Page 64 of The Alpha's Fake Mate
Orion put his hand on my back and slowly pressed. All the warmth of the hearth and the room seemed to focus on that hand where it touched me mid-spine, a golden edged heat coming into me, steadying, gentle, like a promise from childhood coming back to me that I’d forgotten I’d made to myself.
“You realize it isn’t just about the, um, sex,” he said.
How cute; he was being shy with me.
“It has to happen during a Burn,” he said gently.
How could I have forgotten that?
“When is your next Burn?” I sounded like an insolent child. Bratty. Angry.
“Next month.”
Did we even have that much time?
I leaned forward, elbows on my knees, and put my chin against my clasped hands. I stared into the battling flames in front of me until my eyes ached.
“This isn’t going to work, then, is it?” I said. I wasn’t going to dance around this subject. We needed everything out on the table.
“Holland,” he said softly.
The hair on my nape stood up, but not creepy. It was a soft and insistent tingle.
“A real bond is more than just—just sex. It’s a relationship, too,” he said softly.
“Tell that to--” I gulped. I wasn’t going to say his name out loud. “Him.”
“It’s not a real bond. Not solid.”
“Doctor Wilde didn’t seem to think so. He said it would grow stronger with time. It would take over.”
Holland’s hand moved on my back very gently. He said, “I heard him. But he isn’t seeing this from your point of view. Everyone is different. Unique. And this is a very personal matter. To you. About you. He wouldn’t talk about things like Omegas fighting mate-bonds because it doesn’t matter to him. He’s an Alpha, and a happily bonded one. It doesn’t concern him.”
“He’s a doctor. You’d think he’d have seen it all.”
“He probably has, but that doesn’t mean he can fix the problems. He does diagnoses. And he prescribes. He’s not a surgeon. And he’s not a couples therapist.”
I leaned back, turning to look at Orion again. His face was smooth and kind, his brown hair thick and rich, his dark eyes backlit with the flickering of the warm fire in the hearth.
It was in that moment I knew he’d been too amazing for me to comprehend. I couldn’t allow it. I wouldn’t let myself… to have such a friend in an Alpha, and a possible love. I’d built too many walls in the past months around any such thoughts.
But right now, I could see it all. How he’d worked hard to see me, the real me behind all the anger, and to help me.
I was too furious and hurt, too proud for help. But now I needed it. I needed it more than ever.
“You gave me that office at the farm when I barely knew you. Why?”
His eyebrows came together. A pained smile crossed his eyes, gentling in a slight curve at his lips. I saw he couldn’t speak.
I unclasped my hands and leaned into him, letting his essence come into my lungs, the slight soap-scent of his aftershave, the emanating sweetness.
“Is it because you wanted to be friends?” I asked.
He did not reply. But I saw it in his face, how he looked at me, how his throat moved as he swallowed against words he would not say probably for fear that I’d run.
I would have run back then.
This man owned an Omega farm. This man was a spoiled and privileged rich guy from beyond my means. This man was too many times my hero for comfort.
