Page 31 of Wanted Beta

“It kind of sucks,” I admit, before I let my gaze move from the window to him. “But I have to admit, it’s getting better now.”

He shakes his head in response. He doesn’t know how to take a compliment. That hasn’t changed in all the time I’ve known him.

That’s why I keep my words of flattery light-hearted.

He can brush them off more easily that way.

Lorenzo Rossi has a permanently moody expression on his handsome face. His heavy brow and those slightly downturned yet full lips make it look like he’s pouting even when he’s not. His thick, black hair is tied back since he’s at work. It brushes his shoulders when it’s loose and softens the hard lines of his face. Right now, he looks pissed, but he’s feeling more disappointed than anything else.

I can’t help but absorb that emotion.

I don’t want him to feel worse, but it’s hard to pretend I’m not hurting for him.

Omegas in academies get taught coping techniques for their empathic abilities. The rest of us have to work that shit out for ourselves. It was much easier to distance myself from other people’s emotions before I met my Alphas.

The second I laid eyes on them I knew nothing was going to be the same for me ever again.

I push his emotions down before they can overwhelm my senses.

Imagining they’re my own feelings that need to be masked makes it easier.

“I’m guessing Gio went to help Jack?” I ask, once I’ve managed to pull out a halfway believable smile.

He nods slowly. “If we start to get busy, call Jack.”

“Because you’ve got Gio’s phone?”

He gives me a wry smile, which is the only kind of smile he ever cracks.

“You wouldn’t know how to keep him from downloading that app again, would you?”

“Not really, but I can try to convince him to give it a rest?”

He sighs. “I don’t know why he can’t quit it.”

I bite my lips to keep from blurting the obvious, that Gio’s just worried because this place isn’t making money. I know G already told Enzo that, and I know Enzo thinks there’s something more to it. There might be, but if there is, Gio isn’t ready to talk about it.

“I can be pretty persuasive,” I assure Enzo, with just enough of a flirty tone to make him laugh.

“I have no doubt about that,” he tells me.

The look he gives me is just hot enough to trigger a tiny burst of my perfume and remind me I’m currently defective. The faint hint of cinnamon-spiked sweetness that hits the air is barely even noticeable. I can feel my cheeks burn with embarrassment that something’s wrong with me.

Enzo moves in close, and his stubble brushes my cheek as he whispers in my ear, “Don’t make me bend you over this desk, Arrow. You know what your perfume does to me.”

He cups my other cheek with his hand as he brushes his lips over my mark.

It’s hidden right behind my ear, covered up by my hair.

Even the softest touch where he bit me is charged enough to make me hard, and his whispered threat with that hint of needy desperation laced through it …

My slick is starting to come in, anticipating the follow through on his threat.

Enzo’s no tease. When he promises something, he always delivers.

He moves back, and I can feel his desire as easily as I can see it.

Faded perfume or not, my Alpha still wants me as much as he ever did.

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