Hot Alphas

by Lora Leigh

  * * *

  Ali sighed against him and some of that tension faded out of her.

  A fear he couldn’t fully understand eased inside him and he pressed his lips to her neck. He breathed in the scent of her, almost drunk on it already. Warm and soft, she smelled like cookies and coffee and her. Soft, sweet Ali. Her body was the sweetest pleasure he’d ever known, and all he wanted to do was hold her, get lost in her.

  “Don’t give up on me. I’m trying.”

  Her hand curved around his neck.

  “Don’t give up on you.” She was quiet for a moment, then she slowly eased back, eyeing him with a look he couldn’t even begin to understand.

  It left a tightness in his chest, though, and that fear came rushing back at him. He wanted to grab her back and hold her against him, but his mind was already processing what he’d just let slip out.

  What in the fuck was he thinking? Why had he said that?

  “Tate, giving up on you would imply we had something to give up on.” Smiling sadly, she shook her head and moved over to the fridge. “We don’t. We’re friends. Sometimes, we have sex.”

  Sex.

  No. He’d had sex before.

  What he had when he was with Ali was a lot more than sex.

  She pulled the fridge open and grabbed a bottle of wine from the shelf. He stood there in silence as she poured a glass. “You’re asking me not to give up on a friends-with-benefits thing, basically.” She shrugged and lifted the glass to her lips. “That’s easy enough. I don’t give up on my—”

  He closed the distance between them and slammed his hands down on the counter on either side of her. Friends. Yeah, so maybe he’d been the one to suggest this thing they had between them, but she had to realize how much things had changed. He couldn’t be the only one to see it. They’d slid past friends a long time ago.

  “We’re more than friends,” he growled.

  She stared at him over the rim of her glass, her soft green eyes distant as the stars.

  “No. We’re not. Friends is all you wanted. Friends is all you’ll ever give me.” The look in her eyes sent a spike straight through his heart.

  “I…” He closed his mouth, tried to figure out what to say to that. Something inside him twisted. Panic fluttered inside but he shoved it down. “Ali, we … we’re more than friends. You know you matter to me.”

  “I matter to you,” she echoed, her voice hollow. Then she turned away, staring out the window into the night. “You know something? Scott said that very same thing to me once. But neither the kids nor I mattered enough. Not to him.”

  Those simple words knocked the breath right out of him. Stunned, he backed up a step, leaned against the door as he stared at her. His voice came out in a gruff rasp. “Ali, what do you want from me?”

  “I guess I want to matter more.” She lowered her head, staring at the counter where her hands rested. She clenched them into fists. Tight, bloodless fists. “I’d … hell. I guess I’d like a man who actually wants to be with me. Not just for sex, but for real.”

  “I do want that.”

  She turned her head, stared at him. “Do you?”

  “Fuck, I just said I did,” he snapped, shoving away from the wall and closing the distance between them. “What the hell is going on? What are you getting at?”

  Slowly, she turned to face him, her face quiet, her eyes sad. He went to cup her cheek, but she pulled back, staring at the wall.

  “Is this because of…” He fumbled for the words, remembering how callous he’d been, how foolish and blind. “Is it because of the other night?”

  “Oh, Tate. This is about a lot more than just one night,” she said, slowly turning to look at him.

  It hit him, then. He got it, and it was like she’d taken a knife from the butcher block sitting a few inches from her hand. The pain was sharp, piercing, and unending. She was done. That’s what this was about. She was done.

  Staring into her pretty green eyes, while that pain tore into him again and again, only one thought managed to cut through it.

  Like hell.

  He closed his hands around her hips and boosted her up onto the kitchen counter. “No,” he said, his voice gruff and ragged as he pushed her thighs apart and moved closer. He slid one hand along until he could palm her butt and then he yanked her against him and he watched the heat bloom in her eyes, felt the slow, subtle tremor that went through her.

