Chapter 6
CLAIRE
“Let me see that scratch before you get cat bacteria and lose the arm.”
I laugh at Brody’s overexaggeration, glancing down at the three red lines on my forearm, thin and slightly stinging, a gift from Princess Anastasia Snowdrop. “It’s barely anything.”
“Sit.” He pats the stool next to the island, where Damien is perched, golden eyes tracking every movement in the kitchen.
The cheese pull-apart sits on the marble countertop, smelling divine, still steaming.
Then Brody heads out of the kitchen and down the hallway, saying something about getting his first aid kit.
His gray joggers hang low on his hips, and the black T-shirt pulls across his shoulder blades.
I have no self-control because my gaze drops to where the fabric stretches over his ass, and I hold there for a full, shameless second before I do as I’m told and sit, while Damien headbutts my arm immediately.
“Hi to you too.”
He does it again, harder, pressing his skull into my bicep with the urgency of a cat staking a claim. I lean down until my face is level with his. “Don’t make it obvious,” I whisper. “I’m trying to be cool.”
He trills.
“I’m serious. Poker face. Both of us.”
I run my hand down his back, and he arches into it, spine curving against my palm, purring so loudly the vibration travels up my wrist. His eyes blink up at me, and my chest squeezes at how affectionate this cat is.
“I’m not here to cause trouble,” I tell him softly. “Promise.”
Footsteps behind me, and I straighten. Act natural.
“What are you two conspiring about?” Brody sets a small first aid kit on the counter and flips it open.
“He’s protective of you,” I say. “Headbutting me into submission.”
“He only does that for people he trusts, so count yourself lucky.” He pulls out antiseptic wipes and butterfly strips and steps close enough that his hip brushes the edge of my stool.
His scent rolls over me—salted caramel and hickory wood—and my lungs fill with it before I can brace myself.
It sinks past my chest and ribs, settling low in my belly, and every nerve ending along my skin prickles awake.
He takes my arm, his touch leaving me tingling all over. His fingers wrap around my wrist, turning it so the scratches face up. His hand is twice the size of mine. There are calluses on his palm, and his thumb rests against the inside of my wrist where my pulse is out of control.
“This might sting,” he murmurs.
The antiseptic bites. I hiss through my teeth, and his grip tightens, steadying me, so I use the sting as an excuse to stare at him because he’s focused on my arm and isn’t looking at my face. This way, I study him without getting caught.
His jaw, this close, is sharper than I realized.
His lashes are dark, casting shadows on his cheekbones every time he blinks.
His lips are parted slightly in concentration, and I track the shape of them, the full lower lip, the defined Cupid’s bow.
My brain helpfully supplies the image of those lips on my skin, and I have to clench my free hand against my thigh to keep from visibly reacting.
He dabs the antiseptic along each scratch. His head is bent close to my arm, close enough that I can feel the warmth of his breath on my skin, and the combination of his scent and proximity leaves me breathless.
Something’s happening in my chest. Not the anxiety tightness, as this is different.
A slow, pulling sensation, as if a compass needle inside me just found north.
My instincts seem to be stretching, responding to something in his scent that feels less random and more…
specific. Matched. I don’t have the courage to follow that thought to its conclusion because it’s insanity to even consider that, so I file it away and focus on his hands. Huge palms, long, thick fingers.
Damien instantly leaps from the counter onto my lap, and I yelp. Brody doesn’t flinch.
“If he’s not the center of attention, he creates a crisis. It’s his main skill,” he explains.
Damien settles across my thighs, purring aggressively, and I rest one hand on his back while Brody applies the butterfly strips. His fingers smooth the edges against my skin, pressing gently. My breath hitches as his gaze lifts to mine.
Blue. So close they’re almost violet in the kitchen light. The playfulness has gone quiet. What’s left is him staring at me with an intensity that pins me to the stool, and he’s not pulling away.
Damien chirps between us, and I exhale. “Someone’s demanding attention,” I manage with a lopsided grin.
“He can wait.” But Brody steps back, glancing down at Damien, and the space he leaves behind feels cavernous. “Okay. You’ll survive.”
Then he slides the pull-apart toward me with paper napkins, proceeds to grab glasses, and pours iced tea from a jug in the fridge.
His movements are easy, the comfort of a man in his own zone, and I watch him reach for the high shelf.
