Page 62 of Mating of Convenience
”Don’t tell anyone that I had these, okay?”
“Won’t tell a soul. Well, no one aside from my husband, anyway.” Or maybe I wouldn’t tell Nathan. Maybe I would surprise him. I’d never given any of my natural heats to Nathan. I’d always been with the wrong alphas during those times, so who knew, maybe it would be fun to share a heat with Nathan now, even if it was artificially induced.
I didn’t hold out much hope to get anything but a little fun out of the experience—certainly not twins—but I couldn’t deny that there was a small part of me that hoped these pills might solve all my problems.
I really should have thought more about the reasonwhythey were black market products.
30
Nathan
“Long day today?” Raphael asked when I stepped back into the house after my evening walk with the dogs and flopped onto the couch, ready for the weekend to begin even though it was only Monday.
“Kinda, yeah,” I gave back.
“Need some coffee?” Raph had curled up in the arm chair with a stack of flyers for food delivery that he was leafing through
“Definitely.”
“There’s some in the kitchen. Need me to get it for you?”
While Raph spoke, Michel jumped up to rest his front paws on the couch next to me, begging for attention as if I hadn’t just taken him and his friends for a walk. “It’s fine,” I said, scratching my dog behind the ear. “I’ll get it myself in a minute. Are you wanting to order food?”
“I don’t know.” Raphael frowned at the flyer he was holding. “I feel like… I don’t know. I have this massive craving for Chinese food. We don’t seem to get any Chinese take-out here, how is that possible?”
“We used to have a Chinese restaurant, remember? But the health department shut them down for roaches and they’ve never really come back.”
“Really?” Raph was nearly whining now. I’d never heard him like that. Did he want Chinese foodthisbad?
“How about we just order pizza instead?” I suggested.
My mate gave a heavy sigh to show how disappointed he was with the world. “I don’t really feel like pizza. I wanted something to celebrate the day.”
I had no idea that there was anything especially celebratory about Chinese food, but I wasn’t about to argue with Raph while he was in a mood. “What do we have to celebrate?” I asked instead.
“Laurence finally getting rid of his asshole ex. I know it wasn’t all my doing or anything, but I’m happy for him and I want to celebrate that everything ended well. I didn’t at all feel like I was up to the job when Conner approached me with it, you know?”
“I guess thatisworth celebrating.”
“Actually...” Raph stood from the armchair, the flyers falling to the ground all around him. “I got an idea for something we could do.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” He gave me no more than that before leaving the room. I looked at my dog who cocked his head at me as if to say that he didn’t know what was up with my omega mate either. Raph came strolling back into the living room one or two minutes later, seeming very pleased with himself, judging by the smile on his face.
“What are you up to?” I asked, because I knew that expression all too well. My mate was plotting something.
“Nothing,” Raph claimed. His eyes glinted with mischief as he sat on the edge of the couch. “Tell me about your day at work.”
“My day at work?” What did that have to do with anything?
“Just humor me.”
“Fine.” How could I say no to my mate when he looked at me like that?
“Tory Manson kept trying to stalk me in the hallways during break hours. She’s obsessed with me or something. During class, I saw her scribbling a butterfly into her notebook. A butterfly with my initials on its wings. She asked me if I thought it would make a good tattoo.”
Raph snorted, as if he didn’t realize how utterly embarrassing this was for me.
