39. Brylee
39
brYLEE
Harper, like the good friend she is, bullied me into coming out to kickboxing class. I’m sweating, out of breath, half-deaf due to the music blasting through the room—but I haven’t felt this good in days.
The sadness and numbness have retreated, and all I can do is sing along to the music with all the betas surrounding us in class as the chorus of one of the best AC/DC songs of all time hits. “Cause I’m T.N.T.” We punch along with each letter, and a smile bursts across my face at the utter cheesiness of it.
The door at the front of the class opens, and a few people turn their heads, but I’ve skipped the last few classes and am focused on picking up the choreography. That’s why I’m shocked when I suddenly see Ridge standing in front of me in all his glory, a blond Adonis wearing all black biker gear.
My eyes widen, and if I wasn’t already out of breath, the sight of him would certainly make my lungs seize.
Damn. I didn’t know I needed a cross between Charlie Hunnam from Sons of Anarchy and Luke Eisner, the absolute hottie from Tall Girl …but there’s one standing right in front of me now, the complete bad boy package with a leather jacket and a knowing smirk.
“Brylee, I’m gonna need you to come with me.” His hand is in mine before I can stop gaping at him, and he’s grabbed my bag and slung it over his shoulder while I struggle to think of a protest.
Harper mouths, “Holy shit!” and several of the betas in class wolf whistle as he escorts me to the door, which turns me scarlet. Ridge’s smirk merely grows as he drops the hand-holding and instead puts his hand on the small of my back and leads me out along the omega sidewalk to a gleaming black Harley pulled up to the curb.
“I’m sorry, what did you need?” I ask, when I’m finally able to glance away from the bike.
“You,” he responds simply and directly.
Oh fuck.
The scent drifting off of him threatens to buckle my knees, and I think he might be able to tell because that hand at my back suddenly wraps around my waist.
“I need to show you something,” he states in a gruff, no nonsense tone.
I study the way the afternoon light cuts across his profile, highlighting the harsh line of his jaw, and I swallow hard.
“It’s not your dick, is it?” I squeak, a bout of awkwardness erupting from my mouth.
“Not today, Princess.” He barks out a laugh and lets go of me, moving to the bike and tossing my gym things into one of the saddle bags. Then he grabs a black helmet out and walks toward me. With more gentleness than I would have expected, he fastens it underneath my chin, letting his fingers linger for a moment before dragging them deliberately down the column of my throat.
I’m certain he can feel my thundering pulse, but all he does is hold my gaze for a long moment before he releases me. I have to fight the urge to lean toward him when he turns and heads back to the motorcycle, throwing a leg over it and starting the engine.
He clearly just expects me to follow.
But he should know by now I’m not the type of woman—the type of omega—to just go with him because he asks. That’s not who I am. Already, I feel as if I’m losing my mind around these four men. They’re consuming my every thought, and it terrifies me. The last time I gave up control to an alpha team…
Brief memories of a diminutive prison cell flash across my vision, but I push them back. Shove them away. Lock them in a steel box.
I take a single step away from Ridge and fold my arms over my chest. I hate how stupidly sexy he looks straddling that bike, exuding an aura of confidence and power I could never hope to replicate.
Amusement hooks up Ridge’s lips.
“And here I thought you turned into a sweet, obedient omega,” he jests, though the heat in his eyes says he prefers when I’m the exact opposite. I think a part of Ridge likes it when I’m a brat, and that shouldn’t make me as wet as I am. Damn him.
“What do I get out of this?” I ask with a bravado I don’t truly feel.
His smile broadens. “Are you attempting to extort me, my pretty omega?”
I shrug a single shoulder. “Or we can look at this like you blackmailing me .”
He throws his head back and laughs, and the rich, deep noise rushes through me like fire. “Okay, how about this.” He leans forward on the bike, resting his arms on the handle bars. “I’ll lay off your brother for two days.”
“A month,” I blurt, my pulse racing. A month without Ridge barking at and reprimanding “Teddie”? Sounds like heaven.
“A month?” Disbelief laces his tone as he blinks at me. “How did we go from two days to a month?”
“My mad negotiation skills,” I say with a flippant wave of my hand. If there’s one thing I learned, it’s that you always counter-offer with a ridiculously unrealistic demand. They’ll be forced to meet you halfway, and you’ll end up getting exactly what you wanted in the first place.
Ridge’s amused smirk suggests he knows exactly what I’m thinking and finds it…cute. Ugh.
“How about two weeks?” He licks his lower lip as he stares at me.
“And is it just you, or does this apply to the others as well?”
“Just me,” Ridge says with a nod. “You’ll have to make your own deal with them to get them to back off.”
I want to snort and say I’ll never do that, but…my track record hasn’t been the best. First Luka, now Ridge. These men are chiseling away my defenses, and there’s nothing I can do to stop it. To stop them .
“Get on,” Ridge instructs, gesturing to the spot behind him.
I do.
The ride is long and winding, and I’m wishing I had sunglasses on as we drive toward the sunset. I hate how conscious I am of my body pressed against his, my breasts smooshed against his broad, muscular back. And with my arms around his waist, I can feel every ridge of his six-pack, every dip and groove that I yearn to trace with first my fingertips then my tongue.
We pull over on the outskirts of Mneme, a small town that’s nearly abandoned now—one that was hit hard a few years back and occupied briefly by the Noths before we could shove them out.
The roar of the bike cuts off when Ridge parks in front of an abandoned gas station and repair shop that looks like something out of the fifties with its red trim.
