In Doubt, page 5
“Why are you so goddamn determined to win the spot on the professor’s research team?” I ask her.
It’s a question I’ve wanted to ask her for a long time. I’ve never met such a driven omega. Single handedly dogged. Prepared to stoop to anything to get what she wants – including torturing me.
There will probably be no better time to ask.
“Same reason you are,” she tucks a strand of hair that’s come loose behind her ear and adjusts her glasses on the bridge of her nose.
I squint at her through the gloom. “And what’s that?”
The strand of hair slips free of her ear and she twists it around her index finger. “Professor Weaver is the best.”
I snort. “That isn’t an answer. There are plenty of other highly respected academics in the UK and abroad. Why Weaver? Why Weaver’s team?”
“Because … she’s prepared to run with new ideas, test new theories. She’s not wedded to the current way of thinking. She looks at everything critically and stands up for what she believes. She’s a woman in a field of stuffy, old men and she’s been prepared to go up against them when she has to.”
I nod. I can respect that too.
“I’ve wanted to work for her since the first day I met her. She breezed into the lecture hall and blew me away with her welcome speech. Showed us all these things she’d discovered. How they’d turned existing theories about how prehistoric people in Britain lived. I knew I wanted to be like her.” She shuffles along the trench and starts to scrape at the next patch of earth. “I’ve taken shitty internships every Summer. I even did one in the freezing cold up in Scotland over one Christmas. I’ve worked my butt off for this spot.”
“And you don’t think I have?”
She drops her gaze to the ground and I’m taking that as a yes.
“When I was six, I got dragged on a holiday to Greece with my parents. I remember being bored out of my mind. We were holed up in some luxury resort. There were no other kids and nothing for me to do. I kept getting yelled out for being too loud or touching stuff I wasn’t allowed to. In the end, I guess my dad realised he had to provide some form of entertainment for me so he took me to some ruin nearby and sat taking work calls while I climbed all over the thing. I don’t even remember what it was. I don’t think anyone actually told me. But it fired up my imagination. After that holiday, I wanted to visit old castles all the time. I’ve wanted to do this for as long as I can remember.”
“Digs mean actually having to get your hands dirty.”
“I’ve been on plenty of digs before. I do know.” I scowl at her. “That comment is pretty rich coming from the princess who lives in the mansion.”
“I didn’t always live there.”
She’s impossible. I don’t know why I’m even trying to make conversation. I pick up the discarded clipboard, checking what she’d scribbled on the sheet, before marking off the section I’ve just finished and turning to the next.
After a few minutes, she starts singing again. I grip the trowel so hard, I’m surprised it doesn’t snap.
How the fuck am I meant to get through the next few days without strangling the woman?
5
Giorgie
I’m hot and cramped in the trench. The scent of the alpha tickles my nose as I try to work. His scent is always domineering, just like him. Overpowering every other scent in the vicinity. Not that it is unpleasant. The opposite really. His scent is rich and flavoursome, sending unwanted tingles through my body. But it’s also imposing.
And, yes, I’m frustrated too, his scent making my skin tingle and my stomach swoop.
I squeeze my thighs together and huff out air through my nostrils, then rub at my nose with the palm of my hand.
The air is dusty too and stings my eyes. I try to blink it away. Then rock back onto my bottom, stretching my arms upwards to try to release the tension in my spine.
I glimpse towards Jake. He’s crouching forward, his left arm is braced against the ground as he works with his right. The sleeves of his linen shirt are rolled up and I can see the tight muscles of his biceps and the tendons in his arm, the trace of a tattoo peeking out from the material. My breath hitches a little.
He’s still pissed at me. I can tell by the angry creases lining his brow. That’s nothing new, though. He’s always pissed off with me. Just because I don’t simper up to him like every other girl on campus.
“Can you pass me my bottle of water, please?” I ask. My bottle’s rolled to his side of the trench and I don’t want to squeeze pass him to retrieve it. Don’t want to come too close to his body.
He harrumphs like I’ve asked him to lift half a dozen camels before hooking up the bottle in his big paw.
He holds it out to me and I’m forced to move towards him, leaning in to take it gingerly from his grasp, smelling his sweat beneath his scent and feeling his breath whistle close to my neck.
I snap off the lip and watch him as I bring the bottle to my lips and swallow several mouthfuls of warm water. He watches as I do, his gaze not leaving my face and in this dark, confined space, it feels strangely intimate. Like I’m stripping off my clothing in front of him and not simply taking a drink. My skin warms with the feeling and I have to force myself not to shiver.
I snap the lid back down and throw the bottle to the ground like it’s dynamite.
“You should drink more,” he tells me in that stupidly authoritative manner of his. The one that has the omega within me wanting to lie down on the ground for him. I shove her stupid ideas away, reaching for my sarcasm.
“Yes, Daddy,” I chime. His eyes widen and realising my mistake, my cheeks blaze.
“I … you should … dehydration.”
“I’m fine,” I gulp. “Maybe you should worry about yourself. I don’t want to have to haul an unconscious alpha out of this trench when you faint from lack of water.”
He splutters. “Faint? I don’t faint.”
