Raney’s composure snaps next. She’s not as showy as Heidi today, and she’s probably acting more restrained because Koz’s here, but she’s not ladylike either as she dissolves into a fit of laughter. She makes it worse by surging to her feet and clapping as Heidi fights to right herself and her chair.
Me? I sit back on my seat, and I lock eyes with King. After he stops staring up my skirt.
Then he’s up out of his chair, wavering between coming closer to help or making his escape.
Koz on the other hand has no hesitation in what he’s doing, he’s getting his girl. It’s cute the way he shakes his head inamusement as he approaches Raney like he knew something was going to happen, but the tiny tip of his lips makes it pretty clear no matter how goofy she is, she’s his and he’s hers.
King’s eyes track Koz on his way to Raney before he jumps into action along with the rest of his crowd as they come near to see if they can help, pointedly ignoring me which is fine. I’m still smiling from our last interlude.
We get wrangled into sensibility with comments about time and finishing things up. Goodbyes happen next, and they’re hurried. King comes over and gives his daughter a hug and throws his hand up as a goodbye to the rest of us before disappearing out the door with his similarly dressed disciples trailing after him.
Once he goes, I step over to save Heidi.
“Ho, are you good?” I ask, shoulder barging past her shitty bodyguards. They’re not shitty in what they do, just how they do it. The girls and I know how to deal with them.
Heidi’s relief is evident, and she huddles closer to me while also forcing her security team to retreat with an entitled glare before flinging her arm over my shoulder. We collect Simona on our way to the lifts, leaving Koz and Raney sharing a moment.
There’s a small crowd milling in the lobby; you can tell they’re diners from Chow Down, the hotels’ restaurant. The guests’ disapproval of our earlier antics reeks as much as the lemongrass and garlic in their food they ate. They shamelessly watch the three of us as we strut and laugh our way across the lobby. God, I wish I had a camera though, because it’s absolutely priceless watching their faces as the hotel manager comes and greets the girls and me like lifelong friends.
“Ladies, you’re all set up in your usual rooms,” Marcel says, his voice dropping low. He probably felt the attention of the diners, and he’s always been so very protective of us the few times we’ve stayed here. We go to slip into the private lifts,“Tristan, sorry… we’ve had to move you to a different floor. There was a plumbing issue earlier, but…”
“It’s a room!” I go to say more, but we’re deafened by the thundering noise of bike engines revving. You can’t see The Fallen, but by God you can hear them. A low, deepthroated rumble that makes me squeeze my eyes shut, rattles every window in the lobby as it fills with the noise of them idling on their bikes. We have to wait to talk until they roll out, and they do that just as suddenly as they started them.
Marcel looks professionally mortified, but he also knows Koz Siderno, international gun runner, is still in his establishment along with Koz’s men discreetly dotted around the place.
I lean over, pulling him back to me because you know, I’m just as important. “Don’t worry at all about the suite swap. Honestly there’s no problem. And if there’s a difference in cost, make sure you charge me this time.” I grin following after him as he retreats to the desk to swap keys with me.
With the new key in hand, the girls and I talk shit while we wait for the lift, and then they get out with suggestions of catching up for breakfast. I’m left taking a noisy exhale, relieved I’m alone and can drop the facade for a few hours. Why is it though that it’s always in those moments you get a second of peace that some asshole shatters it. A text on my phone from an unknown number is it?
Stay away.
“Right oh, weirdo,” I murmur to myself before flicking my phone to silent and refocusing on trying to relax again.
The suite helps foster the mood too. It’s stunning and invokes a strong sense of peace. Whoever the designer is, they’re a goddamn genius, and I’m so pleased my usual grey on grey suite was flooded. It was lovely but compared to this, there is no going back. The stylist went full Japandi—the white-on-whitemix of Japanese and Scandinavian style means all the fittings, the furnishing, even the artwork is white, and oozes serenity.
I drop my bags on the oversized white chaise opening up the glass sliding doors to the outdoor patio. But the instant I see the hot-tub and the view, I circle back inside, switching all the lights off before I undress and grab a towel.
Walking outside, the light breeze is cooling and soft as silk against my skin, and I twist my hair up. I’m literally climbing up, ass in the breeze, when the front door opens. Twisting around and caught mid-scramble, I find King, who holds me hostage in one heated, slightly pissed off glance.
“We need to talk,” he growls, not too softly or quietly either.
He turns me on any time I look at him, but growling at me while power walking towards me with obvious intention in his deep brown eyes as I’m outside, naked, about to climb into a spa? Jesus, I fucking whine.
“Tristan…”
I think he’s meant for me to stop climbing in, but King saying my name for the first time is one of those moments that will be immortalised in my memories forever and a day.
I slide face first into the warm water because of the need to escape his inexplicable raw power. The man, with one word and a couple of hours, rewrites the definition of powerless in the dictionary. I lose all my wit and strength, but at the same time I don’t feel weak; I feel somehow stronger giving him the tools to make me a better, more honourable version of myself.
Omegas need. I know that and it’s not discounting how strong one Omega is over the other—at the end of the day, we were made for Alphas. In return, they were made to need us in equal measure.
Scent-matched bonds are the epitome of Alpha and Omega connection, and even underwater, I feel myself respond.
And it’s a poignant reminder, almost as special as him saying my name for the first time.
Chapter
Seven