  Her skin went the color of a rose, low on her chest, bared by the skinny-strapped shirt she wore and he knew if he pulled it away, that faint rush of color would go all the way down to her breasts.

  “No,” he said again. “This is more than friendship.”

  The need to strip her clothes away, climb on top of her, feel her close around him was strong, grabbing him by the balls—she would feel it, he knew that. He could show her just how much more this was.

  “More than friendship.” Her lids drooped while that blush of color crept up her neck, then to her cheeks. Through her lashes, she watched him, all the while arching back so that the heat of her sex brushed against his cock. “This? This is just sex.”

  He opened his mouth, the word no trying to form.

  She slid a hand down his chest, toyed with the button of his jeans. “Sex. It’s good sex, it’s crazy sex, and it makes me forget who I am sometimes.”

  His eyes all but crossed as she freed the button and then dragged the zipper down. Once she had room, she reached inside his shorts, closed her hand around his cock, and dragged it up, down. Each touch was a sweet, sweet torture and he found himself arching into her touch, even as he wanted to drag himself away.

  Her eyes were distant, remote. “But this … this is all we really have.”

  He caught her wrist and pulled it back, fury and need an ugly mix inside him. Slamming her wrist to the cabinet by her head, he leaned in, his mouth just a breath away. “It’s a hell of a lot more than just sex,” he rasped, even as the need for her turned into a scream in his blood. “Sex is easy.”

  “Easy?” She stared at him, her eyes mocking. “Easy. Like you climbing on top of me the other night and then pulling away when I was still wet from you. Easy. Like you walking away because staying is that much harder.”

  He snarled. “You don’t understand.”

  “Of course I don’t.” She jerked her chin up. “You won’t tell me.”

  “That…” He shook his head, the words tripping him up. “Do you think I don’t want to be with you? It’s not that simple, Ali. But if it was just sex, I could get that anywhere. What I want is this.”

  He slanted his mouth over hers, desperation and desire driving him. He couldn’t explain it, because she’d never understand. She hadn’t been there that night, and she hadn’t lived inside his skin all these years.

  He could show her how he felt, though, how he wanted her.

  She had to see—

  She worked her hands between them and shoved him back, panting. Her hair tumbled into her face and the soft green of her eyes glinted hard as glass.

  “Just sex,” she said again, shaking her head. “Everybody has their preferences, you idiot. Hell, I had a favorite vibrator before you came along and I bet you had a preference for one hand over the other. That doesn’t mean anything.”

  Spinning away, he stared at the floor, shame and misery gathering inside. His skin felt tight, itchy. “Fuck. I … I’m sorry.”

  Silence flooded the room and slowly, he turned, stared at her. The hollow look in her eyes cut through him like a poisoned blade. Swallowing around the knot in his throat, he shifted his gaze away. “If it was just sex, I wouldn’t want to be with you all the time. I do. If it was just sex, I wouldn’t hang around your restaurant four or five days a week, and I wouldn’t spend half my weekend here. You’ve got to know it’s more than that, Ali-girl.”

  A sigh escaped her and he turned his head to see her slip off the counter, smoothing her clothes down, pushing her hair back from her face. “I know you feel
more. But you only give me so much. It’s not enough anymore.”

  Frustration and fear tangled, twisted inside him. He spun back around to glare at her. “What in the fuck do you want?”

  “I want more,” she said simply. “More than this. More than you showing up at my door when I’m ready to put the kids down. More than you staying long enough to crawl on top of me, and then when you’re done, you roll off and disappear until the next time. This … friends-with-benefits thing isn’t enough anymore.”

  Swearing, he drove his hands through his hair. “That’s not telling me shit. We have more.” He went to her, and instead of taking this time, he tried seducing, cupping her face in his hands and pressing a soft, sweet kiss to her mouth, hoping to feel her sigh against him, hoping to feel her body yield to his.

  Her breasts were a soft, sweet weight against his chest, her belly warm against his cock.

  But as he stroked his tongue along the full curve of her lower lip, as he dipped his tongue into her mouth, all she did was stand there.

