Rut Bar

SERIES: Heatverse
BOOK: 2 of 3
STANDALONE? Yes
GENRE: Contemporary Polyamory Omegaverse
TROPES: Himbo, Submissive Alpha, Dominant Omega, Alpha Strip Club, Forbidden Workplace Romance, She's the Boss, Beta in the Streets Alpha in the Sheets, IRS agent auditing her business, Boss/Employee Romance, BDSM, Hurt/Comfort, Nesting, Growls/Purrs, Mate Bites, Heroes Pursue the Heroine, Scent Match

Welcome to Rut, where your pleasure is our business.

Gorgeous, chiseled alpha dancers. Specialty drinks on demand prepared by flirty bartenders. Omega-only member hours.

Veronica has cracked the code for omega-focused entertainment. A bar where omegas like her can let loose without worrying about creepy, predatory alphas.

But Rut is more than just sizzle and sleaze: there’s something else going on beneath all the body oil and glitter. Something IRS agent Brenden Hall is getting dangerously close to uncovering during the bar's audit.

Unfortunately for her, the unassuming agent is starting to smell like temptation, just like two of her also-off-limits employees. There's Anthony, her bratty tattooed bartender with a smile full of sinful promise, and Jamie, the lovesick himbo alpha dancer who tempts her one dance at a time.

Vee can’t allow herself to give in to an indulgence that could cost her the bar. There's also the matter of that stubborn dominant streak that makes her a less-than-ideal example of her designation. What pack would want an omega with Domme tendencies, anyway?

While Vee worries about getting Rut through the tax audit, the boys worry if they'll be able to survive her stubbornness. Can these four wildcards come together and admit their deepest desires, or will they all keep dancing around it forever?

Rut Bar is a low stakes, high feels, ultra steamy MMFM omegaverse romance. There are no shifters or werewolves in this novel. A content guide is included on the author's website at www.alexisbosborne.com for readers with sensitivities.

I’m in a room full of gorgeous half-naked alphas yet nothing is going right today. What a pity.

The front door squeaks on its hinges as it opens. The sound is loud in the otherwise quiet room. All eyes turn to watch our resident himbo alpha with the body of a Greek god walk in.

“You’re late,” I say to Jamie. My teeth clench as I resist the urge to manhandle him to the center of the stage by his ridiculously gorgeous long blond hair. I don’t know how he does it, but he always looks like he stepped off the cover of a romance novel. All he needs is a billowing, gauzy white shirt open to his lickable navel to complete the look.

“Sorry, Vee. Traffic.” His smile is lazy and beautiful, his face lighting up as he looks at me. The corners of his eyes crinkle. His serene expression and calm demeanor are the norm. Nothing gets under Jamie’s skin. No matter how much I bark or snap or snarl, he always looks at me with those big brown puppy eyes and smiles beautifully, then promises to do better. Then it’s like he hits the reset button when he turns off his morning alarm.

He’ll be late again tomorrow. And the next day. And the day after that.

“It’s LA. There’s always traffic.” I give him an unamused stare, not that he notices or cares.

“I’ll be on time for rehearsals tomorrow,” he says as he slips into his empty spot in the middle of the alpha pack. “Promise.”

I sigh. “Fine. But let’s get on with rehearsals. I want this new set ready to go for this weekend.” Pivoting, I look up at my office on the club’s second floor and try to find my wayward choreographer. Enormous floor to ceiling windows keep the noise out while letting me watch the club while I’m working. “Nate!”

“Coming!” There’s a metallic bang and clatter, and then a moment later Nate appears at the railing and looks over the balcony. He claps his hands together and grins before rubbing at his nose and sniffling.

Damn it. He’d better not be doing coke in the office again.

I’m gonna kill him if he is. They all know how important it is that everything goes smoothly this week, and each and every one of them seems to be set on sabotaging me.

Nate takes the stairs two at a time and stops before his pack of alpha dancers. “Good. Places, everyone.” Nate’s grin widens as he sniffles again. “Mike, cue the music and… three, two…”

The pack of alphas start their rehearsal, their biceps bulging and abdominals rippling. I take my cue to leave them to it. Nate does the movements with them, barking out corrections and critique as the alphas flow from one dance move to the next.

