Alec walked in no particular direction once he cleared their suite.

“So much for a honeymoon,” he mumbled, pausing in front of the bay of elevators and tapping hard at the call button. He couldn’t help glancing back over his shoulders, when the lift doors swung open. But the corridor remained empty of a certain alpha Alec hoped would be chasing him down by now.

“Jerk,” he muttered as he pressed for the ground floor.

Once in the opulent lobby, Alec found he was even more aimless. Where to go? They had had their overnight bag sent ahead before their wedding ceremony, knowing they wouldn’t be holding a reception afterwards. And judging by the darkness outside, it was too late to venture home at this hour. Besides, he didn’t want to risk running into more gossip columnist hungry for scandal.

What could be more scandalous than a failed marriage that lasted less than twenty-four hours? Alec thought bitterly, fingers smoothing the creases on his white tux jacket. He lingered alone by the glass doors, arms wrapped around his middle, staring at the dark world outdoors.

It took him a moment to realize it was raining…and gusting hard. The snowstorm that gripped them a couple weeks ago had long mostly melted. They had sunny days and brisk late fall weather in between. The few pedestrians braving the night weather struggled with their umbrellas. One woman couldn’t get hers to turn over when it flipped up from a violent gust.

Alec shivered watching it, imagining how he’d have to struggle if he decided to leave now, catch a cab home. Not too soon after he started this debate, Alec turned at the approach of clipping footfalls, his hope dashed at the sight of a front desk agent.

“Sir.” The older gentleman gestured to the waiting area. “If you’re waiting on someone, we’ll ring them down, and you can take a seat over there.” His eyes were gentle, his smile friendly, and Alec really wished he was JT. Because there wasn’t anyone else who’d come and get him.

Instead of saying that aloud though, he said, “Thank you. But I have it handled.” More like croaked, his voice cracking, his eyes growing hot with tears.

If the older man noticed, he said nothing. He nodded and left Alec to man the front desk with a young woman.

Alec wandered to the waiting area, recalling how he’d sat here only two weeks earlier, waiting on JT, giddy that the alpha had thought his crazy idea…well, not so crazy. It was all for naught in the end. Sighing, Alec resisted the urge to draw his legs up as he sunk back into the armchair.

He sat up from his slouch when the old man from the front desk returned. He rolled a gold-plated tray stand over, the wheels whirling softly over the veined, blue-white quartz. On the tray was a daintily-painted, gold-lined teacup, along with bowls for creamer and sugar, and a teaspoon. He held it out to Alec, along with the saucer.

“Chai tea, sir,” he said, dipping his head and waiting on Alec’s response.

“Thank you,” Alec said again. Just then the lights flickered in the foyer. Alec turned his head up along with the older man.

“It’s a cold night. Bad weather. The lights very well might go out.” The old man smiled in spite of his portent, and left the tray for Alec.

Alec clutched the teacup as if it were his lifeline. He held onto it closely, taking a sip to warm his body, burn out the cacophony of emotions driving him into restlessness. Taking caffeine so late might very well backfire on him, and keep him up here all night. The alternative being that he head upstairs and pretend he was fine with JT speaking to another man right after having sex with Alec.

His hand shook as angry humiliation crested over him, Alec settled the teacup down on the tray, clasping his hands over his lap. He took cooling breaths. In and out. He did this while willing his heart rate to ease up before the beating, bloody muscle ripped out of his chest.

Alec spent what felt like hours down there. He finished his tea, the older man came over and rolled the tray away and still, no word from JT.

Sighing, Alec settled into the couch, his eyes drooping, and a yawn overcoming him. He would close his eyes for a minute, he promised. Only a minute.

Soon as they were closed though, Alec dreamed of being stretched out on a beach, with JT by his side. The alpha was naked, and…so was Alec, he realized. The sun kissing his bare skin, the warm rays stroking his lengthening, twitching cock. JT climbed over him, pressing him down onto the coarse, heated white sands of the emptied beach.

