“Everything okay? We have another call at Harrah’s.”
“Yeah, we’re good. I’ll be out in a sec, Sterling,” Nate says.
Sterling glances over at me for a moment, a soft sympathetic smile on his face as Smokey uses that moment to sneak back into my bedroom and jump on my bed.
“You got a cat?” Nate asks, taking off the latex gloves…and putting them in his pocket.
“His name is Smokey,” I say softly, ready for these hot firefighters to get the hell out of my house so I can perish in peace.
Nate seems uncomfortable as he stands from my bed and clears his throat. I always wondered why he was interested in my mom, he was too young and far too kind for her.
“Take care of yourself, Hailey. Or…” He runs a hand through his hair, like he wants to say something more. All I want is to be left alone in my embarrassment. He exhales softly, shaking his head. “Just take care of yourself, okay?”
“Yeah. Thank you,” I reply.
“Lock the door when we leave,” he says.
I salute him and when he smirks back at me I think I need the paramedics to return as I stroke out from stupidity. There’s a shuffling of footsteps as the firemen leave my home. I lock the door as soon as they’re gone and immediately melt on the floor.
How the fuck is this my life?
CHAPTER 4
NATE
We respondedto a call for a woman who fell down the stairs at the casino and now we’re back at the station as it all sets in. I didn’t even have a single moment to process what happened with Hailey earlier.
I scrub my face in the locker room as Sterling approaches me from behind, a hand at my hip.
“So are we going to talk about the fact you still smell like fucking cherries?” he asks, pushing his hips against my ass, grinding his cock against me.
“It was Erin’s fucking daughter,” I say, and he pulls back and I turn around.
His brows furrow as I stare into his handsome face. He’s the one who helped me get out of that situation and I couldn’t be more grateful for the man. It doesn’t hurt that he’s beautiful and kind.
I’m pretty sure Sterling saved my life, and now a part of me feels like I need to do that for Hailey too. Her mother kicked her out because of me. Because I was the one who found her crying on the bathroom floor when she perfumed for the first time andrealized she wasn’t a Beta after all. Her scent possessed me then, and it seems like it still has the same hold on me.
Sterling searches my face with his inquisitive amber gaze as he grabs my shoulder.
“You like her?” he asks. I shrug and he cups my neck. “I’m not Erin or her group of hierarchical Alphas, Nate. You can always be honest with me.”
I sigh, knowing he’s right. He started out as a mentor at the station, then as an Alpha to emulate, and it just naturally progressed as more. A small pack fell into my lap effortlessly, minus an Omega, which is that last missing piece.
“She needs someone to take care of her, real bad,” I reply and Sterling shakes his head.
“Didn’t ask that, and you know it.”
“She’d never be interested, anyway,” I reply.
It’s true, she seemed completely horrified that I had to touch her. Her scent, and arousal weren’t something she could control, not in the situation she was in.
“You kept the gloves in your pocket, Nate.”
I sigh, but I don’t take them out. I’m not going to throw them out here at the station where anyone would be able to scent her.
“Don’t you have someone else to micromanage?” I say to him and he fists my uniform, planting a rough kiss on my lips, before heading to the dorms to get some sleep.
I sit on the locker room bench, knowing it’s fucked up what I’m about to do. But I do it anyway. I pull out the gloves I used from earlier, drenched in her slick and scent, bringing them up to my nose before undoing my pants and freeing my cock.
