Chapter 9
CASSIAN
The kitchen smells like coffee, butter, and her.
She laughs at something Eli says—little flash of teeth, hand around the mug—and it punches straight through my ribs. The kinda hit that drops you before you feel it. I pretend to rinse a plate that’s already clean.
Rowan tucks the newspaper into the recycling bin ‘cause he’s the only one who doesn’t read the news online. When she finishes her coffee, thanks Eli, thanks Rowan, tips her chin at me like we have a private joke, and pads out.
My pulse doesn’t drop with the sound of her footsteps. It spikes and holds. Every Alpha instinct I’ve got is tracking her through the house and counting doors, measuring distance, cataloging exits like I’m hunting.
Eli hooks two fingers in Rowan’s tank, and they disappear down the hall with low voices.
I rest my palms on the island. Her scent still owns the room—vanilla, jasmine, a blade of citrus behind my teeth. I grind my molars like that, I’ll scrape it off. It fucking does shit.
“Get out of the house,” I tell myself, away from her pheromones that hook into me like lures and make me want to forget my own damn rules.
My gloves are in the garage. Heavy bag hanging in the corner, waiting. A few rounds would bleed the edge off.
I make it halfway there before the fence gate squeaks—a lazy, needling sound that cuts under my skin.
I pivot toward it instead. Can’t hit the bag while the damn hinge screams at me.
Might as well fix something I can hit with a hammer.
I shoulder the gate up, set the line, and drive longer screws into the wood until the sag quits. Test again and there’s no squeak, no drag. The kind of obedience I want from my own pulse.
Every click and slide is a thought I don’t have to think. It still sneaks in.
Jess underneath me. The split second where my brain wasn’t awake and my body was. All instinct, no thought. Her wrists soft in my hands, pulse rabbiting against my palm. Her body fit mine like a lock I was meant to open.
Heat hits the back of my neck. I grit my teeth and keep working.
I didn’t mean it. Reflex is not intent. But I’ve seen what Alphas do when reflex drives—I’ve broken jaws over it, put men through walls for less. None of that matters if she’d been scared.
She wasn’t. That makes it worse.
I swing the gate, the squeak is gone, and I start putting my tools away.
“Morning,” she says, and her voice catches on the second syllable. Like she ran here. Like she’s been thinking about me.
I keep my body still. I look up slowly, but fail not to look hungry.
She’s wearing her crop top and those khaki pants cling to her hips. Bare feet on the concrete, like she knows better than to step into my space without asking and is doing it anyway.
“Those boards’ll give you a splinter.” The words claw up my throat before I can stop them.
She glances down at her feet, then back up at me. Doesn’t move. “You worried about me, Cassian?”
My name coming out of her does something to my spine.
Her mouth curves, and it kills me. “What are you doing?”
“Fixed a hinge.” I thumb toward the fence. “It was complaining, but also, I noticed some boards were loose.”
She takes two steps closer. Her scent cuts through the air.
“Can I help?” she asks.
“No shoes, no entry.”
She raises a brow. “House rules?”
“Mine.”
She doesn’t retreat. “What do I get if I follow them?”
“Respect.” Safer than the first five answers that tried to crawl out.
That makes her pause. She tips her head. “You always like this?”
“Like what?”
“Bossy.” Her eyes flick to my mouth, like she’s checking if I’ll bite.
“Careful,” I say, letting the word land. “If you’re going to stand there, at least hold this.”
I hand her the hammer even though I’m done, but I figure there are a few loose boards I can work on.
She takes it, and our fingers brush. My hand swallows hers, calluses catching on skin so soft it’s obscene.
Her scent spikes—vanilla heating into something richer, headier. That’s arousal. That’s her body telling mine exactly what it wants.
I pull back before I do something stupid like hold on. ‘Cause I could snap her wrist without thinking. The thought makes me sick and hard in the same breath.
She doesn’t pull back. She also doesn’t do the thing most Omegas have done with me, which is act like I can’t control my Alpha side.
I get three boards done before I run out of excuses.
“About earlier,” I say.
Her shoulders register it before her face does. Not a flinch…more like a soft brace. “Reflex,” she says, easy. “You already said.”
