Chapter 8 #3
We’ve served ourselves more food and are just enjoying each other’s company. I’m feeling slightly calmer as we finish eating, our plates piled on the table, and I’m achingly aware of how domestic this feels.
“Want to know something funny?” Holt asks, shifting closer on the couch.
“Always.”
“My buddy from the MC, Diesel, his ex was getting married. Proper society wedding, the kind where they have assigned seating and seventeen forks. She invited him to rub his face in it.”
“That’s cruel.”
“That’s Diesel’s ex. So he decided to show up with a wife.”
“He got married out of spite?”
“Fake married. Three-day weekend pretending to be madly in love with this Omega he hired. Matching rings, coordinated stories, even practiced their first dance.”
“That’s insane.”
“It gets better. The Omega he hired? Turned out to be a professional Dom in her spare time. Spent the entire wedding bossing Diesel around, making him fetch drinks, carry her purse. Diesel’s ex was so confused that she cried.”
I’m laughing so hard I can’t breathe. “That’s horrible! And amazing!”
“The best part? They’re actually married now. For real. Turns out they were perfect for each other.”
“You’re making that up.”
“Scout’s honor. Went to their real wedding last year. The Dom made Diesel cry during the vows.”
We’re both laughing, and somehow we’ve gotten closer on the couch. His thigh presses against mine, warm even through our clothes. The living room feels smaller, more intimate. Like the air has thickened with something electric.
“You’re beautiful when you laugh,” he says quietly.
“You don’t have to practice compliments. We’re alone.”
“I’m not.” He reaches out, traces a finger along my jaw. “Van was a fucking idiot.”
“You don’t know the whole story.”
“I know enough. I know he tried to own you instead of treasure you. That makes him an idiot.”
His hand is still on my face, thumb brushing my cheekbone, and I’m leaning into the touch without meaning to. My skin tingles everywhere he’s touching and everywhere he’s not. My heart thuds like it’s caught between running and surrendering.
“We should kiss,” he says.
My brain shorts out. “What?”
His thumb pauses just below my lip. “We’re supposed to be dating, remember? Might come in handy if you don’t look shocked every time I get close to your mouth.”
“That’s not why you said it.”
“No,” he admits, voice low and rough. “It’s not.”
I should pull back. I really should. But I don’t. I’m too caught up in the warmth of his hand, the steady look in his eyes, the tension thrumming in my chest that feels suspiciously like longing.
“Just a practice kiss?” I ask, and my voice betrays me by sounding breathy.
“If that’s what you need to call it.”
He’s so close now that the heat of his breath flares over my cheek. Everything in me wants to lean in, to find out what he tastes like, to see if kissing him is as good as it looks in my head.
I don’t know who moves first. Maybe it’s both of us. But the moment our lips brush, the fake label we’ve been clinging to snaps like an overstretched thread.
Instead, I press closer, hands finding his firm chest, feeling his heartbeat racing to match mine. His body is solid heat beneath my palms, and I swear I can feel his pulse beneath my fingertips, a deep, thrumming rhythm that calls to something buried inside me.
He makes a sound low in his throat, almost a growl, and angles his head, deepening the kiss. His mouth claims mine with a slow, aching hunger, tongue tracing my lower lip before slipping inside.
The hand on my waist pulls me flush against him until I’m practically in his lap, my dress sliding high over my thighs.
I don’t care. All I can feel is the press of his body, the hard line of him beneath me, the way his other hand fists in my hair and pulls, not roughly, but firmly enough that my breath catches and heat floods through me.
He loosens my bun until my hair spills around us, tangling in his fingers. The sound he makes then—like he’s lost control of his restraint—has something in me unraveling.
He kisses me like he’s been starving. Like he’s afraid that if he stops, I’ll disappear. His tongue slides against mine, coaxing a soft sound from my throat. I’ve never been kissed like this, like he wants to worship and ruin me all at once.
When we finally break apart, I’m gasping and my lips feel swollen. His eyes are dark, jaw tight, like he’s holding back from taking things further.
“That’s… that’s definitely not the kind of kiss we can do in front of my mother,” I manage.
