3. Finn #2
And all that was fine and well, except that when I showed up, the corner table with the most romantic and atmospheric lighting was occupied by a tall, handsome, dark-haired guy with two-day stubble and a perfectly tailored suit.
His eyes caught the flickering of the candlelight and looked like glowing coals, scanning the room like he was expecting the rival family to take him out at any moment.
When he saw me, he nodded.
My palms were instantly covered in cold sweat as I crossed the room to the table.
There was a glass of whiskey in front of him, neat, and he pushed his chair back and stood up.
And yep, he was well over six-foot-three, leaning down to introduce himself with a hug and a kiss on the cheek, his hand finding its way to the small of my back for the briefest of moments.
“Finn,” he said, his voice deep and full of quiet dominance. “You look very nice.”
I did not. My hair was haggard and flying everywhere, my pants were baggy, and my shirt was untucked.
I was going for a more relaxed, first-date look, but this alpha-male, leader-of-the-pack, business CEO-type hadn’t been given the same freaking memo.
“Sorry,” I blurted. “They didn’t tell me your name. ”
“Dominic Sinclair,” he said.
Fucking perfect. Where the hell did they pull this one from? I only smiled, and we sat down. Dominic leaned back in his chair, one hand resting casually on the table, fingers on the whiskey glass.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” Dominic Sinclair said. “When Jason told me about this experiment, I couldn’t say no.”
“H-How do you know Jason?” I asked. I’d literally never seen this man in my life. The mention of some ad rang through my head.
“A friend of a friend is a member of my club,” Dominic said. He held my gaze for an awkwardly long time, then glanced away. “I took the liberty of ordering for both of us.”
“Um… You don’t know what I like,” I said.
The ridiculously named man leaned over as the corner of his mouth lifted into a spectacularly practiced smirk. “I know exactly what you like.”
Yeah, I could see how this would send shivers down someone’s arms. Not mine, though.
They remained entirely shiverless. The server placed a very large plate with a very small portion in the middle of it and announced it as a truffle risotto with a string of words that pricked all the wrong parts of my brain, not one landing coherently into my memory.
But the truffle part was enough to make my throat constrict.
I drew a deep breath of air, held it, and let the murderous ideations pass before exhaling. There would be other chances to push all my friends off a very tall bridge. Right now, I just had to get through this bite-sized meal before I could leave.
“Give it a try, Finn. You won’t be able to resist it,” Dominic said. “I know a great deal about people of all kinds. It’s a gift.”
My mouth salivated at the sight of a nice, simple carbonara placed in front of Dominic.
We tucked in, Dominic letting out a deep, rumbling hum of pleasure at the first bite, while I decided to hold my breath, put a big forkful of risotto into my mouth, and swallow it before my tongue had a chance to register it.
“Hmm?” Dominic asked, eyes never leaving my face. Jesus Christ, he was strange.
“Mm,” I said, stretching my tightly pursed lips into a smile. “So, so good.” My voice may have cracked on the second “so.”
“Very good,” Dominic—I kid you not—purred.
I choked on my truffle and grabbed the glass of water, drank, and grew fully aware of just how loud the ice cubes were when they touched the edges of the glass.
“How’s Peanut?” Dominic asked.
“I…” I blinked. “Peanut mostly likes Jason, to be honest. Or respects him, to be exact. He likes everyone.”
“I like dogs,” Dominic said. “They are loyal creatures, truly a man’s best friend. Would you like to have a dog?”
I swallowed way too loudly. “Um, well, there’s Peanut.”
“Of course.” Dominic still stared at me like he could see under my shirt. The interest didn’t escape me, and it wasn’t the creepy sort exactly, but it was intense. Everything about him was intense.
The server passed by and paused at our table. “Is everything to your liking?”
Dominic didn’t take his eyes off me when he said, “Everything is as perfect as it could be.”
I stayed for a slice of tiramisu because Dominic ordered two pieces without consulting me. I feared it would be a concept of a cake, maybe brought on three plates with each key ingredient eaten separately, and was relieved to get a simple slice instead.
Dominic spoke very little, seemingly communicating with his eyes. The smirk he wore throughout our dinner date was either fake and practiced, or he was genuinely amused by me. I found the latter entirely implausible.
When the bill came, I reached for it, but Dominic pressed his finger on the leather booklet and shook his head. “I never let anyone pay for dinner.”
