Page 5 of Training the Alpha

Alex is unfazed, tilting his chin up defiantly. “Would it be a problem if I did?” he says, his voice soft but dangerous. Chet doesn’t answer. Alex cocks his head coyly. “Tell me, whatever-your-name-is, have you ever fucked another alpha?”

Chet turns a violent shade of purple that puts me in mind of a beetroot. “Of course not,” he sputters. “Fucking disgusting.”

A small smirk curls Alex’s lips as he leans in conspiratorially, forcing Chet to take an unsteady step backwards. “Well, I’ll let you in on a secret: you think knocking another alpha out is a rush? Imagine bending him over and fucking him ‘til he’s begging you to let him come. Nowthat’sa fucking rush. You’ve not felt true power until you’ve felt another alpha fall to pieces beneath you, believe me. You should try it sometime. I have a gift for sniffing out alphas who enjoy that kind of thing, andyou. Well,” he makes an exaggerated sniff in Chet’s direction, “you practically reek of someone who enjoysthat kind of thing.”

My mouth is so dry I have a hard time swallowing the lump that’s suddenly formed in my throat, and I get the distinct feeling that all the blood in my body has just left my face, and I can’t bring myself to think about how far south it might have traveled. I’ve never heard an alpha talk so brazenly about being with other alphas—not on the street, not in private, not even on the grapevine. There was a TV ad last year that gave the tiniesthintof an alpha/alpha relationship, and the backlash was so loud it got taken off air within two weeks. Being into male omegas still carries a stigma, sure, but two alphas? That’s a whole other level of taboo.

And here Alex is practically admitting to it, in a goddamn boxing gym, of all places. The guy is fearless.

Chet looks completely dumbfounded, his mouth flapping open and closed indignantly like a fish, his arms hanging in useless fists at his sides as his pea-brain scrambles to process everything that Alex has just said. Guys like Chet are used to intimidating other alphas through sheer size and bullishness alone, so when that fails, and they’re faced with someone who doesn’t play by their neanderthal rules, they have no idea what to do.

For a split second, Chet’s shoulders square, his jawline tightening with the instinct to retaliate with violence to reassert his broken ego. His entire body is vibrating with tension, like a tightly coiled spring, and I feel my own muscles tense in preparation to pounce.

But then his eyes flicker past Alex, catching my reflection in one of the mirrors. A bit of the violent color drains from his face as he realizes the gym owner has been standing there the whole time, listening to the entire exchange. He twitches, but he doesn’t throw a punch, grabbing his bag off the bench instead and scowling at Alex with enough plain aggression that it’s clear he wanted to.

“Whatever,” he spits, circling Alex close enough that their shoulders brush. And then he has the gall to look to me for backup. “You hear the shit this guy is spouting in your gym, Marcus? It’s a fucking joke.”

My brain is short-circuiting. Alex’s words are still rattling around my skull, loud and unabashed, and my joints suddenly lock with an icy wave of panic.Imagine bending him over and fucking him ‘til he’s begging you to let him come.I suppress a shiver.

If I throw Chet out now, what questions will that lead to? Questions I’m not ready for. I’m certainly not ready for whatever the hell is waking up inside me.

So I falter, and I’m not proud of it. In fact, I already know I’m going to be beating myself up about this moment for weeks to come. But I step into the room fully, keeping my voice carefully neutral, the professional trainer mask slipping easily into place.

“I heard enough, Chet,” I say cooly. “Leave the trash talk at the door next time. Get out of here and go home. Cool off.”

Chet glowers, clearly expecting me to take his side, which makes my stomach twist with discomfort in and of itself. He mutters a string of curse words under his breath and pushes past me out of the locker room, swiftly followed by his two silent henchmen. The heavy door slams shut behind them with a metallicthud.

An uneasy silence falls in the locker room. Or at least, it feels uneasy to me—Alex is standing there still looking completely unfazed, one sculpted shoulder resting against the locker as he turns to face me, his eyes dragging over my tight posture.

“What a colorful, diverse clientele you have here, Marcus,” he says sardonically. “Although the colors were mostly various shades of magenta, and a ravishing purple when I confirmed his suspicions about my sexual preferences.”

My laugh is more of a short, sharp puff of air. I cut it short before it’s really even begun, shaking my head at myself in frustration. “Should have been black and blue, the way he was talking to you.”

Alex tilts his head, looking at me with a curiosity that makes sweat bead at my brow. “Don’t worry, I’m a big boy, Marcus.”

He signs the comment off with a wink that eases some of the tension in my muscles but makes my pulse quicken for a completely different reason. I walk slowly to my locker, pulling off my own t-shirt and not missing the way Alex’s eyes rake over my bare chest with barely contained interest. It makes my skin prickle with awareness.

“Did you mean what you said?” I say as we both start changing into our casual clothes. Seeing Alex pull on a pair of jeans feels strange, like seeing your teacher out of school when you’re a kid. That’s not to say he doesn’t look incredible in them, though—I’m starting to think there’s probably nothing he doesn’t look good in. “About Chet being into alphas?”

He laughs brightly, his abs drawing my eye as they contract. “God, no, I was just fucking with him. The only alpha he’d be interested in fucking is himself.” I snort in agreement, and we both finish getting dressed and gathering our things. Alex walks over to me slowly, his bag over one shoulder and his eyes locked on mine. “I meant everything else I said, though. Including the part about being able to detect when an alpha wants to fuck other alphas. Especially if the alpha they want to fuck isme.”

One of his long, elegant fingers traces an agonizingly slow line from the collar of my tee all the way down to the hem, coming to rest on my belt buckle. I swallow thickly, his sharp scent flooding my senses.

His eyes flick down to my crotch playfully, and there’s no hiding the blush that creeps up my neck at the very obvious bulge there.

“I’ll see you next week, Marcus,” he whispers, tapping my belt lightly and flashing me one final, knowing smirk, before he steps back and slips out the door.

I stand there in the empty locker room, my blood thrumming in my ears, my pulse hammering, and my cock harder than it’s ever been. When the feeling comes back to my legs, I drop heavily to the bench, my throat tight as I finally allow myself to process what thefuckjust happened.

I didn’t freeze because of Chet. I froze because when Alex described bending another alpha over, and the raw power of breaking apart another dominant man completely… I had envisioned myself doing it to him. And it was the most electric, terrifyingly turned on I’ve ever been in my life.

Marcus

“Okay, I want to do something a little different tonight,” I say, brandishing two pairs of gloves. I’m wearing a loose pair of boxing shorts with a tight base layer peeking out underneath, and the way Alex’s eyes drag down my thighs makes my skin prickle.

His rehearsal ran late today, so I agreed to reschedule our session to 10 pm—it’s later than I’d usually stay, but I told myself I’d probably be working late in the office anyway. It’s close to the end of the month, so why not tack on a training session at the end of it? It’s got nothing to do with the fact that I spent the entire weekend unable to shake the memory of his fingers resting on my belt buckle.

Or the way every time I get a waft of mint, my mind goes straight to him in a way that it’s never done for an omega.