His daughter.
My best friend.
Chapter
Six
TRISTAN
Michelin star restaurants mean shit to cashed up Omega besties, so it’s no surprise when instead of eating itty-bitty bits of food with a hundred different ingredients we stay in the bar and order platters of fried comfort food to share.
I smile at all the right places, being hilariously offensive when I can, but at the same time my heart isn’t in it. I’m so fucking distracted by him. He’s vacuuming all my attention and I’m powerless to stop wanting his.
He pretty much stood locked in the place we crashed together until Raney dragged his reluctant sexy ass over to where we’re sitting. His immediate discomfort was hard to miss, his scent changed but at the same time no one else commented on it.
When he sat down, so did a few of Raney’s uncles and then it was like he got his mojo back or he just hid behind huge fuck-the-world energy. He’s still very demanding and dominant, but at the same time, when I was with him, he was different.
I’m not sure what I was expecting if I ever saw him again, but being Raney’s dad was not it. Neither was him being the president of the Fallen. Dumb, I know, the Fallen tattoo signboarded over his barrel sized chest. Looking back now it was a pretty obvious clue, but I’ve got no bones admitting I lost the ability to think and breathe when I saw the rest of him.Good news, that insatiable drag to one another hasn’t diminished despite the truth of how we both know Raney coming to light.
It’s probably a good and a bad thing that Koz, Raney’s fated Alpha, is a bit of a possessive dick because making all the other Alphas sit at a different table and face away from ours meant the girls and I could gossip and eat like pigs. But it also gave me a better view to watch him. And if I’m honest, tease the fuck out of him as much as he’s unconsciously doing to me.
I twist the top of my body to face Raney, Simona, and Heidi, the table obscuring the way I spread my legs slightly. And look, I’m a body confident person anyway, but still, I make sure I’m only flashing him because I feel sick thinking of flirting so obviously with anyone else.
“So,” I interrupt the girls talking about the benefits of investing in shares over long term cash bonds. On any other day I’d be all up for talking rollovers. Unsurprisingly thinking of rollovers has me remembering getting flipped over by a certain Alpha before he took me slow and dirty from behind. Before I get too carried away by my fantasy, I need some idea of how Raney would feel if she knew about me and him. “We should talk about King.”
“Excuse me?” Raney gasps, stopping mid word and slamming her hand on the table hard enough to make Koz twist in his seat and ask what’s wrong.
She waves him away, and I keep snake charming her, waving the last onion ring in her face. Once her glare moves to me and not the food between my fingers, I lean over the table like I’m going to whisper but of course I talk loud enough for the concierge in the lobby to hear, “Your daddy, King, is an AIWTK.”
Thankfully, or maybe not, one of the Fallen is holding the attention of everyone sitting around the other table in an equally loud discussion on the virtues of pole dancing and advice from his doctor to do more cardio, so they miss hearing me, but the girls don’t.
Heidi catches on way quicker than Raney does on the meaning of the acronym. She cracks up laughing while Raney looks like she’s overworking her brain. The drinks we’ve shared are obviously messing with her because she’s usually as sharp as glass. Her lips pucker aggressively when she can’t figure it out. “Spell that shit out for me, Tristan. And drop the fucking onion ring. You know we don’t play with our food.”
“Mmmm, I was thinking the same,” I muse while moving one of my legs, opening the gap wide enough for him to see the colour of my panties. I smirk when I feel his eyes burning a hole in them. Reaching for Raney’s hair, I tug on it so she can’t miss a word I say, “He’s totally an Alpha I want to knot.”
Raney’s emotions drain away leaving her looking pasty as fuck.
“No fucking way,” Simona says softly before she looks at Raney. “I kind of get it though, Raney, he’s actually really good looking.”
“Right?” I confirm, shamelessly pushing to see how much Raney can take before she snaps. We do it to each other all the time. “If it’s an age thing, he can’t be more than a few years older than Koz?”
“He’s my father!” she bellows, throwing a handful of fries at me.
Clearly, I hit a nerve because Raney playing with her food is sacrilege. I dodge them all, plucking a fry off my shirt to dip in her ketchup. “Raney, babes, violence is not the answer. Besides, you said yourself that he’d love me.”
“Jesus, Tristan, don’t talk about King like that. Thinking of him as anything other than my dad is truly horrific!” She splutters, her face getting colour after she went white as a ghost, but now her eyes are all squinty.
“Didn’t you say he was young when he had you?” I ask innocently, probing for more details.
“Not the point,” she growls back better than an Alpha.
I interrupt her. “He’s so tall, I could climb him like a tree before…”
“Tristan, what is wrong with you? Stop talking!” She snarls, getting ready to climb to her feet to go street fighter in her attempt to make me stop talking.
Heidi steals the moment though. Her face is almost fuchsia, and she’s caught in a vicious loop of trying not to laugh while fighting to breathe, and when she pushes herself away from the table, trying to get some air in typical Scorned Girls style, she topples her chair and goes flailing backwards. Her expensive heels are the last thing we see.
Simona explodes, unable to hold in anymore of her bubbling laughter, and I watch impressed as she sprays our table with her fruity cocktail. Our demure and softly spoken fourth has a wicked streak as large as ours.