  “Nobody else makes me feel like you do.” He pressed his brow to hers. “You know I care about you. You care about me. What else do you want?”

  “More,” she said, her voice low. “Stay the night. Talk to me. Give me something.”

  He clenched his jaw. Stay the night—

  Give her something. That was the scariest part of all. Because she wasn’t talking about gifts.

  “Ali.” A vise closed around his throat as he stared at her.

  She jerked her chin up and he knew, then and there, if he couldn’t give in, if he couldn’t find a way to do this, he might as well turn away and walk now. “The whole town will talk if I stay the night, Ali-girl.” He floundered for a logical reason to explain why he shouldn’t. An excuse. It was just an excuse and he knew it as he reached up to cup her cheek, stroke his thumb across her full lower lip.

  “They’ve been talking about me off and on ever since I got knocked up in high school.” She shrugged and reached up, curling her hand around his wrist. “I’m not worried about it. But it’s not just that. Are you going to stop acting like we’re buddies? I want…”

  Her voice skipped and then steadied as she met his eyes. She guided his hand down and he curled it into a fist, impotent and useless.

  “I need more,” she said, her voice soft, her gaze steely. “I deserve more. I want a man in my life who doesn’t mind showing up at my door on a Friday night and taking me out to dinner. Somebody who might think about being more in my life, later on down the road.”

  “I have no problem taking you out to dinner.” It made him nervous as hell, if he was honest, but he’d rather do that than lose her. He’d been so careful, all his life, never to let anybody in, but he’d messed up with her. She’d gotten in past his walls and now he couldn’t change that.

  He had to change something, though, and fast. Or he’d lose her.

  He’d lost too much and there was so little left already.

  She continued to watch him, her gaze somber. “What about when it’s time for the next step?” she asked softly.

  Wary, he watched her.

  “What next step?”

  “Yeah.” She nudged him back and eased away from the counter. She took her wineglass and tossed it back like it was whiskey. Over her shoulder, she looked at him, her eyes glinting in the dim light, dark brown hair framing her pretty face, her mouth unsmiling. “The next step, Tate.”

  Then she turned to face him and he never had a chance to brace himself as she gave him a sucker punch that sent him reeling.

  “You think I care about you? Screw that. I’m in love with you.” Her eyes flashed as she glared at him. “I have been for a long time. But … that’s not enough. Sooner or later, I want a man in my life who is going to want to be a part of my life. A part of my kids’ lives. Forever. I want somebody who might want to think about marrying me. Being a father to my kids. I want more than … this.”

  I’m in love with you. The words left him reeling. His heart slammed against his ribs. In the back of his mind, voices screamed. Terror tried to choke him.

  “I loved your mother.”

  “Trailer trash.”

  “We can’t do this here—”

  No. Not love. She couldn’t …

  But even under the terror, something sweet, something powerful shifted, tried to grow. He refused to look at it. He couldn’t.

  Pushing it back down, he buried it. “Ali,” he said, his voice raw. “You … look. That’s … it’s too much. I’m a bad bet for that sort of thing, and you know it.”

  “Oh, Tate.”

  She sighed and put her wineglass down and then came up to him, cupping his face in her hands. “No. You’re not. You’re the absolute best bet. I adore you. My kids adore you. You can’t tell me that you don’t adore them. I see you with them. I know you care. But I can’t make you want us.” She pressed her lips to his.

  It was a soft, sweet kiss.

  Gentle.

  A good-bye.

  He felt like his heart was going to shatter.

  Right there. Shatter into pieces and fall to the floor. Something awful and hollow settled in the spot where his heart had been.

  “You think it’s because I don’t want you?” He fisted his hands in her hair and pressed his brow to hers, staring at her, all but falling into those pretty eyes. Most of the time, those eyes were misty and soft. He’d seen them soft with hunger, soft with humor. But now they were hard. With determination. He started to realize, then, as he stared at her. Feeling desperate, he rubbed his mouth against hers. “I want you. You know that. I want to breathe.”

