Knot That Pucking Scent, Part One (Knotty Puckers #6)

Prologue

Ollie

My brother won’t stop grinning at me. I’m sure Luke’s just putting on a brave face to make sure I don’t get upset. But how am I supposed to feel when he’s stuck in a hospital bed with his legs in casts and tied up with strings?

“Come on, this is a total fantasy of mine!” He laughs, though it’s muffled through the bandages wrapped around his head. “You know I’ve been insanely jealous of all those actors who get strung up in these things.”

“Getting hit by a van so you can dramatically lie around is not a fantasy of a sane person,” I say as I try to hold back my smile. I want to act like I’m angry with him, even though this is going to make a great story in the future. My twin is too infectious.

When I can’t hold it back any longer, I roll my eyes, swiping the pen from his bedside table, and I start scrawling on his cast as he turns the page of his magazine and hums happily.

First a black cat for good luck, then some stars for him to wish on, then a rainbow and clouds so we can keep dreaming. Then a freaking dunce’s cap to remind him not to be such an idiot in the future.

Even though it wasn’t his fault the van was doing twice the legal speed, he still stepped out between two parked cars while staring at his phone. Or that’s what he said.

“Okay, but what about this?” he asks, holding up the magazine to show a picture of two very muscled, very fine hockey players.

“Dear Lord, they are hot, aren’t they?” I purr, instantly drooling at the two-page spread.

Is this the biggest hockey team rivalry in years? Is boldly printed along the top with a picture of the massive Timber Holtz, the man we’re supposed to be working for.

Both men are in their red, white, and black Scented Scorpions uniform, but only one of them looks happy about it.

Timber glares out from the page with a scowl deeper than a canyon, his arms folded so his biceps push his team shirt to the max. His body is huge, with a pillowy chest so curvy that I instantly want to jump on him and nuzzle in.

My heat isn’t even due for another month, and I’m close to fanning my face as my eyes run down his shirt, over thin shorts, and trickle to his thick calves.

Next to him is another alpha who’s a different flavor of handsome.

If Timber is hard whiskey, Kane Moretti is fine wine, with curly black hair and tanned skin, which speaks of his Italian heritage.

With a huge grin on his face, he stands with one elbow on Timber’s shoulder.

He’s one of the many heartthrobs of the Scented Scorpions ice hockey team.

And the gleam in his eye says he knows it, as he’s lifted his shirt to show his ribbed stomach underneath.

“Do we need to talk about it now? You’ve only been awake a few days,” I say.

I have to force myself to look away because the two of them are smoking. Maybe they’d used filters and touched them up for the magazine, but there’s only so much Photoshop can do.

“Come on, Ollie, look at those aaaabs. Think of how you’ll get to see that sweet bod every day. Plus, that scowl. Doesn’t it get you going? You can be the one to ease his grumpy heart.”

Ever since he woke up from the crash, Luke had been trying to convince me to go along with his master plan.

Luke and I were hired by the Scented Scorpions to create a new diet regimen for Timber Holtz.

Luke was supposed to move into his house and cook for him during home games while I created the meal plans.

Luke was the front man for this job, while I worked behind the scenes.

Mainly because the nearer my heat grew, the crazier I got.

So, it was better I hung back for the whole thing, especially when our very first client was him.

But then Luke just had to go and get hit by a van.

“Look, how else are we going to pay back this loan?” he asks.

The hospital bills have already climbed because of all the surgeries they had to do to save Luke’s legs.

We’ll only be able to pay our business loan and the bills off by making our business, Knot Those Kind of Bites, successful, or by a miracle.

“We need this job to kick-start our careers, and the only way we’re getting there is by servicing Timber Holtz to the best of our ability. ”

“Can you not phrase it like that?” It’s giving me too many ideas.

“Hmmm, exactly. All you need to do is cook him food and watch his ass jiggle as he works out. Though, considering how tight he is front and back, the only thing jiggling will be his—”

“Okay!” I shout before he bursts out laughing, and I end up joining him, a hot flush painting my cheeks. Timber is a dream of a man, and there’s no way I can live in his house without perfuming non-stop.

But that’s the thing about Timber Holtz, and the reason Luke is convinced we can get away with this.

Because Timber has no sense of smell, that’s why they’ve specifically hired us. He can’t taste anything, and our specialty is food texture as well as flavor.

Luke waves the picture in front of me, and I groan. Timber is the kind of alpha you’d expect to see barreling down the ice like a machine, barging into people with pure fury. And if he came at me with that strength…

Timber holds a water bottle in one hand, but his grip is so strong that it nearly crushes it. The cut of his jaw and the fierce look in his dark blue eyes send shivers running through me.

“Look, it’s not like we haven’t pretended to be each other before, or cross-dressed,” Luke says. “You know how much I love a soft, flowing skirt. And you won’t have to change that much. You’re flat enough in the front already.”