“I would really like to,” I said.
“Not in a million years, baby boy,” he said.
Shivers did run down my arms then, but they were not the good kind. Was anyone ever able to cringe so hard it was chilling? When we stepped outside, Dominic Sinclair buttoned his suit jacket and asked if I would like to walk.
“I… Yeah, no, I mean, I would like to, it’s just that…I’m a little tired,” I said.
“Of course,” he said, still chaining me with that intense gaze. “In that case, you should sleep it off. Enough excitement for one evening.”
Where exactly he had found excitement, I would never know, but I agreed with him. And when I tried to step back from him, he spoke again, telling me he would walk me home to be safe.
“It’s just three blocks,” I assured him.
“I’d never leave it up to chance,” he said.
Dominic Sinclair walked to campus with me, quietly, enjoying himself deeply and sighing with pleasure without ever saying a word. When we finally parted ways, I balled my fists and marched across campus to the BEL house, barging in, braced for the guys to be laughing their assess off.
“Nice fucking prank,” I grumbled as soon as I stepped inside.
But what met me wasn’t laughter. Four faces with big, hopeful eyes and slightly confused looks stared back at me. “What happened? You’re back already,” Taylor said in shock.
“What do you mean?” I cried. “You set me up with a total nutcase. I thought he was going to cut me up and eat me.”
“That’s what alphas are like,” Bennet clarified.
I stared at them for a long moment. Not one of them cracked. Not one gave any sign that this was a joke. And dammit, that made it so much worse. “How high did this guy score?” I asked.
“We can’t say,” Taylor protested.
“Tell me.”
“Eighty-seven percent,” Bennet mumbled.
I almost fainted right there and then. That was damn close to what you could hope for, so their methodology was totally off.
But they didn’t let me argue. Harrison was the calm, reasonable one, explaining that they had a very large and diverse pool of choices.
“We have contingency plans in place,” he said.
“It’s what you do when you create a living narrative.
Things happen and move around; you have to be ready to improv. The next one will be nothing like it.”
I stood there for a couple of furious seconds, ready to pull out, but then I realized just how much fun they were having with this couples activity.
Dammit, I wanted to be like them. I wanted to have that.
So, instead of killing them and burying them in the backyard, I clenched my teeth. “No more alphas.”
They saluted me like a troop of soldiers.
True to their word, the next one was nothing like Dominic Sinclair. It was Sunday afternoon when I went to the parking lot of a diner just off campus where several biker groups were having hot dogs. Their big, black, heavy motorcycles made roaring sounds that caused tremors in the earth.
At a small table near the group of large, tattooed, bearded men was my date. I was given his name and the basic description so I wouldn’t end up in a biker gang by mistake, which, according to Harrison, was also a potential romance scenario I should be ready to improvise.
Knox wore a black leather jacket and tight, torn jeans that hugged his legs so closely I wondered how he ever managed to get on a bike to come here. His ears were pierced in several places, as was his lip in one place, and a buzz-cut gave him a daring look. He spotted me from afar and stood up.
Knox was wiry and pretty good-looking overall. He had that bad-boy appeal I could see turning many heads when he rode his bike down the street. I could even imagine he was pretty hot in one of those mean helmets and a balaclava.
“You Finn?” he asked, his voice husky.
“Yeah,” I said. “Knox, right?”
“You got it,” he said. “Wanna have a hot dog?”
“Sure. I love hot dogs,” I said.
“I gotcha,” he said.
He winked confidently and gestured at the table with his head.
He moved like his muscles were sore, maybe from a recent workout, and his shoulders definitely filled the jacket nicely.
He was nothing like the type I’d see myself falling in love with, but he seemed a lot more normal than Dominic Sinclair with his stripping-you-as-we-speak gazes.
Knox pushed his way confidently through the small group of bikers twice his size and three times his width. They seemed to recognize him as one of their own in a way, so they didn’t seem bothered. He went up to the counter of the hot dog food truck, waited a minute, then returned.
As he set our food on the table, he looked into my eyes. He had very long eyelashes and a dimple in his cheek when he half-smiled. “So, you guys doing some kind of blind dating experiment?” he asked.
“Something like that,” I said. “My friends are all in relationships, and they think they know best.”
“Cute,” Knox said. Single word, chillingly clear, almost like he was telling me I was cute.