The thought should terrify me. Instead, it just makes me smile.
I tilt my head back to look at him, and the expression on his face steals my breath.
It’s intoxicating and terrifying all at once.
I catch movement in my peripheral vision—an Alpha across the bar watching us. Watching me. But before I can even process it, Beau’s hand tightens on my waist, shifting me more fully into his space. His scent wraps around me, salty leather with bergamot mixing with my vanilla and buttercups until I can’t tell where one ends and the other begins.
Another Alpha starts to approach, and Beau levels him with a look that makes the man stop mid-step and turn away.
“You’re glaring at people,” I observe, looking up at him.
“Just making sure everyone knows you’re taken,” he says, and there’s something possessive in his voice that makes my Omega preen.
“For two months,” I remind him, even though the words feel hollow. “Fake taken.”
“Right. Fake.” But the way he says it, like he doesn’t believe it any more than I do, makes my heart skip.
We dance through three more songs, and I can feel the moment reality starts to creep back in. The awareness that this is temporary. That I’m not supposed to be enjoying this as much as I am. That letting myself fall into this fantasy is only going to hurt more when it ends.
I start to pull back, just slightly, but Beau doesn’t let me retreat. He leans down, his lips brushing my ear.
“Having fun?”
I shiver at the contact, at the warmth of his breath against my skin. “Maybe.”
“Just maybe?”
“Okay, definitely.” I pull back enough to look at him, and something vulnerable slips past my defenses. “This is… nice. Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me yet. The night’s not over.”
He keeps me close as we move back to the booth, his hand on my lower back. When I sink into the booth and reach for my drink, Beau slides in next to me instead of across from me.
With a shrug, he pulls his beer over and slides his free hand to rest on my thigh, exactly where the edge of my skirt sits. He starts this barely-there swipe of his thumb that I don’t even think he’s aware of, but it has every hair on my body standing on end.
“You could sit over there, you know. A seat made for a man of your… size?”
“Not happening, beautiful,” he says while squeezing my thigh. “Remember, fake dating requires some very public displays of affection.”
And if his hand wasn’t bad enough, he bends down and runs his nose from the base of my neck all the way up to the sensitive spot just below my ear and presses a kiss right there.
“That’s not fair,” I breathe.
“What’s not?” he asks with mock innocence.
So, because sometimes I’m a total child, and because I really fucking want to know what his skin tastes like, I say, “This,” just before I mirror the gesture on him. Only instead of just scenting him, I run my tongue up to the bottom of his ear and gently nip at the little spot where he pressed a kiss on me.
The answering rumble-growl sound that comes out of him makes me gasp and has a whine of need threatening to escape for the second time tonight. I figured my plan would backfire,but I’m not at all ready for what the look in his eyes promises when he leans down and says, with enough heat to start a forest fire, “My little Omega likes praise and to play games, too? Makes me wonder about all the other ways we could play.”
But I’m saved from the avalanche of need when Baby serves our burgers with a look so self-satisfied I know I’ll never hear the end of it.
Clearing my throat—saving myself from having to decide whether to wade way,wayout into the deep end with this man—I shove a very big bite of burger into my mouth. Sexy? No. But better than climbing onto Beau McCrea’s lap in the middle of the bar.
What is it about him that makes me so willing to get naked in public?
By the time we leave, I feel the way I imagine a bonded Omega might feel—warm, secure, and loose in a way I haven’t been in years. Maybe ever. I let Beau guide me to the truck, let him help me in, don’t protest when he reaches across to buckle my seatbelt, his face so close to mine I can count his eyelashes.
“Lightweight,” he teases.
