Chapter 5 #2
“Oh, right.” I try to relax. “If I keep coming back, it will happen.”
I stare at my laptop screen, but the file I started is still blank.
Ash finishes his Shirley Temple in three long slurps, wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, and slides off the stool.
On his way out, he lifts two fingers in acknowledgment, and for a second, I consider stopping him to ask about the job he mentioned.
But I don’t, and he disappears into the back rooms. My fingers tighten around my glass. Another lead, gone. And I let him just walk away.
Petra catches my attention while wiping down the far end of the counter. “You want food?”
I shake my head. “Just drinks.”
She arches a brow, then lets it go with a shrug. “Don’t get so sloshed you can’t walk out of here on your own.”
I huff out a laugh. “Haven’t hit that point since I was a teenager.”
Orien emerges from the back rooms and halts near the far register, his attention landing on me immediately. I’d skipped Thursday again, and I wasn’t sure if he would be here this early.
A jolt goes through me, stomach dropping as if I missed a stair, and the back of my neck goes hot. I keep my attention on the laptop screen, the cursor blinking in the blank document, and reach for my drink with a hand I will to stay steady.
Petra scoots closer. “Now there’s someone who will give you an ego boost.”
My head whips toward her. “What?”
She jerks her chin toward Orien. “He’s never looked at anyone like that. You’ve made him desperate.”
The words crackle under my skin, and I take a slow sip of the whiskey sour before I set it down with care. “You think? He’s been playing it cool.”
“Trust me.” She winks. “The man is down, bad.”
My heart starts racing. I can’t work like this, can’t function at peak performance when the Alpha keeps triggering these reactions from my body. I need to prove that this is just a fantasy, that the reality will be just as disappointing as it’s always turned out to be in the past.
“You better not be setting me up,” I whisper as I close my laptop and stuff it back into my bag.
Orien tracks my every move as I draw the strap over my shoulder, slide from my stool, and walk toward him without rushing.
He doesn’t move until I’m close enough to see the scar on the bridge of his nose and the micro-freckle by his right temple that didn’t show up in any of the surveillance photos.
His chest rises and falls, inhaling my pheromones, as he takes in my outfit and the sparkly clip that holds back my black hair.
He smiles, not with his mouth but in the fine creases around his eyes. “Well, don’t you look cute today.”
I resist the desire to suck in my stomach. “I’m feeling cute, so thank you.”
He lifts one hand, slow, and touches the hair clip, index and middle finger tracing the metal. My gut pulls tight in response. Then the tips of his fingers brush my temple and the shell of my ear.
My body goes still, pulse hammering as sensation spreads through me in a full-body caress.
His fingers slide down the side of my face and drift under the fall of my hair to my nape. Warmth radiates from his dry skin, a touch so gentle it’s almost nothing, and I want to arch into it, slave to my instincts.
I don’t.
Orien’s mouth curves, this time a real smile, though it’s quick and gone. His hand drops to rest high on my waist, over the cropped sweater, with his pinky brushing bare skin, and the contact sends a crackle of static through my whole body.
His pheromones spike, filling the air between us. My head goes fuzzy around the edges, my instincts urging me to lean in, chase the heat, and follow the promise of his hand.
Instead, I shift, trying to get some air.
Orien reads the move, and instead of letting go, he tightens the pressure, fingers spanning my ribcage.
He leans closer, the warmth of his breath fluttering over my lips, but he doesn’t close the distance.
Instead, he waits, his stillness a clear invitation.
For a second, I forget the mission, the family, and the danger this Alpha in front of me represents. I only know that humming awareness that’s been present since day one, the space between us, and how much I want to collapse it.
I close my eyes for a heartbeat, then open them. Orien is still there, still waiting.
So I close the last inch myself.
The second our mouths meet, Orien tugs me flush to his body, hip to hip, chest to chest. His tongue finds the seam of my lips, and I open for him, the heat of him shattering my last coherent thought.
My hands rise to his shoulders, then up into his hair, fingers tangling in the softness at the crown. I press closer, the world dropping away, letting every tightly wound piece of me unwind.
He breaks for air, but only to bite at my lower lip, a rough drag that leaves it tingling.
I gasp, and he takes that as permission to slip inside again, going deeper.
A rumble rises from his throat, a vibration that travels through my ribs, and I realize I’m whining in response, needing him as I’ve never needed anything.
For a minute, maybe more, we’re a knot of heat and breath and want, nothing between us but the thinnest scraps of fabric.
Then the door opens, sending a cold draft up my spine, under my cropped sweater, and I wrench back, panting.
Orien’s hand stays at my waist. “Steady there, trouble.”
I wipe my mouth. My hand comes away shaking, and I stare at it for a second too long before I step back, turn on my heel, and walk past the bar, out into the late afternoon winter light.
The cold hits me, and I keep walking. My heart pounds loud in my ears. I’d told myself it would break the spell, and I could still use Orien’s attraction to me to further my mission while remaining unaffected.
But it did the opposite.
This was not the plan.
This was a catastrophic miscalculation.