Page 103 of Perfect Alpha

She props herself against the pillows, and the sheet falls to reveal her beautiful breasts. My eyes are drawn like a moth to a flame.

“Focus, Fenway,” she teases.

Taking a deep breath to steel myself, I meet her eyes. “Can we make this work?”

My life depends on her answer.

There’s no way she can leave again.

“I hope so,” she whispers.

“What do you need from me?” I demand, as my stomach sinks to my feet. “I’ll doanythingto have you back for good.”

She’s silent for a few too many beats, and I’m compelled to fill the dead air with rambling reassurances.

“There’s no one else. There never will beeveragain. I can’t promise I’ll never fuck up, so please give me some room to do that, but I can promise I’ll do my best. I will never intentionally hurt you ever again. I am one hundred percent all in, angel.”

She tucks her hair behind her ears and cracks her knuckles, an old nervous habit from grade school. I can still hear Hannah screaming, “Ew, stop it!” and I smile at the memory.

“You can’t make decisions in isolation if you want to be with me. I’m a partner, not a plaything.”

I let out a long breath. I’ve been exclusively calling the shots in my life for a long time, never having to get anyone else’s opinion. It’s not that I don’t trust Victory or value her perspective. I just prefer to solve problems so she never even has to think about them.

“I know that’s difficult for you,” she allows, taking my hand. “And I’m not saying it because I want to control you. I don’t. I love when you get all alpha on me. But you need to keep me in the loop while things are happening, not after you’ve already decided. That’s a deal-breaker, Cade. I’m not going through what happened before all over again. We’re a team.”

I nod, and then to double my affirmation, say, “Yes. I want you to be my partner. I’ve matured since we broke up the first time, and I’m a better man now. And I want to be an even better man for you.”

She takes my hand to her lips and kisses every knuckle. “Thank you.”

“I have a deal-breaker, too,” I tell her.

“Oh, I imagine you have plenty,” Victory groans.

“I can’t take things slow with you. Everything is already open and raw between us, so I don’t want to hold anything back.”

“There’s no one else and there never will be,” she assures me.

My relief whooshes out in a breath I didn’t know that I was holding. “Good.”

The elephant in the room is New York.

We don’t live in the same state, and it will kill me to be separated from Victory when I need her love every damn day, and her body in my bed every single night. But I let her job tear us apart last time, and I won’t make the same mistake again.

“How often will you have to go back to New York?” I ask, as my body fills with trepidation.

I’d much rather beg her to quit and never leave me again, but I refrain. She needs to decide on her own. Based on what she said in the hot tub, she’s already halfway there.

“It’s a good question,” Victory replies. “I don’t know the answer yet. I have to talk to my boss and the other agents to work out an arrangement that makes everyone feel good.”

“Guess,” I persist.

“I’d say three days a week at first,” Victory replies, and my shoulder slump. “Weekdays, Cade. You’ll be at work anyway, so you won’t even notice.”

“Oh, yeah, I definitely won’t notice not getting to lose myself inside you three nights a week. That won’t make a difference at all.” I’m sulking, and she moves closer to me instead of backing away, gently stroking my thigh.

“Maybe it can be less,” Victory replies. “Or, I could do one full week a month.”

I’m adamantly shaking my head because that would be a living hell.

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