Chapter 18
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
SKYLAR
Once again, I’m impressed by Riann’s boldness. If she’s uncomfortable or uncertain, she doesn’t show it. I was beginning to regret coming to her hotel room, thinking I'd forced us into an unfixably uncomfortable situation.
But somehow, in a matter of seconds, she overcame my reservations.
Now, sitting next to her, it feels like we’ve done this before. Hanging out, watching TV, enjoying one another’s company.
My curiosity swells as I wonder what she’ll ask, but nothing could take me off guard as much as her first question.
“How old are you?”
“Coming out swinging, aren’t we?” I choke, running a hand over my face. What if my age is a deal breaker? What if she finds out and chases me out of her room? It’s not illegal—we’re both adults—but it feels a little on the taboo side. With a sigh, I answer, “Twenty-six.”
Her eyes widen, but then her expression softens. “Oh, you’re younger than I thought.”
“Excuse me?” My jaw drops and I glare at her, horrified. “Wha— How old did you think I was?”
She shrugs, a laugh escaping. “Like thirty-five? I don’t know.”
Thirty-five?
She thought I was thirty-five?
And she still let me violate her in my office…
Christ.
“I’m offended. Hurt, actually.” I press a hand to my chest, feigning offense. “You really thought I was that old?”
“Yeah, I figured you spent at least a decade studying designations or something,” she explains, and it feels like she’s stomping on my heart with her boots. Dios, I'll never live this down. “But age doesn’t matter to me, so I really didn’t think about it.”
Well, that’s a relief.
If she’s not bothered by it, I’ll try to be equally unconcerned.
“Do you work out a lot?” she asks, eyeing my bare arm closest to her. I can’t help but flex and revel in the way her eyes gleam.
“Every day.” I nod. “Sometimes twice.”
“Twice a day?” She makes a disgruntled noise. “That sounds… horrible.”
I chuckle and shake my head. “It’s tough sometimes, but the gym is the one place where I can really be myself. Makes me feel good, ya know?”
“And I’m assuming you don’t have any mates because you’re… here.” Her voice is a little more uncertain this time, and I look down to find her biting her bottom lip.
I slip down in the bed to be at her level, not missing her sharp inhale of breath, and loll my head to the side to meet her gaze. The air between us is electric, and even through my suppressant haze, I can feel the invisible tug dragging me toward her.
“No mates,” I assure her. “No girlfriends. Nada.”
If I wasn’t drowning in suppressants, I’d be pumping my scent into the air to reassure her, the way I would if she was my omega.
Being that I can’t, I reach over and place my hand gently on her thigh, rubbing my thumb back and forth over her fuzzy blanket.
She relaxes beneath my touch, which has my drowsy alpha instincts fighting in vain to break free.
“What about you?” I ask, not wanting to pry too much, but also wanting to know every damn thing about her all at once. “I take it you’re not seeing anyone.”
“Well, it’s complicated.”
My heart drops at her words, and I'm already conjuring a hundred worst-case scenarios. Does she already have prospective mates? Does she have someone waiting for her back home?
My throat tightens as she keeps going, “There’s this hot doctor I banged this morning, but I’m not really sure what’s going on between us.”
A nervous chuckle escapes me, the ball of tension unravelling in my chest.
Thank god.
I would have felt guilty if I’d fucked someone’s girlfriend without asking first.
But only a little.
“I’ll stop joking about it,” she whispers, obviously picking up on my discomfort.
“No, no. It's fine.” Shaking my head, I roll onto my side to be face to face with her. “If I wasn’t so worried about getting fired and losing my license, I’d think this was all hilarious. It’s just a little…”
“Complicated?” she offers.
I nod.
She reaches over to trail her fingertips lightly down my arm, making me shudder as she traces my tattoos. I watch her movements, warmth sinking through me at the contact.
A tiny voice at the back of my head is screaming that I shouldn't be here, that this is a terrible idea. I should be working on figuring out her symptoms, taking her blood back to the lab to start extracting her DNA.
But, fuck, this is nice.
It's been so long since I've been this close to anyone, and the peace is overwhelming. My mind is at ease, my heart pounding a steady, content beat, and for a moment I'm almost able to forget everything outside this hotel room.
I'm not putting on an alpha mask for the outside world, I'm not trying to fit in somewhere I don't belong.
At the thought, what's left of my walls come tumbling down.
“Do you have any tattoos?” I ask, my eyes tracking to her unmarred skin. I saw most of her earlier, but that doesn't mean she’s not hiding one somewhere.
“Not yet.” She grins wide. “Maybe one day. Do yours all have some deep meaning behind them?”
I laugh, immediately thinking about the matching gummy bear tattoo I got with Lana on a drunken spring break.
“Some do.”
“Hmm…” She props herself up on her elbow and points to a hooded woman with horns on my bicep, her face streaked with tears. It's about eight years old, but the black shading is still pretty saturated. “What about this one?”
“I was quite the edgelord when I was eighteen.
That's when I got most of these.” I twist my arm this way and that, showing off my collection of ink.
“I'd just presented as an alpha, and I was trying to figure out who I was. This,” I point to the tattoo she chose, “is from a movie that became my entire personality for about six months.
It's a horror film about a female alpha who takes it upon herself to right the wrongs of the world.
Even though she punishes monsters, she's—”
“—still painted as the villain.”
I cock a brow at her, impressed. “You've seen The Rise and Fall of Belladonna? That movie is older than you, isn’t it?”
“Yep. We studied it at the academy last year.” She pokes me in the abs. “In our Ancient History class.”
She bursts into a fit of giggles at my expression—I can't control what my face is doing anymore—and wipes a tear from her eye.
“I'm kidding! I'm kidding.” She scoots a little closer, narrowing the space between us. “It was in our Pheromones and Film Making class. It was really good; Belladonna is a badass.”
I'm inclined to agree. That movie was the first thing that helped me come to terms with my designation.
To see a badass female alpha on stage, kicking ass and taking names, sparked something in me.
It made me believe I was more than the weird, unwanted female alpha the people around me tried to paint me as.
“Okay, pick one more,” I urge, showing off my sleeve. “We can save the rest for later.”
She makes a show of examining them all, taking her time, trailing her fingers along my skin as she looks. Goosebumps threaten to chase her touch, until she finally settles on a strand of DNA on my forearm. Heat prickles across my cheeks, knowing I walked right into that.
All this ink covering my body and, of course, she’d pick that one…
When her eyes pop up to meet mine, my stomach knots.
“What is it?” She laughs. “Is it embarrassing?"
“It’s a little cheesy,” I admit, shifting a fraction closer to her. “It's a strand of alpha DNA.”
Memories of my decision to get it almost a decade ago flit through my mind, and I stuff down the uncomfortable feelings that follow as best as I can.
“When I presented as an alpha, I’d never felt so alone.
Rare doesn’t always mean good or coveted; other alphas weren’t exactly sympathetic.
I hated what I was.” My eyelids flutter closed as a brief wave of resentment for my designation washes over me.
“I’ve lived my whole life fighting against the world telling me I’m wrong because of something I can’t control.
That’s why I got into genetics in the first place.
To find out why I presented as an alpha when I could have been anything else. ”
She stares up at me, her plush lips spread in disbelief, but I can’t stop the words from pouring out of me. It feels so fucking good to say them out loud, for someone to hear me and understand me so unmistakably.
“And this here,” I stroke my thumb softly over the twisted strands. “This is my way of reminding myself that I’m an alpha, regardless of what anyone else thinks or says. It’s in my genes, and no one can ever diminish that.”