The Alpha Dating Game: An Extremely Sensual BBW Shifter Romance (5 page)

Kyle made sure he arrived early at Spago’s. He had booked a private table for two which was nestled to the side, overlooking the garden. Very romantic. It was lit by a single fat candle in glass cup and decked with white napkins folded in the shapes of swans.

He kept looking at the entrance. Some irrational core of him hoped she wouldn’t show up. Couple after well-dressed couple came in were shown their tables by the effusive hostess, who now and then glanced over at him. She was checking him out, he knew. He grimaced. He had that effect on women and not all of it was welcome.

Then at eight sharp, Jessica Dent showed up. He recognized her immediately from her photo. Only now he was even more stunned.

She was
gorgeous
.

Her black dress was the type which flowed over and caressed her body in feminine swirls. And yes, she wasn’t the type of girl Sports Illustrated would feature on their swimwear edition, but too many people in this world had the wrong feminine ideal of a perfect woman. He was thankfully not one of them.

The hostess seemed surprised when she asked for his name. She glanced over and then back again as she gathered two menus. Kyle stood up as the hostess made her way over with Jessica, who seemed nervous. His own pulse was rising.

I can do this.

When they were within earshot, he smiled broadly and held his hand out.

“Hi, I’m Kyle.”

“Hi. I’m Jessica.”

She appeared quite flustered to see him. And also surprised. She probably didn’t expect him to match his photo profile. What was the point of lying about these things, right? You’d only be exposed on the first minute of your first date.

Her hand was quite cool when she took his. Still, he felt a little electric tingle from her touch and a very strong sexual charge which she probably was not aware she was giving off. He was pleasantly surprised. He didn’t expect this type of reaction from his own body.

He found that he could not take his eyes off her. Nor she him. In the periphery of his vision, he saw the hostess walk away in a polite huff.

Her eyes. They were swimming with swirls of color and emotion. He thought he could read hesitancy and hope and angst and delight all simmering within. Or maybe it was because he had underestimated his reaction to her. But they were lovely eyes. Beyond lovely, in fact. They were the type of eyes he could drown in forever.

With a conscious tug of his own heartstrings, he reined himself in.

But gawd, she was more than pretty! She was tangible, real and glowing in the flesh. There was a radiance within her that practically shone through her skin and put sparkles on her eyes and lips and entire exterior. He found himself wanting to get closer to her – to bask in that radiance.

It was to his amazement that he realized he had not felt this way towards anyone before.

He had had girlfriends, of course. Plenty of them in high school, college and beyond. And now that he had just graduated magna cum laude with an architectural degree, they were lining up, knocking on the virtual door of his apartment. And why not? His family was rich beyond their wildest dreams. But he couldn’t promise any of them a long-term relationship because of his commitments to his family.

The commitment of being the future Alpha of his clan.

He realized he was being impolite by not allowing his eyes to leave hers. But it was just that their instant connection was so sizzling, so unbridled, so amazing that he didn’t want to tear away just yet.

What’s happening to me?
he marveled. Was it possible to have so strong a reaction to someone he just met? He chalked it down to stress and lack of sleep.

“Please, have a seat.”

He pulled out the chair for her and she sat down, clearly dazzled. He reckoned no one had ever rolled out the red carpet treatment for her before. He seated himself across her. There was a high color in her cheeks.

“Are you all right?” he said.

“Yes.” Her voice came out in a breathy rush. “It’s just that . . . that I didn’t expect you to . . . oh!” She blushed further, realizing her probable faux pas.

“You didn’t expect me to actually live
down
to my photo?”

She didn’t say anything but her deeper blush told him he had hit the truth.

“Let me guess . . . you were expecting Brad Pitt.”

She laughed. “Close, but younger.”

“Justin Bieber?”

This time, her laugh was hearty and real. He was glad he put her at ease. And he was charmed. Extremely so.

“Well,” he said, “what would you like to eat?”

She had forgotten about the menu in front of her.

“Oh, yes,” she exclaimed. She opened the menu and stared wonderingly at its contents. “Oh wow, it all looks so good.”

He sensed that she was also looking at the prices. Spago’s was a pricey joint – one she had probably never been to on her student’s allowance. He leaned back as she perused it. He knew she was loathe to suggest anything because everything was beyond her level of affordability.

He said gently, “I come here quite often, and if you would permit me to make some suggestions?”

“Oh, yes, please,” she said, relieved.

He ordered two different starters and entrees for them so she could try new things – a crispy salad with duck comfit and a prawn avocado mélange, a chicken tikka fusion with fire roasted baby potatoes and greens and a medium-rare Wagyu rib-eye. He also ordered two different kinds of wine – a white for the starters and a Bordeaux for the main courses.

As they waited for their orders to come, they fenced and skirted, getting to know each other.

“My parents couldn’t afford to send me to college,” she said shyly, “and so I tried for a scholarship. I had to write this one thousand-word essay about what it’s like to be broke. They made me write it because that’s what I put down on the application form when I asked for a scholarship – the fact that my parents were broke.”

“Are your parents broke?” Kyle’s parents never had been broke his entire life and so he couldn’t imagine the situation.

“Yes. My Dad lost his job in the recession five years ago and he couldn’t find another one. My Mom worked in a glove factory and she had an accident, and so she has been claiming disability ever since. With three kids, it isn’t easy to make ends meet on whatever support we got.”

