Page 3 of Fighting the Alpha

“Same deal,” he shrugs. “But you won’t.”

Before I can even process the absolute audacity of the wager, and before my inner alpha forces me to push him away in defiance, the promoter shoves his arm between us, pulling us apart.

Levi lets himself be guided backward, his face instantly melting back into that obnoxious, media-ready smirk. He points a finger at me, turns to the cameras, and plays up the crowd one last time before sauntering off the stage.

I stand there in the center of the lights, my throat burning, my ears filled with static.

Total submission.

As I stumble off the stage, chugging the water Max hands to me like a man dying of thirst, I know it’s just shit-talk. He’s trying to get in my head, and goddamn him, it’s working. Because I didn’t immediately tell him where to stick his bullshit wager, did I? I didn’t tell him to fuck off back to whatever hole he crawled out of without a second thought, like I should have.

No—I considered it. For the brief moment our eyes were locked and his breath was at my neck, I fucking considered his insane proposal.

Just like I did six years ago.

Levi

Fight days always make me horny.

Maybe it’s the excess adrenaline, or the carb-loading the night before, or the anticipation of getting to fuck someone up in the ring, but it lights me up like nothing else.

So when I wake up with a raging boner tenting my sheets, it’s not a surprise. The face that pops up in my mind’s eye as I wrap a loose hand around myself and start to stroke lazily—now that’s a little more unusual. It’s certainly been a while since Dylan Long was the star of one of my jerk-off sessions.

His expression at the face-off is what comes to me first. Watching his tough, earnest face break composure when I suggested my little wager; pink rising to his cheeks, his eyes widening just enough that only I could tell, his jaw clenching like he was biting back a snarl.Fuck. It was like a private gift, for my eyes only.

Do I think he’ll take me up on the offer? Probably not. He’s too serious for his own good, which means he’s easy to rankle, always has been. Mostly, it was a fun way to get in his head, a call-back to the childish teenage bets that became a staple of my first time in America.

But I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t a small part of me that’s hoping he does. Because I know what happens when Dylan gets backed into a corner by me.

My fist tightens around my cock at the memory, my thumb brushing over the sensitive head and sending a hot shiver down my spine.

We were both eighteen, and it was the last time we wrestled before I flew back to my life in my tiny French town the next morning, thinking I might never come back. We were neck-and-neck for the entire match, until I won on a technicality—a slipped foot and a split-second hesitation from Dylan was all the ref needed to call it, and leave Dylan seething with frustration.

He’d been a vision of teenage alpha fury in the locker room after the match, already the size of a tank even at that age, already totally incapable of chilling the fuck out. He’d been pushing out that heavy, unusually sweet alpha scent of his like he was trying to choke me with it. Not that I’d have been any more gracious, if I were in his position, but I wasn’t about to tell him that.

Instead, I’d cornered him against his locker. I was riding high on the win, the final victory after a year of fierce rivalry, cocky and reckless and with nothing to lose, and I’d tossed out the challenge just to test how far I could push him.

“You know the deal, Long. You owe me. Big fight, big payment, no?”

“Go fuck yourself, asshole. I’ll do your sweaty laundry one last time if it means I never have to look at your ugly face again.”

I chuckled darkly, taking a step closer, getting in his face until his palms pressed flat against the lockers behind him. “That simply won’t do this time, Dylan. I fly home tomorrow, uh? No time. Besides, I think our final wager should be something a bit more… memorable, don’t you agree?”

He looked at me like he wanted to rip the smile right off my face, and for some reason that sent a shot of heat straight through me, the rage in his expression pressing all the rightbuttons in my young, arrogant alpha brain. All I cared about was forcing his submission in whatever way would make his scent flare and those dark eyes cloud with the most potent anger.

“Name your price now or get out of my face,” he said, voice wavering.

I looked at his hands again, pressed against the lockers so hard they were white. Such big hands, like the rest of him. Vascular. Hands that had held me down against the mat more than once.

I knew the suggestion was insane, and that I was pushing things too far. But eighteen-year-olds with enough adrenaline flooding their veins to revive a small elephant don’t care about consequences.

“How about you put those big hands to good use?” I said before I could stop myself. In reality, my English was probably much more clunky, but the obnoxious meaning came through just the same. “Seeing as they’re not good for much else, it seems.”

“What?!” he spat, looking horrified. But his scent spiked even more thickly around us, caramel flooding my nostrils and making my alpha roar beneath my skin.

I grabbed my crotch for effect, already feeling my dick start to thicken from the thrill of playing with him like this. “You heard me, Long. A parting gift so we both leave knowing who is the real alpha.”

I fully expected him to take a swing at me. To drive his massive fist into my face and leave me with a bloody nose as a parting gift, instead of whatever over the top bullshit I was suggesting.