Page 45 of Alpha Chase

I shrug, leaning forward to drop my empty cup on the coffee table. “Don’t know. Could’ve been. It was just… thewayhe said it…” I shake my head, scrubbing a hand over my face. “I don’t know.”

Jax narrows his eyes on me, brows creasing. “You think someone set you up?”

I stare at him for a second, his question giving me pause. Honestly, I haven’t given it a whole lot of thought since, considering Vienna hate-fucked me in the employee bathroom soon after. I’ve been hard-pressed to think of anything other than those legs wrapped around my waist, those incredible tits bouncing, those little flicks of her tongue against mine…

Damnit, the boner’s back. I shift on the couch, discreetly adjusting myself in my jeans. “Maybe,” I mutter. “It was just weird.”

“Weird enough that you think we should question him?” Brock asks, a sharp edge to his voice.

Gray shakes his head. “The guy barely agreed to the trip upgrades in exchange for not pressing charges. I don’t wanna push him.”

“Agreed,” Reid nods, exchanging a glance with Gray. “He’s a real piece of work. It’s not worth it.”

So I guess now I know who helped Gray clean up my mess at the lodge.

“We’ll just have the squad warriors on patrol up there keep an ear out,” Gray suggests. “Maybe they’ll hear something.”

Brock folds his arms over his chest, not looking pleased about Gray’s wait-and-see approach. I’ll bet Brock loves interrogations- he’s a surly motherfucker.

Jax pops up from his spot on the couch beside me, striding back toward the kitchen.

“Where you goin’?” Theo asks, craning his neck to watch his retreat.

“Topping off,” Jax replies, grabbing the bottle of whiskey from the kitchen counter and heading back toward us. He lifts it in the air as he approaches, waving it back and forth. “Anyone else?”

I lean forward to reach for my cup on the coffee table, grinning.

The guys stick around for about an hour, and I’m not sure what I expected but it’s actually kinda cool to just hang with them like this without the pretense of a council meeting or official squad business. It’s a lot like hanging with my boys, just less weed, booze, and bullshit. Well, there’ssomebooze- but the fact that they could’ve come down a lot harder on me over what happened at the lodge and chose to do this instead isn’t lost on me. And I have to admit, they’re not bad company.

As the five of them are heading out the door to go back to their girls and their packs and their own lives, Gray hangs back for a beat, watching me as I fidget with the joint hidden in my hoodie pocket, feet shuffling scuffmarks into the hardwood floor. “You good?” he asks, eyeing me cautiously.

‘Good’ is such a relative term. I haven’t been ‘good’ for a while, but the past twenty-four hours is the closest I’ve come in a long time.

“Yeah,” I breathe, fingers still toying with the joint inside my pocket.

Gray nods, turning toward the door. I watch as he pulls it open, chewing on the inside of my cheek.

“Hey Gray?” I call as he starts to step out, and he turns to look at me over his shoulder, eyes meeting mine. “Thanks.”

He nods again, in that way he always does, his eyes and the faint smile on his lips conveying what words can’t.

Maybe I should start listening.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Vienna

I’mbuzzingwithnervousenergy as I pull open the drawer of Nessa’s dresser- the second drawer down, the one she cleared out for me to keep my things. I didn’t come with much, so it all fits neatly inside, but every time I open this drawer, the white rectangular box sitting inside taunts me. It’s the phone Chase bought; the one that was left carelessly on the counter of the bar the day he jumped that customer at the lodge for touching me. I took it home with every intention of returning it to him, but he hasn’t been at the lodge in a few days and I haven’t had a good excuse to run into him anywhere else. Until today.

Today’s the first Thursday of the month, and since I’m still a member of the reserve squad, I need to report to the complex for our monthly brush-up on skills training. While Chase doesn’t devote much of his time to the squad, he’s still technically a squad leader- the other alphas brought him on board shortly before the war with the shadow pack. So, there’s a good chance he’ll be there today, and with that knowledge, I’ve been jittery with anticipation all morning.

I reach into the drawer to fish out a pair of black high-waisted leggings and a white sports-bra, quickly changing and pulling my hair back into a high ponytail. All the while, I’m caught up in my own head, trying to talk myself down from being so anxious. So we had sex. It’s not a big deal, right? People have sex all the time. It was a moment of weakness- just a random blip that I’m sure I’ll look back on one day and laugh at with my girlfriends and say‘hey, remember that time I let Chase Walker fuck me up against a wall in the employee restroom? Good times.’

That’s as far as I’ll let that line of thinking go, because if I think of the way his powerful hands felt on my body, the way his lips moved against mine, it only gives way to questions and emotions I don’t want to face. Like why doing something so wrong felt so right. Like why he looked at me with so much longing in his eyes, even after we’d already done the deed. I can still hear that pained strain his voice held when he called me sexy, his eyes pinging around my naked body like he wanted to commit it to memory.

I’m not foolish enough to think our little tryst in the restroom meant anything to Chase. I’d be even more foolish to let it mean something to me. We’re just two horny teenagers who were caught in the same place at the same time, fueled by an abundance of adrenaline and sexual tension. That’s all it was. All it can ever be. I’ve got enough problems as it is, and I don’t have the capacity to add anything or anyone else to that list.

I stuff my arms into the sleeves of a zip-up hoodie and stride over to the closet to grab my duffel, returning to the dresser to stuff my uniform pants and shirt inside. I picked up an extra shift at the lodge this afternoon and I’ll have to head there straight from the complex. I toss my phone and water bottle in, too, and then reach for the white box sitting inside the drawer, throwing Chase’s ‘gift’ into my bag before zipping it up. As much as it pains me to part with the shiny new phone, it wouldn’t be right to keep it. Especially not after what happened between us. I don’t want him to think that was some sort of transaction.

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