Heaven's Ballroom

by Aiden Bates

  “Slow down, sweetheart. I was thinking we might at least make it upstairs before we started getting frisky.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “There’s a bed waiting up there for us already, isn’t there?”

  “There might be.” Max wound his hands around my body, cupping my ass then giving it a gentle smack. “Unless you wanted to visit those stripper poles first…”

  “You’re terrible,” I laughed.

  “But you love me anyway,” he countered.

  “I do. So…race you there?”

  He shook his head, then scooped me up in his arms, bridal style. I yelped as my feet left the ground—but I didn’t have to worry. Max was strong—strong enough that I could trust him not to let me fall.

  “Thought I’d carry you,” he said softly. “Come on. There’s a lot I want you to see yet.”

  “Then brunch,” I reminded him, the excitement stirring hunger in my stomach all over again.

  He laughed. “Okay. Then brunch.”

  Epilogue

  Damon

  Electronic beats pumped from the speakers as I gripped the back of my chair, digging my heels into the stage and arching my back stiff and straight. The water poured down from the rafters overhead, splashing hard against my chiseled abs like a sudden rainstorm.

  The crowd went fucking wild and I smirked.

  Hell, yeah. Just like Flashdance.

  But as the applause simmered down and I grabbed my chair to head offstage, who would’ve guessed it—those fuckers at table nine felt the need to pipe up again.

  “What a slut!” a redheaded Alpha called out, cupping his hands around his mouth to make the sound carry. The Alpha in the seat next to him rose to his feet and started barking like a dog that had been kept out in the backyard for too long on too short of a chain.

  Charming. Bachelor parties—at the Ballroom, we either hated them, or we especially hated them.

  I was honestly surprised that they were still going at it. They’d pulled the same shit during Anders’ set, which had resulted in Anders climbing down from his oversized martini glass and beating the barker in the mouth with his prop olive while he kicked a drink off the table into the redhead’s face. I’d have thought after that, they would’ve given it a rest—but not a chance. If anything, they were getting louder and rowdier than ever.

  As I shook my head, carrying my chair off the stage, I made a point to tell Carlos to stop serving them. They should’ve been shut down at the bar the second that they started interrupting the show. I was surprised Foster hadn’t come down from his office and kicked them out yet.

  “Ooh, better run away faster, big boy!” the redhead called after me. “Come on, is that the best that chubby ass of yours can waddle?”

  “Yeah, Fatty!” the barker added.

  I gritted my teeth. If they were going to be assholes, I would’ve appreciated a little inventiveness on their end. Hadn’t their mothers ever told them that if they were going to be cruel, it was only funny if they were clever about it?

  “You’re not fat,” Noah said pointedly, seeing that look in my eyes as I came off the stage. “Don’t listen to those pricks.”

  But of course, back in the audience they’d latched onto the insult like a pack of wolves on a wounded deer. “Fatty! Fatty!” they were chanting, cheering in the same way their dumbass frat brothers must’ve cheered while they were in college, drinking all their brain cells away.

  “I’m gonna go out there,” I warned Noah.

  He shook his head. “You’re not going out there.”

  I nodded, fuming. “I’m gonna give ‘em a piece of my mind.”

  “Damon—no, wait!”

  “Hey assholes!” I shouted, jogging back onto the stage. “You wanna bark at something, you mangy mutts? How’s this for a moon to howl at?”

  I turned, flexing my ass in the way I knew made it dimple with muscle. Five days a week at the gym had to pay off at some point, right? I laid a smack on it that reverberated throughout the entire ballroom, sending another cheer roaring up from the crowd.

  This time when the redhead cupped his hands around his mouth, my regular at table eight rose and cracked his knuckles menacingly. MMA fighter, recently returned from a stint in the can—and he looked it, too. Suddenly neutered, the redhead flushed the same color as his hairline and lowered his hands back onto his lap. The barker, realizing he was about half the size of the man presently threatening to beat his head in, slunk back down into his seat with his tail between his legs.

  I grinned. Know your audience, I guessed.

  Still, would’ve been nice not to be heckled. Especially considering that it was my birthday.

  “You were amazing up there, Damon!” Riley threw his arms around my neck, giving me a tight hug as I reappeared backstage. He was showing now—five months and already looking like he was ready to pop.

  “You know you’re having twins, right?” I gestured at Riley’s stomach and he laughed.

  “Don’t—Max is already on that train. You shouldn’t encourage him.”

  Max gave me a little wave from behind Riley, bearing a box of chocolates and a dozen balloons.

  “Happy birthday,” Max said as he handed my gifts off to me. “Glad you’re not letting those assholes get you down.”

  “Please. Like I’d ever,” I told him, accepting the gifts with a smile. It wasn’t true, of course, but they didn’t need to know that. “Thanks for coming around, you guys.”

  “Wouldn’t miss it for the world. Besides—” Riley passed his hands over his stomach with a grin. “Baby Ava needs to know what a badass her Uncle Damon is.”

  “Aw, come on—don’t talk about Baby Ava until I get some clothes on, Ry.” I blanched, pushing past him as I spotted Carlos come in from the main floor. “Hey, gimme a sec, okay?”

