Rejected and Possessed by the Alpha by Alice Knightsky

Anais Stay summoned the elevator to the sixth floor of her friend's building. Kristen Raines had sounded panicky and anxious and wanted her to come over. She was usually tolerant and understanding when her friend Kristen had these 'emergencies' but today she had been extremely exhausted having dedicated most of her time to babysitting her nephew and battling some serious writer's block. She just wanted to go home, take a bath and get a few hours sleep in order to wake up again to work on her book for at least three hours.

While she enjoyed writing, she was having difficulty getting the words to flow for the latest romance novel under her nom de plume Jennifer White.

"Oh God, Ana I'm so glad you came. You're such a good friend" Kristen embraced her and bustled her into the apartment.

"Kristen, I can't stay long…" she stopped mid sentence and realized that she was in the middle of a party that was in full swing. She had been so caught up in her thoughts that she hadn't heard the music.

"Are you having a party?"

"Yes, silly. I just need some help in the kitchen. I thought I booked the caterer but I didn't confirm and now all these people are here and I have nothing but chips and dip. You got to work your magic Ana, please"

"Couldn't you order take out?" Anais asked.

"I could but their appetizers aren't like yours…"

Her plea was genuine and Anais knew that she needed her, but too many times she had found herself being taken advantage of because of her kind nature. Kristen needed to organize herself better and stop thinking of her as her "go to" gal. She would talk to her about it later, that and the fact that she hadn't even invited her to the party that she now had to save.

"I'll see what I can do Kristen but please keep people from coming in there to bother me okay" she managed to say.

After gauging the number of persons present, she ordered some main dishes from Aurora's Kitchen and made her way to Kristen's large but underutilized kitchen to work on some simple appetizers. She started prepping dough for mini pizzas and then cut fillers for some shrimp kebabs.

Kristen had good intentions but lacked basic organization skills. She enjoyed the company of others but was seldom ever prepared for it. She would start off by asking one person over and before she knew it, there would be ten to fifteen people in her apartment.

Putting the finishing touches on the pizzas she stuck them in the oven, put the shrimp on a grill and prepared a fruit platter. Wiping her brow in frustration, she sat down to take a breather.

"Ana, people are getting a bit restless. What do you have?"

It had been less than twenty minutes since she had been in the kitchen and was a bit peeved by Kristen's interruption.

"You can take the fruit out and I can give you the kebabs. Just hold on a minute and I'll lay them out…"

"Why don't you bring them out, I'll take the fruit out and buy some time…" Kristen started to say.

Buy some time? She hated the way that Kristen made it seem as though she was the one who was late in her preparations. Before she could say anything, Kristen was out the door with the fruit.

"Great. I'll just do that because that's what I'm here for." She mumbled and turned to the kebabs and placed them in a tray, trying her best to resist the urge to pound them against the silver.

"Hi. Do you have whipped cream?"

That was it! It was the one thing she had asked Kristen to do. Keep people out of the kitchen! She was so angry she could cry! And she was quite sure that it showed when she shot the offender the look.

"Okay…I'll come back then" he said slowly. He clearly read her 'get lost' expression but hadn't seen her well hidden reaction to his appearance. He was tall, maybe 6'4"and well built. She could tell his muscles were well chiseled even though he was wearing a shirt. His movements were lithe.

A day's worth of stubble covered his angular jaw and made him all the more appealing. Stark grey eyes threatened to take her breath away but she hid it well.

She watched him turn to leave and resumed packing the tray but she almost jumped when she heard him behind her.

"I can do that" he said, holding the edges of the tray.

She maintained her grasp and stared back at him intently.

He was the most beautiful man she had ever seen and she hadn't expected him to affect her the way that he did.

Perhaps that was what made her let go of the tray…maybe his looks was what was making her knees feel weak and cause this strange feeling inside of her belly…one that wasn't pain, but made her ache. Gosh, maybe it was because he smelt so good or maybe it was the way he was looking at her with those wonderful grey eyes. It was all so confusing, all too intense. She had to say something…

"Thank you" she said looking away from him and trying to busy herself with some PB&J sandwiches.

When she felt him leave, she looked up and started to breathe again. She needed a fan or a respirator or something…because she was feeling overheated. She mixed pancake batter and dipped the miniature square sandwiches in them before immersing them in the deep fryer.

"What are you doing?"

Fuck, he snuck up on her again! She could feel his hot breath on her as he looked over her shoulder.

"Do you mind? You could've made me burn myself"

"Sorry…I was just curious. I only left for like a minute and you were on to something else" He seemed amused at her obvious attempts to ignore him.

"By the way, my name is Jonathan Hughes. I uh…I found the whipped cream" he said dangling the can in front of her face.

"Okay Jonathan, do you mind giving me some space here" she said, still not looking at him but shoving him out of the way as she transferred her creation from the oil to napkins and drizzled them with powdered sugar.

"You know, a name would be nice" he laughed, still standing too close.