Chapter 3
THREE
Jazmine
No. Way.
There was absolutely no fucking way that this big, burly beefcake of an Alpha was my perfect match!
I swiped through her pictures, looking for one flaw—any flaw—that would make me feel better, but that was just an exercise in stupidity.
She was perfect.
I stopped at the last of four pictures—a selfie of her at the gym with several thick weights at her feet. In it, she was smiling into the camera, her lips tilted at the corners in a little shy smirk.
Well, the algorithm had gotten one thing right—they’d matched me with the soft Alpha I’d requested.
I wondered what she’d sound like, what she’d smell like…
Am I really doing this? Is this some kind of mid-life crisis slash millennial breakdown?
I shook my head as I perched on the edge of my bed. No, I’d already had a millennial breakdown in the grocery store last week when I saw the price of eggs.
My decision to pay a shit ton of money for this app was something else entirely.
I couldn’t actually remember the last time someone touched me—not in a way that meant something more than a polite handshake.
It had been five years—five years since the divorce, five years of getting used to the ringing echo of a solitary bedroom.
I’d convinced myself that it didn’t bother me.
I could build routines that had nothing to do with my ex-mate and thrive in my singleness, but when I sat on the massive king-sized bed that had once held the lingering scent of an Alpha, it hit me how truly alone I was.
Lonely enough to hire an escort off an app.
Pathetic.
Could I really get away with talking to a painfully attractive younger Alpha? Especially after I’d spent the last five years pretending that my pussy had gone into retirement?
A sigh rippled through me as I fell backwards on the bed, surrounding myself with the familiar comforts of my nest.
It had been so long since I’d nested, but the ritual hadn’t changed. The needy little spirit omega in my chest still remembered how to arrange the three weighted blankets, two duvets, and quilted curtains I’d found buried deep in storage.
A heated blanket was the base of the perfect nest, warming me from inside out.
The only thing missing was an Alpha.
It had been so long since I’d let myself think of pleasure. The past few years had been focused on getting over the divorce and making sure Rosie went to college. My needs hadn’t been a factor in such a long time.
It was hard not to be sad about it—I’d mourned my youth, my thirties, watching it pass by in a flash. Strands of white in my thick black hair were kept in check by my daughter’s monthly haphazard dye job.
I stared at my hands, turning them around slowly to inspect them. I’d watched too many videos that claimed that the hands and neck showed signs of aging quickest. I squinted at the skin around my knuckles, wondering if they looked extra wrinkly today, or if it was just my imagination.
I flexed my fingers slowly, trying to remember what it felt like for someone’s hands to cup mine, to thread their fingers with my own… what it felt like to be wanted.
Maybe that was why I’d done it—why I’d impulsively signed up for the app. Maybe I was tired of being untouched.
No matter how self-sufficient I’d become, no matter how well I pretended to be okay with my solitude, there was still a part of me that ached fiercely to be held by an Alpha, even if it was just pretend.
My doctor had been the one to bring up my irregular Heat cycles. He’d assured me that inducing this Heat was best for my health.
“Regulating your hormones in the peri-menopausal stage with a controlled cycle could stabilize your endocrine responses.”
The idea that I was yet another omega at the mercy of her hormones was devastating.
I reached for the remote to the heating blanket and turned it all the way up, sighing when the soothing warmth spread up my back.
The Heat symptoms hadn’t kicked in yet, but they would soon enough. I could already feel the telltale ache at the base of my spine.
I hope Arya is ready for a needy mess.
I pulled a weighted blanket over myself and glanced at the phone again. Maybe I’d misremembered how cute she was…
Nope.
Arya’s dark eyes stared back at me, shy and sheepish and so fucking cute…
Maybe I should trust the algorithm more often.
A knock on the bedroom door reminded me that I wasn’t alone.
“Mom?” Rosie’s voice echoed from the hallway. “You in there?”
I slipped the phone under the blanket and called for her to come in.
“How are you feeling?” I asked as she fell onto the empty space next to me with a groan.
“Great, just great,” she murmured into a fox-shaped pillow, her loose curls tumbling around her puffy cheeks. “I’m going to die alone.”
I’d raised a drama queen.
“Your life isn’t over just because you got dumped by some shithead Alpha,” I chided, trying not to shake some sense into my kid. Rosie was on day five of a breakup—well, could it really be called a breakup if they hadn’t made a commitment to each other?
“It feels like it,” she sighed gustily. “Everyone else I know is happily coupled up. When you were my age, you were already pregnant with me.”
I snorted. “That isn’t the happy story you seem to think it is.”
She sat up quickly. “You weren’t happy to be pregnant with me?”
“Of course I was,” I assured her. “But you know you weren’t planned, right? Your Momma and I had a little accident.”
“That makes me feel wonderful, Mom. I’m nothing but a little accident.”
I couldn’t stop the eye roll this time. With a sigh, I pulled her closer and placed my cheek against hers, marking her with my scent.
“You are the best thing in my life, Rosie, but having you at twenty was a bit of a struggle. I never got to finish college.”
“Momma did though.”
“I wanted her to,” I insisted. “One of us needed to have a degree-level job if we were gonna raise a child.”
She was quiet for a moment, although I could see the gears turning in her head.
“How did you know?” she began softly, her breath tickling my shoulder. “That Momma was the one?”
It was probably cruel to tell my daughter that I didn’t believe in The One—capital T, capital O. After the blindsiding divorce, the very idea of a mate seemed silly.
It was easier to exist alone—at least this way I was responsible for how my day went. Someone else’s mood and behavior didn’t have any bearing on my life…
Well, except for Rosie’s.
“I don’t think there was one particular moment,” I told her. “I only knew your Momma made me happy.”
Until she didn’t.
Rosie pressed closer and took a deep breath, scenting the air.
“Your Heat is close,” she said, tucking strands of my curls behind my ears. “Are you sure you’re going to be okay?”
“Of course,” I assured her. “This is an induced Heat, baby. The doctor said it would be mild.”
Rosie grimaced. “I never believe doctors when they say something is mild.”
She had a point.
“Go back to your dorm,” I told her. “You can’t avoid Anton forever.”
She pushed away with a dramatic sigh.
“Why did I have to start dating someone who lives in my dorm? It’s gonna be so awkward now.”
“Well, the more you build it up in your head, the worse it’s going to be when you bump into him. I think you should rip off the band-aid.”
She pouted. “I’m not brave enough for that.”
“You are,” I insisted. “I promise you’ll be fine. There are plenty of other Alphas who would be happy to take you on a date.”
Rosie’s eyes, a mirror of her Momma’s, lit up.
“Actually,” she said, flopping closer to me again. “There’s this Alpha on the swim team…”
I smiled, listening to my daughter describe yet another love interest with the enthusiasm of a teenager.
As the heated blanket whirred beneath us, I itched to grab my phone and check the app. I wanted to commit Arya’s features to memory.
By this time tomorrow, she would be on my doorstep, filling the cottage with her scent. My stomach tightened at the thought.
The urge to cut Rosie off and send her back to her dorm was strong, but I was a mother, first and foremost. I could spend some time listening to my daughter gush about her potential dates. Still, as Rosie spoke, my mind wandered…
Was I really about to let a younger Alpha into my house, into my space, and possibly into my nest? A stranger?
What the fuck was I thinking?