“I see.”

Careful, he warned himself. It was so easy to sympathize with her.
No emotional involvement, remember?

He said, “But it’s admirable how you got the scholarship.”

She nodded happily. “I know. I was told that several hundred people were going for it. It was a miracle I actually got it.”

“What did you write about?”

“About what it’s like being poor,” she said. “For one, when you have a bit of money, you splurge like there’s no tomorrow. Like last Christmas. We received a check from the welfare department. Dad went on a shopping spree to get us all the things we wanted for Christmas that he couldn’t get us for a long time. And then he bought presents for everyone we knew. At the end of it all, we had nothing left.”

The first thing he’d do if he was poor was to save the money.

“Why is that?” he said curiously.

“I don’t know. Maybe it’s because my parents thought they’d denied us the good stuff for too long. And when you’re poor, you eat a lot of canned and processed food because they keep better than fresh stuff, which can be expensive. But I know now that the canned stuff contains a lot of fats, and so that’s why my whole family is so fat, I guess.”

She tossed off a sad little laugh.

Funny, but he never saw it that way. He never equated being poor with being fat and unhealthy, and certainly not with Christmas binging. He now understood why she could be dazzled by Spago’s and what he had just ordered for the two of them.

“I don’t think you’re fat,” he said, keeping his face blank.

“Of course I am.”

“In Papua New Guinea, you would be on the lean side, I’m afraid. The ‘fat’ definition is a conundrum. Human beings actually possess the fat gene to store energy should there ever be a famine. So what was essential for the human race is now frowned upon and denigrated as a joke.”

“Unfortunately, there isn’t a famine right now and my BMI tells me I’m overweight.”

“Overweight does not equate obese.”

“It isn’t exactly very healthy either.”

“Neither is being underweight. But let’s not talk about weight in the presence of our starters, which are looking sinfully delicious, I might add.”

Their starters arrived. Everything was new to Jessica, and so he reveled in letting her taste everything.

“Everything is so good,” she gushed.

“I know.”

He liked playing Santa Claus. He liked watching her enjoy her food and he felt really good that he could share this with her.

Well, don’t feel too good. It’s not going to last.

It was her turn to ask him questions. He had rehearsed what he was going to say in the mirror. Because of what would happen, he had to give her part truth and part lies. This was the most difficult part, because he had to remember exactly what he had told her.

“So are you out of college already?” she said.

“Yes. I went east. Just finished my degree and I’m back here now to join the family business.”

“What’s the family business?” She seemed to be genuinely enjoying herself with him and finding him easy to talk to.

“Real estate, among other things. My Dad buys and refurbishes old houses to sell them for a profit.”

My Dad would really like to meet you, but that is for another day.

“And your Mom?”

Careful. Not too much of the truth, just in case she told a friend who could put two and two together.

“She died when I was little. Cancer.”

“Oh.” Her face fell and she put down her fork. “I’m so sorry.”

“Thanks. But there was nothing the doctors could do. It ate up her pancreas, and it was merciful she went so quickly.”

Their entrees came and the talk shifted to other things.

She said hesitantly, “You mentioned your Mom was a big, beautiful woman.”

Did he? Right. He did. That part was true.

“Yes, she was.”

Jessica raised her eyes shyly to his. “Is that why . . . you don’t mind being seen with me?”

Her lack of self-confidence astounded him. And not in a bad way, but an empathetic one. He remembered how his mother seemed to have issues as well, but not with being a BBW. She had issues with her hallucinations and delusions and what lurked beneath the house.

A surge of something protective and warm came over him towards Jessica.

“I would be seen with you anytime,” he said truthfully and somewhat a little fiercely. “Don’t bring this up again. Please. We have spent most of our conversation so far talking about weight in one form or another. It isn’t a problem for me and it never will be. So I’m not going to bring it up if you don’t. Got that?”

She smiled, her eyes shining, and nodded. He didn’t know it then, but that was the moment a bond was forged between the two of them.

A bond he didn’t realize would be so potent and destructive until later.

DREAM GUY

Kyle was everything Jessica had dreamt of and more.

She had never honestly met anyone who was so easy to talk to, Lyla included. With Lyla, she had to skirt over some issues sometimes because Lyla got so worked up about everything. But Kyle was the type of person she felt immediately at ease with.

To borrow an old cliché, there was an instant chemistry between them.

So she had gotten the elephant in the room out of the way. He didn’t care about the way she looked.
Of course, he doesn’t! He met you on a BBW dating website, didn’t he?
And he was every bit as gorgeous as his photo was. Even more so, because the person himself glowed with a vitality which could not be captured by pixels alone.

When he laughed, his eyes crinkled. He smiled often, and it was heavenly to see. His eyes were so blue that she couldn’t stop catching her breath over them.
Can he be real? He’s so gorgeous! And he’s here with me.

ME!

She had to keep pinching herself to assure this wasn’t a dream.

As the evening wore on, she told him more and more about herself and her family. He was genuinely interested in everything she had to say. She told him about Lyla.

“She was always the one who defended me in school. I don’t know what I could have done without her.”

“Oh, I’m sure you’d do pretty well,” he said. “Humans have a coping mechanism to get them through life. You would have adapted in one way or another.”

“How do you know so much about humans?”

“I minored in Psychology. It was the subject I loved best, but my father wanted me to go into something related to real estate.” He shrugged.

“Did you resent that?”