“Thanks,” I grumble, resisting the urge to cover my chest. Though I’m not going to lie. Whenever I dress up as a man, I barely need to bind my breasts. And my wardrobe is overflowing with clothes that would look good on any gender.

When our parents died, we were shipped from Nashville to Michigan to live with our uptight grandparents.

They were obsessed with the whole “Girls should be pretty, boys should be tough,” and they separated us, only letting us see each other on weekends.

All so I could practice being a ‘girl’ by doing stuff like embroidery, ironing, and babysitting to learn how to take care of kids.

While Luke learned how to buff shoes, do taxes, and use a freaking chainsaw.

So obviously, as twins, our favorite thing to do was swap places and see how long we could get away with it.

Imagine how they reacted when I presented as an omega, and Luke didn’t become an alpha. We got away from them as quickly as we could after that, and I said goodbye to gender and designations.

If we fall into real debt, we’ll have to go crawling back into that genderized hell-hole.

Luke prefers feminine clothes, and he sometimes works as a female model for our neighbor and best friend, Noa. She’s a designer who owns a boutique and helps us with parts of our business, as we help Noa with hers.

But I don’t like to lean one way or the other.

Girly clothes make me cringe after being forced into them since I was eight, but so does ultra-masc.

stuff. I like to find a balance where no one can tell for sure if I’m a guy or a girl the first time they meet me, or a beta or an omega.

All I have to do for this job is turn my dial to masculine beta, and I can pass.

It’s doing it for so long that’s the problem.

Timber’s never met us, so I can act however I want. I won’t have to change much, just my voice and my name.

“What about my heat?” I ask. “The job is four months, and I don’t want to have to deal with that when I’m living with an alpha like him.”

It isn’t like I go around rubbing on every alpha I walk into, but the last week leading up to my heat is pretty risky, especially when I slip into pre-heat three days before the big event.

I have to stay in our apartment so I don’t do something dumb like get on the metro and start mounting strangers.

I usually have alphas ready for a three-day rock-and-roll fest as soon as I get the first pangs of my preheat. And they’re the ones exhausted by the end.

If I have to be in the same house as an alpha who looks like that when I’m in preheat, all the heat suppressants in the world won’t stop me.

Omegas have a heat every three months, and I’m smack dab in the middle, hanging out in the safe zone. My last one ended two months ago in a blaze of slick and glory, and I have another month to rev my engines. Or, cool my engines, if I’m going through with Luke’s plan.

“My leg will definitely be better by then. And I can totally slip in to fill your place, no problem!” he chirps.

I don’t believe him, not for a second. We both know the damage is so bad that there’s a chance he might never walk again. But I’ll keep playing along because if we acknowledge how severe it really is, we could lose hope.

Realistically, if we don’t do this job for the Scented Scorpions, then our brand new business, Knot Those Kind of Bites, and possibly the rest of our lives, are toast.

We planned to start our own company for years after our parents passed when we were eight. They ran their own restaurant, but we want to take our own spin on things.

We both went to college in Nashville, to honor their memory, and make our business the best it can be.

Luke went for sports, health, and science, while I studied nutrition and business.

As a male beta, no one would question Luke moving in with Timber and ‘servicing’ him. But if they find out a female omega has snuck in to thirst over him for months, that’ll be a whole other story.

I’m not sure I can stay on suppressants until my brother’s leg heals.

They aren’t exactly cheap through the healthcare system, and my insurance doesn’t cover them, but my dealer from college let me start up a tab until we get paid.

I already hit him up last month for some scent suppressants for official meetings Luke and I needed to have with Scorpion officials to prepare us for the job with Timber.

But I shouldn't need to take those regularly.

It's the heat suppressants I need to start taking soon.

Plus, there’s the added bonus of getting sick if I put my heat off for too long with suppressants. But that’s future Ollie’s problem.

If Timber had his sense of smell, I could write the whole thing off.

But that’s the main part that gives me hope.

And Timber will be out of state half the time, anyway.

Maybe I can slip away for my heat if they have a series of away games.

Then I could solve the whole problem and not have to think about pouncing on Mr. Tall, Dark, and Alpha.

I adjust my beanie, giving Luke a half-grin, which he happily returns.

“So, you’ll do it? You’ll move in with the hot hot hockey player and provide for all his needs?”

“Only if you don’t make a big song and dance about it. And you don’t skip out on work just because you’re in hospital!”

“Don’t worry, dear sister. I’ll meal plan like you’ve never seen anyone meal plan before.

” He pulls up the sleeve of his hospital gown to flex his biceps.

“Anyway, I’m doing the world a favor. Everyone who knows knows that I make a prettier girl than you, just like you make a more handsome devil than me.

All we need to do is come up with a game plan, and then we’re set for glory! ”

I’ll focus on that, and not the I-want-to-climb-that-man-like-a-tree part. Because if it works out well with Timber Holtz, we could get recommendations that could lead us to becoming nutritionists and health advisers to the stars.

All it’ll take is a little deception, a few suppressants, and a whole lot of luck.