Page 17 of Knotty Nights

“Would you like to come inside for a drink?” I asked instead.

Her voice was low and warm when she answered: “Yes, please.”

SIX

Atlas

Jazmine led the way back to the cottage and locked the door behind us.

A slight sheen of sweat appeared on her forehead as she pottered around the little kitchen. She swiped the sweat away quickly with the back of her hand. The seam of her robe parted at her neck as she fanned herself, swaying lightly on her feet as she did.

It would be useless to ask if she was okay.

She wasn’t—we both knew it. Her trembling fingers gave away just how close she was to her Heat. Well, the trembling and her scent.

I didn’t think it could’ve gotten any more intoxicating than it already was, but I was wrong—painfully fucking wrong.

“It’s hot in here, isn’t it?” she huffed, pouring iced tea into two tall glasses.

It wasn’t. In fact, we’d let the chill inside when we’d come through the front door.

I paused beside the cold fireplace, realizing that I was now trapped in this little cottage with Jaz’s Heat scent. With eachinhale, I peeled back a layer of her pheromones, savoring the way they spread across my tongue.

I was a little ashamed to admit that I had gotten used to the mass-produced peel and sniff magazines that were popular on the market. The past year had been lonelier than I cared to admit, and I’d relied on cheap thrills to get through it. Those manufactured scents were nothing compared to the real thing. They weren’t even close.

Her curls now clung to her forehead, stuck down with sweat. She blew out a large breath as she brought the iced glass to her neck to cool down.

Her scent spiked as she moved, warm and sweet like a blanket of coconut cream. Hell, I wanted to sink my teeth into it.

She’d done nothing but exist and I was ready to drop to my knees for her.

Parts of me were distractingly awake.

Note to self: never wear leather pants when meeting an omega in Heat.

She set the glass down with a clink, eyeing me across the room. Her heart thudded far too quickly in her chest, audible even from a short distance. How had I become so attuned to her in such a short time?

Instead of closing the distance, I forced myself to pull out a high stool on the other end of the island. The tea was cool and sweet when I gulped it down.

“So how does this usually work?” she asked, pushing her curls away from her face as though that would help with the Heat symptoms.

“We take things at your pace,” I said, overjoyed that I could recall some of the pre-approved phrases from the handbook. “I will never do anything unless you ask, Jazmine.”

She bit her lip. “You’re technically a stranger.”

The ice clinked in the glass as I set it down.

“Do I feel like a stranger to you?” I asked, studying every movement of her features for clues to what she was thinking. “Nothing about your scent feelsstrangeto me.”

The truth was that Jazmine felt like a place I’d never been to but somehow knew how to find in pitch darkness. I took a slow breath, careful not to make it obvious, but she watched me anyway.

Logically, she was right. Wewerestrangers. We’d exchanged names, and some polite words, but nothing more than that. So why did something itch beneath my skin like it wanted attention? Her attention, to be exact.

“I didn’t know what to expect today,” I said to fill the silence. “But I want you to know that I’ve never walked into someone’s house and felt more comfortable than I do now. I smell you in everything—every corner, every scrap of fabric. And you…”

I tried to pause before I said something unbearably stupid, but the words came tumbling out anyway.

“I feel like the luckiest Alpha in the world to have matched with you.”