“Everyone faints. It’s a biological process. Alphas aren’t immune just because you’re big and tough and burly.”
“Big, tough and burly.” He’s smirking again. I can hear it in his voice. Goddamn it. He has a way of making me say stupid things, things I don’t mean half the time or things that can be misinterpreted. “I’ve never fainted in my life.”
“Well, me neither actually and I bet I’ve had more cause than you to!”
“Oh yeah, you ever dislocated your shoulder?”
“No, but a cervical smear is no joke I’m telling you that.”
He’s silent and I realise I just invited this alpha to start thinking about my cervix. What is wrong with me? Why can’t I think straight today? Sometimes I wish I could keep my mouth shut.
But I wasn’t lying. I don’t like silences. Not when it’s dark and cramped like this. My mind has a tendency to lead me to places I don’t want to go. Dragging me back to times I want to forget. To that room. To that voice.
“I once fell out of a tree though, and got knocked unconscious,” I offer up, wanting to change the conversation away from my womb.
“It’s strange isn’t it? I’ve been knocked out three times on the rugby pitch. Woken up on a stretcher with all these faces peering down at me wondering where the hell I am. Once I lost my short term memory for a few hours through concussion.”
I wince. It’s why I hate that stupid game. “I remember,” I whisper.
I feel his hot gaze snap my way. “What?”
It was the only time I’ve ever been to a match. My friends had wanted to go and perhaps I was a little curious, wanting to see him play. To understand all the fuss.
He’d been jumping for a ball, reaching high into the air, his team mate lifting him off the ground. Then there’d been a clash of heads. He’d fallen and lain there unmoving. Limp. Lifeless. And for several long minutes I hadn’t been able to breathe.
I blink the memory away. Opening my eyes to find his on me. Their murky blue depths dragging me in.
“It’s a stupid game,” I mumble. “You should wear helmets. Like they do in the States.”
“Rugby and American Football are not the same thing,” he says with disgust.
“No, the Americans are sensible and actually wear protective clothing.”
“We don’t need it.”
“You just told me you’ve been knocked out three times, Jake!”
“And you got knocked out falling out of a tree.”
“I was racing my brother and I slipped. He felt so guilty afterwards that he brought me sweets and did all my chores.” I giggle. “It was nice to feel pampered while it lasted.”
“I always wanted a big brother,” he tells me. “Someone to play with, kick a ball around with.”
“You’re an only child?”
“Yeah.” He grimaces, a shadow passing over his face.
“Well, it’s not all sunshine and rainbows. We used to fight a lot when we were little and he’d tease me. Now he’s pretty protective. It took a lot of persuasion to convince him to let me come on this trip.”
“Why?”
I arch my eyebrow at him. Is he seriously that clueless?
“He worries about his little omega sister heading off to a strange country to work in the middle of nowhere.”
Jake mumbles something under his breath.
“What?”
He looks me straight in the eye. “Using scent blockers would keep you safe.”
I cock my head. “I know.”
He frowns at me and as usual I have no idea what I’ve done this time to piss him off. He could try using stronger scent blockers himself. His are pretty hopeless. I’ve always been able to smell him.
Thinking about his scent has me inadvertently sucking in a lungful, setting the gland at the back of my neck tingling in response and everything pulsing between my legs again. Stupid omega responses. His alpha scent, the richest and darkest of coffees, does smell good, and the way it makes my body feel is undeniably enjoyable. So, so what if occasionally I can’t resist a little sniff? A teeny tiny one. No harm in that, right? It’s like going to the toy shop and looking but not touching. Because touching, you know, will lead you to more harm than it’s worth. Burnt fingers and broken hearts. That’s all you get for playing with an alpha like Jake Grantham … Like him.
I peer over at Jake, catching his nostrils flaring. Did he… No, that can’t be right.
He swipes the back of his hand over his damp brow and I notice the way the hair around his temples has curled ever so slightly. It makes him look more boyish. Sort of … cute. I bet he’d hate that. Which means I can’t help smiling to myself.
“What?” he says with suspicion.
“Oh nothing,” I say innocently.
“What?”
“Nothing!”
“Why do women always do that?” he grumbles, dragging his trowel across the ground in a temper.
“Do what?”
“Clearly have something to say and then when you ask them what it is, reply with ‘nothing’. Do you do it to wind us men up?”
“Not everything women do is about men.”
“My mum used to do it to my dad in the middle of an argument, just to needle him, just to frustrate him even more.” He shakes his head in disgust.
“It was a thought in my head that was private and that I didn’t want to share. It was not intended to annoy you.”
He eyes me with further suspicion. “What thought?”
“A private one,” I mumble, twisting away from him and pretending to be very interested in the ground I’m scraping. I’m not letting Jake Grantham know that for one flicker of a moment I thought he looked cute. His ego is big enough already. And he isn’t cute. Not one bit.
He’s an arrogant, grumpy, player … who happens to be witty, intelligent and good looking as well. With a scent that makes my skin heat.
“Now I really want to know.”
“Tough. I’m not telling you.”
“You enjoy annoying the shit out of me, don’t you? You embark on it like it’s an Olympic bloody sport.”
