Page 22 of How to Lose a Pack in 10 Dates

Jace walks beside me with no visible effort. He’s all long strides, sun-warmed skin, and smug alpha ease. It’s… a lot. Especially without Wes here, lurking in the background to glower and scowl and give me something to push against.

Wes, at least, was a buffer. An emotional block of ice I could hurl snark at while pretending I wasn’t affected. But this is warm, flirty danger in freshly-changed mesh shorts and a backwards cap, and I amnotokay.

“Are you seriously not wearing a scent patch?” I frown, desperate to focus onanythingthat isn’t his biceps or the way his smile makes my uterus whimper.

He scoffs. “Hell no.”

“Wow. Not even a suppressor mist?”

“Why would I suppress?” he asks, dead serious. “I’m analpha. Suppressing would be false advertising.”

“Oh my god,” I groan. “You’re a walking alpha pamphlet. You’realpha-coded.”

“I’m alpha-accurate,” he says, with that shit-eating smirk that probably has a fan club.

I snort. “Well, I’m scent-blocked. Obviously.”

“Yeah,” he says, voice dipping as he leans in just a fraction, “but I’d still know you anywhere.”

My ovaries stage a walkout. Warmth flashes low in my belly, licking up my spine.

“Well,I’mnot the one trying to start a scent war in the middle of a nature trail.”

He narrows his eyes as he smirks. “Could’ve fooled me.”

“I can take them off if we’re playing fair,” I say, my voice several octaves higher than usual.

His eyebrows lift. “You trying to get mounted in the sand, Omega?”

My nervous system is now vibrating.Cool.That’s new.

“Wouldn’t be the worst thing that’s happened on a trail,” I blurt, because apparently I’m legally incapable of shutting up around attractive alphas with thigh tattoos.

Jace laughs—reallylaughs—and it’s so annoyingly hot I almost forget how to walk in a straight line.

“I like you,” he grins.

“Of course you do,” I mutter, internally screaming and composing a eulogy for my last remaining shred of dignity.

We hit the incline toward the market and I start sweating. Not from the hill—but from him, and the effortless, infuriatingchemistry that makes itveryhard to remember what I’m here for.

I need to pull it together—fast. This is supposed to be an exposé, not a full-blown scent-match slow burn with a bonus six-pack.

I came here for revenge. Forjournalism. The one thing I didn’t plan for in this whole heat-proof, heartbreak-fueled revenge arc was actuallylikingany of them.

“I usually do this with a weighted vest and a gallon of water strapped to my back, but I figured I’d take it easy today,” he says.

I blink at him. “You hike with what now?”

“Core stability,” he says seriously. “Also, leg day was yesterday.”

He’d changed out of his jeans into a pair of light gray shorts for the walk over, and I glance down at his calves—strictly collecting critical data—and immediately feel like I need to repent at the mental images that flash through my mind.

“Do you do this every week?” I ask, wiping sweat from my upper lip.

“Yeah,” he nods. “Unless I’m working. I own my gym and teach group classes there. I do some personal training sessions, too. Oh, and fight conditioning.”

“Of course you do,” I say under my breath.

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