Page 12 of His Problem Alpha

Alex

T he first coherent thought I have is that he smells like home—a clean, sharp citrus layered over the musky, undeniable scent of us —and the thought is so terrifying I almost stop breathing.

Devon is curled against me, his body a warm weight in my arms. His head rests on my chest, dark hair tickling my chin. One of his legs is thrown over mine, his arm draped across my stomach. We're tangled together like we've been sleeping this way for years.

The last three days blur together—heat, need, desperation. Now, in the quiet morning light filtering through his blinds, I feel something new in my chest. A warm, humming connection. Peace.

I haven't felt peace since before Ethan.

The truth slams into me, a physical blow that tightens my chest and closes my throat. No. No no no. This wasn't supposed to happen. This was just biology. A heat. An emergency. Not... this. Not this warm, living thing between us that makes me want to bury my face in his hair and never let go.

I need to get out. Now.

I try to slip away without waking him, carefully lifting his arm, sliding my leg from under his. He stirs, making a small sound of protest that twists something sharp in my gut.

His eyes flutter open, unfocused at first, then clearing as they find mine.

For one unguarded moment, we just look at each other.

Everything we've done, everything we've shared, hangs in the air between us.

I see recognition in his eyes, vulnerability.

Then we both look away, the silence thick enough to choke on.

"Morning," he finally says, his voice a rough rasp from sleep and overuse.

"Morning," I reply, the word feeling inadequate, ridiculous.

He shifts, stretching beside me like a cat, and the movement releases a fresh, potent wave of his scent—citrus and sweat and me .

It’s a drug. My mind screams at me to pull back, to get away, but my body moves on pure instinct, a traitor to my resolve.

I’m leaning in before I can stop myself, burying my face in the curve of his neck.

I inhale deeply, my lungs filling with him.

He smells of sleep and sex, a rich, complex scent that shorts out my brain.

My nose runs along the column of his throat to the soft spot just below his ear where his scent is strongest, where his pulse beats a frantic, vulnerable rhythm against my lips.

I can taste the salt on his skin, feel the warmth of his blood just beneath the surface. He’s so alive.

He makes a small, questioning sound, but I can’t stop.

The instinct is too strong, a primal command that drowns out everything else.

My teeth scrape lightly against his skin, and a shudder runs through him.

The sound he makes is a choked gasp, a surrender, and it’s the only permission I need.

I press my teeth against his skin—not to break the surface, but to apply firm, possessive pressure.

A claim. A brand. The tiny, frantic hammer of his pulse against my incisors is a victory chant.

For a split second, a feeling of pure, absolute rightness floods me. It’s a primal satisfaction so profound it feels like coming home after a lifetime in exile.

Devon’s breath hitches. His body goes rigid for a moment, then melts, a soft whimper escaping his throat as his head falls to the side, giving me better access. He’s submitting to it. To me.

The realization snaps me back to reality like a whip crack. Horror washes over me, cold and sickening. What the fuck am I doing? I’m marking him. Unconsciously, like some feral animal.

I jerk away as if I've been burned, scrambling back until my shoulders hit the headboard. The space between us feels like a canyon.

"Sorry," I mutter, my voice raw. My heart is pounding, a frantic drum against my ribs. "I didn't—"

"It's fine," Devon cuts me off, his voice tight. He sits up too, pulling the sheet around his waist, but not before I see the faint red impression my teeth left on his skin. He touches the spot gingerly, his expression unreadable. "It's just... biology. Leftover instincts from the heat."

I latch onto the excuse like a drowning man. "Right. Just biology."

The air between us is thick with everything we're not saying. I can't look at him. If I do, I’ll see that mark and I might do something stupid. Something dangerous. Like do it again.

"So," Devon says after a long, excruciating silence. His attempt at casualness is a spectacular failure. "That was..."

"Just the heat," I finish for him. The words feel like I’m swallowing glass.

"Right." He nods too quickly, his eyes fixed on a spot on the wall over my shoulder. "A one-time thing. An emergency."

"Exactly." Each word is a lie that burns my throat. "We go back to how it was. Roommates."

He tries for a smile. It’s brittle, a pathetic crack in his composure. "Who still can't stand each other."

"Right."

My alpha instincts are howling, a primal rage clawing at my insides.

Mine. Liar. Protect him. Keep him. But the guilt is stronger.

The memory of sirens, of blood, of a phone call I should never have made.

I destroy everything I touch. Everyone I care about.

Before Devon, I would have welcomed the self-destruction.

Now, the thought of doing that to him makes me physically ill.

"I should..." I gesture vaguely toward the door, already reaching for my jeans on the floor. I need to get dressed. Get out.

"Yeah," Devon says, his voice flat. He still won't look at me. "Me too. I have... work."

I dress quickly, mechanically, my movements jerky and uncoordinated.

I’m desperate to escape the suffocating intimacy of the room, a room that smells like us, like sex and sweat and something broken.

Devon doesn't move, just sits there with the sheet pulled around him, a statue of forced indifference.

