Fuck.
Every day, I told myself I was still in control.
That I was fine. That I didn’t spend every waking minute thinking about all the ways I could ruin Harper and my image right along with her.
I had to lie to myself. Because what happened when the control runs out? When the carefully built image I’d spent years upholding started to crack?
What happened when people found out that I was… broken?
That I was not the polished, measured man on the covers of business journals and investor columns.
No onewanted someone broken. Especially not a Hellborne.
If they ever found out that my pheromones were out of control… it would all unravel. Every deal. Every scrap of credibility. Everything I’d built would vanish. I’d become exactly what they always assumed I was.
Just another demon using his pheromones to get ahead.
Me? Underhanded?I wanted to laugh.
The world was underhanded. Humans were underhanded. But they watched me like I was the only one who might cheat. Like my nature was something I’ll inevitably fall back into.
As if that were all demons could do.
Lie. Cheat.Manipulate.
But what about humans? Did they not do the same?
When I first left hell, I wanted something different. Even as a youngling I knew I could be more than what people said. And yet here I was waiting on a fucking pheromone therapist so I could partake in everything that threatened to unmake me.
I heard the door open followed by the echo of heels clicking on the marble floor.
“Just six sessions,” I muttered to myself, rising from the bed. “Then I can get back to my own life.”
Whatever that meant anymore.
I exhaled, low and controlled, fighting to suppress the scent pouring off me and the need to dominate. I started for the stairs.
“Just six sessions and then—”
It hit me.
That scent.
Her scent.
Fresh. Soft. The smell of a garden in full bloom. Alive. Dangerous.
“Harper…”
Harper
Now don’t get me wrong—I liked having my guts turned into a contemporary art piece as much as the next person. But when it’s done by my own unmedicated anxiety rather than a man with as many abs as I have fingers? Hard pass.
My phone lit up in my hands as I stared down at After Hours. More specifically, at the gold message notification that has been left on delivered pretty much the entire day. I had even waited until I got into my car before I had dared to open my phone.
Scentless.
The username stood out, sure. But what stood out more was the silver mass of sculpted muscles that, apparently, people could have beyond the book covers that were still piled in my suitcase in the back of my car.
