The Alpha’s Two Angels: SoCal Cuties — Book 3 Read online

  The Alpha’s Two Angels

  SoCal Cuties — Book 3

  Aspen Grey

  Contents

  Scent of the Author

  Also by Aspen Grey

  1. Sasha

  2. Jace

  3. Arnold

  4. Sasha

  5. Jace

  6. Arnold

  7. Sasha

  8. Arnold

  9. Jace

  10. Sasha

  11. Arnold

  12. Jace

  13. Sasha

  14. Jace

  15. Sasha

  16. Arnold

  17. Sasha

  18. Arnold

  19. Jace

  20. Arnold

  21. Sasha

  22. Arnold

  23. Jace

  24. Arnold

  25. Sasha

  26. Jace

  27. Arnold

  28. Jace

  29. Arnold

  30. Jace

  31. Arnold

  32. Sasha

  33. Jace

  34. Arnold

  Epilogue

  Scent of the Author

  Also by Aspen Grey

  I. An Omega For Two

  1. Max

  2. Sawyer

  Scent of the Author

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  Also by Aspen Grey

  Scarlet Mountain Pack Series

  Texas Heat Series

  Foxes of Scarlet Peak Series

  SoCal Cuties Series

  Chapter One

  Sasha

  Worthless.

  Terrible.

  Liar.

  Home wrecker.

  Psycho.

  You’re not good enough for love. Just do your job, get the money and keep going. Survive.

  Those were the thoughts going through my mind as I stared at tonight’s John who was grinning at me out the window of his Lamborghini, casually flashing two hundred-dollar bills at me like they meant nothing to him. They probably didn’t.

  Five years ago we would have jacked that car from you, I thought miserably. Sold it and left you high and dry.

  But the life of a car thief, or at least the scout of a gang of car thieves, was behind me now. Now I was nothing but a San Diego streetwalker, a working boy, a night gentleman, or to put it very simply—a whore.

  When I’d been working for Cash, the boss of the gang I used to run with, money had come and gone like water. Turn on the faucet and there it was. If it went down the drain, there was more of it ready whenever. And I had been low on the totem pole as far as the organization was concerned. I couldn’t even imagine what Cash had been making.

  But Cash was gone now, as was the rest of his gang, killed by Jedrik, my ex-boyfriend, after I’d done the most insanely stupid thing of my life and gotten him involved in my bullshit.

  Jedrik and I had had the most quintessentially, stereotypically terrible relationship you could imagine, and it was pretty much all my fault. Having grown up with a manipulative mother who eventually drove my father away from us, I had no examples of how to love someone. All I knew was that I didn’t want Jedrik to leave me, and I’d do whatever it took to keep him from doing so, and that usually meant some pretty unsavory behavior.

  But he did leave me, and rightfully so. I’d wandered around aimlessly for a while, lost in my own despair, before running into Cash and his goons one night at a bar downtown. They’d put me to work and made me feel useful. I’d managed to keep my nose clear of my ex but when I spotted him with not one omega, but two, I lost it.

  I stalked them, tailed them to his house and caused a ton of trouble for all of them, all of it culminating in a battle between Jedrik and Cash that had almost cost Jedrik his life.

  Looking back on the person I was then, I could hardly believe what I’d done, and every day when I woke up I vowed to never put another person through my insanity again. I wasn’t fit for a relationship. No alpha would ever have to deal with me. I was alone and that’s how I was supposed to be. I knew I’d done horrible, terrible things and that I’d have to spend the rest of my life paying for them.

  “So, we doing this or not?” the John asked, snapping me out of the rubble of my thoughts. I looked up at him.

  He wasn’t that bad. He was one of those rich assholes who was running around with his daddy’s money and whatever the latest fashion trend was, but he was at least moderately handsome. His Lambo stank like cigarettes, though.

  People still smoke? I thought as I grumbled and opened the door to his car and got in. He smiled and started to pull away, but I put a hand on his leg and pointed to an alley across the street.

  “Over there,” I told him. He flashed me an indignant, entitled look and scoffed.

  “I ain’t going in some stinking-ass alley to get some ass, sweetie.”

  Sweetie. Johns always loved having a pet name for you.

  “Well, then you aren’t getting any,” I told him, moving to get out of the car.

  “All right, all right,” he said quickly, adjusting his semi beneath his sweatpants. He was horny, which meant he wasn’t thinking with the right head, and slowly maneuvered his two-hundred-thousand-dollar car across the street to the alley I had designated.

  This was the only place I’d do anything, as it was also where Jace would be waiting to make sure everything went okay and I wasn’t in any danger.

  Jace was, for all intents and purposes (except one), my boyfriend. We’d met on the street where he’d been working for two years already, and he’d taken me under his wing immediately, showed me the ropes and made sure I was all right. Had things been different in both of our lives, I could have seen us falling in love with each other, but life had a cruel way of sticking it to you.

