Page 10 of Roulette Rodeo (Jackknife Ridge Ranch #1)

WHAT'S MY NAME?

~RED~

L ooking up at him from the floor, I finally had a moment to truly take in this stranger who'd just demolished my entire understanding of self-control.

His scent wrapped around me like expensive sheets—luxurious, overwhelming, and impossible to escape.

It was mine but more, twisted into something distinctly masculine that made every omega instinct in my body scream mine .

The cherries I carried turned into cherry tobacco in him, rich and forbidden like something my grandfather would have hidden from my grandmother.

My spiced honey became bourbon-soaked amber, each note aged in charred oak barrels until it could make you drunk just from breathing.

The cherrywood smoke that clung to me transformed into sandalwood and gunpowder in him—danger and meditation wrapped in one impossible package.

But there was more, notes that were purely him: rain on hot concrete like Vegas after a storm, dark chocolate bitter enough to make your mouth water, elderflower wine that spoke of sophistication I'd never achieved.

And underneath it all, leather.

Not the cheap, synthetic leather of casino couches, but real, broken-in leather that had seen miles and stories and blood.

He smelled like what would happen if someone turned my scent into a weapon.

A lethal weapon…

"You're not supposed to be on this side of the gym," I said, trying to sound authoritative while flat on my back with non-functioning legs.

His lips quirked—not quite a smile, more like amusement at a poker table when you knew you had the winning hand.

"We're not supposed to be in this storage closet either, but here we are, hmm?"

"That's different!" I tried to sit up, failed spectacularly, and settled for glaring at him from my horizontal position. "This is the omega section. It's off-limits to alphas for a reason."

"And storage closets are off-limits to everyone without proper authorization." He shifted, and suddenly he was scooping me up like I weighed nothing, cradling me against his chest while my traitorous body melted into his warmth. "Yet you don't see me complaining about the company."

I huffed, crossing my arms over my chest while trying to ignore how his scent intensified with proximity. Trying to ignore the wetness between my thighs that had nothing to do with workout sweat and everything to do with the way he'd kissed me. The way I'd kissed him back.

My first kiss.

The thought hit me like a shot of Everclear—burning and disorienting.

Twenty-four years old, and I'd just had my first real kiss in a storage closet with a complete stranger who smelled like home and danger had a baby.

The unfairness of it made me huff louder, and I realized I was pouting when his smirk widened.

"Why is my sweet omega glaring at me?" His voice was whiskey-smooth, amused in a way that made me want to hit him again.

"I'm not your anything," I shot back, then pointed accusingly at his chest. "And you took my first kiss, so what are you going to do to compensate for such infiltration?"

One eyebrow arched—perfectly controlled, military precision in facial expressions.

"Your first kiss?"

The way he said it, carefully neutral, made me defensive.

"How old are you?" I demanded, deflecting.

"How old are you ?" he countered.

I could feel my face heating.

"Twenty-four," I mumbled, then louder: "And I'm not old to not have kissed anyone. I just have standards!"

"I wasn't judging." His tone was still neutral, but there was something underneath— curiosity, maybe. Concern. "But an omega your age, never been kissed? That's..."

"What?" I challenged, my chin lifting despite my compromised position.

"Unusual. Protected." His eyes swept over me, cataloging details like a sniper checking for threats. "You're making it seem like you've never fucked before."

The words were crude, deliberate, testing. My glare intensified, and I could feel my pout deepening, lower lip pushing out in a way that Nick had always said made me look like a child.

But this alpha's eyes tracked the movement with heat that was anything but paternal.

The silence stretched between us, heavy with implications.

"You're a virgin." Not a question. A statement, delivered with the same certainty he'd probably used to call in airstrikes.

I huffed, looking him up and down—all six-foot-four of tactical muscle and barely contained alpha dominance.

"For now, yes."

The words left my mouth before I could stop them, and I watched his pupils dilate, his chest rumble with a sound that was part growl, part purr.

He opened his mouth—to say what, I'd never know, because the storage door rattled violently.

We both froze.

His arms tightened around me instinctively, and I could feel his entire body shift into combat mode—relaxed on the surface but coiled to strike underneath.

"Maybe she's hiding in here?" A voice from outside, slurred with alcohol and entitlement.

One of the alphas from the gym.

"Nah, it's a damn storage unit. Only staff can get in." Another voice, younger, impatient.

"We have to go soon before we get caught?—"

"What are you doing on this side of the gym?"

Oh shit…

Briar.

I'd recognize that voice anywhere—cigarettes and challenge, wrapped in false sweetness when she wanted to be dangerous.

"Just looking for someone, grandma." The first alpha again, dismissive.

"Grandma?" Briar's laugh was razor blades in velvet.

