Page 32 of My Begrudging Scent Matches

Caleb grimaces.

“Unless you want me to go,” Alice is quick to add.

“No, no, I just hadn’t even considered you going home. Of course you can stay. I want you to.”

“Okay.” Alice sits right down on the edge of the sofa bed, decision made, no need to beg. “I guess I’ll head to sleep then?—”

“Can I hold you?” Caleb blurts. At Alice’s frozen expression, he rakes a hand through his hair and goes on. “I haven’t been sleeping really, is all, and I thought maybe if I could. . . hold you, and just. . . be near you it might help. Just for a while, no funny business.”

Confirming that he hadn’t been sleeping well is almost comforting; she feels less lonely to know she’s not the only one struggling since the night after her heat broke.

“No funny business,” Alice repeats.

She doesn’t tell Caleb how bad of an idea it probably is, or give him the fifteen reasons flashing through her mind not to. Instead, she just crawls onto the sofa bed and under the comforter, sheet, and blankets. Once she’s in, Alice lifts her head to look at Caleb, then pats the bed next to her.

He scrambles in, the springs squeak under his weight before he lies down beneath the covers and gathers her to him. After some adjusting, his arms wrap around her, one on the back of her head, and her face is to his chest. Right where she can scent him and where, after a few breaths, she feels a low purr emanating from his chest.

“I’m glad you came today,” Caleb says. “I missed you.”

“What did you miss?” she asks. “My bad grammar?”

Caleb laughs, his chest shaking against her, and she feels his lips press against her head.

“You do have bad grammar sometimes,” he says. “I’m sorry I wasn’t kinder when I started at Labyrinth, and I guess all of the time. I don’t mean to be so. . . intense.”

“You are intense,” she agrees, and his chest shakes again. He pulls her closer to him and she lets him, sinking into it. “I was wrong and defensive and didn’t think you liked me, and I hate when people don’t like me.”

“Who doesn’t like you?”

“Well, you, I thought, for one,” Alice says. She remembers the cold rooftop where she accused him of just that, when the fire of her heat was brimming beneath her skin waiting to be set off. It feels like months have passed since then. “Probably lots of other people, too.”

“I don’t think so,” Caleb says. He sounds tired, more relaxed than usual. “I liked you right away. From your first email, you delighted me. You’re kind to everyone, even when they take advantage of you. And you’re smart, hard-working, and very, very beautiful.”

She’s glad he can’t see her face, all tucked up under his chin as she is. Alice has never been able to hide her blush.

“And then I came to the office and there you were. I started missing you as soon as I met you,” he says. “I never want you to leave.”

The words are melting into her, she can’t even find it in herself to feel the wriggling dread when she’s pressed against Caleb like this.

“I didn’t even mean to find you,” Caleb says, but his voice is heavy with sleep. “You snuck up on me.”

Gradually her muscles unclench until she is a pool of warmth and relaxation all wrapped up in Caleb Everett, her self-declared work nemesis and begrudging scent match.

They both fall swiftly to sleep.

eleven

Alice’s skin is warm when she wakes again, her neck still stuffed into the crook of Caleb’s neck. His legs are slung over hers, limbs all tangled up in each other, but there’s an undeniable need washing its way through her body.

It doesn’t feel like her heat did. That was frantic and desperate, this was a slow building thrum between her thighs and in her chest.

Alice wiggles closer, just the slightest rub of her front against his, and Caleb lets out a sleepy sigh. She doesn’t know how long she’s been asleep, though the moon still shines through the tall windows making rectangles slant on the walls.

Her back arches, pressing her chest even closer to his, and this time she feels part of him stiffening against her. There is a place in her brain that knows this is a poor idea—waking him up for sex would send the exact message that she’s set out not to deliver, but his scent wrapped up with hers and their bodies being glued together is messing with her critical thinking and reasoning ability.

She needs him. He’s here, and she has to have him.

“Caleb,” she whispers and slides a hand under his shirt.

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