Alex
“To a flawless dress rehearsal!” my friend Julian laughs, raising his glass as the rest of our dance company clinks glasses and cheers, moving effortlessly under the flashing neon lights of the crowded bar.
“Shut up Jules, you’ll jinx us,” Celine hisses, but takes a generous gulp of her drink anyway before weaving onto the dancefloor.
I join in, sipping my drink and forcing an easy smile.
I try to be present, to be conscious in the moment, but I’m fighting a losing battle.
That’s my life these days; even after a near-perfect dress rehearsal and with opening night for one of the biggest roles in my career looming, all I can think about is the phantom imprint of calloused fingertips on my hips from yesterday afternoon.
Or the way Marcus looked, wrapped up in my sheets last Saturday, soft in a way I’d never seen him look before.
I pull the collar of my silk shirt away from my neck, undoing another button, suddenly too hot in the swaying crowd.
“Why are you pouting?” Julian shouts in my ear, slinging an arm around my waist, the mixture of an intense rehearsal followed by the rapid consumption of alcohol already setting him well on his way to messy.
I open my mouth to respond, but Colette jumps in before I can.
“Because he’s in love,” she says, taking my hand and twirling herself around me. “And sad about it.”
“That’s not something to be sad about,” Julian says, looking mildly distraught on my behalf, before the song changes to something with a heavier beat, and he gasps in delight, grabbing a nearby beta to dance with.
I roll my eyes at him and give Colette another twirl. “I am not. Don’t be so dramatic.”
But her words settle heavily in my stomach, because I know there’s a grain of truth to them.
Maybe more than a grain, actually. It gets harder and harder to deny every time Marcus comes to my apartment and lies in my bed and looks so perfect on my sofa, even when he’s not fucking me on it.
He made us scrambled eggs in my kitchen last week, while I perched on the windowsill and watched the way the morning light cut across his bare shoulders, and he asked about the Russian village my mom grew up in and didn’t even laugh when he coaxed a few poorly pronounced fragments of Russian out of me.
I’m falling. Hard. And it terrifies me.
I never learn, a cynical voice whispers in the back of my mind.
I shake it off, letting my eyes wander across the heaving dancefloor and trying to lose myself in the fun of dancing with my friends.
The kind of dancing that only requires you to sway your hips, not execute a perfect jeté en manége.
But when my eyes drift over to a rowdy crowd in one corner, my breath catches in my throat.
Sitting in a large leather booth is the entire Foundry crew. I remember Marcus mentioning that Dylan, one of their professionals, had a big fight this week, and by the looks of the celebrations, he must have won.
I’ve been training at the gym long enough to recognize some of them: Jed, the trainer who usually works the evening shifts, is practically standing on his chair, roaring a loud toast to Dylan, who’s got a rare, small smile on his face despite the fact that Jed has just spilled half his beer over his lap.
Max, the co-owner, is engaged in some kind of animated debate with another regular I see a lot—Kyle, I think?
—and the two of them are being watched by a gigantic alpha called Cassius, who looks completely bemused by the conversation.
I remember asking Marcus who he was the first time I saw him across the gym, because he was the biggest alpha I’ve ever seen in my life.
And right in the middle of them is Marcus.
He looks big, rugged, and totally breathtaking in the bar’s low lighting. And he isn’t looking at the chaos around him. He’s looking directly at me.
When our eyes lock, the easy-going, casual facade I usually wear transforms into something heavy and charged. My heart rate picks up, the invisible thread between us suddenly tugging me towards him, although I resist it.
Jed notices me too, slinging an arm around Marcus’ shoulders and whispering something in his ear. Marcus nods, mouthing my name, his grip tightening on his glass.
And I brace myself, expecting him to look away. Expecting him to play it cool in front of his friends, to maintain his reputation in front of his powerhouse fighters. My stomach twists with a sudden, painful prickle of that familiar dread.
But Marcus doesn’t look away.
Instead, he drains the rest of his beer, setting his glass down sharply as he stands and slides out of the booth.