  Jace never knew his parents. He grew up in foster homes in Los Angeles before he broke free at sixteen and came to San Diego. He was a beautiful, beautiful man now, but he was wounded, like me, and we had both vowed to never open our hearts to another person for as long as we lived.

  The risk was just too great and the payoff was never worth it. The few times I’d tried to get involved with an alpha, I’d just been tossed aside like garbage.

  “Yeah, you’re fun for a fuck, but you’re just not relationship material,” they’d say.

  “I mean—I don’t think we’d ever have anything serious together, ya know?” That was another one I’d heard before I started to realize that a traditional life just wasn’t for me.

  So Jace and I were together, but not really together. We had a place in Mission Beach together, a crappy place but any place was better than living on the streets. We cuddled, confided in each other, slept together but that was it.

  I think partially we understood that sex led to feelings—love—and we both had decided not to ever go there again. But also, after working the streets all day, coming home and having sex all over again was the last thing either of us wanted to do. We wanted a shower, a ton of soap, something good to eat and a warm, caring friend to cuddle with.

  So that’s what we gave each other. I looked out for him and he looked out for me, and as the Lambo pulled into our alley, I smelled his scent of delicious fresh cream and eyed the shadows of a loading dock where I knew he would be waiting, looking out for anything that might put me in danger.

  The John put the sports ca
r in park and looked over at me expectantly. I nodded to the cash.

  “Don’t wanna throw me a freebie?” he asked.

  “What?” I retorted. I’d heard this a million times before. Cute guys, who think they shouldn’t have to pay for sex, showing up and offering to pay, then pulling out at the last minute.

  “Come on,” he protested, squeezing my leg and giving me his best puppy dog eyes. “I’m a good-looking guy, right? Better than the sleaze you normally get around here? Why not toss me a freebie?”

  “Listen, asshole,” I snapped. It had been a long day and I didn’t need this shit. “You knew the score when you pulled your fucking douchebag car up beside me, okay? You’re not hurting for cash, so either hand it over or fuck off. I’ve got a job to do.”

  “Okay, okay, okay,” he replied, handing me the two hundreds. I stuffed them into my pants pocket and looked at him. “No need to get so pissy about it.”

  “Pissy?” I retorted, getting even more angry. “You want me to just take your money and go?”

  “Oh, that wouldn’t be a good idea,” he replied.

  “What are you gonna do?” I asked, knowing Jace was readying himself if this encounter went south. “Tell the cops I stole the money you paid me to suck your dick? I don’t think so.”

  “No,” he smiled dangerously. “I’d just beat you within an inch of your life, fuck your face while you’re lying there passed out and then take my money back. That’s all.”

  I stared at him, wondering just how serious he was and whether or not I really had to be worried. Just before I really started to worry, his face broke and he burst out laughing.

  “I’m just shittin’ ya!” he cackled, holding a hand over his stomach. “I’m not a psycho Come over here and suck my dick.”

  Chapter Two

  Jace

  My heart began to settle down and my fangs retracted back as I saw the John laugh and the tension from Sasha’s body vanish.

  Close one.

  I’d stripped down, readying myself for a shift to my panther form if I had to jump in to protect him, not wanting to waste yet another set of clothes on some dickhead in a Lamborghini.

  I’d thought he was going to end up being a real American Psycho-type bastard, but it turned out he was just a rich prick with a perverse sense of humor. I guess the car should have told me that.

  I felt my usual heart pangs as I watched Sasha go to work, and told myself the same thing I always did when I had to look out for him.

  This is his job. It’s yours too.

  We weren’t quite boyfriend and boyfriend, but we weren’t just friends either. There was something more there, something unspoken between us that we both understood but were too afraid to act on. We were both wounded and afraid, and I felt as though our relationship was like a weight balanced perfectly on a glass table, and adding just a single atom to it would cause the entire thing to collapse. There was no room for love in the real world. All there was was the street, money, and survival.

  I closed my eyes and inhaled the sweet scent of raspberry pie that belonged to Sasha, doing my best to ignore the thick, pungent odor of the dickhead alpha in the sports car with his head tilted back to the sky and his mouth hanging open like an idiot.

  We used to work together, but stopped (for the most part) after a really bad night at a motel when a John had gotten violent and ended up almost breaking Sasha’s nose. I’d managed to get us out of there when the bastard picked up a screwdriver and started waving it around, but I was no alpha, and I knew that in a situation like that it could have been easy for both of us to end up in some serious trouble. The only reason I was able to help him now was the surprise factor.

  If someone fucked with him, I’d shift and hit them from behind before they knew they were even under attack. Then Sasha would shift and we’d sprint away before the jerk had a chance to scramble to his feet. It didn’t happen often, but it was enough that I’d been praying for something to happen in our lives to give us a way out; a career change or someone to look after us both. But of course, that would never happen.

