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He’s a flirt with a cocky smile that makes my stomach do flip-flops, turning me into a giddy teenager who’s talking to her crush for the very first time, and I absolutely love it. But I’m not going to lie, when he throws me up against the wall and that dominant streak comes out to play, I love that too.
Alex is the perfect gentleman, offering me his arm as we make our way down the stairwell and holding the door open for me as we step out into the street. “I’m assuming you had a big night,” he asks.
“A little too big,” I admit as he leads me down the street. “My friend who I was meeting was already a few drinks deep when I got there, and I insisted that I try and catch up with her. But I should have known better. No one can catch up with Nat, especially when she’s on a roll.”
“She sounds like trouble.”
“She is. The best kind though,” I laugh, glancing up at him. “She’s intrigued by you.”
His brows furrow, and he glances down at me. “What’s that supposed to mean?” he asks. “You’ve been telling your friends about me?”
“Don’t get ahead of yourself. I didn’t paint you in a very good light,” I tease. “As far as Nat’s concerned, you’re my pushy neighbor who doesn’t like to take no for an answer.”
Alex smirks and curls his arm around my waist, pulling me into his side as he tips his head down toward me, his breath tickling my neck. “You’re telling me that you didn’t tell your best friend how your body shudders every time I touch you or how you whimper and your knees go weak when I pin you against the wall with a burning need pulsing through your body, so fucking desperate for more?”
I swallow hard, needing to clench my thighs as we continue walking down the street. “Don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say, my raspy tone giving me away.
Alex laughs, his grip tightening around my waist. “You’re a fucking terrible liar, Kyah.”
“Perhaps,” I say, that giddiness returning as a wide smile stretches across my face. “But I think you like that about me.”
“You’re damn fucking right, I do.”
We arrive at a small café after a short ten-minute walk, and by the time Alex is pulling out a chair for me, I already know that this guy is going to be important to me. He’s not going to be a quick screw that I’ll use for a good time, he’s going to be something so much more, I’m just not quite sure what yet.
He’s cocky and smart, charming and flirty, everything that makes my heart race, and the more time I spend with him, the more intense the anticipation builds. I’ve barely spent more than a handful of minutes with this guy so far, but already I’m starting to wonder if I was wrong about being a relationship kind of girl.
Alex makes me want something more, makes me want to explore something I’ve never explored before, and honestly, that scares the shit out of me, so much more than the thought of potentially starting something with either Crew or Viper.
My hands shake when I’m around him, and I turn into a nervous bundle of excitement. When his hand skims past my waist, I get goosebumps, and when his lips twist into that delicious cocky smile, I swear I could die right here in the middle of the busy Brooklyn café.
But this is new—too new—and when it comes down to it, I don’t know shit about this guy. He could be a serial killer for all I know. I can’t rush into it. I need to keep myself guarded while I try and figure out what the hell this burning insanity is between us. But that doesn’t mean we can’t have fun while we’re working it out.
13
KYAH
“Idon’tthinkIknow a damn thing about you,” I say as Alex leads me back toward our apartment complex, a strange disappointment firing through the pit of my stomach, realizing our breakfast date is almost over.
“There’s not really much to know,” he tells me, his hand resting in the back pocket of my jeans.
“I’ll be the judge of that,” I tell him. “Where’d you grow up?”
“Everywhere,” he says as we reach our building and he hashes in the passcode. “I was a bit of a troubled kid. My mom abandoned me at seven, and I jumped around foster homes until I enlisted with the Marines at eighteen.”
“Shit, that sounds rough,” I say as he holds the door open for me and waves me in, devastation weighing on my chest, picturing Alex as a seven-year-old boy being abandoned by his mother. “I’m sorry you had to go through that. I never had a great relationship with my mother, but I couldn’t imagine how horrible it must have been to be abandoned at only seven.”
“It’s fine,” he murmurs. “It was a long time ago.”
“Have you seen her since then?”
“Nah, I was an angry kid and didn’t want anything to do with her, and by the time I was old enough to understand that perhaps there might have been a reason apart from the fact she just didn’t love me enough, it was already too late.”
My brows furrow, not following, and he’s quick to fill in the blanks. “She died a few years back, during my first tour,” he explains. “Drug overdose.”
“Shit. I’m sorry.”
“You don’t need to be sorry, Mace,” he says as we make our way up the stairs. “She was nothing to me. Just some stranger who birthed me and didn’t care enough about the son she brought into the world.”
