Page 6 of Rut Bar

His expression shutters, his jaw twitching as he clenches his teeth. “I took this assignment from another agent who went out on maternity leave. That information wasn’t in her notes. I’ll… see you at noon. We can go over it tomorrow.”

We reach the main floor and wade through the thickening crowd. My bouncer Dan barely looks up at us as he keeps his eyes on the growing line of betas and alphas forming at the velvet rope, waiting for the club to fully open so they can mingle with horny omegas.

They stare at us with assessing looks while my tax auditor walks away. Worry gnaws at me. Maybe I’m wrong and I’ve fucked it all up and it’s all going to be ruined now. It’ll be all my fault for thinking I was being clever.

Did I mess up the paperwork? Not fill something out correctly? It’s times like this when I wish I could call Harvey and get reassurance that audits are completely normal and every successful business goes through this. But the last thing I want to do is bother him while his wife’s dealing with chemo.

“Everything okay, Miss Vee?” Dan asks.

I paste a fake smile on my face. “Everything’s fine.” And then I head to the bar.

I need a fucking drink.

ChapterTwo

BRENDAN

It’sanother afternoon of sheer fucking torture as I stare at numbers on a spreadsheet and add them quickly in my head. It should be easy. I’ve always been good with numbers, and I can do this in my sleep, but I keep getting distracted before I reach the bottom.

I keep looking at the same lines. Because all I can think about is juicy dripping oranges.

Not orange juice from a carton—or worse, that fake orange from a plastic jug that’s nowhere near the real thing—but the orchard-ripened kind. The sort I used to pick and eat fresh whenever we flew to Florida to visit grandma. The kind of orange that sprays bitter oils in the air when you peel it, slowly revealing its soft white rind and the delicate segments full of juicy vesicles ready to pop in your mouth and run down your throat and… All the blood rushes to my cock until I fidget and adjust my pants so they’re not strangling my chub.

This. Is. Fucking. Torture.

I’m thankful the desk is wooden, not glass, otherwise I’d have a lot of explaining to do about why I keep getting an erection. Someone knocks on the door jamb and Veronica—Vee as the staff affectionately calls her—says they can enter without looking up from her computer.

The beta bartender with the tattoos stares me down as he steps over the threshold, two fancy drinks complete with pink straws in hand. The drinks are two different colors, the bottom yellow and the top turquoise blue. “Thought you’d like to try today’s signature drink.”

“Hmm?” She stops running her fingers through her hair—something she does a lot—and looks up. The ever-present crease between her brows smooths out as she smiles at the sight of him.

A radiant fucking smile.

Her pheromones thicken in the air. My cock twitches again, and I bite back a groan. My teeth grind from the effort.

The beta grins like he knows I’m hard from one whiff of her excitement. I’d worry he could detect my spike of pheromones despite the expensive nullifier lotion I’ve slathered on, except he has a beta’s blunted sense of smell. There’s no way.

If Vee can’t scent me, then he can’t either. Clearly he’s got a thing for her.

I drop my attention back to my work to let him see I’m not a threat. He can stake all the claims he wants. I won’t fight him for her. What are we, cavemen? I scratch the calculated total onto the bottom of my worksheet.

“Thanks,” she says as she takes the drink from him.

Instead of drinking the other one himself, he takes those five steps to his right and sets it on my borrowed desk. I frown at it. There’s an orange slice, and a cherry stabbed through with a toothpick perched on the rim of the frosted glass. “I’m on the clock, but thank you.”

“It’s a mocktail, and I’d like your impartial opinion. Sometimes I suspect Vee goes too easy on me. Let me know what you think.”

She takes a sip of her drink, the sound noisy as the ice cubes clink against the glass. I glance up in time to see her cheeks hollowing as she sucks. A drop of pre-cum soaks into my boxer briefs as I imagine her sucking on something else. Vee makes a happy omega chirp, her smile widening.

“It’s great,” she says. “What’s this one called?”

“Lick her right.”

Vee blushes, her mouth dropping open, and then she laughs nervously. “No, it’s not. You made that one up.”

The bartender shakes his head and grins at her. “I didn’t. Look it up if you don’t believe me.”

She rolls her eyes. “Nice try. If I type that into the search bar, all I’m gonna get is a bunch of porn and virus pop ups and that’s the last thing I need to be using the company computer for. It’s like you’re trying to get me into trouble.”

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