I glance around, wondering why he’s brought me here, but he doesn’t speak as he gets off the bike and turns to lift me gently off. He’s so strong that he can easily hold me up above his head and then let the length of my spandex-clad body slide down his. The motion makes my body heat, and when I catch his potent scent, I nearly start to perfume—to send off the very intense scents omegas give when they’re ready to be bedded.
It’s hard to resist this pull between us, but I close my eyes and try to think of terribly unsexy things like irresponsible dog owners and abandoned dog shit in the park while he reaches up and takes my helmet off. While he smooths back my hair. While he leans forward and whispers, “I want to show you somewhere pretty special to me. The place I nearly died.”
My eyes fly open, but Ridge has my hand again and is marching determinedly toward the graffitied station with boarded up windows, towing me behind him. There’s a chain and padlock on the door but only boards over the windows.
With one solid kick from his boot, Ridge knocks away the plywood and then steps inside. Those piercing blue eyes cut back to me as he says, “One sec. Let me just clear the space first.”
I watch him walk off into the shadows, boots crunching over broken rubble and tiny shards of glass. But the space is small and once he’s glanced behind the counter, he’s back, lifting me up bridal style through the window. When I’m inside, he doesn’t release me, so I end up with my arms loosely around his neck, glancing around. The place has been raided for parts, so almost nothing remains but a few work benches.
“You know that this place was occupied?” he questions.
Slightly offended that he thinks I’m unaware of our own history, I rattle off information. “Noths took this city and held it for eight months straight three years back. Used fifteen drones, twelve tanks, and forty fighter jets to take it over. It had been evacuated due to bombings, but only about half of our citizens heeded the evac warnings. The other half…were herded into detention centers.” My blood simmers as I speak, anger bubbling up and making everything from my chest to my cheeks flush.
“Good girl,” Ridge praises, both proud and impressed. A purr erupts from his chest then, a low rumble that seems to surprise us both before it quickly has an effect on me.
Praise plus an alpha’s purr are like opium to omegas.
I give him a soft smile as my thoughts grow hazy and slick starts to collect in my panties. All that heat that was fury toward the Noths starts to convert to steam instead as I inhale deeply and my nipples grow hard.
“No.” Ridge’s face suddenly stiffens and his tone becomes solemn as he roughly sets me down in a spot clear of rubble. He blows out a solemn breath and turns away from me for a second. “I don’t want… I want you to be ready for that. Sorry. Didn’t mean to let that purr slip out. I’ve just never met another omega who follows current events so closely that she can rattle off stats.”
It’s on the tip of my tongue to say I was just tested on it…before I remember that I was just tested on it at Eros and not Darling.
I clear my throat, feeling both disappointed and relieved that Ridge stepped back, because I was definitely not about to, and there’s no way anything can happen. I’m way too attracted to him for anything to ever happen. It’s far too dangerous.
Wringing my hands, I also turn to the side, trying to get a breath of fresh air, one that’s not tainted by his delirium-inducing scent. Sucking in the smell of old gasoline, I say, “No problem. Um. Thanks for stopping.” Fuck. I want to leave now and never see Ridge’s sculpted face again.
Silence settles around us, and it’s just graduated from uncomfortable to comfortable when Ridge finally speaks. His back is still to me, his hands shoved in the pockets of his leather coat as he says, “We got orders to take this town back. My team was supposed to take out the drones first because they’re the biggest issue. A plane, you can hide from, but a drone can follow you anywhere.”
His voice seems to stir up ghosts, because the room suddenly feels colder and ice travels down my spine.
“We found the drone operator’s base camp. They’d set up in an old hardware store, so we rigged it to blow. Except, it turned out that our info was bad. The explosion went off without a hitch, but it didn’t knock a single drone out of the sky. But it did give us away.”
The weight of his silence has the gravitational force of a planet, and I sink beneath it, already anticipating what comes next. Already terrified and full of pity.
Tears start to form in the corner of my eyes as I imagine Alpha Team X all decked out in their military gear, the blaze of an explosion roaring behind them. Victorious shouts on the tip of their tongues before they glance up and see buzzing black drones overhead.
“They were like vultures. Just fucking everywhere. We had to take cover quick. Ended up here.” His arms spread wide, and he gestures at the empty room. After a long, tense moment where I can see memory has taken hold of him, he turns. Regret etches lines in his face as he frowns for a second before he wipes his expression flat. His tone matches that emptiness as he confesses, “We got lucky. The guy here rebuilt engines, and I guess he loved classics. Hiding behind those fuckers gave us our chance. But it was a close thing. Machines don’t stop. Don’t care. Seventy-two hours. The entire time, I was sure I was going to die. Worse, Kylian got hurt. And Colter…”
His teeth grind together, and I can tell that this memory is replaying behind his eyes. Instinctively, I know I have to comfort him. Not need to but have to. It’s physically painful for me not to. So I step forward and reach for his hand, sliding my own into his firm grip and squeezing.
“Sometimes surviving doesn’t feel like winning. Sometimes it feels like a loss,” he whispers.
I don’t say anything because there’s nothing to say. He’s right. Some days that’s exactly what it feels like for me.
He glances over, and the understanding and acceptance in his eyes feels as infinite as the universe itself. I swallow hard as my stomach levitates under his gaze. The pure and utter understanding and acceptance of the truth: the world is cruel and brutal, and we all have scars.
But the fact that Ridge was willing to show me his…
I don’t know if he knows this, but there’s nothing else he could have done to make this ache to belong to him hurt more.
Because now I’m pining for it.
Pining after my own destruction.