The Tarzan set is going to make the crowd lose their ever loving minds when they see it on Friday. What’s better than a ripped alpha? One in nothing but a teeny tiny leather loincloth. What’s better than one? A whole pack of them. Each one a different flavor to suit all tastes. We have a diverse cast here at Rut.

Jamie turns left instead of right and walks right into Margot, our resident female alpha. They collide with an audible oomph, and then Nate curses and yells at them to stop and reset. The pulsing music stops abruptly as Mike rewinds the track to the beginning. The cast groans softly.

I head to the bar and slap my palms on the counter. “I need the receipts from last night.” And a fucking drink. And another week for rehearsals so they can get the new and more complex routine down. Time we don’t have. The event flyers are already plastered on every streetlight and brick wall we could find.

Anthony studies me as he finishes wiping a glass dry and sets it down. “Sure thing, boss.” He goes to the till and punches the drawer open, pulling the zippered pouch out from under the plastic bill divider. He hands it over.

While I rummage through it and check the contents, he pours me a drink, mixing alcohol and juice together without me having to ask. He sets it on a coaster and adds an orange slice as a garnish. The drink’s a peachy pink color and there’s a mashed maraschino cherry at the bottom under the ice.

“What’s this one called?” I grab it and swivel the straw around and take a sip. “Oh, it’s good.”

He grins and goes back to wiping glasses. “Bliss on the beach.”

I’ve never heard of it before, but then again, Anthony enjoys making his own variations of popular cocktails. He likes making everyone try a lesser known mix that becomes his signature drink of the night. He uses chalk markers to draw a picture of the drink and write out its name in fancy script on the large chalkboard that he hung above the register.

“Not sex on the beach?” I take another sip, savoring the blend of pineapple and cranberry juice with the vodka.

“If you want sex on the beach, I can do that for you,” Anthony says, leaning forward on one heavily tattooed forearm. “Let me know when you’re free.” He grins, flashing impossibly nice white teeth, and my heart skips a beat.

He’s not hitting on me. Not really. Anthony’s just a terrible flirt.

Between the tattoos, the floppy dark hair, and his baby blue eyes, my head bartender is gorgeous, and he absolutely knows it. The women who come here more than once don’t care that he’s a beta. Not when he smirks at them like that. Like he wants to throw them on the dirty floor and hike up their tight little skirts and do wicked things to them. He calls this smile the panty melter. He’s not wrong. There’s a reason he gets more tips than any of the other bartenders here and why he’s worked here longer than the rest combined.

I frown at him because the staff is off limits, and despite his flirting, he knows that. Don’t shit where you eat. He knows I won’t call his bluff no matter how much I sometimes wonder what would happen if I did.

His grin widens to blinding levels and my traitorous pussy throbs as I push away from the bar, taking my bag of receipts and drink with me. “I’ll be in my office.”

“Sure thing, boss.” The way he says boss is like an audible caress and I give a wide berth to the gyrating alpha pack so they don’t catch a whiff of my growing arousal. Talk about embarrassing.

Once I’m safe in my office, I kick the door closed behind me until the club’s rehearsal music is a dull throb that matches my growing headache. I add the bag of receipts to my never ending stack of paperwork and drain half my drink, then get to work. The music stops and starts twice as the dancers practice their new routine. I’m working on payroll for Friday’s checks when someone knocks on the door.

“Come in,” I snarl. I’m equal parts pissed that someone interrupted my train of thought while doing payroll and glad for the interruption. My eyeballs ache from the computer’s light.

My stomach growls and I’m reminded I skipped lunch to run errands at the bank before work. I’m expecting Anthony because he likes to bring me a plate since he knows I often forget to make myself eat. But it’s not my bartender who opens the door. It’s a tall, broad-shouldered alpha in a neat gray suit. His skin is light brown, and his dark hair is cropped in short curls that are shaved down to his skin on the sides in a fade.

He looks at me with rich brown eyes framed in lashes that are too long and pretty for an alpha. A hint of a five o’clock shadow with streaks of gray along his chin is already forming and a few gray hairs spot his temples.

