his eyes, and for just a moment, I see his alpha shining through for all to see.
Koda chuckles as he presses against my back. “She definitely does, and so do I.”
And just like that, the scent of blackberries, cinnamon, cloves, waffles, and maple syrup fills the air around us. Thank goodness we’re outside, or we’d have scent bombed everyone. Holy shit, that’s potent as hell—and it’s half my scent. I can’t imagine what the others must be feeling as they scent it.
Someone clears their throat, saving me from having to respond. Spinning on my head, I find Ian standing there with an aerosol can in his hand. “I thought you might like some scent-canceling spray? I have multiple bottles in the trunk if we need more.”
“My savior.” I extract myself from Jagger’s and Koda’s arms, grabbing the bottle from Ian, and immediately start drenching myself in it. “Koda definitely needs some, too. Probably best if Jagger gets a bit, too.”
Turning my eyes to the other two in our party, I find Cora and Skylar standing off to the side. I shoot them a smile that Cora is quick to return, but Skylar looks away from me. I wonder what that’s all about?
I make a note to myself to see if I can get her alone either during lunch or during our next activity so I can see what’s going on.
I love that not a single one of the suitors balked at the idea of taking the aerial classes. Jagger did look unsure about whether or not the equipment would be able to hold his weight, but once the instructor assured him it would, he relaxed.
Cora was a natural. Koda did almost as well as Cora. Jagger was a bit awkward about it but overall did pretty well. Skylar, on the other hand, didn’t bode so well. I don’t know if she was too inside her head or if she’s just not capable of doing this kind of thing, but she couldn’t seem to grasp the concepts. She was a good sport about it—or at least I thought she was until just now. Hopefully, I can find out what’s bothering her.
After those of us who needed to douse ourselves in scent-canceling spray are finished, the camera crew was already packed up, and we jump into the car and head to the Mexican restaurant that I picked out for today. Can’t ever go wrong with Mexican, am I right?
“Mmmmm, Mexican?” Koda asks as Ian pulls up in front of the restaurant.
I nod. “I take it that you approve?”
“Of course! Who doesn’t love Mexican food?” He glances around the car, waiting for anyone to disagree with him. When they don’t, he grins and climbs out of the SUV. He offers me his hand, and I lay mine in it. His grin turns lascivious as he reaches in to grip my thigh, lifting me out with just one hand and forcing me to slide down his body.
“Was that necessary?” I ask, lifting my brows as I attempt to bite back my smile once my feet hit the ground.
Jagger chuckles as he climbs out, his hand rubbing my lower back. “I’m sure he felt it was, and I can’t blame him. If I’d have thought of it…”
“Oh, don’t worry about the two of us,” Cora’s voice filters out, amusement warming her tone. “We definitely don’t want anyone to help us out.”
Jagger turns, quickly lifting her out of the car and setting her on her feet before reaching in and doing the same for Skylar. “Sorry, ladies. That was very rude of me.”
Cora snickers. “I mean, I get it. Evangeline can be quite distracting, can’t she?”
“That she can,” he agrees before offering his arm to both her and Skylar while Koda wraps his arm around my shoulders and leads us into the restaurant. There isn’t anyone else here as they don’t have private rooms, but I’m sure that Bree and Heated paid them well for us to have the place to ourselves. The food is amazing, and I’m almost glad I skipped breakfast so I could eat more.
I’m not able to get Skylar alone, but whatever was bothering her before doesn’t seem to be a problem anymore. She’s laughing and chatting along with everyone else, so I decide to just let it go. If something was bothering her, all I can do is hope that she’ll talk to me if it was something serious.
Glancing at the time, I curse. “Crap. We have to get going. Today’s schedule is a little tight. We need to head out now so we’re not late for our last activity.”
“Let me guess,” Skylar teases as she stands up. “We’ll get no hints about what we’re doing?”
“How did you guess?” I laugh, hurrying out with the others at my back. Luckily, Ian has the car parked out front and our last stop isn’t too far away. Definitely a good thing, since we’re supposed to be there in ten minutes.
Usually, I’m a lot better with time management, but I’m having such a good time with my suitors that something like time isn’t important—until it is.
“Dune buggies?” Jagger asks with a snicker as we pull into the parking lot.
