Part I
1
“Ican’t do this,” I told my friend, Nikki, down the phone line. I stopped midway up the footpath to the restaurant, feeling the cool night air swirling around my legs. I looked down at my court heels, my hose covered legs, and worse, the flared skirt of the cute little dress I was wearing with a growing sense of trepidation.
I didn’t wear cute little dresses.
I didn’t wear heels outside of work, preferring jeans, sneakers, and the old band T-shirts I’d been hanging onto since high school. This was not me. I didn’t do these kinds of things, and I definitely did not meet hot alphas at swanky restaurants. I turned on my heel then, ready to go home.
“Yes you can, Sage,” Nikki replied via the phone speaker. Her tone was firm and allowed for no argument, which kept my feet where they were. “I saw the messages on Howlr—he’s hot for you.”
‘He’ was Lucien, a very tall, very muscular, hot alpha I’d been chatting with. I’d nearly bloody died when we matched on the app and he sent me a massage. Nikki had to come over and pour me a wine, then coach me through my initial responses when we started chatting, but she’d been kicked to the curb somewhere along the way as things grew a little more…heated in content. I pulled the phone away from my ear, putting Nikki on speakerphone so I could pull up the app and open the message thread.
I want you to come to the restaurant of my choice, Miss Sage, he’d said in the last message.I want you to feel free to order whatever the hell you’d like. I want to sit and talk face to face to the woman who’s messages I find myself reading before anything else when I start my day. I want to hear your voice, listen to your thoughts, discuss whatever interests you, and then…
My breath had caught in my chest then at the sight of those three little dots, and they did the same thing now.
After you’ve had your dessert, I want mine—in my house, in my room, you spread out naked across my bed, ready for me to devour from head to toe.
“Devour from head to toe, Sage,” Nikki said. “Every woman wants, at some point in her life, to be devoured from head to toe by a hot alpha. You have to do this, for yourself and for womenkind. You’ll bring back crucial knowledge about what it’s like, how it feels, and whether or not we should all toss our stupid boyfriends and husbands to one side and just go for exactly that.”
“Brian isn’t stupid,” I replied.
“He’s not offering to devour me from head to toe, is he? I’m happy if I can get him to put the damn seat down on the toilet. Do it for me, Sage. Do it for the stories you will be sharing with me over ice cream tomorrow night, if you can still walk that is. It’s non-negotiable. I’m living through you.”
“OK, OK, I’ll do it,” I said.
As if in response to that, a text came through.Inside, it read.Ask for the Smith table, and the maitre d’ will bring you to me.
Damn, this man could have a one-inch dick and be a three-pump chump, but right now, he was that delicious thing—the hypothetical fuck. I didn’t know how good he was in bed or how well endowed, whether or not he’d be able to follow through on all of his filthy descriptions, but I wanted to. It was tantalising standing here, on the brink of something potentially life changing.
Or not.
“But what if—?” I started to say.
“No what-ifs,” Nikki snapped. “None. No. Negatory. You’re gonna march your fine arse in there.”
“Pfft…” I snorted, aware I was having the most ridiculous conversation on the footpath as people passed by but unable to stop myself.
“Don’t. Don’t do that thing. Don’t start talking yourself out of enjoying something before it’s even happened,” Nikki ordered. “Devoured, Sage. You don’t call me, don’t say a peep, until you can tell me whether he lives up to the hype or not.” She let out a sigh. “Don’t you owe it to yourself to find out?”
She was right. I knew that, but it didn’t seem to calm the butterflies that were engaging in some kind of rave in my stomach. My spare hand rubbed over the generous swell there. I’d reigned it in as much as I could with shapewear, but…
“You’re right,” I said, snatching my hand away. “Bye, Nikki.”
“See you on the other side,” she said. “And text me your location, just in case he’s Hannibal Lecter or something.”
“Nikki!”
The call ended abruptly, leaving me just standing there like an idiot. I looked up the street and down it, then shoved my phone in my bag and slung the strap back over my shoulder. Apparently, one way or the other, I was getting devoured tonight, though hopefully not with some fava beans and a nice chianti.
2
I’d followed the waiter through the restaurant, out onto an expansive balcony, but when we arrived, it appeared ours was the only table there. I’d kept my eyes on a set point on the horizon the whole time, not wanting to meet any of the curious or not so curious gazes of other diners as I passed. So when we got to the table, it took me a moment to register the man standing there, but my eyes slid up, up, up when we came to a halt as I struggled to take him in.
Big, that was my first thought anddamn, that was the second. He’d have to have had his suit hand tailored, as he wouldn’t find one that fit a frame as tall and as muscular as his off the rack.
“Well…” he said, his voice a low purr, his big hand raking through his slicked back hair, then rubbing across his stubbled jaw before he came closer. “You look just as beautiful as I dreamed you would be.”