14. Dane
Chapter 14
Dane
R osie Braxton is standing in my backyard, mad as hell. What are the odds that this is our new neighbor? Too bad she hates my very existence, because I’m enthralled with this sexy grown-up version of her.
She reaches for the switch on the air compressor and smacks it off, her tight little shorts showing off the swell of her ass. “Here is your official welcome to the neighborhood. Don’t use power tools before ten o’clock in the morning and never come to my door looking for sugar. We don’t know each other. Are we clear?”
Rosie narrows those bright-green eyes and crosses her arms. The move draws my gaze to her ample cleavage spilling out of her lacey black tank top, and to the colorful tattoos that begin by her shoulder and cover her arms. She keeps rattling on, asking me for an answer, but I step closer, drawn to her. This fucking woman is fire, practically glowing in the rising sun.
“No. We’re not clear,” I growl, crowding closer—close enough that I’m in her space.
Her scent hits me, and I’m wrecked. I’m talking about “a sack from my blindside” kind of wrecked. She smells floral and dark, like roses and tea, with a hint of pistachio and soft cotton. I take another step closer, savoring her dewy spring sunrise—she’s a sweet meadow, vibrant and teeming with life. It isn’t an omega’s perfume, but the power of the subtle scent knocks me off my axis.My dick hardens, and my teeth ache with the need to claim.
Rosie Braxton rearranges the past and my future all in one go. My alpha rises to the surface at the recognition of my mate, and before I can think, I pull her closer.
She freezes at the first contact, then whimpers before melting. The rose in her scent blooms, succulent and rich. It makes my cock throb and my head spin. Her soft curves fit perfectly against me, and I lean in for a kiss, desperate to get a taste of her rose petal mouth.
The shove she delivers to my chest stuns me back to reality.
“That, asshole, is the opposite of what—” She freezes, her words cut off as she stares behind me.
A loud thud makes me turn, and I watch, head snapping between Rosie and Nash. They both look as if they’ve seen ghosts, frozen in horror.
All the color drains from her cheeks until she’s past pale. Rosie backpedals, almost tripping as she mutters, “No?—”
“Rosie,” I call, desperate to fix this, but she holds her hand out in the universal stop gesture and flees.
The second sack comes from the side.
I should’ve seen this one coming.
Nash shoves me once, and I turn on him just in time to get clocked in the face.
“You fucking prick,” he growls.
I reel back at the force of his hit, already knowing that shit will swell. Fuck. I’ve seen Nash lose his shit plenty, but he’s never actually taken a real go at me before. He looks ready to deliver another lick, the alpha rage slipping into his eyes.
“Step down,” my alpha bark surges, the command laced with a growl.
Nash fights it. His voice is full of a haunting mixture of anguish and rage. “You know she made it clear years ago that she doesn’t want to see us, and you decide to move in next door ? I told you she was off-limits if I was moving back here.” He’s billowing steam, angrier than I’ve ever seen.
He did tell me that, but I feel as though there are so many things I didn’t understand. “I never thought… I didn’t know…” I hold up my arms, bracing myself for the next hit. “Nash… she’s my mate .”
He charges me and slams me on my back. I can tell when he must catch a whiff of her scent because he freezes and his nostrils flare. Nash’s alpha takes over. He rolls off me and bounces to his feet, making it halfway through the yard in her direction before he crumbles violently, swinging on nothing.
“This is so fucked,” my packmate shouts, looking gutted. He tries to walk it off, cursing under his breath as I watch the war of indecision play out over his face.
I pull myself up with half his speed and an aching back.
Nash sighs and starts back toward me. “I don’t have the control to stay away from Rosie even though I know that’s what she wants. We should have never moved back.”
“Is she your mate too?” I feel like an idiot for not seeing any of this before, for not… I don’t know? I should have gotten this. How has he been my packmate this long and I didn’t realize how he felt about her? It seems he’s got secrets that will never unravel.
Nash’s face crumbles, and he lets out an aggrieved sigh. “I think I’ve already proven I’m no good for Rosie Braxton.”
That night wasn’t his fault, but if Nash can find a reason to blame himself, he’s taking it. He’s harder on himself than anyone I’ve ever met.
After meeting and bonding with Quinn in college, he mellowed—or I thought he had.
This time it’s my turn to be pissed. “That’s not what I asked.”
“That's the only answer I’m giving.” His eyes flash with the fury of his alpha. “Figure out how to fix this, Dane, because I will not fail that woman again. Don’t let me break my promise and be the one to fuck up her life.”
He storms past me, and I call after him, “What does that mean?”
It can’t be what I think he means because there is no world where I can walk away from Rosie knowing she’s my scent match. And there shouldn’t be a world where he’s willing to either.
He turns on me, hands on his hips and his words hard. “It means stay away from Rosie Braxton unless she gives you a written invitation.”
My packmate walks away as I stare in shock. He can’t be serious.
I came home to Knotty Pines to settle down, but my entire world has just been blown to pieces. Looking at the two-story Victorian Rosie disappeared into, I wonder where we go from here.