Damaged Alpha Read online

  “Don’t make fun of me because I assumed you were a writer. Believe it or not, sometimes we get artists out here. They like the peace and quiet, the escapism and the beauty, of course. This town is a very well-kept secret.”

  “It sure is,” he said as he moved away from the pillar and came closer to her.

  The closer he got, the more his intense and incredibly handsome features seemed to power their way to her and send her heart into overdrive.

  “Do you mind?” he asked as he motioned to the empty seat next to her, and Melissa shook her head and moved slightly so he could sit down.

  Out on the terrace, there was plenty of activity, so they were kind of in their own little world. Around them, groups of people were singing and chatting, laughing and cheering as some of the guys with them ran down toward the shore and tore their t-shirts off over their heads.

  “Does this happen often?” he asked her as he looked down at the men who were running toward the water.

  “I guess so,” she half laughed. “Although, I think they’re completely crazy, have none of them ever seen Jaws?”

  He laughed, and his eyes glinted back at hers. His pupils were wide and dark, and he had small little wrinkles beside his eyelashes, adding to his character and making her want to know more.

  “So what’s the story?” she asked as she took a sip of her drink. “I know you’re not from around here.”

  “Well, with that, you would be right,” he said as he swigged his beer and leaned back in his seat, studying her.

  He had a way of looking at her that was as if he was staring right into her soul and was reading every little last bit of her.

  “Where are you from?” she asked.

  Although, as soon as the words came out of her mouth, she could tell she wasn’t going to get an answer.

  He shifted in his chair and looked out toward the ocean.

  “When you first meet people, the conversations are always so formal,” he said wistfully as he looked out toward the horizon. “The same questions time after time.”

  “I guess,” she said, trying not to blush.

  “Why not ask me something else, something that will really tell you something about me? None of the regular bullshit, something real…”

  His eyes were boring into hers and she didn’t know whether it was because she was a little drunk or because he could have quite possibly been the most fantastic person she had ever met, but she never wanted this moment to end. Everything seemed as if it were a dream, she was floating along in the moment and she had never felt more alive.

  She wanted to ask him something profound, she wanted to ask him the question that he was looking for, the one that would make him see that she was different. That she wasn’t like everyone else, or any other woman he had ever met before. But she was so nervous all she could manage was a wry little smile and a cheeky bite of her lip.

  He smiled back at her and she could feel her face flaming red. She wanted to flirt and sound exciting, but she was so out of touch with it all, she felt like a fool.

  “I couldn’t possibly ask you what’s really on my mind,” she said with a smile.

  She shocked herself with the candidness of her admission and she knew she was blushing from head to toe. He let out a roar of laughter and reached forward with his bottle of beer before he chinked it against the rim of her glass.

  “Well, I’ll drink to that,” he said with a smile. “And it’s very nice to meet you…?” he searched her face for an answer.

  “Melissa,” she answered quietly. “However, I have to say, you asking that question and needing to know was all very predictable and formal.”

  He winked at her and laughed again.

  “Maybe I just like being in control,” he said with amusement, and she felt a little twinge of excitement between her legs.

  “That’s good to know,” she whispered breathlessly.

  Her heart was in her mouth and she could feel the warm skin on his forearm brushing against hers. She had never known a pull like it and she could barely keep her hands off him, even though they had just properly met each other for the first time, and she didn’t even yet know his name.

  “You know what I’m going to ask now, don’t you?” she smiled cheekily.

  “I do,” he nodded before he took another swig of his beer. “But you don’t have to. My name is Nate.”

  He smiled and reached out his hand to shake hers. When she slipped her tiny palm into his and he gripped it, her heart thudded faster and her skin prickled with intensity. He stared deeply into her eyes and held her there, she was in such shock and awe she was unable to move and her whole head was spinning.

  “Very nice to meet you, Melissa” he said, still holding onto her hand, and she realized that she was gripping his back just as tight.

  She smiled and dropped it gently, and with reluctance.

  “You too, Nate,” she whispered.

  His eyes were dark and deep, fixed on her, and she already had the feeling that he was never going to let her go. But she had been there before and she knew she had to be cautious. His charisma was so heightened it was as if she would never be able to stop being addicted.

  “Hey, Mel!” Carly’s voice came thundering over the crowd as she bustled her way up to their table and looked down at Melissa and Nate with a big grin on her face. “Oh my God, so who is this?” she asked with wide but drunken eyes.

  “This is Nate,” Melissa smiled, as he rose to his feet to shake Carly’s hand and to smile. He offered her the seat and pulled another one into the fold.

  “Well, thank you,” Carly grinned. “What a gentleman.”

  He sure is, Melissa thought. A gentleman, a bad ass, and so much more…

  He looked over to Melissa and she could feel his warmth radiating toward her. He liked her. It was obvious, whether she was ready for it or not. She would be a fool to run away from someone as handsome and interesting as him.

  “Well, it’s very nice to meet you,” Carly grinned. “But I don’t want to impose, plus I have a bar boy to grind down.”

  She winked and got to her feet before she slipped off into the crowd. Melissa looked back at Nate and he smiled at her wryly again.

