Kiss Me If You Can

The first memory was not a memory at all. It was a brand—seared into the flesh of his mind. A cacophony of sensations that defied order. The suffocating scent of an Alpha, so potent it was a physical weight, thick with notes of cedarwood, old leather, and something wild, something dangerous. It had clung to the air of that Ivy League dorm room, a predator’s musk in a space that should have been safe.

His own body, usually a fortress of disciplined muscle honed on the football field, had betrayed him. The strength he’d used to break through defensive lines had melted away, leaving him trembling under a weight he couldn’t throw off. There was a raw, guttural voice, words that were more vibration than sound, a claim spoken against his skin. Then, the sharp, blinding pain at the juncture of his neck and shoulder, a violation so primal it had ripped a scream from a throat already raw from protest. His Omega instincts, suppressed for years under a mountain of discipline and blockers, had roared to life in a storm of unwanted submission and a terrifying flicker of pleasure.

He had fought. God, he’d fought. But it was like wrestling with a force of nature. In the end, there was only the brutal finality of the act, the searing heat of a knot locking inside him, and a whispered word against his ear that had haunted his nightmares for five years.

Mine.

Then, nothing. The Alpha was gone by morning, leaving behind only the lingering scent, a ravaged room, and a permanent, indelible mark on Ethan Hawke’s soul. A secret he had buried so deep he sometimes convinced himself it was just a nightmare.

Until Leo.

“The numbers don’t lie, Ethan.”

Five years later. The scent in the air was no longer cedar and leather, but the stale, sterile smell of corporate despair. Polished mahogany, expensive wool suits, and the faint, bitter aroma of burnt coffee. Ethan Hawke sat at the head of the boardroom table, his spine a rod of iron. The man before him was a ghost of his father’s era, a board member whose face was a roadmap of sagging disappointment.

“Hawke Industries are bleeding out. The leveraged buyout of Titan Aeronautics was a disaster. The market are turned, the loans are due, and we are, to put it mildly, hemorrhaging.”

Ethan didn’t flinch. He’d seen the numbers. He’d run them himself a hundred times, hoping for a different outcome. His father had built this company from nothing, a testament to steel and sweat. Now, it was crumbling under the weight of his own ambitious mistake. The irony was a bitter pill in his throat.

“What’s the bottom line, John?” Ethan’s voice was steady, betraying none of the cold dread coiling in his gut.

“The bottom line,” John said, sighing, “is that we need a miracle. An investor with pockets so deep they hit the center of the earth. And there’s only one firm on the planet with that kind of liquidity and risk appetite.”

The room was silent. Everyone knew the name. It hung in the air like a guillotine.

Marcus, Ethan’s loyal second-in-command and closest friend, cleared his throat. He was a solid, dependable Beta who had been by Ethan’s side since their college days. He slid a sleek, black portfolio across the table.

“They’ve already made an offer, Ethan.”

Ethan’s gaze dropped to the portfolio. Embossed in silver on the cover was a single, stylized ‘T’ entwined with a thorny vine.

Thorne Capital.

“They’re willing to absorb our debt,” Marcus continued, and his voice was low. “A complete bailout. They see potential in our aerospace patents.”

Ethan’s jaw tightened. He knew there was a ‘but.’ There was always a ‘but’ when the devil came to bargain. “And the price?”

Marcus hesitated. He looked at the other board members, then back at Ethan,and his expression was grim. “They don’t want shares. Not at first. They want… collateral. A sign of good faith. A guarantee that we won’t misuse their capital.”

“What kind of collateral?”

“You, Ethan.”

The words hit him like a physical blow. A cold shock raced up his spine, eerily reminiscent of that long-buried night.

“As a gesture of our commitment,” Marcus read from the proposal, his voice toneless, “Hawke Industries will assign its heir and current CEO, Ethan Hawke, to Thorne Capital as a ‘Special Project Liaison.’ You’ll report directly to their CEO for the duration of the initial restructuring. A period of no less than six months. He will personally oversee your… integration.”

It was a prison sentence wrapped in corporate jargon. He would be a hostage. A glorified intern, stripped of his authority, sent to live and work under the thumb of the man who held his family’s legacy in the palm of his hand.

“And the CEO?” Ethan asked, his voice dangerously quiet.

Marcus looked him dead in the eye. The name was a death knell.

“Damian Thorne.”

The world fell away such as Cedarwood and old leather and guttural voice. A searing pain of Mine was clear. Ethan’s hand flew to the spot on his neck, concealed beneath the high, starched collar of his shirt. For five years, a sophisticated bio-dampening patch, a marvel of illegal black-market tech, had hidden the bite mark and suppressed his Omega scent, allowing him to pass as a Beta in the ruthless Alpha-dominated world of business. Now, it felt like the mark taht was burning through the layers of protection, branding him anew.

He didn't know for sure. He’d never seen the man’s face that night. But the suffocating aura of power, the whispered rumors of a top Alpha so dominant he bent the world to his will… The pieces clicked into place with horrifying certainty.

John cleared his throat. “It’s a humiliating offer. But it’s the only one on the table. It’s this, or we declare bankruptcy by the end of the quarter.”

Ethan stood, his chair scraping back harshly against the floor. He walked to the floor-to-ceiling window, staring down at the city below without seeing it. He was thinking of a small boy with hair the color of spun gold and startlingly intelligent violet eyes—a vibrant, perfect miniature of a man he despised. He was thinking of Leo-- His son, who is his and Damian Thorne’s son.

The fight went out of him, replaced by a cold, hard resolve like his father’s legacy and his son’s future. There was no choice.

He turned back to the room, with his face a mask of stone.

“Tell them I accept.”