What kind of self-respecting casino owner, even one who might be in massive debt, lived like this? Fuck.
In a fit of pique, I went back out into the living area and picked up the phone on the desk in one corner of the room. A quick glance through the folder next to the phone, and an almost as quick conversation, and about half of the hotel’s room service menu was on its way to the suite. I slammed down the phone with a sense of petty satisfaction. Fuck MacKenna. If he wanted to neglect me, and keep my phone and watch and wallet—which had conspicuouslynotbeen returned with my other personal effects—then he could pay to keep me in a style slightly closer to what I’d been accustomed to.
My satisfaction wore off quickly, though, as I paced the suite like a caged—well, alpha werewolf. I’d spent a lot of time in hotels over the years, but I never got used to the way the windows didn’t open. And MacKenna’s suite didn’t have a balcony or anything. The lack of any breath of a breeze, that feeling of cooled and processed air on my face, and the sense of enclosure had me more than on edge.
Especially since I had the distinct idea it wouldn’t go great for me if I tried to stage an escape. The Morrigan had the normal complement of cameras for a casino hotel, meaning fucking everywhere. MacKenna would catch up with me. Even worse, he’d probably send his security staff to catch up with me instead of doing it himself, and I’d get to relive yesterday’s humiliating experience of being removed from the casino floor.
No thank you.
Honestly, staying here waiting to suck his cock was better than that.
Because I was pretty sure it wouldn’t be so bad next time. I mean, he hadn’t even said anything about the fact that I’d come. And now I knew what it felt like to have his cock stuffed down my throat and his knot in my mouth. Licking and sucking on it after he’d come in me hadn’t even been so bad, really, had it? I mean, not my favorite. Disturbing. And too submissive for my tastes (so to speak, haha, I fucking hated my own sense of humor sometimes).
But not worth being publicly shamed in order to avoid it.
Besides. He’d been so damn sure I’d give him a terrible blowjob, or that I’d chicken out.
Fuck him. Castelli alphas weren’t cowards.
Except for my father, and he hadn’t even been an alpha.
So fuck him too, twice over.
The knock at the door startled me out of my pacing and snarling, and I got myself together in time not to terrify the waiter who came in pushing the world’s most laden room service cart.
All right, that was more like it. I had him set it up in the little dining area by one of the huge windows, tipped grandly on the receipt because that was just what you did even when you were broke, and sat down, opening my mouth to let him know that was all.
We both jumped an inch as the door rattled and slammed.
A moment later, MacKenna strode in from the entryway, sleeves rolled up and jacket bunched in his hand, with that lock of hair hanging onto his forehead again. He stopped dead when he saw me, eyes glowing faintly and cheeks flushed, scowling like I’d thrown the bowl of lobster bisque at him instead of simply trying to eat it.
“The hell is this?” he demanded.
Part of me, a large part, wanted to dive under the table. “It’s my lunch,” I said as evenly as I could manage.
The waiter’s nervous throat-clearing interrupted whatever else I might have said. “Mr. MacKenna,” he quavered, sounding like he might be joining me under the table with his arms over his head. I couldn’t blame him. He smelled like a shifter, and with two alphas in the room, one of them furious and the other on the point of murdering everyone if he didn’t eat soon? Yeah, that would make even a human, let alone someone who could detect the gathering magic with his shifter senses, want to run away screaming. “I’m so sorry. Um. The order was placed from your suite’s phone. We didn’t mean to—”
“It’s fine,” MacKenna said, tearing his eyes away from me with a visible effort and focusing on the waiter. And then MacKenna—smiled. A genuine smile. One that made his eyes crinkle at the corners in a way that anyone would’ve found devastating, and by the waiter’s body language, leaning a bit toward him, his own eyes widening…he wasn’t immune. WasthisMacKenna’s type? This skinny little dark-haired guy with a button nose? “You got an order, you brought it on time and efficiently, good work. Tell the kitchen it all looks delicious. You can head back down now. Let me just see that receipt for a second.”
My mouth had dropped open, and I snapped it shut with a click, my fists clenching at my sides. I gaped at them as the now-beaming and eyelash-fluttering little jerk who’d brought my food handed over the receipt. Seriously? All these smiles and nice compliments for some random employee who’d just been doing his job? And I wasn’t allowed toeat lunchwithout getting glared at and intimidated?
“Oh,” MacKenna said, his brows furrowing as he looked down at the receipt. “Fine.” He handed it back. “That’s all, thanks.”
“Thank you, sir,” the waiter purred, and he headed for the door. Swaying his hips? Definitely swaying his hips. That was so unprofessional I couldn’t believe it. But MacKenna wasn’t looking. He’d turned back to me, scowl fully in place again, and my eyes flashed to his like they were magnetized.
“You know,” he said into the ringing echo of the door shutting behind the asshole waiter, “I’m going to add your three appetizers, two entrees, and three fucking desserts onto the bill you’ve already run up with me.”
Okay, no. Fuck him. I stood up, dropping my spoon with a splatter of (really delicious-looking, just like MacKenna had said, dammit) soup and kicking my chair back with a thump.
“So sue me for having a sweet tooth, MacKenna. If you’re going to—”
He took a single step forward, and it was enough to shut me up, the words withering on my tongue. Because the flash of his eyes and the way he flexed his hands, claws obviously almost popping, was nothing compared to the sudden thickening of the air around us, the almost physical weight of his alpha power.
MacKenna sucked in a deep breath, obviously getting himself under control.
That was even more intimidating. Alphas had a reputation for going off half-cocked for a reason; we didn’t usually have the best control of our instincts and our emotions.
But MacKenna had been able to turn off the alpha anger in order to flirt with the waiter. He could rein it in now. He had control.
