A Is for Alpha Male (11 page)

That’s
not
what he said? Well, he definitely should have.

Allison was mid-giggle, her hand laying flirtatiously on Wade’s forearm and her hair flipping over her shoulder, when her eyes made the slow journey across the room to me.

As soon as she saw me, she jumped back in her chair, shrieked, and brought her hand to her chest, perhaps to make sure her heart was still beating.

Geez.

I guess I was looking pretty rough.

“Haley, you need a shower. Sweet Lord, you look like you’ve been given a makeover by homeless people.”

I frowned, drew my brows together, and grumbled, “Geez, Mom. Don’t go easy on my feelings or anything.”

Her face turned serious as she said, “That
was
me being nice, Haley.”

Wade was chuckling, but at least had the decency to try to hide it. Danny was laughing outright.

Wrapping his arm around my shoulders and snuggling me close despite my less than favorable makeover, Danny said, “Come on, Dirty Haley. We’ll take turns showering.”

What he hadn’t told me when he mentioned taking turns was that he wasn’t planning on being a gentleman.

He had gone first, taken about an hour, and left me sitting in my filth the whole time.

I was also fairly certain this house had more than one shower, but no one bothered to point it out, and I thought it was probably best if I didn’t go snooping around Wade’s room uninvited. These days I would probably find all sorts of whips and chains and ball gags.

And then when I put those down and stopped playing with them, I would probably find something that made me really uncomfortable.

Now I was finally in the shower, but I still couldn’t seem to muster up any real anger. If I was honest, I probably would have done the same thing if there had been a reversal of roles.

Additionally, I was suffering from the major problem of “Horny-itis”. That’s the very technical, not at all made up, medical term for horniness.

Picturing Danny’s body in here just a few minutes ago, all soapy and wet and slick with tan skinned goodness, I couldn’t help myself. I was going to have to indulge in some self-induced pleasure.

I was doing it for the good of everyone else, really. I was afraid that if I didn’t do something about this, the woman’s equivalent of a raging hard on, I would end up choking everyone in the room with my sexual frustration.

And it didn’t seem like Danny was going to help me take care of it any time soon, so I was going to have to take care of this public service myself. He was perfectly flirty, but he was being careful not to take it too far.

He was stopped at the intersection of a glaringly green light, and it was starting to frustrate me. I was tempted to honk my horn and yell, “Yo! The light’s green, Asshole!” but I was fairly certain road rage didn’t work in these types of situations.

After all, maybe the guy just wasn’t interested.

What a fucking bummer that would be.

Reaching down between my legs, it didn’t take me long to find the right spot, circling and adding just the right amount of pressure to take me there.

No, not to the end of the rainbow. But I imagined it felt pretty similar, different colored streamers and a bucket of gold (AKA an orgasm) as a reward.

My release came quick, and it was a major relief, so I may have screamed out just a little. Unfortunately, it was still nothing compared to the real thing, or even what I could find with the help of a vibrator. But
my
hand was all I had, so it would just have to do.

I stayed in the shower for a few minutes longer, even though my to do list (wash body, wash hair, get off) was finished, just letting the warm water sluice down and around the valleys and peaks of my womanly body.

Turning to look over my shoulder, I found the knob, turned it to the off position, and opened the glass door of the shower to grab my towel.

The contrast of the cool air made me shiver almost immediately and work that much faster to get myself completely dried off and wrapped up like a burrito.

Flipping my fall of wet hair behind me so that it hung heavily down my back, I unlocked the bathroom door, flipped off the light and exhaust fan, and lifted my head to Danny’s bedroom in front of me.

Startled, I screamed, “Ahhh! Jesus! Holy shit, Danny,” in a height of pitch that was generally only distinguishable in the canine species.

Danny was sprawled out on his bed in front of me, apparently waiting on me to come out of the bathroom, and he had my kindle open and fired up.

I would have thought that his eyes would have come up faster at my shrieking, but apparently he was too engrossed in what he was reading, their hazel orbs slowly peeling upward to meet the image of me in only my towel in front of him.

His eyes were locked on my body, and I could tell they were trying to make it up to meet mine, but were instead stalled out at mid thigh where my fluffy white protection ended.

I wanted him to want me, but that much intensity in a stare was making me nervous.

In an effort to snap him out of it I questioned, “Jesus, Danny. What are you doing in here?”

My voice seemed to break the spell, and green enveloped wheat finally met turquoise. “Uh, I thought you would get dressed in the bathroom,” he managed to choke out through a smirk.

“Only men get dressed in the bathroom!” I informed him. “Women have too much to do, lotioning, and prepping, and making sure our skin is the definition of dry before putting clothes on it.”

When he raised an interested eyebrow at me, I enlightened him even more. “Men will put their clothes on while their bodies are still damp. We women have no idea how you could stand to do such a thing. And the bathroom is still all steamy from my shower and will be that way for several minutes. There’s no way I could get dressed in there and be completely dry before doing it.”

Danny just laid there, his unique eyes blinking at me, possibly trying to decide if he had ended up in some crazy alternate universe.

Bringing things back on topic, I asked, “Now, what are
you
doing?”

