Page 14 of Ruined Omega

Tal sighs and shrugs his broad shoulders out of the heavy trench coat, which he tosses across the back of the other chair. The pungent Alpha odor in the room doubles. Much to my dismay, certain parts of my anatomy start to stiffen and tingle.

Underneath the coat, Tal was wearing a small tank top. Even in this dimness, it is glaring white against the dark complexion of his skin, and it shows off his bare arms bulging with muscles. The thin fabric conforms to his chiseled abdomen.

A leather harness with a shoulder holster holds a massive handgun beneath his left arm.

“I haven’t been spying on you,” he says coldly. “It was for your protection.”

I don’t feel like arguing semantics with him right now. Besides, it’s all I can do to keep from staring too blatantly at his hard chest and biceps as he slips his arms out of the harness and tosses the holstered gun onto the card table with a thud, jolting me out of my daze.

“Is that a real gun?” I ask in amazement.

“Why would I carry a fake gun?”

Fair enough. So maybe that wasn’t the most brilliant question I’ve asked in my life. Still, I’ve never seen a real gun before. Well, no, that’s not entirely true, of course; there are the weapons carried by soldiers and guards. But that’s different. I’ve never seen a civilian with a gun.

“Isn’t that illegal in the city?”

“Yeah,” he grunts. “Very. But you know what else is illegal in the city? Alphas. So I’m not too worried about getting caught with a gun.”

Tal grabs the other metal chair, the one with his coat hung over the back, and he carries it over to the window. I’ve never seen a man who fills a room the way that he does. I don’t just mean his physicality, although that is no doubt impressive. But there is also an energy emanating from him, dark and dangerous.

As he crosses the room, my eyes trace the lines of his well-muscled back, which are clearly visible through the tightness of his shirt, following the deeply carved channel of his spine down until it disappears inside the faded denim wrapped around the hard, flexing curves of his butt.

Another shameful pulse of desire throbs in my core.

With a sudden, quick motion, Tal plunks his chair down, spins, and drops that perfect behind onto the seat, fixing his blue gaze on my face. I quickly dart my eyes away, flushing with embarrassment and silently praying that he didn’t catch me checking him out just now.

When I slowly bring my eyes back to his, the faint smirk that tips the corner of his mouth suggests that he did.

Tal bends down and unlaces his leather boots before tugging them off his feet and tossing them aside.

“Make yourself comfortable,” he says, nodding toward my shoes.

I hesitate, unsure whether I want to undress, even in that small way, in front of this dark, intense man. But there was something in his voice—a purr of command—that I’m unable to resist.

I bend in my seat and reach down to slip my heels off.

When I glance up, I catch Tal staring down the top of my dress at my cleavage. Actually, catch isn’t the right word. That would imply that he is being sneaky about it. He’s not. His stare is blatant, and my nipples tingle with the knowledge that they are being watched.

I sit up and clear my throat, thinking he’ll glance away embarrassed, but he doesn’t.

He just lounges back in his chair and continues staring at me across the dark room. Heat prickles at the nape of my neck and between my thighs. I feel like frightened prey locked in the sights of a hungry predator.

Tal rakes his gazed down to my lap, and I could almost swear I see his nostrils flare as if he’s catching a scent. I squeeze my thighs tightly together.

I’m starting to worry that I made a big mistake letting this scary man bring me back to his lair. If Sloane and Lily really did send him here to watch me, I doubt this is what they had in mind.

“Why are you here?” I whisper.

“I already told you,” he says, finally flicking his blue eyes back up to my face. “I’m here to protect you. You’re in a very vulnerable position, Ms. Hines. You helped expose SynerGen and in the process you brought down one of the biggest companies in the world. There are bound to be a few people who are unhappy about that. And there are probably people in the government who want to get rid of you as well. Lily and Sloane wanted to make sure you were protected, so they asked me to keep an eye on you.”

“Why didn’t they tell me anything about this arrangement?”

“They figured you’d object.”

Well, they were right. I do object. But I keep that information to myself and cast my eyes down at the floor.

Sudden headlights backlight the dirty window and slide along the wall. Tal ducks out of the way. He cautiously peers out the window. Just some random car passing by. Its tires hiss along the pavement that is now wet with the rain leaking down from the upper tiers.