“Can I help you?” I ask, my brow furrowing as I completely stop what I’m doing and wonder why this stranger’s here and who the fuck let him up here.

“Are you Ms. Taylor?” He shuts the door behind him and sets a brown leather briefcase down on the floor.

“Yes.”

“I’m Agent Hall. I’m a revenue agent for the IRS. I’ve come to do your audit. You’ve received our correspondence in the mail?”

He pulls his jacket away from his body to take a business card from the inside pocket and reaches out to hand it to me. The scent of freshly baked bread wafts in the air and makes my mouth water. As I take it, I stifle a soft whimper and my eyes flick down to the blue and white photo ID card I didn’t notice hanging around his neck.

Brendan Hall, IRS Revenue Agent. It’s all very official.

I slide my nail along the edge of his card and plaster a smile on my face, hoping that my hair doesn’t look too crazy. I have a bad habit of running my hands through it when I’m stressed. My naturally wavy hair gets bigger and bigger as the night progresses.

“Agent Hall, of course. Please excuse the mess. I was expecting you tomorrow.”

He straightens his suit jacket, smoothing out a nonexistent wrinkle. “I finished another case earlier than expected. Did you not get my message? I called and left a voicemail.”

A glance at my office phone and its blinking red light confirms his story is probably true. “Nobody’s ever here before noon. It’s a late night sort of place, you know. We close at two in the morning.” 

I eye the clutter and stacks of dirty cups. Embarrassment heats my cheeks. This is a horrible first impression to make. “Please excuse the mess. Things always get chaotic when we’re rehearsing for a new act. I was going to tidy up tonight.”

His smile is measured and professional, and it doesn’t meet his warm brown eyes. Instead of studying my mess of a desk, he glances out the large glass windows that let me watch the floor from my office. “It’s fine. Where should I set up? I only need a desk or table and an outlet.”

“Set up?” Standing, I cock my head and wait for him to pull his gaze away from the pack of dancers working on their hip thrusts.

“Yes. I’ll be conducting the audit here—unless your headquarters is in an office building downtown. I find it faster to work at the place of business rather than lugging heavy boxes of files back and forth across town. The traffic, you know.”

“Yeah, the traffic’s a killer. Nope. No downtown office for us,” I wheeze, my chest tight as I make a sweeping gesture with my hand. “You’re looking at it.”

His expression holds no judgment or disgust as he glances over at Nate’s tidy mid-century modern desk across from mine. At least the IRS didn’t send me a prude. Not everybody likes what we do here at Rut even though we’re providing a valuable service people pay a lot to receive.

“Is it okay if I use that desk?” he asks.

There’s no way I can refuse. Besides, it’s not like Nate really uses his desk all that much. Ninety percent of his job is done on the stage floor or on his cell phone.

“Yup,” I squeak and shove my wheeled chair back out of the way, harder than necessary. It rolls until it hits the window. “That would be fine.” Nate is going to kill me.

His head dips in a nod, and he picks his briefcase up and sets it down on Nate’s desk. He clicks it open, unpacking a silver laptop and charger, a pad of yellow legal paper and pens, and his own coffee mug. For a moment I expect it to say something like World’s Best Dad or #1 Husband, but all it has on it is the IRS logo.

That’s kind of sad.

Coffee mug… Coffee. He probably wants some.

“I don’t drink coffee, but some of the dancers do,” I say. “There’s a pot in the… the dressing room.” My brain catches up halfway through my sentence. Fuck! Now I need to make sure there’s nothing bad in plain sight in the dressing room.

“Thank you.” This time his smile reaches his eyes and I teeter totter on my heels. “Will your accountant be joining us?” he asks.

“He’s, uh, out on a medical leave, but I pulled the files he said to gather. I started getting everything together when I got the first letter. Those boxes stacked over there should have everything you need.”

“Great. Thank you. I’ll get started, then. Pretend I’m not here. If I have questions, I’ll find you.”

That’s exactly what I’m worried about. Because the IRS agent doing Rut’s audit smells like a crusty, fluffy loaf of fresh baked bread and I want to take a huge fucking bite out of him.