"Honey, I've made more alphas beg than you'll ever learn in your childish life thus far. Now get your knock-off Armani asses back to your side before I call security. Or worse—before I tell your wives that you’re using for show why you're really here. "

"Crazy old hag," one muttered, but I could hear their footsteps retreating. “How the fuck does she know shit?”

“I don’t know! Let’s just move for now. We’ll hunt down that scent again.”

"That's right, run along." Briar's voice carried satisfaction. Then, quieter, almost to herself, "Where the hell is Red?"

Her footsteps lingered near the door for a moment, and I held my breath.

The alpha holding me— I still didn't know his name —remained perfectly still, his breathing controlled and silent. Military training, obviously. The kind that let you hide from enemies in worse places than gym storage closets.

Finally, Briar's footsteps faded down the hallway.

He waited another thirty seconds— I counted them —before moving.

Carefully, he set me on my feet, keeping one arm around my waist when my legs wobbled.

"I'll go deal with those alphas," he said, and it wasn't a suggestion. It was a tactical decision already made. "You stay here."

"I don't need to stay here." I bristled at the command. "I'm not a pet."

That smirk returned, and he leaned in close enough that his breath ghosted over my ear.

"My little cherry going to wait for her Daddy?"

L-Little cherry?!

My entire face went supernova.

The heat spread down my neck, across my chest, pooling low in my belly where it had no business being.

"How—how old are you ?" I stuttered, desperate to deflect from the way that word in his voice made me clench.

His chuckle was dark chocolate and sin.

He reached up, moving a few strands of my sweat-damp hair away from my face with surprising gentleness.

"Old enough to know better. Young enough to not care."

"That's not an answer."

"Thirty-two." He pulled back, and I could breathe again. Sort of. "I'll be back. Be good. Or at least wait for me."

"What if I don't?"

He shrugged, but his eyes held promise.

"Then I'll have to find you."

I laughed, soft and challenging.

"Good luck with that. But I'd like to see you try, Daddy Alpha."

The moment the words left my mouth, I wanted to swallow them back.

But the way his entire body went still, the way his eyes darkened to forest at midnight, the way his nostrils flared as my scent spiked with arousal?—

I unconsciously licked my bottom lip.

"All I need is your name," he said, voice gone rough. "That's it."

Then he was gone, moving through the door with silent efficiency, leaving me alone with the echo of his scent and the memory of his mouth on mine.

Did I have a daddy kink?

The thought was mortifying. I pinched the bridge of my nose, trying to focus through the haze of pheromones and terrible decisions.

Of all the things to discover about myself in a storage closet...

But Briar was looking for me.

I needed to go, needed to find her before she worried herself into doing something drastic.

The last thing I needed was her drawing more attention to my absence.

But I wanted to leave something. Wanted this alpha—this scent match who'd kissed me like I was air and he'd been drowning—to know who I was.

Maybe deep down I wanted him to search for me. To be found for once, instead of always hiding.

I looked around the storage closet desperately. Industrial shelving full of cleaning supplies, a mop bucket that had seen better days, and—there. A pad of sticky notes on a clipboard hanging from a nail.

I grabbed the pen attached, scribbling quickly: "My name is?—"

The ink ran out mid-word.

"Oh, come on!" I shook the pen violently, tried scribbling on my hand, even licked the tip like that would somehow magically restore ink flow.

Nothing.

I groaned, staring at the partial message.

This was ridiculous. I was being ridiculous.

I should just leave, forget this ever happened, go back to my velvet prison and pretend I hadn't just discovered what kissing was supposed to feel like.

But then another idea struck me.

I looked down at myself—sports bra, workout shorts, athletic shoes.

Then at the sticky note.

Then back at my outfit.

A smirk spread across my face.

"This is such a naughty Vegas thing to do," I said to the empty closet, already reaching for the waistband of my shorts. "But hell, why the fuck not?"

Vegas was built on bad decisions and unlikely odds. On betting everything on a single hand and sometimes, against all probability, winning. This alpha had found me in a city of three million people, in a gym that separated our kinds, in a storage closet that should have been locked.

If that wasn't fate laughing at statistics, I didn't know what was.

I carefully folded what I was leaving behind, placed it precisely where he couldn't miss it, and weighed it down with the defunct pen. On the sticky note, I’d wrote the only other thing I could think of before the ink ran out, but now it worked in my favor because it wasn’t my name, but something better.

Something that would tell him exactly who I was if he was smart enough to figure it out.

A clue. A puzzle. A game.

Vegas was all about games, after all.

And I'd just decided to play my first hand.

Would he figure it out?

Would he understand the message in what I'd left?

I smiled to myself, already heading for the door on legs that had finally remembered how to work.

This was insane. Reckless. Completely against every rule I'd built for my survival.

But as I slipped out of the closet, his scent still clinging to my skin like a promise, I couldn't bring myself to care.

He said all he needed was my name.

And maybe he’ll figure it out and keep his word.

Find me, Daddy Alpha.