Page 4 of Rocked By the Alpha
Chapter 2
Security lets her in the front door and she creeps through the quiet farmhouse the record company has hired.
Her sandals dangle from her index finger. The flagstones are cold on the soles of her feet and a draft blows through the large rooms.
She finds the staircase, and gripping the ancient banister, she tiptoes up the stairs. There’s no sound from above and she’s confident her band mates are asleep. Not that it will matter. They’ll still have known she went missing last night after their set had finished, and they’ll want to know where she went.
What is she going to tell them? She wishes it was as easy for her as it was for West. Just claim she had some fun with a dude and that would be that. But her bandmates, Nat and Tanya, will want details, intimate details — how did she hook up with him? What was his name? What was he like? Stringing together that many lies makes her feel exhausted. She’ll work something out later.
She’s good at lying. Good at not getting caught. It started with skipping school and now here she is sleeping with a man she’s meant to hate. That she should hate, according to Nat.
But she can’t hate him. As hard as she tries, as much of an asshole as he is, she just can’t seem to hate him. Anything but!
She pauses at the top of the stairs and yawns, sucking in air as she does and the scent of the Alpha she’s slept with too. She lifts her arm and sniffs. His scent is all over her skin and she can’t help inhaling it again, enjoying the way it makes the gland at the back of her neck tingle with pleasure. His scent is one of the nicest Alpha scents she’s ever come across. Too often they are overpowering, something that catches in the back of your throat. But his is light and playful — like the Alpha himself. Too goddamn playful. Nothing seems to phase him.
She drops her hand back to her side. Though neither of her band mates, Natasha and Tanya, are Omegas or Alphas, she’ll still have to scrub herself in the shower, make sure West’s scent drains down the plughole. Just in case.
But first she’ll get some sleep. It’s 5.45am and she didn’t sleep at all last night — not that she wanted to — and her body is exhausted from all the … Her cheeks warm and she raises her arm again, sucking in his scent and reliving the sensation of his arms and his lips.
She snaps her arm away.
What the fuck is she doing? Why does this Alpha have this effect on her when she knows he’s the last man on earth she should be sleeping with? Not if she wants to keep her spot in the band, anyway.
Why is she like this? Compelled to do the things she shouldn’t.
Because of the thrill —she’s addicted to the thrill of doing things she shouldn’t, even if it’s a double-edged sword and the accompanying guilt cuts her deep — and because it’s him. There is something about him.
She creaks open the door to her room and climbs into the bed, not bothering to strip out of her dress.
What was this? The seventh time? Shit! Not that the other times have been nearly as dangerous as this. Once they’d met accidentally outside the same supermarket and once she’d been leaving a meeting with a potential new sponsor as he’d been going into the same agency. The other times had been her own doing, booty calls late at night when she hadn’t been able to help herself.
Then there was the first.
It was in the early days, when they were making their rise up the charts. At that point, the record company was insisting they make an appearance at every music event for the exposure. This one was some charity event, housed in the giant ballroom of some glitzy hotel, complete with glittering chandeliers.
She was leaning against the bar waiting to be served and he’d swaggered up towards her with his usual self-confidence and flashed his wide grin in her direction. He clearly didn’t know who she was, but she knew him. Second guitarist of the band that Natasha was convinced had stolen one of their songs. They’d lost a whole week of song writing to Natasha’s tantrum about it. Calling everyone she knew, instructing a lawyer, ranting at their manager. They had to talk her down from it all, although they couldn’t stop her writing social media posts on the topic and causing an explosion of gossip online.
“Hey,” he said, leaning against the bar beside her, his gaze slipping down her form. “Having fun?”
He had no idea. No idea. That week had been a nightmare. And what had his band done in retaliation for Nat’s posts? Ridiculed them. There was a video of this man, West, joking about how unhinged Natasha was.
“Not really,” she tilted her head away and stared towards the neat rows of spirit bottles lit up in fluorescent colours. She hoped he’d go away. She had nothing to say to him. Nothing good, anyway.
But then she caught it, the faintest of whiffs, and she swung her head around, convinced it had to be coming from somewhere else.
He moved closer. The scent grew a tiny bit stronger. She lifted her gaze to meet his. He had soft brown eyes ringed with thick lashes, but there was something about them, something mesmerising that made her want to draw towards him.
He grinned. “You want me to get you a drink?”
“I think the barman’s on a break or wasted or something.” She tried to keep her voice cool and uninterested, even though she could feel her pulse pounding in her throat.
The man swung his head from side to side and then, placing his large palms on the surface of the bar, bolted over to the other side. He picked up a discarded napkin and slung it over his forearm.
“What can I get you?”
“Let me see,” she lifted the bar menu to her face.
“You’ve been here all this time and you don’t even know what you want to drink?” She could hear the tease in his voice.
