Page 38 of Alpha Reid

“Hey, there you are,” Reid calls, rounding the corner of the squad complex and striding in my direction. “I’ve been looking for you.”

I can’t help but smile when I see him. Damn he’s gorgeous. “You found me,” I say slyly.

He approaches Chase and I, his suspicious gaze sliding between us. “What are you doing out here?”

“Nothing,” I cough, lungs still burning from the joint. I push off of the building and step closer to Reid. “Just chatting.”

He slides an arm around me possessively, pulling me in. I let him, both because I’m a little buzzed and because it feels damn good to be close to him.Fuck, why does he smell so good?I turn in toward his chest, inhaling deeply.So. Good.

“Is now really the time to be getting high?” Reid asks Chase, his tone like a stern father.

“Don’t know, it’d help if I was kept in the loop and knew how much time we had before this war comes,” Chase fires back.

Reid sighs, tucking me in tighter with one arm and rubbing his temple with the fingers of his other hand. I relax into him, resting my head against his firm chest as his scent envelops me. It feels like it’s swirling all around me- my wolf’s enjoying it so much that if I shifted right now, I bet she’d look half-drunk with her tongue lolling out.

Reid glances down at me, and when I look up and our eyes meet, the corner of his mouth tugs up into that heart-stopping half-smile of his. I guess I’ve never been affectionate like this with him; the effect of the weed has me relaxed and dropping my guard. He brushes a strand of hair behind my ear fondly, turning back to Chase.

“Look, I can talk to the guys about that, but you’ve gotta curb the attitude.”

Chase’s brows shoot up and a look of genuine surprise plays on his face. “You’d actually do that?”

Reid shrugs a shoulder. “Sure, why not?”

Chase’s gaze slides to meet mine, then back to Reid. He swallows hard. “Thanks, man. And about Wednesday…”

Reid shakes his head. “I’d rather not rehash it. What’s past is past, but now that you know who Serena is to me, I trust you’ll respect that.” Reid’s voice is steady, firm, with an unmistakable warning in his tone.

“Yeah, man,” Chase sighs, shoving his hands in his hoodie pocket and kicking at the ground. “Of course.”

“Good,” Reid snaps. He turns his attention to me, sliding a finger underneath my chin and tipping my face up to his. “You ready to go?”

I nod, realizing that I’m fully leaning my body weight against him, my brain still a little fuzzy. I straighten, waving goodbye to Chase as I turn to follow Reid to the car.

As we walk side by side toward the Mustang, Reid drops his voice low so only I can hear him. “So now I’m catching you getting high in the middle of the day with Chase Walker?” Reid growls. “I think I may have to paint that ass of yours red when we get home.”

A shiver of excitement runs through me.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Reid

What the hell is this girl doing to me? I’ve never struggled so much to remain calm and composed. Nobody has ever pushed my buttons like Serena does, and I’m starting to think she knows exactly what she’s doing; that it’s a game to her and she enjoys getting a rise out of me. It’s the subtle things that give her away- her sly glances, her little smirks. The way her eyes betray her as both a sinner and a saint.

The ridiculous thing is that as much as it drives me crazy, the way she challenges me like nobody else does also turns me the fuck on. There’s something about her fire that I can’t get enough of, something about the way she pushes me to the brink of losing my shit that gets my dick hard. That’s sick, right? But as I glance over at her in the passenger seat, her head lolling sideways to gaze in my direction, her blue eyes lock with mine and I know that while Serena may not have been what I expected, she’s exactly who I was waiting for.

Her lips stretch into a relaxed smile as she reclines back in the seat beside me, her red hair falling over her face and obscuring half of it from my view. I can tell she’s still a little high, but she’s coming down. That’s the thing with shifters- mind-altering substances don’t work the same on us. Alcohol will get us drunk, but it takes a lot, and we have to keep drinking to maintain the buzz. Same with weed- we’ll get high, but a few hits only lasts for twenty minutes or so, for a longer high you’d have to smoke more initially or keep smoking to maintain it.

“Can I turn on some tunes?” Serena asks, though she’s already leaning forward to press the button on the radio.

“Sure,” I reply, right as she turns it on and ‘Heroes’ by David Bowie starts playing through the sound system.

She shimmies her shoulders, dancing a little bit in the passenger seat, and despite how irritated I am about catching her smoking a J with Chase, I can’t help but smile as I watch her.

“I, I will be king,” she sings along with Bowie, swishing her hair back and forth. She turns to me, pointing dramatically. “And you, you will be queen!” She cracks herself up, giggling.

I shake my head and chuckle. “How can you still be stoned?”

She shrugs her shoulders, grinning deviously. “Just lucky I guess.”

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