Page 53 of The Pack Next Door (The Wolfverse #4)
Briar
As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I regretted them. When I woke up this morning, I intended to send them all a group text, thanking them for getting me through my heat and then making clear nothing more than that could happen.
Only to find all three of them in my warehouse.
It was only Seb’s harried expression that had me my mouth shutting, right as I was about to order them out of my workplace. It felt like the different parts of my world were colliding and I didn’t know what the hell to do the minute they climbed out of the neat little boxes inside my head.
Except I did.
April’s cruel words? They were just the icing on a shitty cake.
There was a reason why they say you can never go home.
and that’s because there was a version of you that lived on in people’s heads and that’s all they could see.
Back in the city, the person I chose to be, the life I wanted to live, was waiting for me, feeling like cotton sheets worn soft by frequent washings.
Like home.
And they had to come wandering into it, ruining all that calm.
I watched the guys file out of my office and felt like shit, which just pissed me off more. Was any of it a lie? I shook my head, firing up my computer. I didn’t have time for relationship drama…
I didn’t have time for relationships.
One look at the project management software we used to assign work showed me all the different dependencies that were still open.
Focus on this, I told myself. The business had never let me down and so I’d make sure I did the same.
My fingers moved, opening different tasks and reading the comments Seb and Emma had left, familiarising myself with the things that were impeding workflows and working out solutions.
A familiar calm settled over me, forcing my heart rate to slow.
Right up until there was a knock on the door.
I frowned as my head jerked up. A glance at my computer clock let me know hours had gone by. That was the amazing and frightening thing about work. Sometimes it felt like I lost myself in the to and fro of it, forgetting about everything else.
Like Jace.
That blond head looked out of place as he poked it in through the door, his brilliance too much for the gloom of my office.
“Sandwiches.” He brandished a plastic container like it was a white flag.
“And juice, coffee, cake and…” I couldn’t help but let out a little laugh, which just had him looking up.
That cocky smile, it didn’t take much for it to appear again.
“Look, I might’ve bought the entire range the local cafe had trying to work out what you might like.
” He came forward, lining it all up on the desk.
“But I promise, if you give me an indication of what you like, I’ll make sure you have it tomorrow. ”
“Tomorrow?” I cocked an eyebrow, frankly surprised he was still here, let alone willing to come back another day.
“Tomorrow.” He flopped into the chair on the other side of the desk. “So… are you a sandwich or a soup kinda girl?”
“Salad.” I pulled a plastic container towards me, then groaned. “You got the beetroot, apple, and goat’s cheese one? It’s my favourite.”
“Beetroot and apple aberration is a fave.” He tapped that into his notes. “Noted.”
“You don’t need to get me lunch.”
So why was I opening the container and stabbing a fork into a spear of apple? The sweetness of the fruit in contrast with the sour of the dressing was a revelation. My taste buds always felt somehow more alive after a heat.
“Yeah, I did.”
Jace sat back in his chair, opening a sandwich and taking a bite.
“Is this about before?” My fork landed in the salad container. “Because this?—”
“Is me making sure you eat something,” he replied. “Your employees let me know that you tend to forget to eat, and after being in heat, you don’t have the same reserves as before.”
“They did, did they?” My smile was tight. “Seems like it's past time I have a conversation with them about boundaries.”
“And it’s about every damn day since the moment I saw you sitting in that cute little car of yours, behind the moving truck.
” Had his eyes always contained that little bit of green and hazel around the pupils?
I don’t know if I’d ever looked close enough.
“I was cocky and a dick, and I fucked everything up. You’re right.
We didn’t make you a priority, and while that was an unforgivable error, it might take me a while to learn something, but I’m a pretty dedicated student once I know what I need to do. ”
I was forced to look away. Somehow, having sex with him for days was less intimate than this moment. I stabbed my fork into a chunk of beetroot and then shoved it into my mouth.
“Maybe I’ve made too many wrong decisions for you to ever consider accepting the mate bond.
” I could hear him moving, but my focus remained on the salad.
A chunk of goat cheese, a walnut, more apple.
“But that doesn’t mean I’m gonna stop looking after you.
The last couple of days were… life changing.
” My thighs shifted, the slip of my skin so very distracting.
Everything was still really tender. “But as far as I’m concerned, that was just the start. Now, what did you want to drink?”
I looked up to see him push a coffee, a tea, a bottle of juice and some flavoured water my way. My mouth opened, ready to tell him I had my own coffee machine, but he just smiled.
“Take one, or I’ll have to go back to the cafe and order more.”
“Chai?” I asked, selecting the tea. The spicy smell filled my office, or was that him? He nodded. “This is fine. Thanks.”
“Acceptable, but not really what you want…” He tapped that out onto his phone as well. “Note to self, try more tea variations.”
“You don’t?—”
People doing things for me always made me feel guilty somehow, but he rose then, not letting me get another word in.
“Yes, I do.” All that easy good humour left him then and I wasn’t sure how to deal with the resulting vulnerability.
“If I can photograph broken vessels and feed you, then…” His head shook back and forth.
“Then I can stop my wolf from taking control and spending the rest of my days panting at your feet.”
I had no scripts to deal with this, no prior experience.
Beta men seemed at pains not to feel anything other than what was easy.
My eyes searched his face, sure to see signs of a lie, but my wolf pushed forward.
She peered through my eyes, and while she wasn’t exactly wagging her tail at him, she didn’t turn tail and stick her nose in the air.
“Now, Emma says your favourite restaurant is down by the bay.”
He gave me an out. I waved him away, turning back to my computer.
“I don’t have time to get dressed up all fancy, not when I’m dealing with a metric fuck ton of work I’ve been forced to put off and finding a nurse to look in on Mum.”
“She said you’d say something like that. You have to eat, omega.” My eyes jerked up to meet his, and the smile was back. “I can bring another bowl of soup in and sit you on my lap as I?—”
“Fish and chips at the place by the pier.” I ground that out. “Once I’m done here. Emma will give you the address as apparently she’s sharing every single detail of my life with you. If I agree to that, can I go back to work in peace?”
“You got it.”
He sketched a salute, grinning as he walked towards the door.
“Oh, and Jace…” Slowly, he spun on his heel to face me. “Thank you for lunch.” I hefted the salad. “And if you can give me an updated list of exactly what’s damaged from Tom’s shipment by the end of the day, I’ll go to dinner and breakfast, too.”
“Now you’ve done it.” He looked me up and down.
“I guess we haven’t exactly had a chance to cover this, but letting me know I did a good job?
That’s basically foreplay, omega.” My eyes narrowed at him using my designation as my name, but he was completely unrepentant.
“I’ll have that report to you by the time we head to the pier. ”
My wolf let out a chuff, as if slightly amused by what he was saying, but I turned back to my computer, lest he see my cheeks flush pink.
Flirty, intrusive alphas were fun, but if I didn’t try to catch up on the work I’d missed, I was jeopardising everything I’d built.
That had me taking another bite of salad, right before my fingers started moving over the keyboard.