“Probably not,” he agrees, voice low and rough, but he doesn’t let go.
“Cindy?”
“Yeah?”
“You can scent me if you want. Properly.”
I blink at him, confused, until he undoes two more buttons of his shirt, revealing the taut line of his chest and the edge of a skull tattoo inked into tanned skin. He tilts his head back, exposing his throat.
That kind of openness. That kind of trust. It makes me shudder and curl forward.
“That’s… that’s really intimate,” I whisper.
“We’re supposed to be together. You should know my scent.”
My hands move on instinct, sliding over the hard plane of his chest. His skin is hot beneath my fingers.
I lean in, breath catching as his scent wraps around me.
It’s stronger here. Spiced caramel, darker and more potent up close.
The marshmallow sweetness has a creamy depth, thick and soft, with a hint of vanilla.
I press my nose to his throat and breathe him in deep.
Something inside me breaks and re-forms. Like this was always meant to be.
“Scent match,” I whisper against his skin.
His arms come around me, pulling me in so tight I can barely breathe. “I know.”
“This can’t be real.”
“Feels pretty fucking real to me.”
I pull back slightly, just enough to see his face. I need space. I need to think. But he doesn’t release me. His hand is on my back, warm and steady. His breath fans my cheek.
“We should focus on tomorrow,” I murmur. “The plan. That’s what matters.”
“If you say so.” But his eyes are locked on mine, and they’re full of heat. Of questions. Of promises we’re no longer pretending to ignore.
He stands, goes to grab his duffel bag, and I try to calm my racing heart. Try being the operative word.
Because the second his back is to me, something in my body shifts as if a match has been struck, and now everything inside me is burning.
My thighs clench without permission. My breathing goes shallow.
There’s a heat rolling through me, slow and mean, licking at the edges of my self-control, wanting to see what I’ll do when it’s gone.
This can’t be happening. Not now. Not again.
I press my palms to my knees, grounding myself. But it doesn’t help.
The scent of him is everywhere. It lingers in the air, seeps into my skin, and the raw, primal part of me, the heat I’ve been trying to ignore, is clawing her way to the surface, desperate and feral. And every inch of me wants to roll in that scent. She wants to be claimed .
And worse?
Bitten… What I wouldn’t give to feel that ache between my thighs.
God, who have I become?
The ache hits low and deep, sharp and undeniable. The kind that demands attention doesn’t just want—it needs . Pressure. Teeth. Tongue. Cock. Something to ease the pulsing throb between my thighs that’s now making me squirm on the damn couch like I’m in heat.
Which I’m not.
I’m not.
I grip the cushion beneath me and focus on breathing, on logic, on anything but the slick heat building between my legs and the way my body is already responding to just the sound of his zipper opening as he unpacks.
“Let’s make this place look lived in,” he says, all business now.
I manage a nod, even though I’m not sure my brain is functioning. But right now, every single thing he does feels loaded. Erotic.
I watch him unpack. Toothbrush and razor for the bathroom. Normal enough. Then he starts sorting everything on the other end of the couch like he’s building little piles for each room, grouping them like some unspoken plan is playing out in his head.
“That’s a lot of clothes,” I observe, forcing casualness into my voice while my thighs squeeze tighter together.
“Need to make it believable.”
He adds folded shirts to one pile, a belt to another. Like he’s moving in. Like this is real. Like I’m his and he’s just settling into what was always inevitable.
Then he sets down a phone charger, places his watch carefully beside it, and adds a pair of reading glasses to the mix.
“You wear glasses?” I ask, trying to latch on to anything to distract from the inferno in my bloodstream.
“Sometimes. Want to see?”
He puts them on, and thank God I’m sitting down because scholarly Holt is a version I was not prepared for.
He looks like a dangerous professor, the kind that would make you stay after class.
The kind who’d bend you over the desk for giving the wrong answer—and I’d suddenly forget how to get anything right.
“That’s not fair,” I inform him, my voice a little hoarse. “You can’t just add accessories and level up in hotness.”
He continues unpacking without comment, like this isn’t killing me slowly. He pulls out workout bands and places them on the far end of the couch. A tub of protein powder follows.