He pushes through the crowd easily, his massive bulk parting the revelers without even trying as he carves a path straight for me, completely ignoring the sweaty bodies and clashing scents all around him.
“Fancy seeing you here,” I drawl when he finally reaches me, my voice a little more breathless than I’d like.
Up close, he looks even better, the dark stubble on his strong jaw slightly thicker than the last time I saw him, his shirt clinging to his impressive biceps just right. “Didn’t think this was your scene.”
He steps close enough that the scent of amber and tobacco overwhelms the smell of cheap alcohol, and I notice his hand twitch before falling limply at his sides. I wonder if he’s resisting the urge to reach for me as much as I am.
“It’s not, usually,” he says, throat bobbing as he swallows. “But Dyl won his fight, so we’re celebrating.”
“I can see that,” I chuckle, looking in the direction of the booth, where some guys I don’t recognize have just brought over a tray of shots to raucous cheers. Max catches me looking and tips his head to me. Marcus glances back, shaking his head with a fond smile.
“What about you? I thought you needed all the rest you could get,” he says, turning back to me with the same small smile still on his lips, no malice behind his words.
I tilt my hips against the bar, placing down my empty glass. “Celebrating a successful dress rehearsal. They had to drag me out, honestly.”
“Good,” Marcus grunts. “You deserve it.”
My heart flip-flops in my chest. “So, did you come over here to ask me to dance, or…?”
I leave the teasing question hanging in the air as Marcus’ eyes glaze over, his gaze turning intense as it drops down to the exposed column of my throat and the sliver of chest peeking out from beneath the undone buttons of my shirt.
An omega, their scent sweet and floral, presses up a little too close behind me, and I can almost feel the growl that rumbles from his throat before I hear it.
The heat of the pulsing bodies presses in around us, and I notice a pearl of sweat rolling down Marcus’ temple.
God, I want to lick it off. But I know he won’t do anything here, not with his friends so close.
He takes a step closer—so close, and yet not nearly close enough. “Bathroom.”
His large fingers wrap around my wrist, wheeling around and tugging me through the dense crowd.
I stumble after him, my blood thumping against the pulse point in my wrist, clamped in his grip.
I’m so focused on watching the back of him, I barely have a chance to register the corridor he leads us into, the music fading to a dull thud when he hauls open the door to the—blessedly empty—bathroom, and manoeuvres us into a single-occupancy stall.
He twists the lock behind us, crowding me until my back rests against the stall door.
I gasp on a relieved moan as he pins me against the door with his weight, his lips crashing down on mine in a desperate clash of soft lips, teeth and tongue.
He tastes like liquor and sweat, a groan vibrating out of him and straight through me as I grip his shoulders and kiss him back with just as much urgency.
His hands slide to my waist, lifting me slightly, just enough that the hard outlines of our erections slot together perfectly.
The heat between us builds too fast, the familiar, intoxicating scent of him threatening to pull me apart way too soon.
But as his lips trail down my jawline and my head thunks back, looking up at the dim, flickering bathroom light as his scent flares with a sharp, possessive hunger, something ugly grips my insides.
Because I’ve been here before. Locked away in a public bathroom. Hidden from view.
“Marcus, wait—stop,” I breathe out, my palms flattening against his chest, not to push him away, just to get some distance.
He freezes instantly. He doesn’t move for a few seconds, his forehead resting against my collarbone as he catches his breath and fights down his instincts. But then he moves back, looking at me with a mixture of heat and concern. “What is it? Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I—” I take a breath, shaking my head, my voice breaking despite my best efforts.
“Maybe not. I just—I can’t do the dark hallways anymore, Marcus.
The public bathrooms. The locked doors. I’ve been the dirty little secret before, hidden away because he were terrified of what people would say if they saw him with another alpha.
I told myself I wouldn’t let myself get into that situation again, but…
” I gesture around us, at the flickering lights and the graffiti on the wooden stall, “here I am. And the longer this goes on, the harder it’s getting for me to step back from it.
” I smile weakly. “You’re just too damn good, coach. ”
The words hang heavily in the tiny space. Someone turns on a tap outside the stall, and I wish I hadn’t done this here. But I know if I didn’t say it today, I might never get the words out.
