Page 73 of Mask and the Magnolia

I made a show of it in retaliation but it didn’t work, and it didn’t seem to make today any easier.

“This isn’t working.” I turn away so he doesn’t see the stupid tears that want to roll down my cheeks. “I thought we hadreached a turning point in… Well, I just thought things were going to be different and now I can see they’re not.”

“Magnolia.”

I shake my head and try to keep myself calm as I walk back around the desk. “I can’t do this with you, I don’t have it in me. There’s too much going on, too much at risk and?—“

Suddenly, there’s a hand on my shoulder and I’m spinning around until I’m facing angry kaleidoscope eyes.

”I need you to shut up.”

”Excuse the fuck out of me?”

He stares at me for a moment, clearly thinking about what words he’s going to use but I see the second he decides he doesn’t actually give a shit about that.

”I need you to shut up and just listen, Magnolia.” I open my mouth to argue but this sexy nerd has the audacity to cover it with his hand. ”I’m not joking.”

I’m going to bite him.

I want to bite the shit out of Isaak Lowe for acting like an ass and confusing the hell out of me because I swear to god he just perfumed as soon as he touched me.

Maybe he’s close enough for me to scent him better.

That’s probably all it is.

He starts backing me toward his chair then stops when my legs bump into it. “Do you want to know why I thought you smelled horrible yesterday?”

I nod since he won’t let me speak.

“Because you smelled like someone else. You didn’t smell like Magnolia, and your scent reeked of another alpha.”

My brows furrow at his choice of words,another alphaa strange way to phrase it. Not like I can ask him what the hell he means sincehe’s still covering my mouth.

“Additionally,” Isaak says as he clearly steels his spine against whatever he’s about to lay on me. “You acted like a child throwing a tantrum when I pointed it out.”

I grab his wrist and yank his hand away. “Go to hell, Isaak. I’d had a shitty day already and I came in here to try to block it out. Instead, I had you acting like a fucking dog with a bone and I didn’t know how to handle that, either.”

Isaak closes the gap between us, putting us chest to chest as he looks down at me. “Do you know why I was acting like that? Or why I came in early this morning?”

Wow, he is definitely perfuming. I’m completely surrounded by his scent, the lilac so fragrant it's like they’re sitting in a vase a few feet away while the sugary sweet scent comes at me in gentle waves.

I don’t get it. He takes blockers like I do, uses scent dampening shit, too, but he is overpowering any other smell in this room right now and I’m a little concerned my body is going to start responding in solidarity.

“Do you?”

I shake my head as I start to breathe a little heavier.

”I acted like a fool because the thought of another alpha touching you, a different one scenting you intimately, it made meangry.Angry and jealous as fuck.” He runs his tongue along the seam of his lips, his eyes dropping to mine briefly. “And I came in early this morning because I was going to go sit in that bathroom and touch myself to the thought of you showering in there, to the image of your nearly naked body walking through the door. I was going to jerk off until I came, probably more than once, while I was surrounded by our scents, bathed in how they tangled together in the most divine way.”

Yeah, my body responded.

All the parts. My mouth is dry, my chest is pumping like crazy, my stomach is full of butterflies. My pussy clenchedaround nothing. I can’t smell it but I know I perfumed, there’s no way I didn’t with all the slick pooling in my panties.

”All of that is a problem, Magnolia.”

I blink repeatedly and frown. “Why?”

He smiles, the genuine one I rarely get to see, and lifts a hand to my cheek. “Because I can’t have you.”