His eyes flashed mysteriously, a full smile graced his face, and he stated, “Oh, mostly reading.”

“Mostly?” I asked.

“There’s a lot of sex in here. I’m really starting to understand “V” and “X”,” Danny answered without actually answering at all.

“Sex is important,” I defended.

Moving quickly and lifting himself from his prone position to sitting at the edge of the bed right in front of me, Danny agreed, “Oh yeah, I agree. I’m just getting a little more understanding of what you like.”

God, he was so close, and the air actually
felt
sexually charged, so heavy it was almost suffocating and crackling with unconfined electricity.

I wondered what he would do if I just dropped my towel. My hand holding it closed twitched with the urge, and my teeth sunk into my bottom lip with anticipation.

Unfortunately, that was as far as it got.

Taking out his imaginary gun and blowing my idea to smithereens, he finished, “You know, so I’ll be more help in narrowing down the field of guys out there.”

Fuck
.

It obviously wasn’t his intention, but that statement was like a big, meaty handed slap to the face.

It was time to let go of the hope and realign my priorities here. I wanted him to be my friend no matter what. I needed to focus on that and open my eyes back up to the possibility of other guys.

I was tempted to complain about how unfair life was, but it was beyond obvious that that would be the very definition of “First World Problems”, so I refrained.

Instead, I kept my pout on the inside, moved to the side of the bed and leaned down, careful to keep myself covered, picked up my pink tote bag, muttered a quick, “Thanks Danny,” and then shut myself back in the steamy bathroom to get dressed.

Damp skin didn’t seem like such a big deal when the choice came down to either that or humiliation.

“YOU OKAY, BABY girl?” my mom asked as we settled into the bed facing each other that night.

I was good at keeping up the positivity and jokes, and manifesting a pretty good depiction of happiness, but my mom could always see it in my eyes.

“Yeah, Mamalicious. I’m fine. Just a little disappointed is all,” I answered as she reached out and took my hand in hers. “It’s pretty clear that while Danny may be flirty, he doesn’t want our relationship to go anywhere other than friendship.”

Allison’s hand squeezed mine and her eyes were filled with sympathy. “Then you know what to do. You are not the kind of woman who needs a man, Haley.”

“Yeah, but I really want one,” I whined.

Allison giggled and said, “Then keep looking. But don’t forget who you are in the meantime. We’ll go to the beach tomorrow, relax and get an even darker tan, and then we’ll hit the road. We’ve got a lot of places to see.”

I wanted to say thank you, but instead I just said, “Sounds like a plan.”

Allison apparently took my words at face value, drifting seamlessly into an even breathed, sound sleep.

My mind, however, wouldn’t turn off, turning over the night’s events and the complicated mixture of my feelings in an endless loop.

Danny had been gone when I came out of the bathroom, and I figured it was to avoid what would surely be an awkward moment.

He had to have been getting tired of me trying to flirt with him when all he wanted was to be my friend.

I would do my best to modify my behavior, but part of it came too naturally to change. If he thought attitude was an avenue for flirting, we were in trouble. I had it in spades, and I couldn’t turn it off. Enough guys had wanted me to be serious in the past, but not only was the sarcasm who I was, I honestly couldn’t control it.

And I didn’t want to.

That was part of Danny’s appeal. He didn’t seem to mind my mindless babbling and ridiculous tangents that were both riddled with inappropriate commentary. He seemed to embrace it.

When I had gotten my act together and wandered down the hall to the porch, everyone had had some type of drink in their hand and the atmosphere was light.

Danny’s eyes met mine, and I could tell he was trying to reassure me that everything was as it should be between us, despite my embarrassment in the bedroom.

I mean it wasn’t like I had dropped my towel, but my face combined with my actions had pretty clearly painted the picture of my unrequited feelings.

Eager to diffuse the stiffness of mood I felt, I had convinced everyone to play a messed up version of Twenty-one Questions where you can only ask questions with the word “suck” in them. I called it “Twenty-one Questions Can
Suck
It”.

You can still ask innocent questions; it just forces you to be creative.

Would you rather suck on a lollipop or crunch it until you get to the center?

What’s the suckiest moment you’ve ever experienced?

What’s one action you committed for which you deserved to be called a cocksucker?

If you could suck a celebrity, who would it be?

The last one took a few creative liberties, but it still worked.

You might also be thinking that Allison would be opposed to a game like this, but she was used to it. This was the only version Hunter and I ever played.

Danny and Wade had been good natured in their answers and fun and creative with their questions, but one thing had bothered me.

When asked about his suckiest moment, Danny had lied. I didn’t know how I could tell, but I could. And I knew he did it on purpose.

I know sometimes people make up memories or embellish them in this kind of situation due to a hazy memory.

But not Danny.

He hadn’t forgotten it. He never forgot.

Something about the lie had made him seem so vulnerable, like there was a whole other layer underneath.

And I desperately wanted to know about it.

Ugh.

It was the height of irony, really. A lie, and the secrets it masked, being the thing that haunted and niggled at the conscience of someone, whose one and only rule was honesty, the most.