ADELAIDE
Ace parks the truck just up from the shop I’m meeting Clio at and kills the engine. For a second, neither of us moves. The cab goes quiet around us, thick with him.
I’m still half turned toward the window, trying very hard to act like my body isn’t already leaning his way before I’ve even made the decision, when his hand slides to the back of my neck and he draws me across the console like he knows exactly how little resistance he’s going to get.
“I’m going to miss you,” he whispers. Then our mouths clash hard. I moan into the kiss before I can stop it. God.
He kisses like he’s been holding back for the whole drive and finally got tired of being patient. His thumb traces slowly along my jaw, and every nerve in my body lights up at once. I’m already leaning into him, giving him more of my weight, my fingers clutching at his shirt, my whole body answering him with humiliating speed.
This is the problem—not that I don’t want him, but that I desire him so badly my body keeps voting yes before my head gets anywhere near the discussion.
We’re kissing wildly, my heart thumping, my panties wet, and my thoughts blur for one perfect second. Then something colder slips in around the edges.
The hidden basement, knives, masks.
It’s not enough to kill the insatiable craving for Ace. God, no. My body is on fire and aching and absolutely not interested in caution. But enough to make me feel the split within me, which reminds me that I still don’t know everything, and until I do, I need to get a grip on losing control.
I pull back first, breath shaky.
He follows half an inch, like he might take my mouth again if I let him, and that nearly ends me all over again.
“I have to go,” I whisper against his mouth.
“Mm.”
“Don’t tempt me.”
He grins evilly, and damn him for being an entirely too beautiful man currently spoiling my self-control in a parked truck. He releases me in stages, clearly insisting I feel every inch of it. His hand slides from my neck to my shoulder, then down my arm, before he finally drops it.
“Text me when you’re ready to come home.”
Home?That word lands heavily on my mind. Is that how I seem to him already? As one of them. My heart beats faster at the thought because I desperately crave that too.
“I will,” I say, and my voice still sounds kissed. Once I’m out, I shut the door and rush through warm air across the open parking area toward the line of shops surrounding the lot.
Purr-a-Dice. Games and Collectibles,advertised in small script under the neon sign, is right ahead of me. The front windows are blacked out, but I knock twice on the glass.
It swings open almost immediately, and Clio is there, her blonde bob pulled into two pigtails sticking out at defiant angles. She’s wearing an oversized vintage cartoon tee that hangs offone shoulder and exposes the thin strap of a mustard-yellow bra, denim shorts that might technically be underwear, and chunky white sneakers.
She yanks me inside by the wrist, slams the door behind me, flips the deadbolt, and then finally wraps me in a hug tight enough that my ribs object.
“Oh myGod,I missed you,” she says into the side of my neck. “It’s been too long since we saw each other.”
“I missed you too.”
“You smell like an Alpha.” She breaks our hug.
“I’ve been around a lot of them.” I laugh as if it’s not obvious.
“Come, let me show you around. We’re in the back.”
She loops her arm through mine and leads me deeper into the shop. The store around me is gorgeous. Shelves from floor to ceiling along every wall, crammed with board games in colorful boxes, columns of manga in neat spines, racks of trading cards in plastic sleeves, gallery-lit display cases housing limited-edition figurines. The lighting is dim and amber. “I love this place,” I say, and mean it.
“I know. Aura did all the decorating and lighting.”
“Where is she?”
“Stockroom. Dealing with a delivery that came in wrong.”
