by K. Webster
“Yes, sweet Lark?”
“We need to talk.”
I sigh. “I know.” Lifting up on my elbows, I look down at her.
“How do you know that name? It’s nowhere in my apartment, yet you know the name of my dead husband.”
Connor. Her dead husband.
The name feels like my own. But is it? Did I read it in her file? Was it casually looked over as I thumbed through the pages of her life and tossed aside into some dark recess of my mind to later be uncovered?
The file didn’t say a damn thing about a dead husband. And it certainly didn’t state his name.
The name just came to me.
Do I come clean? Do I tell her I’m a fucking angel-in-training?
“The name just came to me. My memory is blank up until I got my new, um, job. When I thought about the name, I just assumed it was my name,” I admit.
She looks skeptical but hasn’t slapped me yet. Progress.
“Do you have amnesia or something? Why don’t you remember?”
I shrug my shoulders because I can’t really tell her.
“Well, before you start claiming my dead husband’s name, make sure it’s yours to claim first,” she snips out.
Then a thought hits me. Could I be?
“Well, that’s certainly the most bitable ass I’ve ever seen,” Lovenia giggles from the doorway of my room.
Before I can reply, Lark grabs my blanket and tosses it over my ass.
“Show’s over, ho,” she snaps at Love.
I look over my shoulder to see Lovenia standing in nothing but Omega’s white, button-up dress shirt. Her dark nipples are showing through her shirt, and her hair is slightly messy. Looks like they were fucking just as hard as we were.
“Ho? And this comes from the woman with her legs spread open and a man’s come running from her. A man she’s only known less than a month,” Lovenia snarls back.
Lark tenses beneath me.
I peck her on the lips and pull out of her. Sliding next to Lark, I turn my attention toward Lovenia, who smiles sweetly at me and winks.
“What do you want, Love? Don’t you need to go keep my best friend warm in his bed?” I question in annoyance. I owe this woman big, but I think busting in on us having sex is a little much.
“Just wanted to tell you one teensy little thing, Al. Remember our conversation last week? If our deal still stands, zip your lips on our ‘government’ work. I had a feeling you were about to spill the beans to your girlfriend there. Do we still have a deal, mister?”
Fuck you, Lovenia.
I turn my head away from her and look down at my dark angel. My sweet Lark.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper to Lark.
She frowns at my words.
“Yes, Love. A deal’s a deal.”
Lovenia giggles all the way out of my room and down the hallway back to Omega. I groan in frustration.
“I hate her,” Lark seethes.
I turn my attention back to the angry woman beside me. “No, you don’t.” I sigh and peck her on the cheek.
She rolls her eyes, seemingly unconvinced. I drink in her angry features before rubbing my nose against hers. I’ll never tire from touching her. Ever. That is exactly my thought as my hand slides up her bare chest, and I touch the cross again.
“Did he give this to you?” I ask as I turn the simple cross over in my fingers.
When her eyes find mine, they mist over. The wound from having lost her family still bleeds profusely and is visible to anyone who takes the time to know her.
“Yes. He gave it to me before he left for his tour of duty,” she murmurs.
The hurt in her eyes coupled with the fondness of which she speaks for him twists in my gut. I attempt to force it away, but something ugly curls its way into my heart. As I take a moment to understand what this unfamiliar emotion is, I realize that it’s jealousy.
I’m jealous of her dead husband. Jealous of gifts he gave her ages ago. Jealous of the way she still loves him.
I want her to love me.
“Al, we can’t be friends or lovers or whatever it is we are,” she bursts out suddenly with a rush of air.
The green-eyed monster leaves the building as panic sets in.
“What? Why not?” I demand.
Her pink lips pout out, and my eyes are dragged down to them.
“There are too many secrets. I told you my story, but you won’t tell me yours. You say you work for the government, but it’s bullshit, Al. If you think I believe that, then you’re out of your mind. So, if you think we can be”—she waves between us—“whatever we are, then I suggest you fess up. Your secrets are safe with me.”