  Carlos’ eyes lit with recognition as they met mine. He had a tray balanced on his palm with a drink on top of it. The three umbrellas floating at the top of the glass told me it was the expensive kind.

  “Hey, Carlos—” I started, but he pushed the drink at me with a coy smile.

  “Happy Birthday, kid. Your secret admirer at the bar wanted me to send this over.”

  “Rush?” I said, taking the drink with confusion. “He’s not a the bar, Carlos. He’s at table eight.”

  Carlos shook his head. “Not Rush. Not this time. Some guy in a fancy suit. Slick looking. Said he liked your fire.”

  “Secret admirer, huh?” Max’s ears must have perked up the moment the words left Carlos’ mouth. “Sounds like you’ve caught someone’s eye, Damon.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Doubt it. Probably got me mixed up with Anders again.”

  “No,” Carlos reassured me. “Said specifically that it was for you. Believe me.” He scoffed, casting a glance at the piles of roses and chocolates on Anders’ dressing table. It wasn’t even Anders’ birthday. “Wanted to know if you’d be up for a private dance when you’re done with it. What should I tell him?”

  I took the drink, enjoying the feel of the perspiration on the icy cold glass.

  “Tell him thanks for the drink,” I said with a dismissive laugh.

  Secret admirer, my ass—it was probably just Foster trying to make me feel better for all the heckling going on. He knew that shit got to me, even if no one else did.

  I’d never had a secret admirer in my entire life—and birthday wishes or no, I highly doubted I was going to somehow miraculously attract one tonight.

  Book 2

  His Broken Angel

  Heaven’s Ballroom: Book 2

  Aiden Bates

  © 2019

  Disclaimer

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by
copyright law.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters, and events are all fictitious for the reader’s pleasure. Any similarities to real people, places, events, living or dead are all coincidental.

  This book contains sexually explicit content that is intended for ADULTS ONLY (+18).

  1

  Nathan

  What’s got three assholes but acts like it’s got six of them?

  Three drunk Alphas talking shit.

  I chuckled at my own joke, shaking my head as I watched the Almega version of Three Stooges try to bargain with the bouncer over whether or not they should be allowed to stay for the rest of the show. I’d had Mo, Larry and Curly pegged from the moment they started opening their mouths to heckle the dancers that night. They’d been born rich. They’d probably die rich. And between their birth years and their death years, they’d spend the whole of that little hyphen in between acting like they were better than everyone else because of it.

  What they hadn’t realized yet was that they weren’t even close.

  As someone who was actually better than everyone else, I would know.

  I rapped at the bar, signaling for another drink. The bartender poured my martini dirty and strong—just how I liked my men, incidentally. The top-notch bar service was the reason I’d chosen Heaven’s Ballroom as my drinking hole for the night, but the dancers were what had kept me in my seat at the bar past 10:00 p.m. Dirty and strong didn’t even begin to describe them—particularly that last dancer that had been up on the stage.

  Christ—even just in memory, he drove me wild. The sweat rivering down his sun-kissed skin, forming little tributaries as it hit the defined bulges of his abs. The way he’d worked his hips round and round like a carousel I wanted to ride hard, all night long. That little wink he gave in the second before he stripped off his breakaway pants, revealing a brazenly stiff bulge that was barely contained by the skimpy little thong he wore underneath. To call him a snack would’ve been an understatement—that dancer had been a five-course meal. Fine dining. The kind that made you want to lick your fingers afterward. Hell, I would’ve licked the entire damn plate clean.

  But of course, the idiots sitting at the table up front had disrupted that particular fantasy for me. What kind of assholes went out to a club just to call all the dancers there sluts? It was like walking into a casino and complaining when you lost money. Tacky, for one. For another, fucking annoying.

  I’d sent the dancer a drink after he’d given the hecklers a piece of his mind. If anything, that only made me like him more. Sassy, I liked. Sassy did it for me. I laughed again as I remembered his words.

  “You wanna bark at something, you mangy mutts? How’s this for a moon to howl at?” he’d yelled back at them, cute little dimples appearing between the taut, flexed muscles of his ass as he’d smacked it.

  What I would’ve have given to be the hand smacking that ass instead. There was something especially appealing about a man who gave as good as he got.

  “What’s so funny, honey?” a high, soft voice purred in my ear, so sticky-sweet I felt like I needed to give the entire left side of my face a good scrub just to get the sugar off of it.

  I turned, unsurprised to find a svelte little bleached-blond Omega sliding onto the barstool next to mine. I’d caught him eying me since the moment I walked in, all cocky and eager. His eyes had dropped to my crotch immediately, but I knew his type. Fifty-fifty chance he was checking out the size of my package instead of the bulge of my wallet.

  “Inside joke. You wouldn’t get it.” I gave the bartender a nod of thanks as he slid my martini toward me across the bar.

  The Omega intercepted it before my fingers could curl around the stem. “Maybe you should explain it to me then.” His eyelashes fluttered so thick and so fast, I was surprised he hadn’t rendered himself dizzy with them as he moved to sip from my glass.

  I grabbed it from him before his lips touched the rim, reclaiming it neatly. “That’s not how inside jokes work, you know.”