Dammit. I’m suddenly regretting saving money by not extending the HVAC continuous air exchange to the office. Nate’s a beta and I’m the only one who spends a lot of time here, so it didn’t seem necessary. Now it seems very fucking necessary. My pussy throbs more intensely with every lungful of this alpha’s scent.

I need to get out of this office.

Right. Fucking. Now.

“Make yourself at home.” I run away before he can respond, gripping the railing for dear life as I take the stairs fast in my heels. At my tromping, Anthony’s head whips up from where he’s filling the bar’s cooler with fresh ice and he raises one dark brow in question.

All but two of the dancers have gone backstage for a quick break, and I glance at my watch and groan. It’s already five and our doors open in an hour.

Backstage in the dressing room, I scan the cluttered vanities and make sure there’s nothing illicit out. I don’t care what my employees do with their bodies on their own time as long as they show up for their shifts and work while they’re here and don’t bring messy drama with them, but they know better than to bring the hard stuff into my club. Not that it stops some of them. Things happen. Those employees don’t last long here.

I snatch a cheetah print thong off the floor and hold it with the tips of my nails as I find Darlene at her sewing machine and add it to her pile of dirties in need of cleaning. “The IRS guy is here,” I say over the furious whirr of her sewing machine.

She stops mid-stitch, pulls a lever, turns the black dress pants sideways, flicks it back down with a heavy thud, and starts sewing again without ever looking up. “What?”

“The IRS guy is here!”

“The DILF in the suit is the IRS guy?” As she talks, the pins stuck in the corner of her mouth move. She pulls the pants from the machine and snips the thread with a sharp pair of scissors. Despite the heavy fake lashes that pull her eyelids down, her eyes light up when she looks at me with a shit-eating grin.

With a strangled whine, I rummage through her stuff and find the bottle of scent nullifier she keeps on hand to freshen up the costumes. I tug the plastic cap off and shake it, then spray myself down, making a face when some of it gets in my mouth.

There. Maybe now he won’t smell how damp my panties are when I have to go back up to finish payroll so I can cut everyone’s checks on Friday.

“That bad?” she asks, amused.

I click the cap back onto the bottle and put it down. “I need everyone to be on their best behavior while he’s here. Best. Behavior. Especially you, with your mouth.”

She shrugs one shoulder and smirks as she plucks the pins from her mouth and stabs them into a hole-riddled pincushion shaped like a tomato. “Honey, I’ve never heard any complaints about my mouth yet.”

I stare her down with a flat lipped expression, but the aging beta isn’t impressed or cowed by me. Darlene’s lived a fast, hard life, and a five-foot-three thirty-year-old omega doesn’t make her bat a single fake eyelash.

“Best. Behavior,” I stress, enunciating each word clearly. “He can make our lives very hard if he wants to.”

“Oh, I’ll bet he can,” she cackles and fishes the next costume piece to repair out of her basket. It’s a Spanish matador vest with a matching red thong that’s missing some of its sequins. “Bet he makes a lot of things real hard.”

She ignores my narrowed eyes. “We need to be nice and accommodating. And professional,” I reiterate.

“I’ll be as accommodating as that alpha wants,” Darlene says as she switches her black thread out for red. “Heard them say he’s really tall and broad shouldered. The kind that’s good for grabbing a hold of in the heat of the moment, if you know what I mean.”

I sigh and give up. Darlene is harmless. Horny, menopausal, fond of making suggestive comments, but harmless. I walk away while she sews, her machine running a mile a minute as she makes her repairs in time for tonight’s show.

I throw the back door open, and the dancers’ conversation dies as I interrupt their break. A few are smoking, some holding cigarettes to their mouths while others hold joints or vape pens. The nonsmokers sit in the plastic folding chairs we keep by the door or they lean against the laundromat’s brick wall and scarf down food from the taco truck that parks a block or two away most nights. My stomach twists with hunger at the decadent scent of charred pork and lime.

Nate is busy telling the newer guys about his time on Broadway, his hands waving as he talks, and even he pauses to look over his shoulder. His story trails off mid-sentence.

