35. Alpha
35
Alpha
Victor hung up. He cracked his neck, then his back, every muscle flexing under his shirt. Two minutes ago, I would’ve licked every inch of him. Now, I grabbed my cross instead.
What the hell was going on with him? With us, in fact?
He jerked his head, and I flinched.
Fuck. I should’ve run back to the theater.
His hawklike gaze pinned me in place. He narrowed his eyes and smiled without real humor. “What are you doing here, Miss Silver?”
“Nothing. I-I thought I heard you, so I…” Eavesdropped on accident and broke my own heart.
“You weren’t supposed to leave the theater.” He strode over and brushed my hair away from my face, leaning in so his mouth dragged against my cheek. “Perhaps I should punish you.”
I squeezed my thighs together and shivered. Fuck my traitorous body.
I didn’t want him to punish me. Not now. Not really.
I gently pushed on his chest. “What was that phone call about?”
“Nothing.” His face tightened with an eerie attempt at levity. “Why don’t we go back to theater thirteen?”
He placed his hand at the base of my spine and steered me to the theater.
“You can tell me,” I said, trying to steel myself. “Even if you think it might hurt my feelings.”
“Why would my boring work call hurt your feelings?” He opened the door for me, the door to theater thirteen: home of deviant deeds.
I wrung my necklace tight enough to cinch my fingers, unable to cross the threshold into our theater now that I knew it wasn’t as sacred to him as it was to me.
He tilted his head. “What?”
I hated myself for caring, or even asking after two measly dates, but my anxiety clawed its way out my throat with a hideous fear: “Do you bring other girls in here?”
“What?” He stepped back and furrowed his brow. “Of course not. You’re my VIP.”
Right. I was his. It was all I ever wanted. “It’s just that your phone call, and Sam said—”
“Sam?” He frowned. “When did you talk to him?”
“When you left. Although he did stop by the store earlier today. I accidentally hit him with the door when I saw it moving. He was looking for you, and said he didn’t want to interrupt us.” I twisted into myself as electric nerves scorched my insides. “Then, he said I’m his favorite girl to clean up after, which I think was supposed to be a compliment, but—”
“He was here?” Veins throbbed in his neck and forehead.
Why did that matter? “Yes,” I said.
“And he said all that? That you were his favorite girl and he’d clean up after you?” He jerked his shoulders up to his ears. “Wait. Did you say he came to the store earlier?”
“Yes.” But that wasn’t the point.
Rocking his body, Victor bit the inside of his cheek. “I’m going to kill him.”
“What? I don’t care about him. I’m asking if—”
Victor flung open the door, then stormed into the theater. “He better not be hiding under the seats.”
“What are you doing?” I hurried in after him. “We’re still talking.”
His eyes flashed as he scanned the rows. “I can almost guarantee if he was skulking around theater thirteen—”
Sam popped up about halfway back on the far end and dabbed at his face with a paper towel. “Uh, hi.”
Was he hiding back there? I shook my head and pinched my brow. “Victor, he was probably cleaning.”
“He needs to leave. Immediately,” he growled, positioning himself between us.
God, I’d never seen my Spider-Man like this. Looming. His features twisted in hate, in shadows.
“Get out,” he boomed.
Sam winched and scurried down the steps. But when he glanced at me, Victor shot toward him. He snatched him by the scruff of his shirt and yanked him off his feet, eliciting a squeak from the scrambling teen.
“Don’t even look at her,” Victor growled. “If you so much as sniff in her direction I’ll rip your fucking nose off.”
“Woah." I grasped the back of his shirt, woozy with shock. Where was this coming from? “Victor, you can’t say that." Not to a coworker.
He shook Sam again. “I warned you once. But you thought you could be a sneaky little creep. You think you don’t need boundaries?”
Sweat poured down the squirming, pale teen’s face. “I-I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Let him down. You can talk about this.” I tugged on the back of Victor’s shirt with increasing panic. This was a lawsuit waiting to happen.
He brushed me aside and dragged a kicking and thrashing Sam to the hall. It was like my boyfriend couldn’t hear or feel me at all. He had hulked out. I was invisible.
“Now, you take this shirt off and leave it at the door. I never want to see you again.” Victor shoved him into the hall.
Sam sprawled onto the floor with a cry. The bright red carpet underneath him looked like a metaphorical pool of blood. And for what?
“You fired him for telling me you’ve been seeing other women?” I whispered.
“No. I’m firing him for stalking my girlfriend,” he spat.
Girlfriend, he called me.