God, how I want to tell her. All of it. But I can’t.
Her green eyes pin me down, and I can’t help but defiantly meet her gaze. I will tell her one day. I think. Today’s just not that day.
“Lark,” I tell her in faux seriousness, “I’m an alien and I’ve come to snatch your body!”
She furrows her brows in annoyance, but when I begin to tickle her, she squeals with laughter and I’m allowed a temporary reprieve from her damn ultimatums.
“S-stop, y-y-ou a-a-sshole!”
Finally, I stop and admire the way her beautifully colored bare chest heaves from exertion. I want to spend all day worshipping every inch of her breasts with my tongue. From experience, I know she tastes sweeter than any syrup. More delicious than any cake or candy. She tastes like Heaven.
I should know.
“Alpha. The truth.”
How the hell am I going to get out of this?
Dipping my lips to her ear, I speak in a whisper. “Trust me that I’ll find a way to tell you. Just know there’s a big picture here. One you don’t understand. Hell, I don’t even understand it.” I nibble her lobe. “But what I do know is that you and I are here, together. Know that I’ve given up everything to be with you. Trust me, Twiggy.”
She’s quiet for a moment but turns her head a bit to give me better access to her ear. The way she writhes uncontrollably against my body sends a thrill of hope through me. I affect her, and as long as I can get my hands on her, she’ll always give in.
I need her to give in—for now.
With an exaggerated sigh, she mumbles, “I’ll try.”
Her answer will have to be good enough—for now.
“I NEED ANOTHER Oreo,” Kisha chirps, never taking her eyes from the poem she’s working so hard on.
After Alpha and I made love one more time, we rushed to get over here for Poem Day. We were a few minutes late, but Kisha had already taken to bossing the group around and getting them settled. I love that little girl.
“How’s your poem coming along?” I question as I squat beside her.
Her page is filled with Ks both lowercase and uppercase. She also drew a rainbow at the top with her pencil.
“It’s good, Miss Lark. I’m writing a poem about my favorite things,” she tells me as she draws yet another K.
I ruffle her hair before standing.
As I rise, I scan the dirty room. I’d love to have a nice place for these kids. A place with tables and chairs. A place with art boxes filled with crayons and markers. A place with stacks of multicolored paper. I’ll keep saving for these kids. One day, I’ll give them the sanctuary they deserve.
“Anyone else need a cookie?” I question.
Everyone shakes their heads no, so I allow my eyes to skate over to him.
Alpha.
The man with a weird-ass name who thinks his real one is that of my dead husband.
Connor is a common name.
I ignore the sensible side of me and attempt to douse the tiny internal flame of mine with accelerant.
Alpha has too many secrets.
Alpha knows things about you.
Alpha has ulterior motives.
As if he knows I’m thinking about him, his eyes lift to mine and he grins.
Smiles are the devil.
My knees buckle, and I attempt to blam
e the sudden weakness on my lack of food. He insisted that we have breakfast before Poem Day, but we’d already wasted too much time on each other’s bodies. This morning, when I stepped into their apartment, I had every intention of giving him the what for. I wanted to wring his neck and demand answers. But when I saw the desolate look in his eyes and how lost he appeared to be, I caved.
I wanted to fix him.
Lark doesn’t fix people. Hell, she can’t even fix herself.
“Are you an angel?” he murmurs with a playful grin.
Damn him and that beautiful smile.
I curl my lip in disgust and roll my eyes at him. “No, I am not an angel.”
He chuckles before tacking on his next words. “You look like you fell right from Heaven.”
Under normal circumstances, I would flip off someone who was laying on such a cheesy line, but when Alpha says it, it stirs something inside me. Cheesy lines are how I found my husband. Apparently, cheesy lines are my kryptonite.
After the smile that woke me from the darkness of myself, he speaks. The words that come out are awful and adorable all at once.
