Page 77 of How to Lose a Pack in 10 Dates

It’s pitiful and unconvincing, and I smirk down at her,beyondsatisfied. “Say it like youmean it, baby.”

She opens her mouth again, but nothing comes out. Just a soft, broken inhale that wrecks what little pride she had left.

That’s it. That’s the crack.

She’s lost, and we both know it.

Her omega is practicallybegging, and Icouldkiss her. Maybe I should drag her down onto the floor and show her what happens when you bait a scent-matched alpha for fun.

Instead, I pull back enough to make her feel my absence. Just enough to make her chase it without thought.

“That’s what I thought,” I grit out.

Her chest rises and falls heavily, instincts blazing through whatever little narrative she’s been clinging to as she glares atme. I leave her there, scent-glossed and burning up, her whole body twitching between defiance and collapse.

Her scent hangs thicker in the air, now; compromised and unstable, just like her.

“Keep telling yourself you’re winning,” I grin as I turn my back. “Let’s see how long you last.”

I don’t look at her as I walk out, but Ifeelher still standing there, clinging to the countertop as if it’s the only thing keeping her upright.

Whatever. Let her stew in it.

From now on, I’m not playing fair.

Chapter Twenty

Aimee

Ican’t sleep.

I’ve flipped the pillow three times. Kicked off the blanket, then gotten cold and burrito’d back up in it. Put on socks and taken them off. I’ve scrolled my phone until my eyeballs ached, read the same sentence of my trashy thriller four times, and even counted backwards from a hundred trying to hypnotize myself into ignoring the fact thathegot under my skin.

That smug, snarly, alpha bastard.

How dare he. With his unfair jawline and his “I see through you” growl and thenerveto stand that close to me. His scent waseverywhere—sharp and bitter and exactly the kind of wrong that feels addictive in the worst way.

And then there were thewords. The voice. The goddamn lip-hovering proximity mind games. He said things that made my knees weak and my brain do that dumb little short-circuit thing it used to do every time he knotted me stupid.

Which I am not thinking about.

I’mnot.

I shove my head under the pillow and scream.

For one awful, dizzy second back there… Iwanted it. My thighs trembled. My scent slipped. Ileaked, which is just—no. Absolutely not.

I am not the omega who gets hot and bothered because her ex snarled near her clavicle. I am not the girl who melts over kitchen counter power plays. I was not—am not—the kind of woman who whimpers for an apology knot.

I was doing so well. I was in control.

I waswinning.

I flop onto my back and stare at the ceiling. I’m supposed to be an intruder, a saboteur; a one-woman wrecking crew of emotional retribution. I’m supposed to be here to ruin them. Instead, I’m practically nesting in a house full of alphas who fold my laundry, remember my coffee order, and make me laugh until my sides hurt.

I press the heel of my palm against my sternum, hoping pressure will somehow smother my feelings clawing their way up before they start screaming.

“I hate him,” I whisper to the ceiling.

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