"I'll be out for the day," I say, pulling my shirt over my head. The fabric feels abrasive against my skin. "Working on my thesis."

"Cool," Devon says, his voice unnaturally bright. "I have a client meeting anyway. Big project with Richard Shaw."

"Great." I grab my phone from the nightstand, my hand shaking slightly. "That's... great."

Another silence stretches between us, this one even more unbearable than the last. It’s filled with the ghosts of the sounds he made, the feel of his skin, the taste of his surrender.

"Alex," Devon starts, then stops, his mouth working like he's trying to find the right words and failing.

I wait, my heart hammering against my ribs. Say it. Whatever it is, just say it so I can get out of here.

"Never mind," he finally says, shaking his head, looking away. "It's nothing."

I feel both relieved and gutted, and I hate that contradiction. I nod, not trusting myself to speak, and head for the door.

"See you later," Devon calls after me, his voice carefully casual.

I don't respond. I can't. Leaving him feels like ripping something vital from my chest. I grab my laptop and keys from my room, then practically run for the front door, not looking back.

Outside, the morning air is cool against my face, but it does nothing to clear my head. Devon's scent is all over me, a phantom limb. It’s in my clothes, on my skin. I can still taste him on my tongue.

I walk without direction, just needing to move, to put distance between myself and the apartment. Between myself and Devon. After twenty minutes of autopilot, I find myself outside a coffee shop I've never been to before. Anonymous. Impersonal. Perfect.

Inside, it's noisy and crowded, a chaotic symphony of other people’s lives.

It’s exactly what I need. I order the strongest coffee they have and find a small table in the corner, setting up my laptop.

Work. I need to work. Lose myself in sound and rhythm and pattern.

Forget the last three days ever happened.

I open my audio engineering software, put on my headphones, and stare at the blank project. My thesis is due in two weeks. I should be finalizing the mix, tweaking the levels, writing the accompanying paper. Instead, my hands hover over the keyboard, paralyzed.

The espresso machine lets out a high-pitched whine, a piercing shriek that cuts through the café's din. It hits the exact pitch Devon made when I first pushed inside him, a sound of pain and pleasure and pure, animal shock. My dick gives a traitorous twitch inside my jeans.

The rhythmic chatter of the couple at the next table fades into a dull murmur, their words indistinct except for a few that slice through my focus. “...so good... all of me... just like that...” They’re echoes of the things I whispered against Devon’s skin, the praise that made him fall apart.

My hands move before my brain catches up. I’m creating something new. Not my thesis. Him.

A sharp synth line for his sarcasm, cutting and precise. A frantic, complicated drum pattern for his restless energy, the way his hands are always moving when he talks. And beneath it all, a low, warm cello line for the vulnerability I saw in his eyes when he shattered in my arms.

It's him. I'm creating a sonic portrait of Devon Garcia, the most infuriating, fascinating person I've ever met.

The truth slams into me. This isn't distance. This isn't forgetting. This is obsession.

I stare at the screen, at the waveforms that somehow capture the essence of him, and I hate myself so fucking much in that moment. What the fuck am I doing? I ran away to protect him from myself, and here I am, building a shrine to him in sound waves.

I close the project without saving it. Stare at the blank screen again. My thesis. I have to work on my thesis.

But the sounds don't come. All I hear is Devon's voice. His biting laugh. The small, broken sounds he made when his orgasm ripped through him. The way he whispered my name like a prayer.

"Fuck," I mutter, running a hand through my hair, dragging my fingers against my scalp.

The chair opposite me scrapes against the floor, and I look up, ready to snarl at whoever is invading my space.

A kid, no older than ten, is retrieving a runaway toy car.

He gives me a shy smile and scurries back to his parents.

I watch them for a second—the mom laughing at something the dad says, the kid babbling about his car. A family. Normal. Happy.

A life I can never have. A life I don't deserve.

Control is all I have. All I’ve had since I stood at Ethan’s funeral, counting my breaths— one, two, three, in; one, two, three, out —so I wouldn’t fall apart in front of everyone. So no one would see the monster responsible.

Letting go, just feeling… that’s how people get hurt. That’s how Ethan got hurt.

I open the project again, the one I just closed. The sonic portrait of Devon. It's barely started, just a few layers of sound, but it’s more real than anything I’ve created in years. It’s honest. And that makes it dangerous.

This isn't distance. This isn't forgetting. This is me falling, and I don't know how to stop.

With a sudden, violent movement, I select the entire project and hit delete. A dialog box pops up, small and innocuous, asking a life-altering question: Are you sure you want to permanently delete this project? This action cannot be undone.

My finger hovers over the 'Yes' button. Do it. Delete it. Delete him. Go back to the way things were before. Safe. Empty. Alone.

But I can't. My hand is trembling. I can't erase him any more than I can erase the feeling of his skin under my hands, the taste of him on my tongue, the sound of my name on his lips. I can’t undo the way he looked at me this morning, just before the walls went back up.

I slam the laptop shut, the sound cracking through the café's din like a gunshot. A few people look over, startled. I ignore them. It's too late. The silence in my headphones is louder than his name.