His heart pounded, and he held still, wondering if Dom would judge him if he found Jesse like that. Just waiting.
Alphas weren’t supposed to want kisses from other alphas. They weren’t supposed to crave another alpha’s touch, they weren’t supposed to show up early for work, just so they could breathe in their deputy’s scent.
The grass rustled. One step, then another. Jesse heard it more vividly now—because they weren’t muffled by a corner anymore.
Dom paused for a moment. Jesse didn’t even dare breathe. He felt Dom’s stare heavy on his skin, he felt Dom’s sheer presence radiating between them.
Then Dom stepped closer yet, until he was beside Jesse and the sunlight bleeding through Jesse’s eyelids vanished. Because Dom’s shadow was on him. Dom’s breath feathered across Jesse’s jaw, his heat burned into Jesse’s arm.
He was so close, that Jesse only had to move to bump into him. But he didn’t want to shatter the illusion.
What did Dom see, when it was just him and Jesse alone? Was he looking at Jesse’s mouth? Did he... also want a kiss?
Jesse’s lips parted, tingling with anticipation. Dom sucked in a quick breath.
Just one kiss, Jesse thought. It doesn’t have to mean anything.
Dom leaned over him, his coffee-tinted exhale rushing over Jesse’s mouth, an intimate touch. He was so close that Jesse grew dizzy; all Jesse had to do was tilt his head, and their lips would meet.
Please, he almost whispered.
Then Dom growled, “Damn you, Sinclair,” and the words vibrated through the tiny space between their mouths, like the ghost of a touch on Jesse’s lips.
Dom yanked himself away. Cool air rushed between them, shattering the moment. He strode away the next second, grass rustling beneath his boots.
Jesse tried to fight the wave of disappointment in his chest. When he opened his eyes, Dom was gone, leaving only his scent behind.
He rubbed his arms to erase the morning’s chill, his palms catching on the beads under his skin. Would Dom view him any differently, if Jesse had no scars at all?
Looking at them provided him with no new answers. Gradually, he made his way back into the station, avoiding Dom for as long as he could.
Later that day, chaos descended upon the station. The families of the other alphas had come to join them, and omegas and children had taken over. York and Alec’s sons were painting snake stripes onto an old water hose—they picked it up and began running, and crashed into Jesse.
Jesse wasn’t sure how to respond to them; he always felt awkward around the children he encountered on calls. The other guys were much better at interacting with kids. Little wonder, when they had families of their own.
So he grabbed his Santa outfit, heading to the locker room. At least it was quiet in there.
Jesse opened his locker and stared into its shadowy depths, his senses tingling when Dom walked by. Jesse didn’t even have to look at him—he listened to the thud of Dom’s footfalls, and the hint of blackwood that had permeated the locker room.
Was Dom still pissed about his coffee? Or was he thinking about that almost-kiss outside the station?
The one thing Jesse definitely knew, was that Dom wouldn’t speak to him unless he absolutely had to. So he poked around in his locker, trying to find peace amongst all the noise. Stuck on the back wall of his locker was a photo of his parents—one he’d stolen off his dad’s Facebook page.
Jesse still hadn’t been home to visit them. He wasn’t sure what his dad would say about his scars. He’d wanted to be an alpha his dad was proud of, not someone who had been trapped and beaten.
Every shift he completed at the station helped a little. It made him feel like he’d accomplished something with his life.
Vaguely, Jesse heard more voices behind him. Then came a tap on his shoulder that vaporized the entire locker room.
It felt like he’d been plunged into icy water—he was back at the Facility, closed in by the too-white walls of his cell. Fear closed his throat.
Jesse spun around, bringing his fists up.
Larson liked to unlock Jesse’s cell door when he was asleep. He liked grabbing Jesse’s shoulder to shake him awake. Then he’d jab Jesse with a tranq shot into his vein, have his men shoot more tranq darts, and when Jesse fell, Larson had his men drag Jesse down to the labs. Where the agony was.
Jesse didn’t want to suffer at his hands again.