“Hey, guys. So the IRS auditor is here a day early. I’m giving everyone a heads up that he’s going to be here for a while, so we need everything to go smoothly and professionally for a bit. That means go easy on the drinking. I don’t want to see any illegal drugs or drug paraphernalia on the property. Weed is fine, but nothing else, okay? And absolutely no hooking up with customers backstage.”

There’s dejected murmuring, and then one of the new guys asks, “How long is he gonna be here?”

“Hopefully only a week or two.”

They all groan, and I raise both of my hands in a placating gesture to shush them. “I know. Believe me, I know. We just need to put our heads down and work and get through this and then he’ll be gone and things will get back to normal.”

“Is Rut gonna get shut down?” a newer dancer asks, dragging his cigarette butt along the brick wall to put it out.

“No! We are not shutting down and nobody is getting fired or laid off. Audits are a very normal part of doing business. This is actually a good thing because it means we’re doing well. Okay? Don’t worry about it. I’m handling it. Work with Nate and practice your routine for this weekend, then get changed into your waitstaff outfit for first call. Enjoy your break.”

Jamie lifts the hem of his tank top up to wipe the sweat from his brow, and the sight of his perfect washboard abs makes my mouth run dry. Where normal men have a four or six-pack, Jamie’s abdomen is cut into eight boxes that make my tongue want to lick the dips between them. Before I can say something stupid or get caught staring, I turn and flee back to the safety of my office.

I must be getting close to my heat if my hormones are all over the place like this. It couldn’t be coming at a worse time. Right now I can’t afford to take the time off from work.

For a moment I consider going on a heat suppressant, but I really hate the way they make me feel. Bloated and weepy and so damn hungry. And then the delayed heat’s twice as bad as it would have been if I just fucked through it for three days with some random alpha from Heat Buddy.

While I head back to my office, I pull up my heat tracker app and check my log. It’s only been nine weeks since my last one, so it’s too early. It must be the stress bringing it on sooner. Or maybe I need to get laid. How long has it been? My cobweb-covered pussy says it’s been way too damn long. Probably since my last heat, if I’m being honest.

Turning a dive bar into a wildly successful alpha strip club means I meet a lot of handsome men and good-smelling alphas. It’s painfully ironic I can’t touch a single one of them. Either they’re employees or patrons, and since Rut is my life and I spend more time here than at home, all of them are off limits. That makes it hard to date.

I’m so engrossed in my maudlin, horny thoughts that the alpha sitting at Nate’s desk catches me by surprise. I scent him before I see him, his fresh baked bread scent filling the room till it smells like a goddamn bakery. A delicious bakery full of perfectly biteable treats.

My clit throbs and I squeeze my legs together to stifle it, but that only makes it worse when that extra pressure makes me feel empty and in desperate need of filling.

Fuck, he really is a DILF. There’s a steady energy about him. He’s broad and tall, but thick around the middle. A body meant for cuddles and comfort. Gray hair streaks the brown at his temples. Faint crinkles around his eyes show he’s good natured and smiles a lot.

I have to breathe through my mouth to get past the threshold. Does the man not use a nullifier spray? Rude. You can’t go around smelling like that in public. Like sex on a stick.

He looks up over the edge of his laptop as I hesitate in the doorway, his gaze holding mine until I snap out of it and shove my chair back up to my desk, plopping into it and staring at my computer screen.

What was I doing again?

Oh, yeah. Payroll. 

I power through my mental fog and pick up where I left off, checking everyone’s time punches and adjusting them as necessary. Jamie forgets to clock out a lot, but even though he’s often late, he always stays till closing even when it’s a slower night and some of the other dancers head home early. I check my calendar to compare his scheduled days against his time punches to make sure he’s not missing any shifts.

Sometime later, a knock at the door drags me out of my spreadsheet hellscape and I spy Anthony standing there in the doorway. He studies the auditor, who spares him a glance and that awkward fake smile strangers give one another. Then the agent goes back to work.

“Thought you’d be hungry. Did you eat?” Anthony asks me.

“I’m starving. Thanks.” My stomach growls on cue.

