Page 33 of Knotting Hill
“Oh yeah, shit. I forgot about that. Dammit. Well, it’ll have to wait. Go home, think of something that we can do that won’t put Storm off us for life, and I’ll do the same. Maybe when we get to JP later, we will both have some ideas.”
He nods and heads off, leaving me to return to Elle and the old man who came in the other day.
“All right, son?” he asks. “How’s the fair maiden?”
“Not mine, not yet,” I grouse.
“But they kissed!” Elle exclaims. “That has to mean something.”
“Ah, kisses,” he says with a nod. “Better than sex.”
Elle and I exchange an amused glance at his comment.
“She likes you, boy. She wouldn’t have kissed you if she didn’t.”
“He didn’t give her much choice,” Elle says with a laugh. “Kinda swooped in and claimed her.”
He frowns. “Did she kiss you back?”
I nod, feeling like such a fucking idiot. I’m glad there is no one else listening to this. I want to quietly lower myself to the floor behind the counter and stay there for the rest of the day.
“Well, then, there you go.” He grins. “Send me a save-the-date card!”
He waves and also leaves, thankfully. “This is a disaster,” I groan.
“It’s not great,” Elle says sympathetically. “But at least you know she’s not been avoiding you. I think you need to confront this head-on. Go and speak to her. She works at Robb & Robb.”
“I can’t go and speak to her at her place of work. It’s not like this place whereeveryoneseems to get involved.”
“So, wait for her lunch break.” She shrugs.
“Like a fucking lap dog?”
“Do you want her or not?” Elle demands fiercely.
“Want,” I murmur, suitably cowed by her attitude. Man, she is bossy. Has she always been this way? “Why are you so invested anyway?”
“Because she’s a lovely omega, and you like her. More than like. You’refascinatedby her, and that isn’t something I see every day, Joshy. You’re smitten.”
“Smitten.”
It’s better thanobsessed,which is where my mind went. But it is quite accurate. I can’t get our kiss out of my head. The feel of her tongue twisting around mine. Her lips pressed against me, her hands on my waist, her breasts soft next to my chest. Her scent consumed me as I tasted her, and almost wept with longing.
My cock goes rigid in my pants, and I clear my throat to try to clear my head. “I’ll be back in a little bit,” I mutter.
“Good choice,” Elle says determinedly.
But I’m not going to see Storm. Not yet. I can’t exactly turn up at her work with a raging hard-on. No, I’m going to see Franco. Talk to him, man-to-man. Maybe he will back off if he knows we are trying to mate with her.
But as luck would have it, when I arrive at the coffee shop fifteen minutes later, he isn’t there.
All is not lost, though, as I catch sight of someone else and plaster a smile on my face as she looks up from her table and waves.
“Josh!” Gloria Rivers calls out. “Can you join us? I want to tell you all about how Syn nearly died when she saw the book!”
“Definitely,” I say, planting my arse on the seat next to her. “I’m so glad she loved it.”
Twenty-One