“Doesn’t make it right.” Period. I live by rules because the alternative spills blood.
Her mouth does that slow thing she does when she’s tasting a word. “You didn’t hurt me.”
“That’s not the point.”
“It’s mine,” she says, and I have to look up because that lands like a nail set. “If I’d been scared, you’d have let go faster than you did.”
The truth of it sits between us and expands.
“I’d never touch you like that on purpose,” I say, lower. “Not without your say-so.”
“I know.” No hesitation. No wobble. She steps forward and offers me the hammer back, but doesn’t release it when I take it. Three of her fingers lightly touch my wrist.
Something in my spine unlocks and threatens to give. My Alpha side demands I pin her, cage her, make her understand what she’s playing with. She’s more dangerous with two ounces of pressure than anyone I’ve ever put in the ground.
“You’re bleeding,” she says softly in a way that makes my Alpha sit up and take notice. That’s not pity. That’s concern, yeah, but under it, she wants to take care of me. The way Omegas do when their instincts get loud.
And fuck, the way her scent—jasmine and vanilla under summer storm—tangles with mine, and it doesn’t just pull; it dares.
I blink, looking at where she’s examining me, so I don’t tackle her right here. There’s a cut across my knuckle, small and shallow, bright with fresh red. I must’ve caught it on something while I was fixing the fence.
“It’s nothing,” I say, but she’s already moving closer, already reaching for my hand like she has every right to it.
She lifts my hand to look, stepping closer to do it. Her hip brushes my knee, and she goes still.
Her breath held like she’s waiting to see if I’ll move, if I’ll grab, if I’ll—
She exhales slowly and keeps working, but her hands shake.
The sun catches in her hair, and I want to put my mouth on her neck and bite gently until she sighs my name.
Instead, I freeze, every muscle locking down, because if I move, I’m going to move, and that’s not a line I’m crossing without a signed contract, two witnesses, and a fire extinguisher. Maybe a priest. Definitely a safe word.
Once I give in and touch her, taste her, I won’t be able to stop.
“You clean it; I’ll bring the Band-Aids,” she says, and turns toward the door.
“Second drawer in the guest bathroom,” I tell her, and then watch her walk away.
I wash the cut with the hose. She comes back with the little tin Eli keeps stocked. She drops to a squat in front of me without being asked.
The hem of her top rides up. I see an inch more of skin, and the Alpha in me claws up my throat, snarling. It wants to drag her down, pin her to the deck, make her bare her throat. I lock my jaw until my teeth ache.
“Give me your hand,” she says.
I do. She pats it dry with more care than a Band-Aid deserves, puts a layer of antibacterial on it, peels the paper with her teeth, and smooths it over my knuckle.
Her thumb lingers there for the space of one heartbeat too long.
Then two. Then she traces the bandage like she’s memorizing the shape of my hand.
“Jess.” A warning in one syllable.
She pulls back. Smiles like she won something. “Payment.”
“For what?”
“Medical services rendered.” She nods at the hinge. “Teach me how to fix that.”
“You’re not wearing shoes.”
She looks at me like I’m adorable. “I’ll risk it.”
“You won’t.” I stand, kick off my boots, and shove them at her. “Wear these. Unless you’re squeamish.”
She puts on my boots, and they dwarf her. My scent on her skin. It’s stupid how good she looks. Stupid how Alpha-brain I go about it: mine, marked, kept.
She breathes in—small, quick, like she’s pulling my scent into her lungs on purpose. If she knew what that did to me, she’d stop. Or maybe she wouldn’t.
Her eyes find mine. “Lead the way.”
We walk to the fence, find a loose board, and gesture for the hammer she’s holding. I line up the nail, give it a few taps to keep it in place, then hand the hammer back to her.
“Go ahead,” I say.
She starts hammering until the nail disappears into the wood.
She straightens, eyes shining—too bright to be pride, not quite relief—and it hits me harder than it should.
“Again?” she asks.
“I think there’s one board left.” I test several, finding one that needs new nails. “You never fixed a board before?”
“Nope. Dad always paid for people to do stuff. It was like he never wanted to bother showing me.”