Sniffing for that telltale bitterwood scent, he tightened his fists, ready to punch the nearest person who came close. That man backed away. Good.
Then someone else prowled closer, someone who grabbed Jesse and pinned him against the wall. Terror shot down his spine.
Jesse punched him, his gut roaring when his fist connected. He wouldn’t let them take him again, he wouldn’t let them open more holes in his flesh.
Except this man said something. Jesse refused to listen. He shoved at the man, needing to hurt them all.
The man leaned in close, so close that Jesse saw the whites of his eyes. “Look at me,” the man said.
Jesse struggled. The man held him down. Jesse thrashed, trying to free himself. He couldn’t. But there was no pain. The man’s face filled his vision, and all he saw was the piercing stare of copper-brown eyes. Eyes that felt familiar.
Deep down, Jesse knew that someone with those eyes wouldn’t hurt him.
But how was that possible in a place like the Facility?
He stared deeper into that gaze. At the back of his mind, he remembered a name: Dom.
Jesse blinked, trying to breathe. Those eyes didn’t disappear. And he singled out a blackwood scent that hadn’t been at the Facility, either.
He blinked again, trying to figure out that stare. Ever so slowly, the white walls faded away into greens and yellows and browns.
This was not the Facility.
“Okay?” the man asked.
Dom. That was his name.
Jesse crashed back into the present, Dom pressed up against him. The memory of the last few minutes smudged into a blur. All he could see was Dom, and those full lips just an inch away from his own. As though... Dom might kiss him.
Jesse’s heart skipped, at the same time he knew Dom wouldn’t. Stop telling yourself he will. Suddenly frustrated, he shoved Dom aside. “I’m fine.”
Dom turned. “Good.” And he headed for the door.
Dom had been there so many times to pull Jesse out of his flashbacks. But every time, he left soon after, like Jesse wasn’t good enough or something. Jesse hated that he felt so disappointed each time, he hated that he knew Dom would much rather be intimate with anyone, but him.
Because of his jumpiness, because of those beads, because he was alpha.
I hate him, Jesse told himself. But he couldn’t help watching Dom slip through the locker room door, he couldn’t help admiring the line of Dom’s jaw, the flex of his biceps. His heart tumbled, and his face warmed.
I barely know him, Jesse thought. Why do I even feel this way?
If he were someone different, if he didn’t have his scars, would Dom look at him a second time?
If he took the beads away, would Dom get angry enough to punish him?
Jesse rubbed the beads on his arms, his thoughts churning.
13
Donut Wars: The Beginning
Some weeks after Christmas, donuts began appearing on Jesse’s locker door.
He thought he’d seen wrong at first, when he stepped into work one morning and found the plastic bag hanging on his locker. It hadn’t even been a shove-and-run thing—someone had gone to the trouble of sticking a plastic hook on his locker door, and hanging the bag from it.
Alec seemed puzzled when Jesse asked him, and Gareth wore the oddest look on his face. Dom didn’t even glance at Jesse once the whole day, so Jesse ate the donut savagely, thinking maybe one of the other guys had left it.
The next week, another donut appeared. It was strawberry instead of chocolate this time, which Jesse wasn
’t as fond of. So he gave it to York.
“Why are you eating that?” Dom grumbled at York in the kitchen.
York shrugged. “Jesse gave it to me.”
Dom didn’t answer him. Jesse thought maybe Dom was pissed that someone else had decided to give Jesse donuts.
They couldn’t be from Dom, after all. Dom was an asshole.
There were no donuts for the next two weeks. Then, another chocolate donut showed up.
Jesse waited for Dom to be present before he bit into the treat. There was only silence, and the rustling of his donut bag. When Jesse finished, he licked his fingers.
Dom cursed and stalked off.
But another donut showed up the week after. Chocolate again. The following week, another appeared.
Jesse had taken to eating the donuts in front of Dom, just to spite him. Dom never said a word each time, but Jesse didn’t need him to.
He’d never managed to discover the identity of his donut-giver, though. For all he knew, it might’ve been someone from another team. Jesse had visited the bakery they’d come from, Ben’s Buns, and Ben had refused to divulge his customer’s secret. Jesse had sniffed at the donut bags, but all he’d smelled was the sweet aroma of the bakery.