Anthony crosses over to my desk and finds a flat enough stack of paperwork to set down the brown bag. I dig out the to-go box and pop the lid open and look at its contents. It’s a grilled chicken caesar salad, the hearty kind that’s more toppings than lettuce and it’s from my favorite Italian restaurant down the street. The chicken is steaming, the flakes of parmesan are enormous and it’s been liberally coated in enough fresh cracked black pepper that I almost have to sneeze. It’s perfect.

“You went over to Tony’s?” I ask him. “Thank you. You didn’t have to do that.”

He leans his hip against my desk. “Someone has to take care of you since you’re too busy taking care of everyone else to do it yourself. Make sure you eat a vegetable every once in a while.”

My brow knits together. “I eat vegetables.”

“Potatoes are a starch,” he says. I open my mouth to speak, but he cuts me off. “Mushrooms don’t count either. They’re a fungus.”

I shove my plastic fork through its plastic wrapper forcefully and stab it into my salad, taking a humongous bite of lettuce and chewing aggressively. The mouthful is too big for my jaw, but I’m too stubborn to back down. It’s also delicious. Their kitchen’s gotta make their own dressing or something.

We serve food at Rut, but it’s typical bar food. Loaded fries and fried pickles, lots of things that come out of enormous bags from the freezer and go right into our automatic industrial fryer. After all, people aren’t coming to Rut for the food.

The pepper in the caesar dressing makes my mouth burn a little. “Happy?” I ask once I’ve swallowed and licked my lips clean of dressing.

“If you are, then yeah.” He smiles instead of smirking.

My stomach flutters. When he stops being an asshole long enough to say something sweet like that, it’s worse than the flirting.

He grabs the empty cups and plates, stacking everything in his hands in a way only people who’ve spent years in restaurant service seem to do. “There’s bread too.”

Ooh, bread. I look in the paper bag and pull out a piece of bread wrapped in foil and unwrap it. The smell of fresh baked bread covered in herb butter and garlic makes me salivate. I take a huge bite and chew, then sigh. “Thank you. What do I owe you?”

“Don’t worry about it.” He’s already halfway out of the room. “Seeing you pleased is all the payment I need.”

I frown at his back. “No, really. How much was it?”

“Nothing. Tony’s my uncle, so I didn’t pay anything.”

Of course he is. I shouldn’t be surprised because Anthony’s family is humongous and they’ve lived here for generations.

Anthony takes the stairs down, and I swivel in my chair so I can watch him move around the club through the window. He goes back to the bar where one of the other bartenders is chopping fruit to garnish drinks.

As if he sees me watching him, he lifts his gaze and stares up at me, his lips curling into their resident bad boy smirk. The pantymelter. A lock of hair falls in his eyes and he reaches up, carding his fingers through it as he smooths it back into place. His stare turns into a smolder.

The distance makes enjoying this feel safer, although it’s probably not. He doesn’t need any encouragement. Anthony’s been flirting with me for years.

He flirts with everyone.

I shudder out an exhale and swivel back to my computer and my salad, kicking my shoes off and pulling my feet up to sit cross-legged while I eat and work. I tear the garlic bread into pieces and mix it into the salad, then stab my fork through all of it like it’s a salad sandwich.

God, it’s so fucking good.

I’ve eaten the entire thing and finally finished payroll when the club’s music changes abruptly from talk radio to the heavy thump of bass. The first patrons of the evening roll in, groups of omegas in business attire who want to grab a cocktail after work before heading home to their partners. They won’t stay the whole night. It’s too early for that crowd, but they appreciate the view.

Jamie steps out from the back, the black curtain flicking into place to obscure the back room. He walks up to their table to take their drink order.

He’s oiled his body to show off every single dip and curve of his toned physique, his bare torso and thick arms on full display. I know from experience how the tight black pants—real ones, not the breakaway kind—hug his ass. Instead of a shirt, he’s wearing a tiny business collar and even tinier tie that doesn’t make it past his nipples. White shirt cuffs wrap around his wrists, and cufflinks with Rut’s logo catch the light as he scrawls on his order pad.

The omegas eat it up, blushing and whispering to one another as he scribbles their orders down on his notepad and takes it over to the bar. They turn in their seats to watch his ass while he walks away. The door opens, and my bouncer Dan lets in a few more omegas, a couple of women and a slender man. Their group sits at the bar.

