Page 22 of Alpha's Forbidden Bond

“Still in the warehouse. They have to get the forklift driver and then I’m supposed to meet them out back at the docks so they can load the mattresses into my truck. I said I could carry them myself, but apparently the workers doubted my abilities.”

“Are they really that heavy?”

I nodded. “Probably heavy enough that they don’t believe I was strong enough to get them on my own. I bought the most expensive ones.”

“Hmm.” She opened her car door and threw the candy and soda onto the front seat. Then she took her keys out and started tearing open the pepper spray packaging. “Well, not that I’m really going to take your word or anything, but thanks for this, at least. I hope I don’t have to use it on you.”

Watching her tear at the plastic was almost painful. When she went to use her teeth, I had to stop her. “Here, let me.”

She hesitated but eventually held the packaging out for me to take. When my fingers brushed up against her wrist, I felt that she was shaking. A pang of sympathy tightened my stomach muscles. She really was freaked out. I grabbed either side of the packaging and ripped it clean in two with just a single tug.

“Jesus Christ,” she said. “Can you do that with a phonebook too?”

I laughed. “I’ve never tried, but yeah, I most likely could.” I took the pepper spray out and gave it to her. She immediately hooked it onto her keychain.

“I better get going,” she said. “And you need to go pick up your mattresses, assuming you were even telling the truth just now.”

“I was.” The sympathy nearly dried up at that. How could she be so ungrateful after what I had done for her? “Would you stop acting like I’m out to get you? I didn’t follow you here! If I did, it would be really stupid of me to not only reveal myself, but then to also purchase pepper spray that you would presumably use on me sometime in the future.”

“It could be a ploy to get me to trust you…”

I waved a frustrated hand in the air. “I don’t care if you trust me. I was just trying to do the right thing. What you said to that guy behind the register—it stuck with me. Silverleaf is a safe town, sure, but there are dangerous people everywhere, and regardless of how I feel about you as a person, I don’t think it’s right that someone is harassing you.”

Diana pursed her lips. “It’s a little hard for me to believe that considering you were the one who made me feel unsafe that day I accidentally drove onto your property.”

I sighed. “I already apologized for that, but if you need to hear me say sorry again, then I will. I’m not proud of how I behaved, and I’m sorry that I scared you.”

“And threatened me.”

I frowned. “I don’t recall threatening you.”

“You kept going on about how I was breaking the law! That felt like an implied threat to have me thrown in jail.”

“Implied being the key word there. I don’t think I ever said anything about calling the cops.”

She scowled. “A threat is a threat, and when it’s being made by someone like you or someone like the guy working at the register, it hits differently, okay? Sure, I’m tough. I’m stubborn. But I’m also small and not very athletic. I’m a bookworm who gets winded just walking home sometimes, which is fine with me, except it also means that someone with your frame can really put the fear of god in me. As much as I hate to admit it.”

These comments gave me pause. During both interactions I’d had with this woman, she had come off as nothing but confident and self-assured. It hadn’t even occurred to me that I might’ve actually made her feel unsafe when she seemed so perfectly comfortable staring me down and shoving her thoughts and opinions down my throat.

But now that I was looking at her through a more forgiving lens, I could see what a jerk I’d been. Diana was stubborn, the type of girl who would always prefer to stand and fight than to run away, but that didn’t mean she didn’t have vulnerabilities. That didn’t mean she wouldn’t be scared by the prospect of someone following her home at night and looking in her windows.

I softened my gaze. “You’re right,” I said. “I didn’t even think about things from your perspective that day or yesterday at the bookstore. I sometimes forget that I can be intimidating. Everyone I live with on the compound is built like me. They—they could all pretty much take me in a fight.” Maybe not all of them, but most of them would at least give me a challenge. “But throwing my weight around with someone I don’t even know doesn’t make me a good leader. It makes me a bully.”

When I finally met her gaze again, she stared back at me with surprise.

“I don’t know that I understand the context of everything you just said, but I appreciate you apologizing for real this time.” She smiled shyly. “And I am willing to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you aren’t the person following me. Just seeing you here again really scared me at first.”

“I get it. And I’m sorry that you’re going through this. I hope whoever this person is leaves you alone, or that you’re able to get them arrested or something. I don’t totally know how these sorts of cases shake out, but what they are doing is not just wrong. I’m quite certain it’s illegal.”

“Yeah, well, before I can really accuse anyone, I have to scrape together some real evidence.” She turned around to get into her car when I noticed that her hands were still shaking.

“Are you sure you’re going to be okay to drive?” I asked.

“Yes, I’m fine.”

“No, you’re not. Look at this.” Without thinking, I grabbed one of her hands. I curled my fingers around her shaky ones and felt that her skin was ice cold. She wasn’t wearing a warm enough jacket for this chilly fall morning. Her pulse quickened so that I could feel her heartbeat through her wrist, and before I knew what I was doing, I pulled her in close. Diana didn’t resist, which told me everything I needed to know about why her heart rate was suddenly running a mile a minute.

Her chest crashed into mine at the same time that our lips locked, and my body lit up with a level of wanting I didn’t even know I could feel. I slid my hands inside Diana’s coat and wrapped my arms tightly around her slender waist. She pushed her tongue into my mouth, sending powerful waves of warm anticipation down to my groin. I pushed her against her car, and she moaned as I dug my pelvis into hers. I needed her to feel just how badly I desired her.

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