Where were the other beach-goers?

Where was the rest of the world?

JT lowered his head, his heavy, thick shaft resting over Alec’s stomach as he claimed his mouth, massaged them with his thin, warm lips, his teeth nipping onto his bottom lip and tugging playfully.

No. Alec didn’t want anyone else witnessing this, as he wrapped his legs around his alpha lover’s middle, and he wiggled, sliding up the sands to angle JT’s big cock at his clenching asshole. No one else should be here to see this…

“JT,” Alec moaned his name, the sound of his voice coming from far off.

“Alec,” he growled in return, pressing his hot mouth to his throat. “Alec,” he repeated again, blowing into his ear now, tickling him and firing off liquid warmth through his veins. All of it zeroed in on his groin, his cock bumping JT’s lower abs, yielding to his sweaty, hard body.

“Alec.”

Alec sprung from one world into another, the dream bleeding to the background quickly, before fading all together. In the place of the white sands and sun was the foyer of the L’Oiseau Inn, and JT’s face hovering close, his worried expression tempered by relief.

He shifted in his crouch. “You’re awake,” he observed, oh-so-cleverly.

If he weren’t embarrassed from the experience of the erotic dream, he’d have told JT to leave him alone…or something equally as childish. God, how was it that he lost all coherent thought around him. Especially when his desire got this bad. All Alec wanted to do was climb JT, beg him to carry him upstairs and have his wild way with his body.

Afraid he would succumb too easily to that yearning, Alec scrambled to a stand, adjusting himself slightly in hopes his hard-on wouldn’t be on display to not only the alpha, but anybody he passed as he made his way to the elevators.

Alec had come to a decision: he’d sleep upstairs for tonight. Then the first thing tomorrow, at the crack of dawn, he’d be out of there.

“You’re mad at me,” JT said. Another brilliant observation.

Alec stepped into the lift, his hulking shadow on his trail. JT tapped for their topmost floor… But then he tapped for the other four floors between, his back facing the lift doors as they slid shut. “We need to talk,” he said as way of explanation for clicking all the extra floors. The jerk.

Folding his arms over his chest, Alec stared at JT’s chest, forced to stare him down because he refused to look elsewhere. He wasn’t in the wrong here. He didn’t have to look away in shame. That was on JT.

“Just yell at me.”

Alec looked up at JT after that, meeting his gaze. “Yelling won’t justify anything.”

The lift doors opened on the second floor.

“But it’d make you feel better.” JT sighed, taking Alec’s breath away as well at the weight of agony shining back from his eyes. This…was eating him up too, by the looks of it. And he stared at Alec as if he were the one holding the key to unlock the happiness that’d kill this misery plaguing them both.

“What would make me feel better,” Alec said, testing the ground, watching the light of hope draw up JT taller than his six-foot-six…if that was possible, “is your explaining that call to Wren Forrester.”

“I can’t do that,” JT said quickly enough, stepping forward a bit as the doors opened on the third floor now. Like he’d long decided to be leaving Wren out of their conversation.

“Why not?” Alec bordered on whining, but he didn’t care. He needed to know what was holding JT to be so fiercely loyal to Wren. The beta had been a flirt. And he obviously knew JT. Friends possibly. But could they be lovers, too?

The elevator paused on the fourth floor.

Alec had heard the bit about the loan shark. Wren seemed to have run into trouble with one. Was that why JT had signed up? Alec knew he wanted money. He understood that. And it was fair. But was all of this for Wren? Had he married Alec, thrown it all away momentarily, in a true act of selflessness for his beta lover?

Throat tightening with disappointment, Alec tucked his bottom lip between his teeth and he stared at his feet. His eyes were blurring with tears, and his nose watered too. Ugh. It was bad enough he was about to cry, and it was looking like it’d be an ugly cry too, with the person he’d least prefer being a witness to his unfounded misery.

The elevator opened on the fifth floor.