With each new donut, his curiosity grew, until he began wondering if his mysterious donut-giver minded the beads under his skin, too.
The more he thought about it, the more Jesse wished those beads were gone.
Don’t remove them, the medical center doctor had said.
Those words rang in Jesse’s head, an hour before bar night one day.
It was one of those rare occasions that even the married guys attended, so Jesse had no excuse to sit out. But Dom would be there—Jesse wanted to spite him. Just to see how Dom would react. Just to see if he would get another moment like that Christmas eve morning, when Dom had held his face just a hair away from Jesse’s.
He really, really wanted Dom’s breath on his lips again.
Jesse sterilized his arms with some alcohol swabs, cold prickling all over his skin. Then he disinfected his razor blade, too. The bathroom smelled vaguely like spirits.
With a steady hand, Jesse dragged the blade across the highest point of a bead, splitting his skin open. It stung a little. Blood welled up along the cut, revealing a small white sphere hidden beneath. Jesse pressed his nails against the base of the sphere to squeeze it out.
It clattered onto the counter and rolled away, tinted pink with blood. But there was nothing else under that bit of skin, so he pushed a threaded needle into his arm, sewing the incision shut.
He repeated the procedure with each bead, more and more tiny spheres joining the ones on the counter. Some were white, some were blue, and some were yellow. They’d all been added on different occasions.
Back at the Facility, Rutherford would sometimes add three beads to Jesse’s arms, and remove one from the previous week. Jesse had thought they’d made him feel different, but he couldn’t say for sure what the change was. So he had absolutely no idea what would happen when every last bead was gone.
Tonight... he felt like taking a gamble.
When he’d painstakingly tied off the last knot and snipped off the surgical thread, Jesse swept the beads into an empty toothpaste box. He dropped that into a drawer he rarely used, and closed it.
Then, he inspected himself in the mirror. His arms appeared more even now—no more beads. Just the grooves and lines of several years’ worth of scars. But this evening... Jesse had reclaimed a little bit of himself. His heart grew lighter for it.
He wiped the blood off his arms, got dressed, and left for the bar.
It was well past 8PM when he arrived. He grimaced, checked his arms for bleeding, and headed in.
The team was at their usual table in the corner, their drinks already served. Alec had his arm slung around York’s shoulders, waving a drink around. Brad was in a discussion with Nate and Harris, and Gareth seemed to be talking quietly with Dom.
They’d saved a seat for him—between Alec and Nate, thankfully. Jesse joined the table, flashing a smile at everyone but Dom.
“You’re late,” Alec said. “We’ve been waiting forever.”
Jesse shrugged, trying not to feel Dom’s stare on him. “Got caught up in something. Sorry.”
“Now that Jesse’s here, let’s get down to the real business,” Gareth said. “Do we want to vote for Harris as station chief, or not?”
Harris gave Gareth a flat look. “Wasn’t I the one who gets to decide?”
“Nope, we’ll tell you.” Brad grinned cheekily, giving Harris a toast. “Seriously, though, if you do leave the team, we’re going to miss you.”
“Getting sappy, Brad?” Dom asked.
His voice rumbled into Jesse’s ears; Jesse almost regretted not showing up sooner. So he could listen to more of Dom.
No, it was a good thing he was late.
“Hey,” Nate murmured, leaning closer. “What happened to those beads?”
Jesse blinked. The incisions were all still stinging slightly, but that was so minor compared to the pain he’d experienced, that he didn’t particularly care. “I took them out.”
Nate’s eyebrows crawled up; he glanced over Jesse’s arms. “You consulted anyone before you did that?”
“No.” Wariness scraped against his senses. Nate looked more concerned than Jesse had seen him in a while—and that was saying something. Nate was rarely worried about things; he’d been through a lot of crap in his time before becoming a firefighter.
Hell, Nate was the one who had shot Larson and taken him down.
“I hope you kept them.” Nate’s forehead wrinkled. “That wasn’t a wise move, Jesse.”