“Your mother might check the kitchen,” he explains.
Then comes a worn cookbook with stained corners.
“No one would believe I live somewhere without recipe books.”
Even a pair of scuffed boots land neatly by the side table like they’ve always belonged there.
“This is very thorough,” I say.
“That’s me.” He takes out a framed photo next. “Harper sent this.”
It’s us, sort of. Harper’s Photoshop skills have combined what looks like a brewery event photo of me with one of Holt at the restaurant.
We’re not quite together but close enough to look like a couple.
I’m laughing at something, and he’s looking at me with an expression that will give me fantasies.
“When did Harper do this?”
“This afternoon, apparently. She and Luke have been plotting.”
“Of course they have.”
By the time he’s done, my space looks transformed. Male presence everywhere. The bathroom smells like his soap, his jacket on the hook carries his scent, his belongings mixed with mine like we’ve been together for months.
“Perfect,” he says, surveying his work.
“Yeah,” I agree, looking around my invaded space. “Perfect.”
We return to the couch, closer now, the air charged between us.
“We should go over more details,” he says. “Just in case.”
“Like what?”
“Your favorite things. Morning routine. How you take your coffee.”
“Why would my mother ask about my coffee preferences?”
“I should know them. Boyfriends know these things.”
So we talk. I tell him about my coffee addiction with cream, no sugar, unless it’s Monday—then all the sugar. He tells me he drinks it black like God intended. I learn that he runs every morning at dawn when the world is quiet. He learns that I haven’t seen dawn voluntarily in years.
“Biggest fear?” he asks.
“That’s getting deep for fake dating.”
“Your mother might test me.”
“Fine. Ending up like my sister. Married to someone who sees her as decoration. Two kids she never wanted, living a life someone else chose.” I pause. “Yours?”
“Failing to protect the people I care about.”
The weight of that statement sits between us. Not heavy. Not awkward. Just real. Like the rest of this night.
“Holt?”
“Yeah?”
“What happens after tomorrow? When my mother leaves?”
He looks at me for a long moment. “What do you want to happen?”
“I don’t know,” I admit. “This is complicated.”
“Doesn’t have to be.”
We’re close again, that magnetic pull between us that I don’t understand but can’t resist.
“I should probably get ready for bed,” I say. “Big day tomorrow.”
“Right,” he says, standing with a stretch that somehow makes him look even broader. “I’d better head off, then.”
I follow him to the door, pulse tripping. “Are you really going home, or are you going to sit in your car and watch my place all night?”
He pauses with his hand on the doorknob, eyes narrowing just slightly.
“Harper told me she spotted you guys out there the other night.”
The corner of his mouth lifts, slow and wicked. It’s the kind of smile that has women questioning their moral compass.
I nearly fan myself.
“Then I insist you stay over,” I say, pushing the words out before I lose my nerve. “The couch is super comfy. Long enough to fit you. Please don’t stay in the car.”
“I’ve got a good view from the street,” he says, like it’s the most normal thing in the world. “I’ll be more comfortable keeping an eye out. And being a gentleman.”
“I won’t sleep knowing you’re out there in the dark and cold,” I argue, crossing my arms. “You’ll be ten feet away either way. What’s the difference?”
He considers me for a second too long. “This way, I’ll spot danger before it reaches you.”
I hate that logic. Hate how it makes sense. Hate that it feels like he’s drawing some kind of boundary I don’t want.
“Wait,” I say, before he can pull the door open. “At least let me make you a coffee. And maybe some snacks? You like snacks, right?”
He grins again, like he knows exactly what he’s doing. “Only if you’re on the menu.”
I sputter. “Absolutely not.”
“Then I’ll take cookies if you have them.”
I turn and stalk toward the kitchen, because blushing in front of him feels like surrender.
Behind me, I hear him settle into the doorway again. Guard dog mode. Protector mode. The kind of man who watches your front step like it’s a war zone and your safety is a mission.
I fill the kettle, breathing in his scent still clinging to the air, wondering how a fake boyfriend can make a house feel more like home when it never really has before.
I think I’m in trouble.
But for once, I don’t feel like running.