His shirt rides up, exposing a strip of stomach and the cut of muscle along his hip, and I shove a piece of bread into my mouth so fast I almost choke.
The cheese stretches, golden and obscene, and when I bite down again, I moan deep in my chest. “This is incredible. Genuinely the best pull-apart I’ve ever eaten.”
He sets a small dish of treats on the floor for Damien, who abandons my lap with zero loyalty and is face down in the bowl before the last piece hits the ceramic. Then Brody leans against the counter opposite me, arms folded, ankles crossed, and the joggers pull across his thighs.
“I like the sound of that.” He tears off his own piece. “Now, tell me what I’m walking into on Saturday. Who’s the target?” Then he devours his chunk.
I pick at the bread. “It’s… there’s my ex.” I take a sip of my iced tea. “He’ll be there.”
Brody doesn’t push further, just watches me with those steady blue eyes, and I appreciate his patience.
“His name’s Louis. He was…” I press my thumb against the side of my glass, focusing on the cold. “He was my fiancé.”
“How long?”
“A year. We never bonded, but I thought it was heading there.” I tear some bread into smaller pieces. “He ended it the morning of my horrendous TV interview. Packed suitcase, another Omega in the car outside, the whole scene.” I attempt a laugh, but it comes out wobbly. “Fun times.”
“He sounds like a fucking loser.”
I grin. “You’re not wrong. And, well, he’s the best man at this wedding because the universe has a sense of humor and no mercy.”
Brody’s jaw clenches. “Guessing he knows you’re attending.”
“He texted me about it, some crap about offering me a dance because he knows I’ll be alone.
He’s such a douche. I don’t know what I saw in him.
” I trail off, feeling the heat in my cheeks, the vulnerability of saying this to a man I’m heavily attracted to.
My fingers find the edge of my glass again.
“Sorry. This is a lot of baggage to dump on someone over a cheesy pull-apart.”
“I’m not going anywhere, Claire.” The way he says my name, deep, unhurried, certain, is everything.
I take a heavy breath. “So that’s target one. Him seeing me with someone and realizing I’m not the pathetic mess he assumes I am.”
“He’s going to see so much,” he says, and in all honesty, I’m unsure what he means by that, but I let it go. “Which brings us to target two? I’m good with families,” he admits.
I groan. “Mine will be there in force, and they always grill me. When am I finding an Alpha? Why did I let Louis go when he was such a great catch? Am I eating enough? Why don’t I get a real job at a restaurant instead of writing cookbooks?
” I straighten up, reaching for my tea, while Brody is munching away, his attention never leaving me.
“You see, my sister found her Alpha match at eighteen. Bonded, mated, blissfully happy. She’s the family success story.
And I’m…” I gesture at myself. “Twenty-five, unmated, and professionally radioactive. I mean, they love me all while being very obviously worried I’m going to die alone surrounded by books. ”
He listens through all of it without interrupting. When I finish and take a long sip of tea to wash down the embarrassment, he straightens off the counter and walks around to my side.
He sits on the stool next to mine, extremely close. His knee presses against my thigh, and the contact sends a jolt up my leg and to my spine. He turns my stool to face him, and suddenly my bare legs are between his spread knees.
“Do you have any idea how stunning you are?”
I blink to hear this hunk of a man—with captivating eyes, lips I can only dream about tasting, and loose, wild, dark hair falling over one eye—implying I’m beautiful. The thing is, the word sits very differently with me because I’ve never seen myself that way.
“You don’t need to—”
“I’m not being polite or rehearsing for Saturday.” His gaze holds mine, and there’s absolutely nothing casual in it. “Your ex walked away from you, and that’s his failure, not yours. Plus, your family comparing you to anyone else is their blindness, not your shortcoming.”
My throat thickens from the terrifying experience of being seen by someone who isn’t flinching at what he finds out about me.
“You don’t need to hide from the world because of one mistake, Claire.
Don’t let them win when you’re this incredible.
” His mouth twists, and for the first time tonight, the confidence slips enough for me to see something rougher underneath.
“Hell, I’ve made plenty of mistakes. I once got an account shut down because I uploaded a video without checking the reflection in the oven door and gave half the internet a view nobody asked for.
I’ve burned recipes live, picked fights with trolls I should’ve ignored, and said things on camera that made me want to crawl into a hole afterward.
Mine were real mistakes. Yours was a bad moment that shitty people twisted into a weapon. ”