Ten minutes ago, I’d have kissed him for it. He loved me. He wanted me. Only me, right? I was his wife in another life. Or a death, I guessed.
But right here, right now, he treated me like his property. A sex kitten to play with until Halloween.
Sam stared at me, but I knew even less about him than Victor. Was he stalking—or was he being punished for talking to me?
The monster inside me screamed in agony. You stupid girl, you don’t know anything.
I barely knew either of the men in front of me. I didn’t understand, I couldn’t see. I’d loved the guy Victor had been when he was alone with me. The one he studied in the movies, maybe.
What if everything he was doing was to cover up the fact that he was using me? What if he was fucking other girls in theater thirteen? He was fighting for me. Or was this more about marking his territory?
Did Victor ever really love me?
My breaths shallowed out, scraping my lungs raw. I grasped my cross so hard my nails bit into my palms. I was on fire. I was burning.
“It’s okay. You’re safe,” Victor rumbled, hugging me. His arms were like a cage smothering me against his chest. “Go back in the theater, and I’ll call security.”
I wasn’t someone he could shove aside until he wanted to sink his teeth in.
“Get off me,” I hissed, pushing him away.
He stepped back and widened his eyes. “What’s wrong?”
“What’s wrong? You went totally Jekyll and Hyde on me,” I blustered, a traitorous tear streaking down my cheek. I turned my head and wiped it away fast in the hopes he hadn’t seen it. “You weren’t listening; you won’t tell me anything. Then, you manhandled one of your employees. I mean, even if part of what Sam said was true—” An iron fist punched my insides at the thought of it, forcing out a miserable little sob.
He furrowed his brow. “It’s not true. I love—”
I touched his lips as pain pressed my lungs. “Don’t say it now. I won’t believe you.”
His eyes glassed over.
Fuck. This was killing me.
He was offering me an escape and a fantasy. That was probably all he wanted from me. Not crying. But I wanted real love. Not stonewalling or giant scenes where he tossed around teens for talking to me. Maybe I should’ve known he was like this the second he bit me. It was all so overwhelming.
“I have to get back to work. I have to think about everything,” I said, turning away.
“Kat—”
“It’s fine.” It was not fine. Fuck, I was shaking. I ran out of there faster than a bat out of hell. He’d already seen me cry once. I wasn’t going to do it again. Especially not without the excuse of an orgasm, and especially not when I had to face someone like Bree after my break.
Whatever was happening between us—and in theater thirteen—I needed to keep my wits about me.
The widow writhed above the stairs. She was moving fast, same as me. Metallic shrieks and rattles rose amid the slap of feet.
“Kat, wait!” My spider man chased after me, his footfall quick and light on the carpet.
I thought he’d stay to assert his dominance over that squirrelly teen. What would he say when he got to me, anyway? That he’d tell me everything? That he loved me?
It would be a soothing seduction, not a genuine confession.
I had to staunch my bleeding heart with a scary movie. Let the monsters feast on-screen. Or I could let him feast on me.
I twisted my necklace as lust thundered in my ears. I was more than a ‘vamp’ and so was he. But what was he—who was he, really? Why wouldn’t he talk about his family?
Despite him always watching, what did he see? Was I hiding something from him? From myself, maybe?
Or was our chemistry deluding us both into acting out some dark, sexy fantasy so tempting we convinced ourselves that it was reality?
Pulsing dots smeared across my blurred vision as something above me tore and creaked. Was the widow stretching? Or was this part of some spooky new programming? My Spider-Man’s strides lengthened as I staggered down the stairs.
He was bound to capture me…if he kept chasing.
I wanted him to meet me here. To know me. Intimately. Underneath all this plaid and kink beat the heart of someone good, imperfect, but worthy of being a final girl—his final girl, if he loved the real me. I wanted to know and love him just as deeply.
I paused at the curved railing and turned. “Victor, I—”
His eyes razor-focused on me. His hair floated up as he leaped off the stairs and reached for me. Sparks and bolts rained down on us like confetti. I froze, transfixed, until he slammed into me hard enough to restart my heart. My spine smacked against the railing. He protected and pinned me as a black monstrosity descended upon us.
My eardrums drowned in our pounding blood and the mechanical shrieks of the spider as she lurched and swung. Was she possessed? Malfunctioning? Karmic vengeance for not trusting the guy now protecting me?
Her pincers snapped and legs flailed.
The widow demanded a sacrifice. Was she going to take one from me?
I clutched him and prayed for a miracle worth its own movie.