Page 33 of Mark & Don't Tell

Desire.

She straightens her shoulders and turns, looking at Mandy instead of us. “What is it that you want?”

You.

The answer is on the tip of my tongue, but her eyes move around the room. “What is your deepest desire?”

The smell. I breathe in again, ready to make a deal with the devil, so long as I can bury my face in the crook of her neck. My cock throbs and I bite my cheek.

Finally, her eyes meet mine, boldly staring me down. There’s a glint of a challenge, almost as though she’s daring me to say it out loud. She gives Kai the same look, and I swear I hear him stifle a purr.

“What do you desire, Daria?” I ask, interrupting her pitch and not giving a damn. A dark chuckle nearly tumbles from my lips when she blushes. She fucking knows.

“To be wholly consumed,” she whispers before clearing her throat and gesturing to her canvas. “To be craved. Desired. Pleasured.” Her voice dips to a husky tone. “That’s what we all want, or at least, that’s what that carnal part of us wants. Only a few are brave enough to admit it, to proudly go after what they want. But what about everyone else?”

Even though she doesn’t look at me or Kai again as she presents, I’m hanging on every word, the silky, rich texture of her voice going straight to my cock. Her scent is heady in the air, and Arnold waves his hand in front of his face, elbowing the person sitting next to him, but they give him a dirty look before focusing on what Daria is saying.

Would it be horrible to punch him?

Probably, but even still, I struggle to resist yanking him across the table by his collar and slamming my fist into his nose. He doesn’t like the way my omega smells? Maybe he’ll enjoy the scent of his own blood.

“—And that is Good Vibes.” Daria finally looks at us again. “The freedom to explore, to embrace that desire, to give in,” she murmurs, eyes bouncing between me and Kai.

A few people clap and Mandy thanks her. Daria stiffly grabs her canvases and escapes from the conference room. Mandy shoots a disapproving look at her back but quickly turns to us.

“That’s all we have for you today.”

“Mandy,” Kai says, voice rough, “can we have the room?”

She blanches, mistaking his tone for annoyance with her. “Of course.” She claps her hands and gets her people moving. As soon as the room clears out, I launch myself out of my chair and storm toward Daria’s seat.

The conference room windows are transparent, but not even that stops me from dropping to my knees and burying my face against the cloth material. Only the giant table blocking me from view saves my dignity as I groan, rubbing my cheek over the lingering lavender and musk.

She’d been needy, our omega.

All that desire, simply because of our scents.

“Linc,” Kai says from beside me.

“It’s her,” I say, lifting my face from the chair.

And he too falls to his knees, not strong enough to resist the urge to breathe in her perfume. He purrs and clutches the arms of the chair.

“She’s our scent match.”

“Obviously,” he groans. “God, that scent.”

“We should call Vic.”

“We should invite her to dinner. Court her.”

“Or we could fuck her over the table,” I suggest, licking my lips. “She’s soaking.”

“She wouldn’t like that,” Kai says, always the reasonable one.

“Why don’t we ask her?” I glance toward the hallway, which has emptied. “She might like putting on a show.”

“Her pitch was the best,” he says, ignoring my train of dirty thoughts. Right, Mr. Reasonable doesn’t want to rut her at a client’s place of business. He runs his hand over his scruff. “We could ask Mandy to make her our in-house support.”

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