Best thing would be to unbalance her at the ankles or knees, but then I’d have to get close to her.
There was no good way out of this, and as such, the best thing to do was just get it over with.
I took the initiative and went for the back of her left knee, bringing her to the floor as quickly as possible and reaching for her throat with my right hand to pin her down.
Her eyes widened when we hit the floor with a loudsmackbut she didn’t look surprised by it. I gritted my teeth to brace myself and moved to pin down her thigh with my knee.
Frankie grabbed the fingers around her throat with one hand and yanked back hard enough I had to let go if I didn’t want them to break. Her strength wasn’t anywhere near mine, but her speed was just as brutal as I thought it would be.
My arm came up and my elbow went for her face, but she was already moving, pulling me harder in the direction of my fingers as she wrapped a leg around my neck.
It took less than a second for her to get me on my side with my arm yanked back in the perfect position to dislocate my shoulder, and that’s when I caught her scent.
It was subtle, but the smell of tangerines and lavender wafted over me, mixed with something sweet and spicy too, like clove and honey. It was such a soft scent for an alpha as powerful as her, but the acerbic and sharp note at the end perfectly suited her.
Her bare thighs were around my throat, squeezing so hard I couldn’t breathe but I closed my eyes instead of fighting back.
Francesca Lopez may not have inherited the red eyes of a legacy alpha, but there was a reason her asshole of a father had named her his heir anyways.
I wanted to stay like this until I was drenched in her floral tangerines, rubbing my face in her bare skin to see if it tasted as good as it smelled.
My fucking mouth was watering and I had to swallow it down if I didn’t want to drool all over her but I couldn’t even do that with how hard she was squeezing me.
I had to tap out if I didn’t want to make some colossal mistake that would make this job fucking impossible before it even really started.
Licking my lips, I went to do just that but she must have thought I was going to try to get out of her hold because she flipped us both over until I was on my back with her shin across my throat and her fist coming straight for my chin.
I caught it just in time, but now my head was all messed up thanks to her scent.
This wasn’t a normal reaction to another alpha, I knew that, but it didn’t seem to matter.
My body was straining toward her even with the knowledge it would really fucking hurt if I couldn’t pull myself together to get out of this.
It wasn’t like I didn’t know how – it wasn’t like I couldn’t justgrab herwith my free hand and pick her whole body up as I got my feet under me again. Francesca wasn’t heavy enough for meto really even notice her weight, but her scent was making mestupid.
And the apex of her thighs was right there.
The source of the sweet yet tart smell that had my mouth watering like I was no better than an alpha going through their first rut.
“What the fuck are you doing, Hart?” She sounded pissed when I didn’t try to get her off of me and she grabbed my hair with her free hand, yanking my head forward to increase the pressure on my throat. “Do something already.”
I was fuckingtrying. God, I was trying but all I could think about was how soft her skin was and how good it felt to have her fingers in my hair.
What thefuck.
I didn’t understand.
Why was she affecting me so damn much?
This was bad. I had to do something or I was going to blow this job.
I yanked her fist toward me to throw her off balance but that instantly backfired when she lurched forward, catching herself before her tits smashed into my face.
My hand slid up her arm against my will and I forced myself to look at her face instead of her tits even though they wereright there.
Francesca was staring down at me, practically frozen in shock.
That certainly made two of us.