Page 14 of Training the Alpha

“Sit down.” I pull him down onto the bed, gesturing for him to scoot back so I can lift his foot into my lap. I feel his eyes on my profile, unusually cautious as I cradle his foot in both hands and roll his ankle experimentally.

“Does this feel okay?” I ask softly, running my thumbs over the bony protrusion of his ankle and the ridge of his Achilles.

“Yeah,” he says, his eyes fluttering closed. “No pain.”

I take the opportunity to stare at him as I test his ankle’s range of motion, taking in the sculptural lines of his face and the dark splay of his lashes. He’s usually clean-shaven, but I can see a hint of light stubble dusting his cheeks and chin, and around the soft, pink curve of his lips.

“I trained as a physiotherapist, you know,” I say, trailing my fingers over the strong arches of his feet. “Worked in professional practice for a few years before Max and I opened the gym. It’s where we met, actually.”

He hums, cracking open one piercing blue eye and smiling at me softly. “I didn’t know that. I like hearing about your life. You sure you didn’t train as a masseuse, too? This feels way too good.”

Satisfied that there’s nothing horribly wrong with his Achilles and suddenly feeling warm all over, I press my thumbs into the meat of his foot, concentrating on the pressure points that draw a low hum from him. I slide my hand up to his toned calf, smoothing my hands over the muscle and massaging it gently. I shift my position so that I can access more of him, my handstravelling up over his knees and thighs, until I’m crawling up his body and hovering over him, his legs widening around me so I can slot between them.

“So what’s the prognosis, doctor?” he sighs, relaxed and pliant beneath me, the rabid alpha posturing from earlier nowhere to be found, thoroughly fucked out of the both of us.

“Well,” I say, one hand glancing down his side and pulling him down by his ass, so his head meets the pillow. His smile is easy and familiar. “The bad news is, you’ll never dance again.”

He gasps. “Say it isn’t so! Is there nothing we can do?”

“I’m afraid not,” I say gravely. “There’s no choice but for you to stay here, with me, indefinitely.”

And then I kiss him until he’s nearly late for rehearsal, and my scent is so tangled in his sheets that he’ll still be able to feel my presence when he falls into bed tonight.

Alex

“To a flawless dress rehearsal!” my friend Julian laughs, raising his glass as the rest of our dance company clinks glasses and cheers, moving effortlessly under the flashing neon lights of the crowded bar.

“ShutupJules, you’ll jinx us,” Celine hisses, but takes a generous gulp of her drink anyway before weaving onto the dancefloor.

I join in, sipping my drink and forcing an easy smile. I try to be present, to be conscious in the moment, but I’m fighting a losing battle. That’s my life these days; even after a near-perfect dress rehearsal and with opening night for one of the biggest roles in my career looming, all I can think about is the phantom imprint of calloused fingertips on my hips from yesterday afternoon. Or the way Marcus looked, wrapped up in my sheets last Saturday, soft in a way I’d never seen him look before.

I pull the collar of my silk shirt away from my neck, undoing another button, suddenly too hot in the swaying crowd.

“Why are you pouting?” Julian shouts in my ear, slinging an arm around my waist, the mixture of an intense rehearsal followed by the rapid consumption of alcohol already setting him well on his way to messy.

I open my mouth to respond, but Colette jumps in before I can.

“Because he’s in love,” she says, taking my hand and twirling herself around me. “And sad about it.”

“That’s not something to be sad about,” Julian says, looking mildly distraught on my behalf, before the song changes to something with a heavier beat, and he gasps in delight, grabbing a nearby beta to dance with.

I roll my eyes at him and give Colette another twirl. “I am not. Don’t be so dramatic.”

But her words settle heavily in my stomach, because I know there’s a grain of truth to them. Maybe more than a grain, actually. It gets harder and harder to deny every time Marcus comes to my apartment and lies in my bed and looks so perfect on my sofa, even when he’s not fucking me on it. He made us scrambled eggs in my kitchen last week, while I perched on the windowsill and watched the way the morning light cut across his bare shoulders, and he asked about the Russian village my mom grew up in and didn’t even laugh when he coaxed a few poorly pronounced fragments of Russian out of me.

I’m falling. Hard. And it terrifies me.

I never learn, a cynical voice whispers in the back of my mind.

I shake it off, letting my eyes wander across the heaving dancefloor and trying to lose myself in the fun of dancing with my friends. The kind of dancing that only requires you to sway your hips, not execute a perfect jeté en manége. But when my eyes drift over to a rowdy crowd in one corner, my breath catches in my throat.

Sitting in a large leather booth is the entire Foundry crew. I remember Marcus mentioning that Dylan, one of their professionals, had a big fight this week, and by the looks of the celebrations, he must have won.

I’ve been training at the gym long enough to recognize some of them: Jed, the trainer who usually works the evening shifts, ispractically standing on his chair, roaring a loud toast to Dylan, who’s got a rare, small smile on his face despite the fact that Jed has just spilled half his beer over his lap. Max, the co-owner, is engaged in some kind of animated debate with another regular I see a lot—Kyle, I think?—and the two of them are being watched by a gigantic alpha called Cassius, who looks completely bemused by the conversation. I remember asking Marcus who he was the first time I saw him across the gym, because he was the biggest alpha I’ve ever seen in my life.

And right in the middle of them is Marcus.

He looks big, rugged, and totally breathtaking in the bar’s low lighting. And he isn’t looking at the chaos around him. He’s looking directly at me.