  He pouted, lips so pillowy they had to be ninety-percent silicone injection. “What? Don’t you like me?”

  I laughed. “Sorry. Not my type.”

  “I could be your type,” he offered, scooting his barstool a little closer to mine. His fingertips trailed down my chest, plucking at the unbuttoned edges of my button-down beneath my loosened tie. “For the right price, anyway.”

  Oh, hell. Very much not my type.

  He wasn’t in uniform—not the halo and angel wings of the Ballroom’s dancers or the sleek tuxedos of the wait staff. Obviously didn’t work for the club. That meant he’d either slipped in unnoticed on the arm of some hapless Alpha, or he had a pimp waiting for him in the bathroom who’d take me for every penny I had on me if I was dumb enough to follow those slender little come-hither fingers of his down the hall for something more private.

  Either way, I wasn’t biting. I didn’t mind paying to be entertained, but I had qualms against paying for pleasure.

  Especially when pleasure was something I had no issues getting for free.

  “Thanks, but no. Not interested.” I turned away from him, only for those fingers of his to wrap their way around my tie and pull me back.

  “You haven’t even asked what I’m offering yet,” he cooed, that fuck-me-silly-please-sir look thick in his gaze.

  This time, my laugh came with an eye roll. “Trust me, sweetheart. Whatever you’re offering, I have no need for.”

  His face fell. “For free, then. You’re hot enough.” He shrugged. “I could do with a little fun on the side tonight.”

  “How about this?” I bargained, unwinding his fingers from my tie. “You move that little ass of yours off that barstool and try peddling it to someone who cares, and I don’t report you to management. Something tells me they wouldn’t be happy to learn someone’s peddling fun on the side in their establishment. What do you think?”

  “Oh, fuck you,” the Omega spat at me—but at least the threat of management sent him packing. He didn’t seem like the type who was used to hearing no—but then again, neither was I.

  Besides—I already had my eyes on a different prize that night.

  “Any word from your dancer friend?” I asked the waiter I’d sent backstage with a drink earlier when I spotted him restocking his tray at the bar.

  The waiter ran a thumb over his pencil-thin mustache and shrugged. “He said thanks. Don’t think he was interested, though.”

  That blew me back for a second. I blinked, eyebrows raised.

  “Not interested?”

  The waiter laughed, sharing a knowing glance with the bartender. “Sorry, handsome. Damon’s like that. Not easily bought. Not even with fruity drinks. I’d cut your losses and set your sights elsewhere, if I were you.”

  Not easily bought. If I’d been any other man, I might’ve taken the advice. It wasn’t like there was any shortage of dancers at the club that night, and I wasn’t short on cash. For a fifty, I could have had any one of them straddling my lap in a private room before they even learned my name.

  But now, I had the name of my mystery dancer—Damon. Even better, I had additional intelligence on him.

  He wasn’t going to be an easy catch, no. But in my experience, that only sweetened the deal.

  “Send him another. What’s he like?”

  The bartender chuckled. “Damon? Mezcal, if you insist—but like Carlos said. Lots of regulars in tonight, and he’s a popular attraction.”

  “I bet he is,” I agreed, biting my lip as I remembered the bulge of his biceps and the flex of his thighs.

  “I can find you one of the other dancers,” Carlos offered, smoothing his mustache down again anxiously. “You’ll have an easier time—”

  “No,” I told him. “Mezcal it is, then. Top shelf. Let him know I’m not easily dissuaded.”

  I glanced down front, where the hecklers seemed to have convinced the bouncer that they’d be on their best behavior in exchange for the opport
unity to keep their seats. Somehow, I doubted that their reassurances were genuine. That was the thing about dealing with assholes. As much as they tried to hold their shit back, they always returned to their true nature in the end.

  Carlos laughed tiredly as he followed my gaze. “It’s your money, man. As long as you’re wooing the talent instead of harassing them, I’m not going to tell you how to spend it. Just don’t get pissed at me if he doesn’t bite.”

  I echoed his laugh. Difference was, mine was genuine.

  When it came to Damon, a little biting was only the beginning of what I had in mind.

  2

  Damon

  “Mezcal, huh?” I laughed as I raised the shot up to the light, catching a whiff of smokiness in the tequila’s scent.

  “Top shelf,” Carlos added. “Happy fuckin’ birthday, huh?”

  Mezcal. Well, fuck me sideways. The mystery man at the bar had either guessed my favorite drink—or more likely, he’d bothered to do a little digging.

  I had to give him credit. He was nothing if not persistent.

  Nonetheless, I shook my head as I placed the drink back down on Carlos’ tray. “Happy fuckin’ birthday indeed. Tell him I appreciate it—but I’m not interested.”

  “Really?” Carlos ran his free hand through the slicked-back darkness of his hair as he balanced the tray on his other palm. “The guy likes you, man. Surely you can squeeze in one little dance for him tonight?”

  I shrugged my angel’s wings back on, enjoying the weight of them on my shoulders. “I could. But I don’t wanna.”

  “Why the hell not?”

  “He’s trying to buy my affections. Via alcohol. It’s a little insulting, don’t you think?”