  It was just the two of them in one of the most romantic settings she had ever known.

  She was in trouble.

  All kinds of trouble.

  But she could tell already that it was going to be worth it.

  4.

  The band played on, and from their position on the terrace, Melissa and Nate half watched them, and half watched Carly wrapping her arms around the bar boy’s neck as she whispered drunkenly into his ear.

  “I wonder what she’s saying…” Melissa said with a cringe. “I know she’s going to be mortified tomorrow.”

  “Well, it sure looks like they’re having fun,” Nate mused as he took another swig of his beer and smiled across at her.

  They had been sitting there for what felt like hours. They had talked and joked on, spoken about all kinds of things and current events, but Nate had never really revealed anything about himself, and for that reason, Melissa had stayed guarded too. She didn’t want to be the one throwing all her information out there, she didn’t need to advertise herself in a This Is Me package, she was confident enough and had turned her new leaf so well that she was just going with the flow. She took his lead on conversations and it made everything seem so much easier. She was relaxed and happy when she spoke with him, and nothing felt forced or with a hidden agenda.

  “What time does this place usually close down?” he asked, his dark eyes on her again.

  “It depends, really,” Melissa said. “I mean, on a weekend, it’s a bit of a free for all. It could be around midnight, or people could be locked in for some drinks after hours and not go home until sunrise.”

  “Do you make a habit out of that?” he asked with a smirk.

  “Believe it or not,” she laughed. “No, I do not.”

  “Seriously?�
� his eyes were warm, and she could tell he was inside too. He was softer and more open because of the beer. He was relaxed and happy to be sitting there with her and it made her feel on top of the world.

  “Deadly,” she said with a stern face. “In fact, this is the first time I’ve been over here to The Boathouse in months. And it’s not like there’s a ton of other places in town to go wild.”

  She sipped her drink and then she put it down and reached for her purse.

  “I’m not much of a party goer myself,” he said. “But that’s not to say I wasn’t many years ago.”

  She tried not to blush. It was the first time he had referenced the obvious age gap between them.

  Nate certainly wasn’t old, but he was older than her.

  Melissa had never been very good at guessing people’s ages, but she thought he must be around forty, which would make him fifteen years her senior.

  Her chest flamed red with desire.

  When she thought about it, that was all kinds of hot.

  She bit her lip, looked down and smiled.

  “Well, I guess it’s just one of those things we all grow out of,” she said demurely.

  Nate nodded and smiled at her and then he rose to his feet and held out his hand.

  “I’m done here,” he said as he put his beer down on the table. “I need to get back to my bolt hole.”

  She felt a sag of disappointment and got to her feet too and they stood right up close to each other, their chests almost touching as the crowd flowed and ebbed and bumped them into each other.

  “I’m so glad we got to meet each other properly,” he said with a smile. He licked his bottom lip and Melissa felt her knees go weak. She was so close to him, and she could smell the delicious scent of his cologne, it was driving her wild and making her whole b0dy ache.

  “Me too,” she whispered.

  She wanted to ask him all kinds of questions. She wanted to know how long he was staying in town. She wanted to know where he was staying, what he had planned, who he really was and what he was even doing there… but she knew that she couldn’t.

  She stepped back away from him and smiled at him sweetly, and then he reached out and took hold of her by the shoulders, pulled her to him and kissed her hard but sensually on the cheek.

  Her pussy pulsed and she felt her nipples stand to attention, when he held her back at arms’ length and studied her again, she was practically panting, even though their lips hadn’t actually met and he had simply kissed her goodbye.

  “Good night, Melissa,” he said as he tipped his head down and gave her a mock salute. “It was an absolute pleasure.”

  He took a step backward and into the crowd, and she wanted to reach out to him, she wanted to shout “Wait!” but she had to hold herself together. It was like he was slipping through her fingers, and she had no way of trying to reach out to grasp him again. Her jaw dropped a little and she tried to form a word, any word, just to make him stay, but he was smiling as he backed away and he knew what he was doing to her.

  She smiled back at him and shook her head.

  “I’ll find you,” he said as he held her gaze. “I promise.”

  And then, just as sudden as he had come into her life, he had disappeared into the crowd and she could no longer see him.

  Her whole body felt electric and she was wired with adrenaline. She sat back down on the chair and brought her hand up to her mouth. Never, not in her entire life, had she ever felt like that after just a couple of meetings with someone. It was as if he knew her inside out. It was as if they didn’t need to know the official points of each other’s lives, their souls had connected in another way and everything else was just superfluous.

  She grinned and bit the edge of her thumb nail and looked out to the ocean. It was dark, but the moon was lighting up the waves and she could see them breaking white against the shore. Everything was heightened, and she was on the verge of something new.

  She had changed her hair, and she had changed her outlook, now she also knew that she was about to change her life.

  All she could feel was promise, and it was so exciting, she could have burst…

  Saturday mornings were not usually so luxurious that Melissa had the joy of not waking up to her blaring alarm at seven a.m. But thankfully, for the way some shifts had worked out, and the fact that Roz wanted to disappear the following week to a sun worshipping festival, she had been given it off, and she intended to use it wisely.