Jesse scowled. “It’s my body.”
“Yeah, and I’m trying to stop you from doing something you’ll regret.” Nate met his eyes. “How’re you feeling?”
“Fine.” But now that Jesse was focusing inward, he felt the slightest thrum of heat in his body—like his temperature might be climbing. “Slightly hot. But I was in a hurry to get here.”
Nate pursed his lips. “First thing tomorrow, go see a doctor. Okay?”
“If I feel sick,” Jesse said. “Maybe.”
“You’re probably gonna feel really sick. You know what those beads were for.”
No, Jesse didn’t, but he didn’t want to learn about them right now, either. “I don’t want to talk about it. Larson’s in jail. I don’t want to be reminded about what he did.”
Nate winced. “Yeah, about that—I heard he’s pleading for a lighter sentence. He might be released sooner than you think.”
Jesse’s stomach tightened. He’d been taking self-defense classes to work off all his frustration, but that prospect still sent a shiver down his spine.
For a long time back there, Jesse had been Larson’s pride and joy. Larson had put such an exorbitant price tag on his head that Jesse hadn’t gone to anyone in the black market. And the prices there had already been insane.
Or maybe Larson just wanted to parade Jesse around, and keep Jesse for himself. Whatever. The idea of that doctor walking around as a free person, though...
Jesse’s white Russian arrived; he took a huge gulp of it. Just so the buzz would hit him sooner. “I don’t want to talk about him, either.”
“Fine.” Nate looked at him askance. “But take care, kid. You aren’t like everyone else.”
He reached over, patting Jesse on the knee. It felt kind of fatherly. Jesse’s throat tightened; the team was his family, but he missed his biological family, too.
Then he sneaked a glance at Dom—the one alpha who didn’t exactly feel like family, and not really a coworker, either.
Dom was already watching Jesse, his eyes dark. Jesse’s breath snagged in his throat. Had Dom heard that conversation?
Dom’s stare lingered on Jesse’s face. Then it drifted over Jesse’s body, and Dom blinked. He frowned, looking harder at Jesse’s arms.
Jesse thought briefly
about covering up, except he was wearing short sleeves. And it would only prove that he had something to hide. So he held still, waiting until Dom met his gaze again.
Dom’s lips pressed into a thin line; his eyes flashed. He’d realized what Jesse had done with the beads, then. And he was angry. A dark thrill hissed down Jesse’s spine.
“Careful there, Jesse,” Nate warned lowly. “You know what’s at stake.”
No, Jesse didn’t. And maybe that was a good thing.
He threw back the rest of his white Russian. When the waiter came by to take their orders, he asked for a whiskey shot.
Dom ordered a whiskey shot, too.
The conversations at the table faded.
They were doing this. Three years later, and Dom was finally, finally taking him up on this again. Jesse’s blood thrummed in his veins; his heart pounded. He tried looking at his other teammates, just so no one would notice the way he thirsted for their deputy.
Except Dom was still staring at him. Jesse’s blood roared in his ears. He needed to calm down. He needed to not blow the shreds of cover he had left.
“Are you riding with me tonight?” Nate asked.
“No,” Jesse said, his voice stuck in his throat. His heart was pounding, and he couldn’t think. “But thank you.”
Nate gave him a warning look, but Jesse was half-hard, and the only place he wanted to be, was inside Dom’s pants.
He wasn’t sure how he’d make it through the rest of the night. When his order arrived, Jesse downed it. Whiskey burned down his throat; he coughed.
Dom didn’t finish all of his shot, though. He sipped from the little glass, watching Jesse. His attention strayed occasionally, when Gareth spoke to him, or Harris did. But his gaze never failed to return, and the darkness in his eyes promised.
The heat in Jesse’s body burned hotter and hotter, until liquid fire coursed through his veins. Jesse wiped his palms on his pants, and he needed so much that even his teeth ached.
Sometime through the night, an eternity later, Nate said again, “I’m heading home. You’re sure you don’t want to join us.”
Alpha in Heat Page 9