“Hey, do you have a Band-Aid?” the beautiful man questions.
My eyes frantically scan his body, which appears to be unharmed. When his blue eyes find mine, they have a mischievous glint to them. I want to put my guard up, but I can’t stop looking at his handsome face. The stupid man has me under his spell.
I don’t provide him with a verbal answer and shake my head no.
With a smile so big that it reaches all the way from where he is on the sidewalk to my position on the porch steps spreading across his features, he says, “Because I just scraped my knee falling for you.”
I blink my eyes several times in shock. Wait. Did he just come on to me?
“Excuse me?” I question. I’m still surprised that the blond-haired man with muscles that barely hide beneath his Marines T-shirt is talking to me. Lark Hutchinson. The girl nobody talks to.
Instead of answering me, he smiles with his eyes trained on me and begins patting himself down. I quirk a brow in question.
“Miss, I seem to have lost my number. Can I have yours?”
Oh.
My.
God.
He really just didn’t.
With an eye roll, I stand and turn away from him to go back inside. If I continue to sit here, I’ll melt into a puddle of goo on the steps. Lark Hutchinson does not melt. Lark Hutchinson doesn’t care about good-looking, cheesy Marines.
“Did you sit in a pile of sugar?” he asks suddenly.
Instinctively, I swipe at my bottom with both hands. Did I sit in something? This is too embarrassing. I need to get away from this man who has just flipped my world upside down with a smile and turn on some Nine Inch Nails or something.
His deep voice is closer when he says his next words. “Because you sure have a sweet ass.”
And this is how a Marine steals the heart of a goth queen.
Oorah.
“Work on your poem,” I order with a huff.
Alpha grins at me but drops his eyes back down to his paper. I’ve been running lines in my head, still unsure if I’m ready to share them with anyone yet. Today, I instructed that they write about whatever they want. I’m a little curious as to what he’s writing about. He’s been hard at work the entire time.
While they write, I think about how poetry became such a big part of my life. In my senior year of high school, I read Edgar Allen Poe’s “A Dream Within a Dream.” The words—“is all that we see or seem but a dream within a dream”—reached right into my soul and unlocked something. This man who wrote the poem seemed to have understood something deep inside me that I couldn’t understand myself. After that poem, I became addicted to his work, but also to poetry. I tried my hand at it and found it to be very therapeutic to allow some of the maddening thoughts in my head to escape.
My contemplations are interrupted as the kids begin reading theirs one by one as they finish. I can hardly concentrate on their words because all I can think about is him. Every time I move, every time I glance over at him, his eyes always find me. It’s as if his duty in life is to watch my every move. I can’t say that I’m disappointed. But I find it wildly distracting to continuously be the center of one’s attention.
“Are you okay?” he asks as he stands from his spot on the floor and saunters toward me.
I blink away the daze in my eyes and realize the children are all gone. “I feel a little spaced out,” I murmur and absently look around the room.
“You need food, woman. Let’s get this stuff picked up and get out of here,” he suggests as he gathers the materials.
My eyes follow him and I watch his ass each time he bends over to grab something. His jeans fit his muscular legs well and showcase that firm butt of his. I want to bite it.
A giggle threatens to escape my lips, but I quickly swallow it down. What am I thinking? This sex god before me is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Somehow, I sense that he has motives that, even though they are unknown to me, certainly will affect me. When he brushed off my inquiries, I let him. I fucking let him.
Why?
Why am I bending rules that protect my heart for him? He’s not Connor. I know nothing about him. The man just waltzed into my life and I let him right in. I barely put up a fight. Poor Connor had had to work hard for my love. I’d questioned and suspected everything he did until he wore me down one day. With Alpha, he busted through my front door and my walls were immediately down.
It doesn’t make sense.
“Ready, Twiggy?” he asks as he approaches me.
I stare dumbly at him and open my bag for him to drop the pens and paper into it. His brows furrow with worry.
