Page 40 of Heat & Deceit
I reach to tie my apron, but warm fingers snatch the string from me. “Hold still,” a deep, rumbling, stupidly annoying voice says.
Screaming, I jump and whirl around to glare at none other than Ly. His eyes are lit with a certain kind of mischief, the type that tells me he’s thinking a hundred things and ninety-nine percent of them are filthy. Now that we’re not surrounded by other people, his scent slaps me in the face. Amber with an undercurrent of terrible decisions I’m dying to make.
I glare and take a big step away from him. “Are you stalking me?”
He raises an eyebrow. “And what if I am?”
I fumble with how to respond, my mouth opening and closing until I simply growl at him.
“Relax, sunshine.”
“Get out, or I’m calling the cops.”
The door to the back room opens, and Javier rushes in, gaze flitting about until it lands on me. “Is everything okay?”
I shake my head and point at Ly. “This creep is stalking me.”
“Hey, now. I thought I was an asshole.” Ly chuckles softly under his breath, amused at his own joke. He scrubs a hand over his jaw and studies me in a way that has my hackles rising.
“Lycus?” Javier cuts his attention toward the tattooed man.
“Lycus?” I parrot. “You know him?”
Javier and Lycus share a look that speaks of years of friendship. And suddenly I understand. They do know each other, because they’re pack. Javier said he and his pack own the coffee shop and mentioned that Lycus signs the checks. Fuck, that’s why I knew his name. Which meansLycus, the alpha I insulted several times over, is also my boss.
“You’ve got to be shitting me,” I barely whisper.
They’re too absorbed in their silent conversation to notice my slip. I get a hold of my shock and annoyance and shove it far into the back of my mind. So what if Lycus owns the place? So what if Javier is handsome and has rough hands that would feel wonderful on my bare skin? So what?
It doesn’t matter.
Staying calm and under control matters.
Keep it together.
Don’t let them see you sweat.
By the time the two of them turn back to me, my walls are up, and I’m simply waiting for them to notice I’m still in the room.
“Carmine, this is Lycus, my pack mate and co-owner of Tranquility. And yes, he is indeed an asshole and a bit of a creep.”
Don’t you dare smile at how charming he is.
“Only a little bit of a creep, but if that’s what you like, I’m happy to lean into it.”
Javier smacks him across the back of the head.
“Ow,” Lycus says with a laugh.
“This is why I didn’t want you to work in the shop.”
Lycus sighs. “Well, Rome hates people, and you have that thing today.”
I want to ask what that thing is, but that’s not something an uninterested beta would do.
“I should probably go help Amara set up.”
The two of them look at me, and it’s all I can do to keep from blushing. Together, they’re intense. And to think, there’s another one of them. Surely he’s the ugly one. There has to be some sort of rule that prohibits every person in the pack being hot, right?