I watch the entire scene with a smile, proud of what we’ve all done. It’s been hard work, but the results are worth it. My mom would be happy for me once she got over the shock of it all. A rut bar designed specifically for omegas instead of alphas. It’s genius.

I’m seriously thinking of opening another location. Miami? Vegas? New York City? The possibilities are endless. I break into goosebumps just thinking about it.

A snap breaks me out of my thoughts as I swivel away from the window. The auditor stares down at his ink splattered hand, the remnants of his broken pen sitting on his legal pad. He looks up sheepishly and pulls an actual honest-to-goodness handkerchief from his pocket, then wipes the worst of the ink off. Rather than doing him any good, he ends up smearing most of it around.

He wraps up his broken pen and drops it all into Nate’s trash can. “Well, I guess that’s my cue to head home for the night.” He packs up his things, unplugging his charger from the wall and closing his laptop. When he’s done, he latches his briefcase and goes to leave before hesitating in the doorway.

“I’ll… see you at noon tomorrow?” he asks.

Spurred into motion, I stand up and follow him to the stairs. “Noon. Right. I’ll be here. Let me walk you out.”

“That’s unnecessary, but thank you. I can see myself out.”

“Oh, uh…” I bite my lip, worried I’m about to offend him. “I’m so sorry, but we don’t allow unmated alphas who aren’t staff to wander around during omegas’ hour. It’s omega members only until seven and then the doors open to the public. Wait, are you mated?”

I flick my gaze down to what little of his throat I can see above his shirt collar and then down to his ink stained hand. No ring, and if he has a bite mark, it’s hidden by his suit.

“No. I’m not mated.” His broad shoulders stiffen as I follow behind him. We stop at the top of the stairs. “Wait, you’re serving customers, but you’re not open to the public right now?”

“Omegas only, yes,” I answer.

“Wouldn’t that be considered discrimination? If you’re open to the public at all, then you’re not really a private club.”

My lips firm and I take a deep breath as I get ready for the speech I’ve had to recite so many times in the past couple of years. “Under the federal civil rights laws and the Omega Protection Act of 1978, private clubs, religious organizations, and nonprofits are allowed to discriminate based on sex, gender, and dynamic. The amendment in 1981 added new protections for organizations for omegas and women where there are safety concerns. You’ve heard of female-only gyms and women’s and omegas’ shelters, right? It’s the same concept. Right now, from six to seven, we’re only open to omega club members and all our proceeds go to support omega shelters. At seven, the doors open to the public.”

He blinks at me until it’s uncomfortable, even with the thump of the music filling the silence. “You’re running a nonprofit within your business?”

My eyes widen. “No! God, no. That would be illegal. A for-profit company can’t own a nonprofit because a nonprofit can’t technically be owned. No. The nonprofit that I run owns Rut.”

His mouth opens and closes a few times, and then his shoulders round.

I think I’ve broken my tax auditor.

“It’s all outlined in my paperwork,” I say, getting worried. Did he not read my detailed letter I sent them along with my certificate of formation?

His expression shutters, his jaw twitching as he clenches his teeth. “I took this assignment from another agent who went out on maternity leave. That information wasn’t in her notes. I’ll… see you at noon. We can go over it tomorrow.”

We reach the main floor and wade through the thickening crowd. My bouncer Dan barely looks up at us as he keeps his eyes on the growing line of betas and alphas forming at the velvet rope, waiting for the club to fully open so they can mingle with horny omegas.

They stare at us with assessing looks while my tax auditor walks away. Worry gnaws at me. Maybe I’m wrong and I’ve fucked it all up and it’s all going to be ruined now. It’ll be all my fault for thinking I was being clever.

Did I mess up the paperwork? Not fill something out correctly? It’s times like this when I wish I could call Harvey and get reassurance that audits are completely normal and every successful business goes through this. But the last thing I want to do is bother him while his wife’s dealing with chemo.

“Everything okay, Miss Vee?” Dan asks.

I paste a fake smile on my face. “Everything’s fine.” And then I head to the bar.

I need a fucking drink.