I shrug. “Bree did it in the first season, and it looked like so much fun—I just knew that I had to do it. Why? What’s wrong? Scared?”
“You really are trying to get a spanking, aren’t you?”
And there goes my perfume filling the SUV—even with the scent-canceling spray.
“Alright, everyone out of the car!” Ian calls out with a chuckle. “No talk of spanking while the driver is in the car.”
I chuckle, waiting for the others to climb out of the SUV before following them out. I wave to Ian as he pulls away from the entrance, the camera crew scrambling out behind us.
“Hello!” a masculine voice calls, startling me as I turn. “You must be my group from Heated.”
I nod, smiling. “Sure are. I’m so excited about this.”
“My name is Mario. I’m one of the owners, along with my wife, who is at home with a sick kid today. I was glad when Bree called to say that another omega wanted to have a date here.” He glances at the camera crew to make sure they’re ready before waving for us to follow him. I’m fairly certain he’s a beta, but he seems to be using top-of-the-line scent cancelers because I can’t smell anything but fabric softener coming from him. “Come on inside. We’ll need to have each of you fill out a waiver, and then we’ll go over the safety rules. You have the whole place to yourselves, which means we have more than enough buggies for you each to drive yourself if you’d like.”
“I’m definitely driving,” I tell him, glancing back at the others.
“Me too.” Cora grins, shooting me a wink. “Something tells me that dates with you are always something I’m going to want to do. You seem to like adrenaline just as much as I do.”
“I’m definitely a fan.”
Skylar shakes her head. “I’ll ride with Cora. I don’t really have a desire to drive one myself.”
That just leaves the guys, who I turn to. “And the two of you?”
“I’d love to ride with you, if you don’t mind.” Koda winks, causing my smile to grow. “I want to see how much you enjoy this.”
“Damn it. That was my plan, too,” Jagger says good-naturedly. “But that’s alright. I’m sure I’ll have fun driving myself.”
“That’s the spirit!” Turning back to Mario, I can’t seem to stop smiling. “I guess we’ll only need three buggies.”
Mario nods as we step inside. It takes a few minutes for us to all sign our waivers and watch a required video. He hands us each a helmet before leading us outside. As we approach a buggy, he goes over the safety rules and features—including that each buggy comes with a five-point harness in both seats. Between that and the helmet, he makes it clear that we’re as safe as we can be in an activity like this.
By the time he lets us pick out our buggies, I’m so excited that I practically run over to the one with the pretty teal coloring.
“We’re taking this one!” I yell out to Koda, who’s chuckling as he jogs over to join me.
“You’re excited.”
Rolling my eyes, I tilt my head as I stare up at him. “And you’re not?”
He laughs. “Of course I am. Let’s do this.”
We climb in, buckling up and donning our helmets. Mario comes around to each buggy to make sure we’re all belted in with our helmets on before jumping into a buggy himself.
“And go!” he yells, already pulling away from us.
I gasp, punching my foot down on the gas pedal. I might be a tiny bit competitive. But I quickly forget about competition as I fly over the first sand dune, launching our buggy into the air. I yell out my excitement, Koda doing the same.
“Hell yes,” I scream as the tires touch down, jostling us from side to side as the buggy takes off, spitting sand up around us.
“This is awesome! Do it again!” Koda yells, holding on to the bar on the top of the buggy.
Occasionally, I’ll see or hear the others around us, but overall, I’m focused on making sure Koda and I have the best time possible. I could do this forever, but sadly, that can’t happen.
Much too soon, Mario is waving us down to head back to the base. I sigh, glancing at Koda. “I want to keep going.”
“So do I, but you have four more suitors to meet tonight, don’t you?”
I stick out my bottom lip in a pout as I turn the buggy around to head back. “Yesssss…”
He laughs. “Don’t act like you’re not excited, and if we don’t get you back on time, you’ll have to rush to get ready. Something tells me you’d hate that.”
My eyes widen as I nod. “Oh, goodness. I hadn’t even thought about that. We need to get back as soon as possible.”
I wrinkle my nose as he throws his head back and laughs. I might be a little bit high maintenance when it comes to my appearance, but I have to be with my job. Plus, my first group of suitors is amazing, so I’m hoping that all the others will be as well. A girl can hope, anyway.