Chapter Fifteen
Hema
When Altan showed up at the shop, it was all I could do not to shoo the other customers out of line and send them on their way.
Or lock up and send him on his. I helped one person after another, grateful for their business and thinking, Don’t leave.
Wait! I’m going as fast as I can. He was wearing another nice suit, and I thought he’d mentioned something the night before about only wearing them when he was going to court, so his time was very likely limited.
But I didn’t tell anyone that they needed to get out of the way for the important lawyer.
Finally, he reached the front of the line, with nobody behind him.
I’d done a whole morning’s worth of sales in an hour?
Half hour? I’d never looked at a clock, but it seemed to take forever.
And then, when the butcher who’d been ordering a congratulations arrangement for his brother’s new baby stepped aside, I saw what the alpha held.
He teasingly held the muffin and coffee out of reach just long enough, I started to think maybe they were for his office before he set them down on the counter.
How incredibly sweet. I’d had a lot of time to imagine what it would be like with these males, in way too graphic ways both awake and asleep, and my cheeks burned at the memory of what I did in the bath and those dreams!
He must be here to ask. Right? Wrong. He launched into a request for flowers for his legal assistant, and being a consummate professional, I offered suggestions and finally put together something that he liked.
Not that he was difficult, but it was hard to think with my libido and my wolf doing flips inside me.
Everything in me screamed that I should say yes.
The moment he asked me on a date, I would agree.
I would take Jenny’s way and just get this out of my system.
Sex. All omegas needed sex, and the heat blockers weren’t guaranteed to make a libido disappear.
Just that I wouldn’t go into heat. In fact, I knew omegas who took them so they could have all the sex with their mates when they weren’t ready to start a family.
I wasn’t on those or scent suppressors because I’d never been close enough to any males that interested me that they could have been a thing.
Until now. As we walked around the shop and spoke, his nostrils flared more than once.
He was too polite to comment.
Luckily because I’d have died of embarrassment.
I felt so much pressure setting up the arrangement for his assistant.
If I’d learned one thing, it was that flower arranging came to me easily.
It was in my blood. Sure, I’d taken classes, but the instructor had said there was only so much she could teach us.
We could learn about colors and shapes and what worked better in different seasons, but once we got past that, we could either be a grunt setting up grocery store arrangements according to a diagram provided by corporate or an artist whose work would be in high demand.
I wasn’t sure quite how gifted I was, but people seemed to like my stuff, and I loved doing it. The wedding arrangements with my head not quite straight had been pretty smooth, but now that I knew these males were available and wanted to date me?
And now that I’d had an appalling night of fantasies about them?
I stood staring at the shelf of vases in the appropriate size for a good ten minutes before selecting the pretty one with the yellow and black dots on white background.
And the roses. Altan’s delight at my choice helped some, but I was really going to have a hard time if they kept coming in here and buying flowers for other females, assistants or not.
What did this Marney look like? Was she prettier than me? Had he decided that I wasn’t going to say yes and so he’d moved on? Lots of males got together with a secretary or assistant, didn’t they?
And here I was making up flowers for her?
Suddenly I hated her. He had said it was a professional gift, but how did she feel about it? I rang up the order and promised to deliver it the next day. Then I’d see who this femme fatale was who wanted flowers from one of my alphas.
No! Not my alphas. I only wanted him to ask me again so I could be very clear that I wasn’t going to date them. Especially after all the dancing and whatever I might have said while a little tipsy.
Oh Goddess. What had I said?
I tried to remember, but it was all a little blurry.
Altan said he’d see me later and walked out the door.
I’d answered something flip because of course I had.
And he was leaving. To go see his assistant who was probably twenty-two and had long smooth hair, something I never managed to achieve, down to her ass.
Probably wore tight skirts and high heels, while I stood here in a wraparound apron that changed my curves into something far less attractive.
I couldn’t let him leave like this. My wolf was having fits.
Running to the door, I called after him, “Are you free for lunch?”