  Who wanted to hire two working boys, one of them an ex-car thief? What exactly would we put on our resume? For now, this was the best we could do, but what could I really expect from a couple of broken individuals like us?

  Even though things looked to be going well with this John, I kept my eyes on the other ends of the alley. There had been a crazy guy running around San Diego preying on working boys, beating them up and sometimes killing them, and as a result, everyone who was on the street was on high alert. There was no way we’d actually run into him, what with the size of the city and all, but you could never be too careful.

  “Shit, yeah!” the Lamborghini guy growled and I looked over to see Sasha’s head come up from inside the car. He spit on the alley as I slid back into my clothes, and I uncapped the bottle of water I had ready for him.

  “Thanks,” I heard him say to the alpha as he got out of the car.

  “Thank you,” the alpha replied as he turned on his car and drove away. Once his headlights vanished around the corner, I stepped out of the shadows and over to Sasha.

  “Here you go,” I told him. He took the water eagerly and swished it around like it was mouthwash before spitting it out and repeating the process all over again. “That guy seemed like a prick.”

  “Small prick,” Sasha replied, holding up a pinky finger. I grinned and wrapped an arm around him. The night was dark but he was like a warm light against it, and I couldn’t wait to get him home, showered, and back in bed with me so we could snuggle and pass out.

  “Of course,” I laughed as I took him and led him back towards the street. “What’d you get?”

  “Two hundred,” he replied.

  “Wow, that’s pretty good,” I told him. I’d made only $120 earlier, but with his takings we were probably good enough for the night. After all, there was a killer on the streets and it wouldn’t hurt to get back to our apartment. “Wanna call it a night?”

  “You think that’s wise?” Sasha asked. “I mean—we do owe rent in a week.”

  “We can handle that tomorrow,” I replied, pulling out my phone to buy a ride from one of those electric scooters that were scattered around the San Diego streets like someone had airdropped them there.

  I saw the rest of the boys standing on the corner, doing their best to look attractive and alluring to the passersby. I saw the cars, the Johns looking for a fix to their nightly lusts, and the junkies looking for a real fix.

  Thank God we never got into that was all I could think. That was a sure way to end up dead or in prison. Sure, the cops would come through occasionally and bust boys, but they were never held for long and then it was back out onto the street. Drugs were a big no-no and I’d been glad when Sasha told me he never touched the stuff.

  “This thing’s being stupid,” I grumbled as my phone chirped an error message and the scooter flashed a red light.

  “Let’s just walk,” Sasha groaned. “Those things suck anyway. I always feel like I’m going to fall off.”

  “You want to walk?” I replied. We were up the road at least fifteen minutes from our apartment, but Sasha nodded and leaned against me.

  “Yes. Let’s pretend, just for a few minutes, that we’re a normal couple enjoying the summer weather. How’s that sound?”

  “Sounds good to me,” I replied, taking his hand as we started to head south. Sasha had his eyes almost completely closed as we walked, but I kept mine open and alert, scanning the shadows for anything that could do either of us harm.

  If only I was an alpha, I thought. If only we had one.

  Chapter Three

  Arnold

  You shouldn’t be doing this. You’ll lose your job. You’ll lose everything.

  I’d been telling myself that for the last two and a half hours that I’d been watching Jace and Sasha from my car, which was parked across the street in a dark alley that the boys never used as a spot to bring the Johns. Pro
bably because the whole place stank like old food thanks to the dumpsters filled with rotten food and leftovers from the Indian and Chinese restaurants on the block. I didn’t care. I wasn’t looking for sex. I had other things on my mind.

  I’d come here a week ago as part of my duty as a detective for the San Diego Police Department. We were investigating a killer who was targeting working boys in the Pacific Beach/Mission Beach areas, and that had been all I was interested in—that is, of course, until I smelled them.

  Fated mates. It was impossible, right? It was even more impossible that I’d run into them while out on my beat. But there was no denying the sensations that flowed through me when I inhaled their scents. Sweet raspberry pie and fresh cream. Could there be a better combination?

  But they were working boys. Criminals. Not gangsters or anyone doing harm to anybody, but criminals nonetheless. They were breaking the law, and even though as far as I was concerned they were perfectly free to do whatever they chose to do with their bodies, it still made me sad to see it. In fact, it was incredibly difficult to watch, but I had no choice. I had to make sure they were safe, and until we caught the killer, they weren’t.

  Hell, being a working boy was a dangerous profession anyway, even under normal circumstances. Since I’d been keeping an eye on them, I’d seen them fight off an alpha in a convertible, saw four of the other boys jump an old fat guy trying to scam them out of fifty bucks and a slew of other wild encounters that would be stories enough for one person’s entire life. But these boys experienced that in a single week. I’d almost had to break my cover and intervene a couple of times, but it had never gotten that bad—thankfully. But it broke my heart, and I’d thought countless times of going over and approaching them, but every time I tried, something held me back.