Page 128 of Toxic

"He’s not my brother, so I’m free to imagine what I want. I bet he prefers to top, just a vibe I get. So he’d have to break himself a bit if he wants an alpha. They’re rarely bottoms—more are tops or sometimes verses."

Now I was rolling my eyes hard and making faces. I even leaned a bit toward Soren so he didn’t miss it as I went cross-eyed. Then I acted like I was vomiting.

Soren… chuckled. Yep, the sweet sound I’d so rarely heard, even before.

"Stop with the monkey faces. If I’m wrong, though, there might be another reason for his strange confession."

I stopped goofing around and fixed my eyes on him. "What would that be?"

Soren put the cigarette in his mouth. My eyes were immediately drawn to the corner of it where the silver lip ring was, the one I played with during our kiss. I would love to do it again, but… I forced myself to focus on his words. "He was being a good brother to you. His whole rant made me change my mind about something. And it almost looked like he was aiming for that."

"About what did you change your mind?"

He took another deep drag and raised his head toward the sky, letting out a long wisp of smoke.

"Choosing you for the programming course."

I froze. "I thought he picked us both!"

Soren’s eyes roamed over my face for a while.

"No. He picked me, and let me choose another person. I wasn’t going to choose you. But what he said—" Soren paused. "I think he knew what he was doing. He may be a better brother than you give him credit for."

I hesitated and raised my eyes to the sky as he did before. "Well, two things can be true at the same time—he can be into somebody and… he used his own conclusions to persuade you this way."

"True."

There was another moment of silence. I stared at Soren’s exquisite face, the black tattoo that snaked up the sides of his neck and along his jawline, giving him that badass, fierce look. But his light gray eyes seemed oddly vulnerable.

Without thinking, I blurted out, "Why are you so beautiful?"

He flinched slightly, then muttered, "Why are you?" before turning and leaving the smoke area to head back to the office.

As he walked away, I stayed there for a while, thinking deeply.

Then I pulled out my phone and texted:

"I have a feeling I should thank you. Your uncharacteristic openness with Soren made him change his mind and pick me for the course. He just admitted it was your strange tirade that made it."

A message from Winter popped up on the screen.

"Your thanks are accepted. I had to fraternize with my own employee for your sake! He probably cringed hearing my reflections."

"I appreciate it, and I owe you another one."

"You probably know by now he has a boyfriend. How are you going to proceed?"

"Using the difference between betas and alphas."

"And that would be? Being dumber?"

I snorted. "Being better in bed."

"Idiot."

"Never slept with an alpha? So you're not a judge here! Unless you plan on changing that?"

Winter ignored my question.

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