Page 87 of Alpha Chase

“Liar,” he growls. Chase’s eyes blaze with excitement as he grabs onto my sides, tickling me. I scream out, squirming in his arms, but he doesn’t relent- not until I’m panting, barely able to catch my breath.

Chase chuckles and shifts me on his lap so I’m facing him, lifting a hand to comb his fingers through the ends of my hair absently. “Nice try, but if you wanna get a rise outta me, you’re gonna have to do better than that.”

I scowl, shaking my head- though as I stare back at him, I can’t keep a little smirk from tugging at the corner of my lips. “I hate you.”

“Back at ya, babe.” He winks, yanking me in for a kiss.

As his lips move against mine hungrily and the rest of the world falls away, a startling realization dawns on me. Somewhere along the line, the word hate seems to have taken on a new meaning for us.

Something that feels a lot like love.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

Chase

Therestaurantatthelodge is deserted when I enter, the moon is high in the sky and spilling its light through the large floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the mountain. The bar area is still dimly lit by hanging pendant lights, casting a yellow glow over the rich wood tones of the bar itself and illuminating the shelf of liquor bottles. The only sign of life in here is a rustling sound coming from somewhere behind the bar, and as I draw closer, something clatters and I hear Vienna mutter a curse under her breath.

“Need some help?” I chuckle, approaching the bar and leaning over the counter.

Vienna pops up to her feet, brown eyes thrown wide as they collide with mine. “Chase,” she breathes, the husky sound of it going straight to my dick. Her long dark hair is tied back in a tight ponytail and she pulls it over a shoulder, fiddling with the ends. “You’re early.”

I am, but only by fifteen minutes or so. I won’t tell her that I was waiting in the parking lot for another fifteen. She’s still being stubborn about the Jeep, so I’ve taken it upon myself to be her personal fucking chauffeur until she gives in, and I’ve been anxious to get back here since I dropped her off for her shift this afternoon. As she hopped out of the truck after I’d stolen a kiss, I was hit with a weird, prickly feeling like we were being watched- one that I haven’t been able to shake since.

I shrug, leaning my elbows over the counter and glancing down to the cabinet below the beer taps where she’d been rummaging. “Whatcha doin’ back there, Tink?”

She folds her arms over her chest, blowing a loose strand of hair out of her face. “Just trying to change the keg.” Her brow is furrowed in frustration, her lips pursed, and I have to bite back a chuckle because she looks cute as hell when she’s all wound up like this.

“I’ve got it,” I offer, planting a palm on the counter and hopping over to join her on the other side. She jumps back like I’m going to break the damn bar down or something, shaking her head.

“Can’t you walk around like a normal person?” she grumbles, though there’s a spark of amusement in her eyes.

“Nothing about me is normal, baby,” I murmur as I stalk closer to her, cupping her jaw with one hand and wrapping her ponytail around the other. “Or you for that matter.” I tug her hair, her head falling back and her eyes locking with mine as I crowd her in. “We’re both fucking crazy, that’s why this works.”

She presses her hands to my chest, a smirk coming to her lips. “Or why we’ll end up killing each other someday.”

I rub the pad of my thumb across her lower lip while my own turn up in a devilish grin. “I can think of worse ways to go,” I growl, leaning down to capture her lips with mine. I swallow a little moan that leaves her throat, her hands sliding up to grasp my shoulders. I kiss her hard and she gives it right back to me with equal ferocity, licking my teeth and biting my lips. Fuck, this girl kisses like she wants to consume me, and I have no problem letting her. She can possess every piece of me as long as I get all of her in return.

She’s breathless as she pulls away, batting her eyelashes as she looks up at me with a dazed look in her eyes. “I’ve gotta close up and take the trash out. Why don’t you make yourself useful and grab a keg from the storage room to change that one out?”

“Fine,” I groan, reluctantly letting her go and taking a step back. I blow out a breath, raking a hand through my hair. She turns around and I deliver a sharp slap to her ass, eliciting a yelp of surprise from her throat. “Hurry up, little devil. I need to get you home.”

She tosses me a sultry little look over her shoulder, walking to the end of the bar and lifting two large trash bags, heading through the storage room to take them to the dumpsters out back. I keep my eyes fixed on her ass as she goes, flooded with the memory of grasping it in my palms while pulling her onto my cock.

Once she disappears through the door to the locker room and my trance is broken, I work to unhook the empty keg from underneath the counter. The fasteners around the lines are stubborn, but I unhook them easily, hauling out the empty keg and slinging it over my shoulder by the handle, striding toward the storage room.

As I step inside and look around for the kegs, it occurs to me that I probably should’ve double checked which one needed to be replaced. The empty silver barrels along the wall all look the fucking same, bearing the Cedar Ridge Brewery logo. A tinny echo sounds as I drop the empty keg onto the tiled floor beside the others, stepping forward to look around the rows of shelving in search of a replacement.

I finally spot a row of kegs near the back of the storage room, and once I see so many of them together, I realize that the logos they bear are in different colors to differentiate the beers. The one I removed had a red logo, so I go for that one- but all the red logo kegs are toward the back, blocked by the others. I growl in frustration and circle the shelf to retrieve it from the other side instead, nearly tripping as my foot collides with something on the floor.

“What the…?”

My brows pull together in confusion as I stare down at the rollaway cot tucked between the shelf and the back wall of the storage room. The lodge provides them for the guest rooms upon request, but why the fuck would there be a cot inhere? As I start to shuffle past it, a sweet scent hits my nose and the realization that slams into me nearly knocks me off my feet.

Raspberries. Rosewater.Vienna.

The bedding on the cot smells like her, which means…fuck, was she sleeping here?!

I sink down onto the edge of the cot, the feeble metal frame groaning under my weight as the distinct scent of Vienna on the bedding envelops me. My fingers absently trail over the thin blanket, my brain working overtime to process what the hell this means.

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