Filed to story: Alpha's Regret: His Wrongful Rejection
“There’s leeches in there,” Rosie says, a hint of glee obvious under the warning.
“Okay.” I slide off the side of the board and immediately sink two feet into cold ooze. I didn’t roll my pants high enough. From the stench alone, I know they’re ruined.
I start to slog through the grasses, each step squelching.
“Broken bottles, too,” she calls.
“Right.”
“And when you come back, watch for the minnow trap.”
“Uh huh.”
“How are you even gonna find it?” Her voice has moved. She’s abandoned her safe spot by the door to come gawk at me as I hack my way through eight-foot-tall rushes like a fucking explorer.
“I heard it go in.”
She mutters something under her breath. I smile, hidden by the dark and the reeds. Her gaze isn’t averted now. She’s interested enough to watch me, and I’m idiotically pleased by the fact.
It’s just biology, the chemical urge to impress a mate. I manage my own ten-million-dollar VC fund, and next year, I’m slated to take over our entire alternative energy portfolio. I haven’t regressed to a thirteen-year-old. These feelings are the equivalent of my erection, a purely physical response to physiological imperative.
That’s what I tell myself as I plunge through a stand of cattails and get a face full of pollen.
Where was that splash? I must be close.
This is stupid. From the effort it takes to drag my feet from the sucking mud, the watch is gone. I’m all the way in the weeds now, though. I’m seeing this through.
“There’s snakes, too,” Rosie calls.
“They’re not venomous. I’ll be fine.”
She’s quiet for a second. “They’re water moccasins.”
Bullshit. I know the snakes that live in my own lake. “They’re water snakes. You should pay more attention in Environmental Science.”
“Scavengers don’t take Environmental Science.”
“Why not?” I reach the place where the watch went in and start sifting through the muck with my foot, shuddering.
“You tell me. Your kind decides what we take.”
“You could take Environmental Science if you wanted.” My toe brushes something. It’s too spined and nubby to be man-made. I jerk my knee up.
“How?”
“What?” I’m focused on the watch, only half paying attention to our conversation.
“How do I take Environmental Science?”
“Do you want to?”
“Let’s say I do.”
When there’s no sudden splashing or bite taken out of my leg, I figure whatever I touched was dead, and I resume delving into freezing cold lake muck with my bare foot. “Then talk to someone. Take the initiative.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know. Find out. That’s called taking the initiative.” And that’s exactly what scavengers lack. They’re content to take handouts. They have no ambition.
“You don’t know.” It’s an accusation.
“I don’t,” I admit. “But I could find out.”
“You don’t know how to go about doing it, but you insist I could if I just tried.” She clicks her cheek. “That’s called gaslighting.”
My sole brushes smooth glass. Got it. I dig it loose and raise it to the surface with my toes. Hell yeah. No scent, no sight, found it in less than five minutes—that’s what you call master tracking.
“What’s gaslighting?” I ask as I wade back.
“You should pay more attention in Human Linguistics,” she says.
I vault back to the boards, and it dips under my weight. Rosie stumbles, lurching toward the edge. She’s already steadied herself when I grab her upper arms.
She stiffens.
My heart slams into my ribs.
Fate, she’s so soft. And she’s trembling. I pin her elbows close, squishing her tits together. My abs contract, and my balls ache.
She glances at where I’m gripping her. “You found it.”
I’ve got the watch crushed against her arm. Shit. I’m being rough. I need to loosen my grip.
I force down a breath, but it’s laced with her. Her thick hair smells like cloves.
I have to let go. Step back.
But then she leans her pointed nose forward until the tip almost touches my shirt pocket. She sniffs.
She’s scenting me. Holy fuck.
I can’t move.
“What do I smell like?” I ask because I can’t control my mouth when I’m using every ounce of my self-control to hold myself back.
“Wood,” she says, glancing up, a bemused smile playing at her lips. “How about me?”
“Spices.”
“Like food?”
“I guess. Kind of like gingerbread.”
She ponders this a second. “Cool.”
Her lips curve. It’s tenuous—gone in seconds—but I’m fixated. I want her to do it again, but I have no idea how to make her.
I drop my chin to inhale more of her. The top of her head comes to my solar plexus. I can feel the warmth of her breath through my shirt.
She isn’t frozen with fear. Yeah, she’s tense, and I am holding her too tight, but she’s—she’s letting me.
I force my fingers to relax, and I smooth my palms down her arms to cup her elbows. I’m not stopping her from shaking me off if she wants to, but I’m also not letting her go.
Her hands flit between us for a moment as if she can’t decide what to do with them, and then they come to rest on my pecs.
I swallow.
She splays her fingers, brushing the bare skin at the base of my throat. My blood burns. My wolf strains forward. I hardly dare to breathe, and it’s not self-discipline, it’s self-preservation. If she stops touching me, I’ll fucking die.
She pats the place where the bond pulses with life. “What does it feel like?”
“Um. Well, it did feel like bubbles. Now more like a current.”
“River or electrical?”