I’m o-fish-ally in love with you.
In total, I find a dozen of Simon’s valentines as I go about my day until finally, he meets me at the end of my afternoon class, a paper coffee cup from Ciel in one hand. He hands it to me with a wink.
“Love you a latte?” I guess.
He crinkles his nose. “Dang, that would have been a lot better. How about ‘You’re brew-ti-ful’?” He turns the cup around so I can see the note scrawled in marker on the other side.
I pull him down into a deserted hallway and kiss him until we’re breathless.
“I do love you a latte,” I tell him, brushing my nose against his. “Words cannot espresso how much you bean to me.”
He groans. “You were trying to come up with that one the whole time we were making out, weren’t you?”
“Maybe?” I say innocently.
He rolls his eyes and slings an arm around my shoulder. “Come on, kit-kat. We’ve got a fancy dinner to get cute for, after I show you how I’ve been thinking about your steaming hot body a latte. Like, constantly. All day. You mocha me crazy, Junes.”
I laugh. “All right, all right. You win. Split the mint KitKat with me on the way home?”
He drops a teasing kiss on my lips. “What’s waiting for you at home is so much sweeter.”
Saints above, we truly are mint to be.
* * *
Simonand I spend too much time in my nest and have to rush to get ready for dinner. When we step out of the shower, there’s a gorgeous black velvet bodycon dress hanging from the door to my closet, a matching pair of kitten-heel booties on the ground beneath it. I find a strand of lavender pearls tucked inside it, hanging from the hanger, and a box with matching earrings in one of the booties.
“Cass?”
Simon shakes his head. “No idea, kit-kat.” He gestures for me to turn and then lifts my hair to clasp the necklace for me.
I’m taking the earrings from the card when a note slips free of the box.
Until you can wear my bite, I hope you’ll wear these. All my love.
Ian
Warmth floods through me, and saints, how I wish we were bonded so he could feel my love for him as I slip into the dress and shoes. So he could know that I feel like the luckiest omega alive.
* * *
I still haven’t seenmy imperious professor when Marcus drives us deep into the heart of downtown Fairhaven. He parks in a private lot beneath one of Fairhaven’s skyscrapers and leads us toward the single elevator up from the parking lot. My men are dressed to the nines as they usher me into the elevator, all of them so sinfully handsome that I want to kiss each of them hard and thoroughly enough to smudge my smudge-proof lipstick.
And saints know I would have had the time. The elevator takes us to the very top floor of Promontory Tower, and when the bell chimes and the doors open, Ian is there waiting for me, dressed in a dashing black tux.
He draws me from the elevator and past a table set for six to the floor-to-ceiling windows that wrap around the tower’s top floor. The city glitters beneath us, and in the distance, I can see the black slip of the ocean, one of Deer Island’s lighthouses casting a shimmering beam across its surface.
Ian takes my right hand and presses a kiss to the back of it. “Happy Feast of Saint Valentine, my darling. Oh, saints, no. Don’t cry. You’ll smudge your mascara.”
“It’s waterproof,” I say, my voice choked with tears. “You… you did all of this for me? Ian, how?”
He shrugs, but I catch the faint hint of a blush spreading over his cheeks. “I served here the entire time I was at Fairhaven for a bit of extra money. I called in a favor or two, so we could enjoy a private dinner together, as a pack.”
He can’t sense how I feel, so I tell him.
“I’m so lucky you’re my alpha. I can’t wait until you can be my mate.”
He brushes a soft kiss over my lips, taking care not to smudge my lipstick, and then guides me back to the table, pulls out my chair for me and then tucks it in for me.
