He chuckles with another one of his smiles as he reaches up. I jolt as his fingers whisper over my neck cupping my ear.
Even the lightest brush sends pleasure dancing through me, and I hope he doesn’t look at my crotch. Because, even with the ache beating through me, my body still wants him.
Luke wiggles up the couch, edging closer, and his eyes sparkle. “What do you want to do, Timber? Because it’s pretty dangerous for a big, bad alpha like you to corner a poor little guy like me.” His voice dips, along with his eyes. “And it would be so easy for you to overpower me, wouldn’t it?”
A growl rumbles from me, and his grin deepens.
Is that how he’ll do it then? He’ll goad me into falling in love with him and use me that way?
I can’t tell what’s going on. Is he asking me to go for it? Is it really that easy? If I just lean in and kiss him, will he let me?
My heart picks up as my alpha side threatens to surge, until his hand falls along with his expression.
“Move back, Timber,” he sighs, his voice cold, and my whirlwind of desire is plunged into ice. I can’t understand why he suddenly looks hurt when he’s the one tricking me.
I instantly lean away, standing up straight, offering him my hand to help him stand. When he takes it, I tug on him, and he flies up, hitting my chest. It takes everything in me not to wrap my arms around his back. Because I want to pin him down and not let him go. Or maybe I don’t want to let him get away with his lies.
My fucking alpha side is taking over as another possessive growl rises in me. I dip my chin so I can look at him and find him only an inch from my face.
Both of us draw shuddering breaths. But Luke shoots back, his hand falling from me, leaving tingles of awareness in its place.
“I think it’s bedtime. I need to clean myself up, you know?” he says, throwing me a wink, leaving me completely confused.
If he’s an omega, he should take advantage of me here. And it fucks me up that he doesn’t. Because I want to know exactly where Luke needs to clean.
He’s already spun around. As he heads for the stairs, all I can think is how cute his ass looks in his ripped jeans, and how I could make his hips sway even wider if he let me inside him.
Kane
Sweat pours down my body as I click the treadmill up one more level and push myself harder. I’ve been running for half an hour, but I need even more to get Ollie and Timber out of my system.
Not that I want to, or that I can. During the day, all I can think about is seeing Ollie again and plotting a way to introduce herto Timber. Our date is coming soon, but I’m so impatient. I just want to see them together. I know they’re meant to be, and I’m here to make it happen.
At night, I dream about Timber, and now Ollie has entered them as well. She’s there on the ice, holding Timber as he bleeds out, either crying or staring or furious with me. In one dream, she screamed, ‘How could you?’, and I couldn’t even text her afterward because it hurt too much.
I don’t need them to be together for their happiness. It’s for me as well.
Which is why I work out like a crazy person until midnight every night, hoping that if I run myself into the ground, I’ll be so tired that I’ll stop dreaming, day and night. I used to party with the other players to wear myself out, but nothing is the same when Ollie and Timber aren't there.
Music blasts in my ears, my fists clench, my feet beat in a steady rhythm under me. I focus on the blank wall straight ahead and run to empty my mind.
My fitness watch vibrates, and I assume it’s my step counter telling me I’ve done my ten thousand. It’s only luck that I look up at my phone sitting on the shelf on my left and see it light up.
I gasp, suddenly losing my footing, stumbling forward, and slamming my hands on the handrails as I crash out. I punch the emergency stop and reach for my phone before the treadmill even reacts.
It’s there on the green background, her name pulses like a star in my gym.
Ollie.
My phone slips in my stupid, sweaty hands, clattering off the treadmill and falling to the floor. I cry out as I drop to my knees, fumbling around like Velma when she loses her glasses, crawling as fast as I can on the treadmill belt so I don’t slip off.
“Come on!” I shout at myself as I finally grab the phone, instantly swiping it, struggling like a trapped piece of airport luggage as I catch my breath.
“Oh, hey, what’s up? I’m just in the gym,” I try to say casually, but it comes out high-pitched because I’m struggling for my life on the slowing belt.
She’s quiet, and I panic as I keep crawling one-handed while pressing the phone to my ear, and I say the first thing that comes into my head.
“We could always do a video call so you can watch me work out?” I purr, trying to sound sexy before realizing I was acting like the biggest douchebag in the world.
