I should leave. March right back across the hall, write the interview request, send it to his secretary and pretend my panties don’t need a towel. Instead, I stand in his darkened office with my pulse drumming under my skin, and his scent blankets me in roasted coffee, dark wood, and smoke.
"Skylor," I say, softly like I’m not a damn wildfire blaze. This is not heat. This is meandheat.
Usand heat.
Because it's not just me. His pupils have become black holes, sucking me in. A gravitational force I can’t escape. This is it. I know it. He knows it. This is the moment omegas wait for. The moment an alpha sucks you into his orbit and rearranges your gravity.
It’s suffocating and intoxicating.How can it be both?Why doesn’t anybody tell you that it is absolutely both? It’s watchinga bonfire and desperately wanting to dance in the flames. Such beautiful flames.
His eyes flare. "Beatrice. Step out from behind those boundaries before I kick them down. There're no boundaries here. Not between mates. Tell me what you want."
I know what he is asking. I hate that I know. I hate that my body has already answered him in every language but the one that matters. I lift my chin. Because this isn’t going away. Hunger has already crawled beneath my skin and marked me. His name engraved on each vein. Everything becomes stark and blindingly clear.Mate. My mate is waiting for my request. His eyes demand my answer. Pulling it from my soul.
"Kiss me," I say. Not an answer, but definitely is an answer.
He waits one breath. Two. Then his hand closes around the side of my neck, and his mouth takes mine.
The first kiss is not gentle. He holds me still with one hand at my neck and the other at my waist, punishing me for the delay with the curl of his fingers over my blouse. His mouth presses over mine with slow, deliberate heat. Testing. Letting me feel every inch of restraint he has not yet broken. My hands lift to his chest. I intend to brace against him. I intend to keep space.
Instead, I pull him closer. Decimating my intentions.
His chest moves under my palms, hard with the breath he drags in through his nose. The scent of him showers me, and my body leans into the heat, greedy and ravenous. I part my lips because I need more air, more contact, more of the dangerous taste gathering at the seam of his mouth.
He freezes.
The hand at my waist tightens once. "Beatrice."
My name sounds wrecked. I should be proud. I should be alarmed. I am both, which seems unfair because one woman should not have to manage this many reactions while being kissed by alien royalty.
"What?" I whisper against his mouth.
"If I use my tongue, this changes."
A laugh trembles in my chest. "That is a very strange warning."
"It is not a joke." He tips my chin up, boring into my eyes again. “If we are mates, my taste will activate your omega heat, and there’ll be no turning back.” He tucks a curl behind my ear, tracing its shell. “Not for either of us.”
I tremble, and he catches each shake. Soothing me by running his hand up and down my spine.
“And if I’m not your mate?”
“Then it’s going to be pretty awkward by the water cooler. Care to find out?”
I nod.
His mouth covers mine again, and his tongue swipes once across my lower lip.
One swipe.
My body detonates.
Slick floods my panties, sudden and hot enough to make my knees buckle. My thighs press together, but the pressure only makes it worse. Pleasure explodes in my belly. The single swipe yanks breath, stealing what used to be mine.
Skylor reels back half an inch.
His black pupils blow wide. Gold flame burns around them, bright and wild. His grip on my waist is almost careful, but his body is rigid. A muscle jumps in his jaw. His nostrils flare as he inhales, and the sound that leaves him is too low to be human.
Holy shit.