  Her alarm had been disabled and hidden at the bottom of her panty drawer. And when she woke up naturally to the little flecks of light filtering in from between the curtains, she rolled onto her back, stretched her arms up high and groaned as she pushed herself down into the mattress.

  It felt so good not to have to get up and dash around.

  She was going to savor every moment.

  She opened her eyes slowly and smiled to herself, and then, suddenly, like some kind of insane force, the memory of the previous evening came rushing back at her.

  She sat up in bed and ran her hands through her hair.

  Nate.

  She had met Nate.

  She bit her lip and pulled her knees up to her chest as she remembered the way she had seen him across the bar, the way he had been staring at her, and the way he smiled. When she had been sitting outside on the terrace and he had found her again, how he had come for her, sat with her, and made her feel alive for the first time in a long time.

  “Oh man,” she said as she lay back down with a sigh and looked up at the ceiling. “What a guy he is…”

  She smiled but, at the same time, she didn’t want to get in over her head.

  He wasn’t from her town, and that only meant that he was surely going to be disappearing again just as quickly as he had appeared. The thought, even though she still barely knew anything personal about him, was a hard pill to swallow. She knew they had a connection, and it was something she wanted to explore, not lose.

  She rolled over and grabbed her cellphone from the nightstand and rubbed her eyes before she braced herself for the glare of the screen.

  She didn’t know what she had been expecting, she knew that she hadn’t given him her number, but it still almost felt as if she should be waking to a text from him, and she felt unbelievably disappointed when there wasn’t one there. She rolled her eyes at her own stupidity and laughed to herself a little, before she punched in her key-code and went to her messages.

  She opened a new one to send to Carly and began to write…

  M: Morning! Wow, last night was pretty wild! How did it go with the bar boy once I left?

  She pressed send, and within half an instant, she had a reply.

  C: I was just about to text you, great minds think alike! Ha! Last night was fantastic, I had so much fun! Bar boy is slowly becoming the man of my dreams and it is only a matter of time before he falls head over heels in love with me ?? And what about you? WHO THE FUCK was the hot daddy you were sitting with?

  M: Daddy!? Please, never say that word again! ?? His name is Nate, and I can’t believe you were so drunk that you didn’t figure it out… he’s the guy that I’ve been raving about all week. The one who came into the bookstore, the handsome stranger on the motorcycle.

  C: Holy shit!

  M: I know!

  C: Tell me everything, what happened? Are you going to see him again?

  M: Not much to tell… we talked all night, he is wonderful in so many ways… and when it was time to go, he kissed me on the cheek and said that he would find me again.

  C: Find you again?

  M: Yes… I don’t even know where he is staying or how long he’s in town for.

  C: What the hell, why didn’t you grill him and find out all the important details!

  M: It wasn’t that kind of conversation… I can’t explain, it was just… different.

  C: Different?

  M: Yes… it was like none of that official stuff mattered and our souls were bonding on another level.
There was no stopping it. I can’t explain.

  C: You are a hopeless romantic. No wonder you keep getting your heart broken ;P

  M: Very funny! And I know to a certain extent that you are right, but trust me, this time it’s different.

  C: Well, he certainly seems like a nice, mature, and well-rounded guy. I mean, how many of the idiots around here would get up and offer their seat to one of us and then pull over another?

  M: I know *sigh* He really is different…

  C: Melissa’s in lurrrrvvveee

  M: I’m not arguing with you ??

  C: Oh Jesus!

  M: It’s okay, don’t worry. The guard is still up and I have no intention of being hurt again any time soon.

  C: Good to hear.

  M: What do you have planned for the rest of the day?

  C: Lying in bed, dreaming about my bar boy, and then probably going over to see my folks. What about you?

  M: Chilling… and then I don’t know… I may drag myself out for something to eat.

  C: Looking for Nate, you mean? ??

  M: Shhh.

  C: Keep me updated doll, love ya x

  Melissa smiled and let the phone fall gently down onto the top of the blankets and then she sighed. Suddenly, she felt irritable and raring to go, as if the idea of staying in her home all day just wasn’t going to cut it.

  She jumped up out of bed and wandered over to the window where she threw open the curtains and looked out at the stunning sunny day. It had been a long time since she had gone and sunned herself down on the beach. And she had the feeling that this was going to be the perfect day to rectify that situation.

  She wandered into her adjoining bathroom and turned on the shower. When she peeled her clothes away, she still felt turned on and full of excitement from the night before. It had been so much fun flirting with Nate and getting to know him, it was as if she was addicted to him already.

  She climbed into the water and let it flow all over her, waking her up and washing away the grime from the night before. Melissa was one of the lucky people who didn’t particularly suffer from hangovers, so once she was showered and changed, and had a fresh face of dewy make-up slapped on, she always felt as if she were ready to seize the day and go for it, no matter what she had been up to the previous evening. Carly was the opposite, she would fester all day and eat junk food, power drinking water and bemoan the fact that she had been so stupid.