“Believe it or not, I don’t actually give you much consideration. In fact, I hardly think about you at all.” And how good you smell. And how cute those little curls are. And how you could snatch my dream right out of my hands.
“Right,” he says, swallowing.
And for a fraction of a second he almost sounds hurt. That can’t be right.
6
Jake
The next morning, the professor stops by to see how we’re getting on and to let us know they are serving cold drinks and snacks in the main tent.
She wags her finger at us when she sees how we’re working at opposite ends of the trench and reminds us that it isn’t the most efficient way of doing things. Giorgie nods along but I know neither of us are going to change things up.
I strip off my gloves, rest my hands on the edge of the trench and hop out of the hole. Giorgie peers up at me with those big caramel eyes of hers behind her glasses, chewing her lip and eyeing the climb out.
I harrumph and hold out my hand. I spent the whole of yesterday watching her struggle in and out of the trench. It’s ridiculous. She’s so bloody stubborn, refusing my help every time. But we removed several layers of dirt yesterday and the trench is even deeper now. As much as neither of us particularly wants to hold hands, I suspect she doesn’t want to stay trapped in the trench either and I’m not so much of an arsehole that I’d leave her there.
She reaches out her hand and for a moment her palm hovers over mine before I wrap my fingers around hers.
Immediately, electricity seems to spark between our skin, and I nearly drop her hand in alarm. It’s the first time we’ve touched. The first time our skin has connected. And that’s never happened to me before.
But then I realise it’s only static. The air here is bone dry after all.
With a heave I haul her out of the trench, ensuring she lands neatly on her feet.
As soon as she’s out, I drop her palm, and she jumps away. I flex my fingers, that strange sensation in my skin still there, and notice she’s doing the same as I follow her towards the tent.
I stare down at my hand, wondering what that can mean. Wondering if it means anything at all.
We don’t talk as we walk; the tension that hangs in the air between us is even denser than usual, and as soon as we reach the shade of the canvas, she spots her friends and hurries away.
I grab myself a can of coke from a stack on a trestle table, the tin cold against my tingling palm, and I crack back the pull. Then I take a long gulp. This morning wasn’t as bad as I’d feared, the air had frisked in my favour and whipped most of Giorgie’s scent away from me. And yet it was still there, ever present, still is now, tugging at the corners of my mind, stirring my consciousness. Stirring my cock!
Stalking to the other side of the tent, I pull out my phone and check my messages. My packmates rarely emerge into the land of the living until mid-morning on the days that we don’t have training so I’m surprised to find they’ve already sent me a string of pictures of them lounging by the pool, looking relaxed and happy. Arseholes. I step out into the sunshine and snap a few photos of my own. Of the half exposed temple and the never-ending desert, both shining radiantly under the fierce sun.
“It’s really beautiful, isn’t it?” Her voice is a whisper, sort of reverence and I can’t help but look at her. Those goddamn eyes sparkling in a way that has my stomach flipping.
“It is,” I whisper back, noting the way the light catches in the strands of her hair making them almost golden.
She shakes her head, dragging her eyes away from the site and offers me a small package of food. “Here,” she says. “I have no idea what it is, but it tastes divine.”
I take it from her with a little suspicion. “Did you lace it with laxatives?”
The corners of her mouth twitch. “Perhaps. Although it wouldn’t be very smart on my count, seeing as I’m sharing a trench with you all day. I think you’re safe.”
I give the package an exaggerated sniff, then take a tentative bite. I chew and swallow then freeze, clutching my stomach. “Urgh!”
“What?!” she cries.
“Nothing.” I grin at her and she swipes her fist against my bicep.
This time I freeze for real, trying really hard not to stare down at the point where her knuckles grazed my arm, at the point where my skin is tingling all over again.
What the fuck?
“Can we get back to it?” she asks, not seeming to notice. “You can eat on the way, right?”
I peer back at the tent. Most of our colleagues lounge on chairs, enjoying their break. I have to hand it to her, Giorgie is ambitious and hardworking, and that is something I can respect. I agree and soon we’re back at the trench. I jump back into the hole and once again lift my hand to offer my assistance.
She stares at my hand, her own twitching by her side.
“I’m really not going to pull you in and break your neck,” I say with more softness and less sarcasm than I’d intended, knowing I want to pull her in and rut her senseless.
“It’d be about the only way you’d steal that spot from the professor’s team from me,” she says with a teasing smile.
“I don’t need to resort to underhand tactics like murder to beat you, smartarse.” I smirk at her, shaking my hand in her direction. “Come on. I want to get to work.”
She nods and starts biting at her lip again. Then with a little hesitation she takes my hand in hers and that same buzz of energy flies across my skin.
I gasp and the sound is echoed from her own mouth, her lips forming a perfect oh. But we both ignore this.
“Jump,” I tell her, maybe unable to stop myself from squeezing her fingers a little, “and I’ll cushion your landing.”
“Sure.” She gulps and then steps off the ledge and into the air, leaning her weight through her arm and onto mine. I take it and automatically my other arm wraps around her waist, ensuring her landing is soft.