Goddamn him and his ability to read me.
“What?” I hiss and attempt to force an annoyed look. I can’t manage an annoyed expression, though, because I’m more perplexed than anything. I’m lost inside my head and I can’t figure one fucking thing out.
When his concerned, black eyes meet mine, I frown. Then he leans forward and places a soft kiss on my lips, which once again causes me to go all wobbly. Damn him.
“You aren’t well, Lark. Let’s go to the diner up the street. Hop on. I’m giving you a ride,” he instructs.
I bite my lip and try not to smile. I’ll never admit how much I enjoy his piggyback rides, but I do. I fucking love wrapping my legs around his strong torso. I love inhaling the delicious, manly smell in his hair. I love the way he protectively grips my thighs when he thinks I’m slipping.
“I can walk,” I protest even though I’m already twitching to get my hands on him again.
“Don’t make me throw you over my shoulder, woman,” he growls.
I mutter out an exaggerated, “Fine,” and slide my hands up his back when he turns it toward me. Once I climb on his back, he hands me my bag. I rest my cheek against his shoulder and ignore the many things I should be attempting to figure out like:
What happens at the end of three months?
Who is Alpha with no last name?
What happens when he breaks my heart?
The last should be my biggest concern. My fragile pebble of a black heart is all I have left. He has taken it against my will, but once it’s gone—when he finally leaves me, because he will—what will be left of me?
I can finally get the hell out of this life and go find my family in the next.
Maybe Alpha is just what I need to hurry up that process.
“Al?” I question with my lips against the soft fabric of his T-shirt.
He glides out of the room and down the stairs as if he floats on air. “Yes, Twiggy?”
I sigh and finally give voice to one of my inner thoughts. “What happens in two months?”
A deep grumble in his chest sends a shiver through me as we burst out of the building and into the warm, LA sunshine.
“Lark, I don’t know,” he replies with a soft sigh, “but I have two months to figur
e it out.”
Bitch Red is our server again. This time, though, I won’t put up with her flirting with him. As she saunters over to us, making it a point to swivel her hips for the good-looking man across from me, I see red—and not the cherry-dyed fake kind.
With a huff of annoyance, I slide out of my seat and loop around the table. Once he realizes that I want to sit with him, he slips an arm around my shoulders and hauls me to him. Being locked in his protective embrace is something I wouldn’t mind spending more time doing.
A pop of gum drags me from the heavenly scented bubble that is him.
“Hey, cutie. What can I get you?” she asks pointedly at Alpha, overlooking me altogether.
Irritation crawls its way through my veins like scattering spiders. Unaware of the tension between us, Al spouts off the same order he got the last time we were here—the yogurt parfait included.
As if it’s the most annoying thing she’s ever had to do, Red turns her attention to me. “What can I get you—Oh my God! Does your shirt really say you hate people?” she demands with red lips forming a shocked “O.”
I chuckle darkly. “Yep. You included. Scrambled eggs and orange juice. Oh, and maybe a napkin to clean up your drool from looking at my man.”
Her eyes snap to mine and she regards me nastily.
Alpha tightens his hold around me. “That will be all,” his authoritative voice booms.
At first, I think he’s scolding me, but when I realize he’s talking to Red, I internally high-five myself. I watch with glee as she scampers off with her fake-ass red tail between her legs.
Red = 0
Lark = 1
“Your man, huh?” He gives a deep laugh.
I ignore the way it furls its way inside me—twisting and turning and washing over every nerve ending in my body. Instead, I attempt to overlook the way a certain part of my body pulsates eagerly for him, but it’s pointless. My body is warm and tense with need to have him again.
“Well, mine for two months, I suppose, Al with no last name.”
I expect a retort, but he kisses the top of my head. All I want is to be angry with him—to hate him for making me feel things for him when my heart was given to another long ago. But I can’t. Even though I don’t fully understand what we are, I do know I don’t want him gone.