Page 90 of The Heat of Us

The man towered over me and I bit back my retort that he should’ve been watching where he was going.

“It’s fine,” I said, resisting the urge to rub my side. I tried to brush past him and he did a double take.

“Wait, do I know you?”

I finally placed why that block-faced jaw was familiar. It was the alpha who had asked me out, what was it, a month ago now? I sighed internally, already exhausted by the false politeness I would have to put on.

“Hazel, right?”

Had I told him my name? I must have.

“It’s Damien, remember?” He mimed a window being wiped with his ginormous hand. What? Oh…the graffiti at the gym, I guess.

“Ah, of course. Hello again,” I said neutrally. “Excuse me, my alpha is waiting for me.”

I emphasised my alpha meaningfully, hoping he would get the very large, very obvious point.

“Lucky guy,” Damien said with an easy smile. For some reason his casual acceptance irked me more. Mentioning my alpha wasn’t supposed to be an elaborate coded signal telling him to keep flirting with me.

“Hope he treats you the way a beautiful woman like yourself deserves,” he continued.

I wasn’t sure how much clearer I could be without scrawling no means no on his forehead with lipstick.

It was probably rude but I didn’t respond. Instead, I pressed my lips together and stepped past him.

Remy missed the entire encounter. Probably for the best as I did not feel like dealing with alpha posturing and chest-beating right now. I could handle men like Damien just fine on my own.

I watched Remy tap his phone to pay and realised Damien had done something so much worse than hit on me. He’d kept me from getting a muffin!

As if he could sense my distress, Remy looked over. I frantically pointed at the display and put on my most forlorn, pathetic face. He looked absolutely stricken.

“Which one?” he asked. It was difficult to hear him over the din of the tiny, crowded cafe.

I shimmied past a table trying not to knock over their salt and pepper shakers. “Chocolate muffin,” I called urgently.

I left a very happy omega, licking melted chocolate off my fingers. Remy watched me polish it off as we walked, eyeing me like he wanted to lick me off his fingers.

He threw his arm around my shoulder while we were stopped at a pedestrian light. Smiled down at me before pressing the lightest, sweetest kiss on my lips that left tingles sparkling over my skin.

“By the way, I have some additional ideas for that entry position,” he purred in my ear.

“Entry-level.”

“That’s what I said, isn’t it?”

“It absolutely was not.” I gave his nipple a pinch through his shirt and he made a frightened yet weirdly erotic noise.

I mimicked it and he shut me up with a longer kiss this time.

The light turned green but Remy stumbled as we began to cross. “Ugh, my shoelace.” He bent down and began to tie it. I kept going. He had long legs, I figured, he could catch up.

It really did feel like the car appeared from out of nowhere. A streak of silver out of the corner of my eye and one blink later—

“Hazel, watch out!”

I froze at Remy’s panicked scream.

It was the only reason the only part of the car to make contact with me was the side mirror. Whether it was shock or physics, it was enough to send me tumbling backwards.

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