Page 10 of Breaking the Alpha (Serpent’s Tongue Ink #2)

“N ow that is the walking, purring definition of sex,” Zoe said, her tone brokering no argument as she watched River jog away from them. “He does purr, right? He looks like he purrs.”

Laughing, she swatted at Zoe’s arm. “How on earth would I know?”

“Because if you haven’t ridden that stallion, I’m reporting you for animal abuse.”

Shaking her head, she turned her door sign over and walked to the till. “You’re impossible. You know that, right?”

Zoe sat down on the floor cross-legged and used one of her long nails to slice the paper tape holding a new delivery closed. “Is he a biter? With those teeth, he probably leaves museum-quality marks.”

Refusing to take the bait, Angelina checked the receipt dispenser and gave her cup of tea a test check for temperature. “How was your weekend?”

“My weekend doesn’t matter, because it didn’t include a model with a penchant for spanking.

He’s a spanker, isn’t he? Just a little tap-tap-tap here and there?

Tell me he’s a spanker.” She looked over her shoulder as though hopeful River might be coming through the door.

“He looks like a spanker. Or a handcuffer.”

Angelina could barely swallow her first sip, waving her hand in front of her face as she fought to keep from choking. “You’re killing me. I seriously wouldn’t know. I didn’t sleep with him.”

It was a little white lie. They’d slept together. But they hadn’t slept together. And she was banking on interpretation to keep her words somewhat honest.

“Sometimes I’m reminded that you and I are very different people,” Zoe replied, her expression solemn.

“You probably built some mystic galaxy connection with him when you two took off together. I would have mounted him like a bucking bronco and gotten my full twenty-five cents worth.” She reached into her purse and pulled out her phone, loading up a photo app.

“How do your panties not disintegrate around this? Look at this guy. Look. At. This. Guy.”

She leaned forward to see pictures of River from what looked like a sunglasses photo shoot.

He was shirtless in most of them, barefoot on a beach and wearing different frames in each picture.

Every muscle was defined, accented by what she assumed was oil meant to give that fresh-from-the-ocean look.

Sitting back, she shrugged. “He may be hot, but he also happens to be sweet. How did you find him online?”

Smirking, Zoe set her phone down. “I was out with a few of the women from housekeeping at the hotel and asked who the hottest guy in Epson was. Turns out there’s a whole family of them.

The Baker boys.” She crossed her legs and leaned back with a sigh.

“From what I could gather, all four of them are the tastiest treats ever made on the wrong side of the water tower. The oldest, Winter, is rotting away in jail for killing their dad. The second-oldest one runs the tattoo shop at the end of the mall here, but he’s hooked up with some gorgeous blonde everyone at the table was fawning over.

River has been living the high life modeling in LA, but I think he’s off-limits since he and my hippie-dippy friend seem to have decided to have some boring-ass soul connection instead of mind-blowing sex. ”

Rolling her eyes, Angelina laughed. “What about the fourth?”

“I have not robbed a cradle yet, but if his twenty-three-year-old ass looks as fine as his hotshot older brother, I may need to reevaluate.” Sitting back up, she glanced toward the closed door and lowered the volume of her voice.

“But seriously, you should have heard some of the stories they were telling. From the sounds of it, River was an absolute nightmare when he was younger, getting arrested every second weekend for things like vandalism, theft, joyriding. You might want to be careful about getting mixed up with him.”

She thought about the tattoos she’d gotten a glimpse of while River had her splayed out on his hotel room counter.

The light hadn’t been enough for her to study them, and her mind had definitely not been in a place to focus on anything outside of the pleasure he’d been giving her.

But now that she thought about it, there was something about the ink covering him.

Something about the placement. She’d grazed her hands over the ones on his chest once but had stopped when he’d tensed and instinctively flinched away from her touch.

She hadn’t tried again.

But her fingers remembered the changes in the texture of his skin, the divots and craters hidden beneath the designs.

And she found herself wondering exactly what kind of scars they were hiding.

*

Angelina rubbed her tired eyes with a sigh then closed her laptop.

Figuring out how to do the bookkeeping for her little business was the steepest learning curve she’d encountered since first opening her doors.

The spreadsheets, expenses, receipts, orders, and taxes always became a blur of numbers every time she sat down in her little backroom office and did her best to input data she barely understood.

With the decision to go home to bed firmly planted in her mind, she grabbed her purse and keys and checked the time.

Eleven.

Morning would come fast, so she locked up the store and walked to her car, ever vigilant of the darkness stretching out past the poorly lit parking lot.

It wasn’t often she was alone in the small strip mall.

If anything, she was usually the first shop to close.

The spa two doors down stayed open into the early evening, the town’s only good pizzeria at the other end shuttered its doors around eight, and Serpent’s Tongue rarely closed before nine.