She finishes the board while I hold it in place. I breathe once and hate myself for how much she tempts me to forget rules, forget reason, and just take.
“Good.” The sound drags, rough and intimate.
Her gaze snaps to mine, pupils widening like she heard the part I didn’t say. We’re close enough to kiss without moving, and there’s a half-second where the world makes that suggestion with a straight face.
Her eyes drop to my mouth. Stay there. I watch her throat work as she swallows.
Then she leans in—just an inch, just barely—before she catches herself.
“Cassian,” she says it like a question.
My hands tighten on the fence because one twitch and I’m done. The Alpha in me is screaming to close the distance, claim her mouth, make her mine. But the man? The man wants to hear her say yes first. Wants to know it’s not just biology pulling her in.
“Yeah.”
“Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For not pretending I’m fragile.”
“You’re not,” I say. “You’re… careful. That’s different.”
She studies me like she’s picking a lock. Whatever she finds, it makes her smile sideways and mean it.
“Want your boots back?” she asks.
“Keep them until you get your shoes,” I say. “You can pay me back by not stepping on a nail.”
“Deal,” she says, and starts toward the house.
“Jess,” I hear myself say.
She stops, looking back, waiting.
I should shut up. Stick with gravity, negligence, bolts, and blades. Instead, my mouth opens and my throat picks up honesty like it’s tired of the taste of anything else.
“You felt—” I break, swear, adjust. “Shit. It felt good to have you in my bed under me. Too good. The kind of good that makes an Alpha forget his manners.”
Her breath catches. It’s tiny. It might just be the wind. It still hits like a shot, and she doesn’t look away. I grip the top rail until the wood complains.
Then her chin lifts—just a fraction, just enough to show spine.
“I’m glad it wasn’t just me.” Not shy. Not flustered. She holds my eyes like she’s daring me to say more, even though a blush colors her cheeks.
For a second, I forget every rule I’ve ever written for myself.
Then she turns and walks away in boots too big, hips doing things to my equilibrium.
I stay where I am until the door closes behind her. The yard hums—bees in the rosemary, a car honking in the distance. Normal day. My hands don’t feel normal. They feel like they remember a shape I wasn’t supposed to learn.
I scrub the heel of one hand over my mouth. “Fuck!”
I’ve got rules because when I don’t, people bleed. Don’t grab. Don’t crowd. Don’t let the animal drive the car. Don’t pretend biology is romance.
She looked at me like she wanted to know what kind of monster I am. Then she put a Band-Aid on my hand and fixed a gate with me and left me standing here like a teenager.
I look down at my palms. A scar on the heel from a bottle when I was nineteen. Knife nick on the index from the week Rowan and I got dumb in a bar. New bandage over the knuckle, neat where she smoothed it.
And somehow I can’t think of punching the bag like I wanted. I don’t want her work on my knuckle to be for nothing.
“These hands were built to fight,” I say to the fence.
Built to break bones, snap necks, and put Alphas through drywall when they touch what’s mine.
“Not to want. Not to—” I shove down the rest. Not to crave her like oxygen.
Not to ache. Not for holding someone long enough to say her name until it’s engraved on my soul.
The sun slides higher. Her scent has already thinned in the air. It lingers anyway, behind my tongue, in the constant throb at the base of my skull, in the way my body is suddenly aware of every door in this house that leads to her.
If her heat hits, I’ll hold the line. I’ll burn before I touch her.
Probably both.
I head inside. The gloves in the garage stay untouched. No point in hitting leather when the damage is already done.
Rowan watches a basketball game on the TV, but he takes one look at my face and goes still.
“Don’t,” I say, and he mutes the TV.
“Wasn’t going to.”
“Good.” I grab water from the fridge, drain half the bottle before heading back into the living room. “She goes into heat, you lock me up.”
Rowan’s quiet for three seconds. “Cassian—”
“I mean it.” I set the bottle down hard enough that the coffee table complains. “Because if I catch her scent when she’s like that, I won’t be the guy who fixes hinges and hands her his boots to wear. I’ll be the thing she needs a safe word for.”
He nods once. He knows. We all know what Alphas become.
I just need to make sure I don’t become it with her.