Three
TRISTAN
He takes a step out of the reception door and chucks the key my way.
I watch it sail through the air and completely miss when he darts forward and snatches me off the hood of his truck, throwing me over his shoulder like I’m a prize haul.
And yeah, I’m good with that.
I wiggle around to get more comfortable, but he reads it like I’m trying to escape. His meaty hand drops like a weight, anchoring me to him and making us touch in even more ways. Like before, everywhere we’re touching, a rush of pins and needles follows, dancing over my skin, even making my scalp tingle.
He adds to the cresting waves washing over me when he speaks. His voice is deeply melodic, full of uncompromising possession, and it rumbles loudly over the rain. I also get to feel the vibration when he speaks through his body. “I owe you three, killer, because I’m pretty fucking sure I told you your ass was to sit inside my truck until I got you.”
I don’t get the chance to speak, instead I squeal out and start laughing when he spins us, dropping into a squat at the last second, waiting for me to pick up the fallen room key. He clickshis fingers impatiently as soon as I grab the key, and I pass it over. I also take the chance to give him a playful nip on his side for being so demanding.
It earns me another delicious whack on the ass.
I knew that was coming.
I wanted it too.
I’m an impatient person on a good day, but this Alpha has made it worse to the point I’m half desperate with need despite my heat being weeks if not months away. I’m sure it’s a by-product of finding each other, but each time I inhale his bourbon scent, each time his hand strokes over my skin, I feel like I’m teetering on the edge of a full-blown heat cycle so much so that I ache all over.
And when he looks at me, all I want to do is drop to my knees and open my mouth to wait.
“You’re smelling a right fucking treat,” he growls. His lips are against my leg as he talks, and they are the only warning I get before I feel him sink his teeth into the fleshy part of my thigh.
I start to mouth off but instead of talking, I end up screaming as I go sailing through the air. I land, giggling, in the middle of a gigantic bed. I bounce a couple of times before the world stills and we get caught up in each other again.
A simple look and all the noise departs; neither of us move, except for breathing like we’ve both been running for hours. And like when we first saw each other, time slows again. Or perhaps it simply starts moving differently. But it gives a slowness to the intensity, a chance to savour everything we share.
He shuts the door behind him, and I expect him to come chasing me down with the same ferocity we’ve been flirting with since the first time he spoke, but he drops all that and becomes a different Alpha.
“Before anything happens… I want the name of the person who touched you.” His nearly black eyes narrow, and he stinks of aggression, not like his rich and heady bourbon scent.
I shake my head, talking quietly. “It doesn’t matter.”
“I want the name of the prick who put his hands on you. Now.” He flicks his chin up and stays leaning against the door, his hands behind his back looking like an absolute dream. A scary dream, but still.
He stares at me expectantly waiting for an answer. I’m surprised he hasn’t started tapping his feet. After the few minutes I’ve spent with him, it’s pretty clear he can be a stubborn ass when he wants.
“You can’t touch him,” I say eventually. returning his Alphas steely gaze with one of my own. Unsurprisingly, his top lip lifts like he’s silently snarling at me in his frustration.
“I can touch him,” he snaps after a few drawn out minutes where he doesn’t say anything, just looks at me. His hand is over his face, and he takes a huge calming exhale before he speaks again. “It’s going to eat me alive, unless you tell me.”
“You can’t touch him,” I repeat.
“And why the fuck not, killer? Are black eyes part of the norm in your world? ’Cause they’re not in mine. Not on women anyway. And definitely not on you. Spill.”
“Impatient much?” I ask, aiming for a little humour to defuse his darkening mood. And it kind of works. Just not like I expected.
He shakes his head, looking at me stunned, although his lips twist before he chuckles. “You got no idea how fucking impatient I get. I got all night to wait, unless you’d prefer we spend it fucking.”
I laugh before sobering up. “Nolan Bishop. He’s a photographer, does all the shoots for one of the larger magazines. He can make or break your career.”
“Still not liking this, killer. Why did he hit you? And that’s me trying to get why a man would put a hand on a woman in anger, that’s not me suggesting you did a thing wrong. You got that?”
I shake my head and look away. I’m not ashamed of what happened, it wasn’t something I could have stopped from happening even if I tried with all my might. Which I did. “Yeah, I get that. He’s an Alpha.” I pin him with another gaze. “Some Alphas in the industry think they get certain privileges working with Omegas. I disagreed. Usually, he brushes it off and punishes me by not being available when my agent or the client sets up a time, and then he lets the client know it was me that messed up.”