  It was a fucked-up time to realize it, but there it was. He hadn’t held himself back enough. If he had, it wouldn’t hurt so much. The words ripped out of him as he lifted his head to look at her. “I love you, too, dammit. I love you, I love your kids. But…”

  Love wasn’t right for him. It never could be. He had to be careful. Had to make sure she was safe. The kids. That was why he had to keep that distance, never give in too much.

  Blackness swarmed around as the voices in the back of his head screamed even louder.

  Shoving away from the counter, he grabbed the gift bag from the floor. He’d spent way too much time in the mall over in Louisville that morning looking for it. Dumping it on the counter, he shot her a look and then shook his head. “Look, you…” He sucked in a breath, tried to get some oxygen moving inside his lungs. It might help. Had to do something to ease the ache spreading through him. But nothing helped. “Look, I do love you. I love your kids. But … I … I can’t be what you seem to think I can be.”

  Desperate, he turned to look at her. “I’ll give you whatever I can. But I…”

  “I just want you,” she said, her voice stark. “All of you.”

  What the fuck did that mean? It wasn’t like he was seeing anybody else. He thought about her all the time. She was in his head, in his blood. He could smell the scent of her skin even when she wasn’t there and he dreamt about her. Except … no. Not a good time to think about those dreams.

  Shaking his head, he tried to make her understand. “I’ll take you out. I’ll stay the night. I…” Pleading, he stared at her.

  “That’s not enough.” The pain in her eyes sliced at him, straight through the heart.

  “What is?” Hands clenched into fists, he fought the urge to grab her, haul her against him. Why was she doing this? Desperation filled him, made him want to yell, but he managed to throttle everything down, kept his voice flat and empty as he watched her.

  “If you have to ask, then there is no way I can explain. But it’s all or nothing, Tate.” She turned away.

  All or nothing—The sight of her averted back was like a brutal punch, right to the solar plexus and only sheer will kept him from staggering back.

  “Ali—”

  “Don’t.” She tipped her head back and he saw her throat working as she swallowed. “I tried, you know. I tried to make
myself happy on what you could give me. But it’s not working anymore. This just hurts too much.”

  She turned away from him, resting her hands on the counter. “Please go.”

  Legs wooden, he took a step.

  Don’t do this. He didn’t know if that voice in his head was a plea to himself or her.

  He went to take a step toward her and then froze as she flinched.

  “I’m sorry.” Unable to say anything else, he turned away. He could’ve sworn he heard something crack as he walked away.

  It could only be his heart.

  CHAPTER 4

  The door slammed shut and part of her wanted to tear off after him.

  The wiser part remained in control. Barely.

  But she almost shattered after she pulled the tissue paper from the bag and peered inside.

  Tears all but blinded her as she reached inside and pulled the purse out.

  “You bastard.”

  It wasn’t red.

  Trust Tate not to just grab what he’d seen her eyeing.

  He went and did one better, finding a rich, vibrant shade of blue that she absolutely adored.

  The buttery leather was even softer than she’d imagined it would be and she stroked a hand down it, trying not to sniffle.

  A Coach purse.

  The bastard.

  Tate had given her presents, and more than once. Up in her room she had one of his art pieces—it was small, almost elegant, standing on the nightstand where she could see it first thing in the morning, and last thing at night.

  It was also worth a good five hundred, easy.

  As uncomfortable as she was accepting the presents, each time he’d given her one, there was a look in his eyes, a weird sort of light that made her accept it, something hopeful and wishful and yearning.

  But this.

  It wasn’t even the cost.

  Tate earned more in a week than she did in a month, something most people didn’t realize. He was a top-notch mechanic, but he mostly did that to fill up the days and make sure he could keep buying the materials for the sculptures he created. Some part of him didn’t think he’d be able to make it solely on his art, although she suspected he could make far more if he’d just focus on that.