“You didn't answer me when I apologized.” He stood now, letting his fingers fall away from the kittens cage. “I can leave if I’m annoying you, or bothering you in any way. I'm sorry we keep running into each other, since it's obviously stressing you out. Say the word now and I'll leave, and never come to this store again.” He added with a dry smile, “It's not like I have pets anyway.”
At once, two thoughts ran through my head. One was considering what he was told me. I ran the fantasy through my mind, of ordering this alpha to leave and never return. He was essentially submitting, giving me the option to kick him out of my life.
But the other thought - the more intense and overbearing one - was that I didn'twanthim to leave. Logically, it made no sense. The compulsion to make him stay was strange, like it wasn’t grounded in reality. In every interaction we've had, I always experienced the same thing: I wanted to get away from him. But laced in that feeling was something else, something deeper and hungrier - an opposite pull to the push.
No, I didn't want him to leave. Not only that, but the idea of never seeing him again made my heart plunge to the pit of my stomach.
And there was that one other thing - the mysterious, luscious scent that only materialized when Griffin was around...
“Okay,” Griffin finally said. He turned to leave, and since I was wrapped up in my conflicting thoughts, I had taken too long to answer.
“Wait!” I cried.
Griffin stopped and turned me expectantly.
I let out a rough, exasperated sigh. “Don't be so dramatic about it. No one's saying you have to leave or anything.”
His brow quirked and that tiny smirk returned to his lips. “No?”
“You know,” I began, feeling the confidence rush back into my blood. “You should consider yourself lucky that there's no other customers here right now, so I can devote my full attention to you.”
Griffin laughed at this. “Is that so? Are usually busy on weekdays during lunch time?”
“Maybe,” I said. Then I pointed to his jacket, which was currently being chewed on by a kitten. Griffin looked down and gasped.
“Hey!” he cried. “Do you know how expensive this jacket was?”
Now it was my turn to laugh. The kittens were testing out their baby teeth on Griffin's jacket hem and he was useless to stop it. He watched, unable to bear prying their little mouths off it, and exhaled in defeat.
I rolled my eyes and sauntered over to the crime scene. Gently, I pried the kittens off Griffin, then replaced their urge to play with a flirt pole. I danced the feathery end piece in front of their face and they instantly forgot about Griffin’s jacket, instead staring at the feathers with laser focus.
“A big strong alpha can’t even handle a pair of kittens?” I teased him.
“Well, they’re just so small,” he mumbled. “I’m afraid of hurting them.”
I snorted. “Generous, likes kittens,andgentle with babies? Now I know you’re messing with me.”
He blinked, looking amused but baffled. “How am I messing with you? This is just the way I am.”
“Right.” I danced the flirt pole above the kitten’s heads and they tumbled over each other to bat at it. “So that big display the other day at the café with the money was out of the goodness of your heart.”
That stopped Griffin. He paused, sizing me up.
“So what if it wasn’t?” he said quietly, like I’d touched a sore spot. “The money went to a good cause.”
I barked a humorless laugh and pointed an accusatory finger into his chest. “Ha! I knew it. You weren’t just doing it to be nice. Youdohave some kind of agenda.”
He lowered my finger. “Why can’t it be both? And it’s not anagenda. I just wanted to prove something to you.”
“Prove what?” I asked. “That you have a fat wallet?”
“No.” He looked a bit hurt at my comment. “That I’m not the alpha-hole you apparently think I am.”
Silence fell. I searched his face, and he did the same. Even the kittens fell quiet inside their cage.
“I don’t think you’re an… alpha-hole,” I replied, using his term. “Why did you ever get that impression?”
Griffin’s brows raised in surprise. “Because you spend every moment we’ve ever been together explicitly wishing youweren’twith me?”