JT meant nothing to him. This marriage of theirs was fake. Alec had no claim on the alpha, really. Or vice-versa. Which was why it shouldn’t hurt so damn much.

Why did it though?

“Alec,” JT called, his voice gruff, commanding. “Look at me.”

Alec shook his head sharply. And give JT the satisfaction of seeing his tears and snot? Yeah, no thanks.

Was it his imagination…or had the lights flickered?

It happened so suddenly, Alec’s mind took a moment to react. He yelped as the elevator lurched, the lights shut down and the lift whirring to a standstill. Alec remained in the dark alone, feeling like he was floating, like gravity itself had been shut off and he was bound to soar into cold, unforgiving space and die out there on his own.

The odd sensation of being hopelessly disconnected lasted for a suffering series of heartbeats and then JT swept him into his arms, his hard, warm body pushing Alec back against the mirrored back wall of the lift.

Alec realized they weren’t in the dark entirely now. The emergency lights had flickered on, and they cast a fearsome red glow over everything, including his alpha.

“Blackout,” JT said, smoothing a hand over Alec’s cheek.

Alec instinctively tilted into his rough palm, his heart rate slowing, his body easing from its fearful tension. The old man from the front desk had warned about the blackout happening. The gusts outside did look bad.

“We’ll be safe,” JT promised. “They’ll get us out of here.”

There was a long pause, and then JT said, “Wren is a friend. A very old friend who…he needs my help.”

“Because he needs money,” Alec filled in, croaking his words. He licked his dry lips, aware of JT’s attention dipping to his mouth. “I heard you. About the loan shark.”

“He needs my help is all.” JT lowered his head then, his mouth seeking Alec, their lips touching softly. Once Alec didn’t shove him off, JT added deeper pressure to the kiss, their mouths sealing together, slipping and sliding off each other, opening up where their tongues battled in the open for dominance.

JT claimed his victory by breaking their lip-lock, and turning Alec around. “Hands on the wall.”

Alec pushed back, knowing exactly what was coming when JT tugged Alec’s pants down and his own zipper rasped open, the sound deafening even over their heavy breathing. “We need to get you pregnant, don’t we?” JT hauled Alec back against him, his fat, weeping cockhead nudging his entrance. He rubbed Alec’s stomach. “Get a baby in there,” he said gruffly.

He eased into Alec. When he filled him up, he grasped at Alec’s front, fisting his cock and helping him relax his tense ass muscles. Sure enough, the pain gave way to pleasure. They were wired tight as ever.

JT humped Alec in time with his jerking hand. He pumped Alec to completion not too shortly after. Alec came with a shout, his wail turning into a long moan for JT. The alpha tucked his hand under Alec’s chin and turned his head back, locking their mouths and masking his roaring release as he flooded Alec’s ass again, his big, creamy load dribbling out of Alec and tracking down his legs.

Tucking them away swiftly, JT turned Alec to face him again and he took his mouth in a soft, probing kiss. Once he lifted his head back, the alpha murmured, “Forgive me?”

“I suppose,” Alec said, the note of teasing earning him another kiss, a fiercer one that curled his toes delightfully. Breathless by the time JT gave him reprieve, Alec sucked in air greedily, his nostrils doing the same as he wrapped himself in JT’s spiced, minty freshness. He must have taken a shower in Alec’s absence.

Suddenly struck with wicked inspiration, Alec smiled. “Show me how sorry you are.”

JT’s confusion heavy in his tone as he blurted, “How?”

“Show me,” Alec urged, massaging his hands over the corded muscles of his lover’s forearms up to his bulging biceps. “Take me,” he said more clearly, whining, “Please.”

This time, JT got his message loud and clear—and he responded most enthusiastically, hoisting Alec up against the elevator wall and holding him there until the lights flickered on and the lift crawled up to the sixth floor.

Once they were in their suite, JT showed Alec just how sorry he was after their first argument.