At least not outside of alpha-focused porn.
Maybe I was just greedy.
Eva’s eyes found mine again, as if guided to me by some kind of magnetic force, and I grinned, not at all bothered about being caught staring at her. I couldn’t help it, I kept eye contact as I sipped the distinctly Eva-tasting beverage, my eyes never leaving hers. The blush that crossed her cheeks had my cock twitching.
Yeah, that's what it was. I was greedy. Because if I had anything to say about it, I’d have them both. There was no doubt in my mind about that.
I hoppedout of Jason's car before he’d even fully braked in the parking lot. His scent, too close to toothpaste to be anywhere near the realm of sexy, had been fine in the playtest room. But paired with the smell of stale cigarettes in his car?
Fucking pass.
It took everything in me not to gag; the tension headache brewing near my temples dragging my mood into the pits of hell.
Though I’d tagged along with Tara and her pack a few times to enjoy the barcade’s cheap beers and pretty reasonable play-all-you-want pass, I never quite got over the way the outside of the building looked. Tucked into a strip mall boasting a law firm next door and a funeral home on the far end, the place didn’t exactly screamcheerful and livelyfrom the outside, but the inside was something else entirely.
Jason offered to drive me, and I wasn’t feeling up to the task of sweet-talking Dorothy for her to decide she didn’t want to start this far away from home, so I accepted.
Big mistake.
I would’ve taken a hundred rounds ofPop Goes the Weaselto avoid his half-hearted attempts to tell me that the omega his pack was seeing wasn’t interested in him as much as the other guys. Desperation hung off the dude almost as bad as his scent, and neither was remotely appealing to me.
“Hey, wait!” Jason called as I booked it for the door.
“It’s cold!” I complained, the early winter chill biting into the bare skin of my thighs,barelya factor as I nearly jogged for the warmth of the barcade.
My eyes didn’t take long to adjust to the interior, the bright lights of the games combating the relative gloom of the space, evening out to somewhere near the same amount of light as the sunset outside.
The walls of the warehouse-sized room were painted matte black, absorbing some of the visual clutter of the game cabinets, taking up as much of the floor as possible, inviting players to try their luck at setting new high scores.
Or, if it suited them, deeply embarrassing themselves in front of their friends while they scored so abysmally low that it was a totally different kind of record.
"Do you wanna grab a game card and play a few rounds before everyone gets here?" Jason asked as he came up behind me, panting softly from his short jog.
Pathetic.
I fought my baser, mean-girl urges as I turned to him with a smile. “Sounds like a plan!”
Before I could consider my next move or come up with an idea of what I wanted to play, Jason corralled me towards the bar.
The bartender—not the usual sort of surly guy with long wavy hair that I was used to—seemed a little distracted when we walked up, staring into space in the direction of the game floor.
When he didn't instantly greet us, Jason cleared his throat loudly.
I elbowed him, shooting the alpha a dirty look that I hoped conveyed how rude he was being, but he didn't even spare me a glance, his open palm smacking down on the surface of the bar several times.
“Hello? Buddy?”
Unfortunately for everyone involved, it did get the bartender’s attention. He made his way over to us while I considered whether or not it was possible to use the sixty percent of my body that was water to melt into the floor.
He looked to be our age, with a mop of curls on top of his head and an easy smile broken by a piercing through his lip. "Hey, sorry about that, I was uhhhh…” His eyes darted for the floor again, and this time I followed them, spying a young woman with dark hair smacking the ever-loving shit out of a Deathly Duel—a PvP or PvComputer fighting game—cabinet. “Never mind. What can I get you?”
"Do you have a pilsner on tap?” Jason asked.
The look the bartender gave me, which I returned with a slow blink of my own, spoke volumes.
What a douche.
“Yeah, sure.” He nodded to me. “What can I get you?”