Marcus looks shattered. I’m not sure how someone can look so strong and so broken at the same time, but the softness that takes over his expression makes me want to curl up against his chest and take it all back, to tell him to forget it and just kiss me again.
He reaches out, his large hand cupping my jaw gently, his thumb swiping across my lower lip.
“I’m sorry,” he says, his voice unsteady. “I didn’t know.”
I shake my head, willing my eyes not to sting.
“I don’t make a habit of talking about it.
Full disclosure, he ended up with an omega.
I saw them walking down the street one day, he blanked me and…
that was that. Never heard from him again.
Two years of—of something—ended without so much as a see ya.
And I don’t care about him anymore, I swear, but if you were to do that to me, Marcus, if you were that ashamed—”
“I could never be ashamed of you, Alex,” he says brokenly.
“Fuck, look at you. You’re fucking incredible.
I think about you all the time. You’re so deeply under my skin I couldn’t forget you even if I tried.
Let alone cut you out of my life. Jesus, the second you walked through that door tonight I was so fucking—” he pauses, scrambling, and I know what he’s going to say: scared, terrified, panicked, “—happy to see you. Relieved. I could barely stay away from you for five minutes.”
Oh. My chest squeezes, and Marcus looks around like he’s trying to find words that are just beyond his grasp. He closes his eyes for a moment, his gaze locking on mine when he opens them again.
“I know we haven’t defined what this is yet,” he says, gesturing between us.
“And I know that’s probably because of me.
I just—I’ve spent a really long time telling myself I wasn’t someone who’s interested in romantic relationships because the traditional ones didn’t do it for me.
And then you come along, and you’re the furthest thing from traditional, and fuck, Alex, I want you so badly I don’t know what to do with myself half the time.
And I don’t even know if you want me back the same way, god knows you probably have people of all dynamics throwing themselves at your feet—”
“I want you, Marcus,” I say, a little too quickly and a little too raw, not good at holding my cards close to my chest. His grip on my jaw tightens just slightly, his eyes dropping to my lips as he exhales sharply.
“I don’t want to make excuses,” he says, his voice so low it’s nearly a whisper. “You don’t deserve to be kept in the dark.”
“No, I don’t.”
“I know. I just don’t know how to handle this publicly yet. The gym is my life, boxing is my life, but it’s unforgiving. Conservative. I’m terrified of losing it, but I’m just as terrified of losing you. I just… I just need a little time, Alex.”
The raw honesty in his voice and the vulnerability in his dark, pleading eyes make a deep ache bloom in my chest, and I realize just how far gone I am. My rational brain is screaming at me to walk away, but even with the uncertainty hanging between us, the thought of cutting ties is too painful.
“You’re an idiot,” I sigh with a soft, breathy laugh that comes out more like a half-sob.
I bring my hand up to grasp his, where his fingers are rubbing against my jaw.
“And so am I. But you’re going to have to decide which you’re more afraid of losing at some point soon, because I don’t know how much more time I can give you, Marcus. ”
He nods fiercely, his lips pressed into a hard line like he’s trying to keep his emotions locked in tight.
And when he leans in, I think he’s about to kiss me, but he pulls me into a hard, all-consuming hug instead.
And that somehow feels a hundred times more intimate than all the times he’s been inside me.
His hands cling to my back, his stubble pressing against my cheek, not an inch of space between us.
His pheromones wash over me in a heady, deliberate wave, and it occurs to me that this is as close as we’ve ever come to formally scent marking one another.
It’s not something that usually makes any sense between two alphas—after all, we’re biologically wired to be in competition with one another, not provide comfort or mark a claim—but the low hum the gesture sets off deep in my psyche couldn’t be further from aggression.
When I push my scent out in answer, Marcus only burrows further into the crook of my neck.
And maybe I really am deluded, but this doesn’t feel anything like what I had with Rob.
“Let me show you,” Marcus breathes against my ear. “Let me try.”
All I can do is nod, pull him close, and pray that I don’t live to regret this.