What if I bit him too hard?
Why would he risk that? I can’t — he is—why does he trust me so much to let me do that? How?
He smirks as he takes his arm back and lands a kiss on the top of my head. He leans back but still has his side pressed against mine. I look away in shock.
“What a first date,” I say, wiping the sides of my lips.
“Food and an orgasm, can’t get better than that,” Silas winks. And I nod as my face gets hot all over again.
It definitely was.
“Um.” Our waitress approaches the table. Her eyes drift to the spot Thorne should have been sitting in, but isn’t. “I have to ask you to leave…”
My eyes are wide as I meet Havoc’s gaze, whose smirk doesn’t flinch a bit at being kicked out.
He mouths the words “worth it,” and as Thorne slides away from me, I can definitely say it was worth it. Thorne sits as Silas slides out of the booth to take care of the bill.
My eyes met Thorne’s, and he holds my gaze with a small smile on his face. The only smile all night, and I can’t help but feel accomplished.
“You’re the best fucking dessert, Peach Puff.”
CHAPTER NINE
NOA
“Ithought you de-scented before you left last night?” Ollie’s voice fades to the background as I push open the door to Cozy Bear Blankets. The humidifiers turn off 3 hours after I lock up the store every night, yet as I push open the door and walk in, it still smells.
I turn toward Ollie, who was at my house bright and early to hear about the details of my date last night on my way to work. She hangs around the store some days, and I always appreciate her presence. Especially on days I’m working in my workshop in the back.
This smell, though, is off, but familiar. I’ve smelled this before; it brings an instant headache to my brain, and I can’t quite place the smell. It’s the seasoning. Like mint? No. Basil?
Oh no. Is the scent-blocking spray I put in thehumidifiers defective? I turn to Ollie in shock. “Does it normally smell like this to you?”
“No, absolutely not. It normally smells like… nothing. Maybe a hint of metallic-ness, but normally nothing.”
So, it’s not normally like this… meaning someone was in here. I turn on my heel, going to rush to the back, but Ollie yanks my arm.
“What if they are still here? Are you insane?” she hisses as she drags me back out of the store and quietly shuts the front door. I wring my hands around my neck, my nails digging into my skin. Did someone break in?
“Come on, this way,” she whispers. Her eyes are wide as she drags me a few feet away from my store. My baby. My face scrunches as I take in the daunting idea of someone actually breaking into my store. I can’t get over the idea of someone being inside without my permission. It makes my skin crawl, and I could vomit at the thought of the violation.
If someone broke in, it would have to be from the back. I always come in through the front since I hate walking through back alleyways. I triple-check the lock every night, and I swallow the building-up nausea in my mouth as I look back at my building. Robberies were low in this area, but not zero.
Why would someone rob a blanket store?
None of the blankets appear unaffected, but how I can be sure. I can’t trust they haven’t been tainted.
I’ll have to wash them all. I’ll have to close for the day. At least it’s not a game day, those days, I make the most money. But with this — washing the blankets and cleaning my store from top to bottom — I won’t get anything else done today. My mental to-do list keeps adding up as Ollie rants about how unsafe it was to rush into my store.
“Let’s call the police-” Ollie says, but I cut her off.
“No. No, I can’t,” I say. Panic crawls at my neck with the claws of a tiger as the panic of a report being made sends shivers down my back. We can’t go to the police. Isn’t everything traceable? All reports, arrests, everything? That can leadthemright to me.
The Fallon Pack. My abusers. The Pack made me their personal punching bag for two years. Two years of beatings and never living up to their perfect image of an omega before I finally had enough to escape.
Derrick Fallon was a policeman. A bad one. One who’d take advantage of his resources if the situation called for it. If we had the police here, there’d be a report. What if he finds me? What iftheyfind me?
The Fallon Pack could be searching, waiting for the perfect opportunity, and my name popping up in their database could mean having to run awayagain.