But on nights like this, there was nothing but the faint snapping of the pizzeria awning in the wind and the rustling of dry leaves on the ground.

Being alone never bothered her. Historically, alone was safer.

Alone meant there were no angry voices, no threats, no one slamming doors or throwing dishes.

Alone was synonymous with peace. Being alone brought internal strength and self-reliance and eliminated the chance of disappointment that hope and trust always carried.

And she was stronger alone, when she didn’t have to anticipate the reactions of others.

It was easier to breathe, easier to think, easier to simply be .

It had taken her years to train herself out of jumping every time someone shouted anywhere close by and even longer to stop flinching in response to the most innocuous of raised arms. Peace was a foreign word to her throughout her childhood and teen years, so she clung to it now with everything inside her.

But there was a difference between being on-her-own alone and walking-around-at-night alone.

She wasn’t a fan of this kind of alone, where she felt the need to scan the darkness as she sat in her car and locked the doors.

Even as she backed out of her spot and drove through the lot, she felt uneasy.

She did everything right, from the way she carried her keys between her fingers to how she monitored her surroundings and checked her back seat before she got into her car and locked it immediately.

But she’d done everything right when she was little, too, and violence had still found her.

She was about to turn onto the road when movement from deep inside Serpent’s Tongue Ink caught her eye and she came to a stop. Her heart pounded in her chest as she reached into her purse, pulled out her phone, put her car in reverse, and inched back until she could get a better look.

With an exhale, she dropped her phone on the passenger seat once she saw River walk into the waiting room and toss a balled-up sweatshirt onto the short sofa. Realizing there was no break-and-enter going on, she shook her head with a smile and drove off.

*

The sound of her door chimes usually made Angelina smile, but when River walked in for the fifth time in two weeks, she couldn’t muster up much more than a polite nod before she set Birch Baker’s latest jewelry order on the counter.

“You must be putting in a lot of hours to be going through so many pieces,” she said as she tallied the bill and tried to strike up enough casual conversation to keep the awkwardness to a minimum. “Half of Nebraska must be sporting new piercings by now.”

He was no more at ease today than he had been four days ago when he’d picked up the last order.

Or the one before that. If anything, he seemed even more uncomfortable around her, and the thought that he not only wanted to forget their tryst but was now actively regretting it stung.

She always tried her best to be friendly without overstepping, kept her tone light, and was quick to ring up the total, yet he continued to avoid eye contact.

He’d just mutter a handful of cordial responses and give her tight smiles that looked more pained than anything.

Today was no different. He shoved his hands in his pockets and shrugged. “Busy enough.”

Deciding she was done taking the high road and playing nice, she crossed her arms and stared him down. “Is there a reason you put yourself—and, by extension, me—through this every few days? Some form of self-flagellation, perhaps?”

Now his green eyes were on hers. “What?”

“This,” she repeated as she gestured between them. “It would be just as easy for me to drop the orders off at the shop and leave the invoice for your brother, but instead you seem hellbent on coming in here every few days to destroy my zen with your sullen, cranky ass.”

His brows shot up. “Destroy your what?”

“My zen. My peace. Look around, River. This entire store screams calm and harmony and your vibe is messing it all up.”

For a moment, he looked almost devastated before a smirk crossed his face. “It screams calm? That doesn’t sound very relaxing.”

“You know what I mean.”

He didn’t reply for a long time, and she was starting to feel terribly for going at him so harshly, until he leaned on the counter and looked at her with that same hint of vulnerability that had drawn her to him all those weeks ago.

“I’m sorry. Really, I am. Coming here is actually the highlight of my days right now, even if I act like a total dick the whole time.

” He licked his lips and brushed a strand of stray hair out of his eyes she suddenly realized were bloodshot and ringed with dark circles.

“If I promise to behave, can I have another chance to prove my vibe isn’t always so detrimental to your zen? ”

Hearing the sincerity in his voice sealed it and she couldn’t help but smile. “Okay. But don’t blow it.”

He grabbed the box of jewelry and gave her a devastating grin. “I won’t. See you in a few days, Angel.”

Later that night, as she swung by her closed shop to retrieve her forgotten phone, she peeked into the Serpent’s Tongue window and there he was again, sprawled out on the small, two-person sofa with nothing but his hoodie for a blanket.

She frowned, thinking back to earlier in the evening when she was locking up and saw River driving off.

Birch had waved at him from the front door of Serpent’s Tongue and called out a reminder for River and Grey to save some pizza for him.

Something wasn’t adding up.

River had a place to go. A family. Yet here he was again, sleeping on a sofa two feet too short for him with no pillow and no blanket.

She knew how rough those kinds of nights were on the mind and the body.

Personal experience had her bones aching as she remembered the many long, sleepless hours spent in places not meant for rest but were still better than the alternative.

She needed to know why he felt that the comfort of his brother’s home was worse than sleeping in a tattoo parlor.