Filed to story: The Alpha’s Pen Pal Book
I give myself a mental shake and another mental pep talk.
Come on Reid. You can do this. You are a beta wolf, the beta of Crescent Lake. You have faced worse than this, and you will face worse than this in your life. You can shake your mate’s hand, and you can be as nonchalant and distant about this whole thing as she is.
I grit my teeth and grip her hand, giving it two firm shakes. “Reid Thomas.”
Her eyes widen and her hand stills in mine, her jaw slack. “Seriously? You’re Reid Thomas?”
“Last I checked.”
Her head tilts to the ceiling, and she laughs. It’s pure and joyful and fills the restaurant with light. Eyes of the other customers turn to her, most of them males, and I suppress the urge to growl, forcing my wolf back again so he doesn’t push through and make me claim her in front of everyone here.
“Of fucking course you are,” she says through her laughter, wiping her eyes. “Of fucking course, when I decide to search for a mate, I get matched with the playboy of Crescent Lake, the male who everyone knows has no interest in settling down at all.”
“Ironic, isn’t it?” I chuckle halfheartedly, wishing for the first time in my life I had a drink in my hand that was stronger than water.
Because there it is. Spelled out in plain English. She wants her mate. She wants the one thing I don’t want. And now I am going to have to pray to Selene that she’ll meet up with me when it’s the full moon so we can complete the rejection.
“What are you even doing on Date-To-Mate then?” she asks.
I inhale through my nose, trying to ignore her perfect scent, then blow the breath out through my mouth. Honesty. Honesty is the best way to go here. If I am honest with her from the beginning, the entire rejection will be less of a blow. And it’s not like I have anything to hide. My reputation for flirting and bedding women isn’t a secret.
“I made a bet with Sebastian—Alpha Wesley’s younger brother—and I lost,” I admit.
She leans forward on the table, folding her arms to hold her weight, a sparkle in her eyes. “What was the bet?”
“He bet me that I would break one of my rules.”
“And which one did you break?”
I grimace and look down at the table. “No sleepovers,” I say. “He caught Imogen—Luna Haven’s friend—and I sneaking out of a guest room the other morning. The bet was if I broke one of my rules, I would have to go on a date with someone he picked, and it would have to be a proper date: dinner, dessert, actually talking to each other and getting to know each other, and no sleeping with the female at the end of the night.”
I spit the entire story out, eyes on the table, bracing myself for her to turn into a raging green-eyed monster after hearing about me sleeping with Imogen. “He created the whole profile for me and everything,” I add to fill the silence.
I look at her and she’s shaking her head, her shoulders trembling with silent, withheld laughter. “That tracks, to be honest,” she says. “It makes way more sense than you suddenly deciding you wanted a mate or a serious relationship.”
“I may sleep around, and I may not want a mate, but I always keep my word. I always uphold my end of a promise, even a promise to myself,” I say, hoping she catches my hint.
“I can respect that,” she says, sitting up straight again. “And now you can check this date off your list, and after tonight we can part ways, and you’ll never have to see me again if you don’t want to.”
I cock my head, my brow furrowing. “What do you mean?”
I see what she’s doing. She’s trying to get me to admit it first, to claim her first. It will not work, though. I don’t want a mate. I don’t want to claim her. If she wants me to admit it, then she’s going to have to claim me first.
“Well, you’re only on this date because of a bet, not because you have any intentions of actually settling down. I only went through with a date because I am ready to settle down, and since you don’t want to settle down and you’re not my fated mate, there isn’t any reason for us to go on more dates.”
I blink at her, distracted from my mental calculation of when the next full moon is because I either hallucinated or she just said we’re not mates.
TARYNReid stares at me,
his bright blue eyes wide and unblinking. He folds his hands on the table, looks down at them, then back up at me. “I’m sorry, I—what?” he asks.
I huff out a dry laugh and sigh. I can’t believe my luck. That the best match the app could make for me was with a male who doesn’t want a mate. A male who doesn’t date.
“I said, since we’re not mates, there is no reason for me to wrangle you into another date.”
He shakes his head, clearing whatever thoughts he has there. “Right,” he says, rubbing his short beard. “Right. That would—that would be silly. A waste of your time.”
“We can even call it a night now, if you want,” I say, though in my head I’m crossing my fingers he says no.
“No, no,” he says, lifting his hands, the veins in his exposed forearms bulging. “Like I said, I made a promise, and I’m going to see this through. I told Seb I’d take a female on a proper date, and that is what I’m going to do.” He taps the table in punctuation.
“All right.”
I shrug, casual as ever, but inside I am cheering.
He may not be my mate, or be looking for someone to settle down with, but that doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate the delicious man in front of me.
Because damn, is he fine. His outfit is simple—a white button-up and black slacks—but he is wearing it. He’s left the top three buttons of the shirt undone, revealing the edge of a tattoo on his left pectoral, and through the fabric I see it extends across his chest, to his shoulder, and down his left biceps. He’s rolled his sleeves to his elbows, and there is another tattoo on the inside of his right forearm.
All I can think about is how many other tattoos he has and where they are on his body. I bet he has a lot, and I bet they’re sexier than I can imagine. I bet he has a six-pack, too. And now I’m picturing him shirtless. Shirtless and glistening with sweat, either from a workout or a “workout.”
Chill, Taryn,
I think to myself as I take a sip of water to cool off.
I try to think of anything other than him shirtless. The last thing I need is to become aroused and for him to smell it. Although I’m sure he’s used to it. And it would be fun to see exactly what makes Reid Thomas so notorious.
No!
I think again, giving myself a mental shake.
He doesn’t want a mate, and you don’t want any more “just for fun” relationships, and you absolutely do not want or need a one-night stand. It will be this one date and that’s it.
New Book: Veiled Desires of the Alpha King Novel
Dayson was the alpha of the largest pack in North America. Powerful figures from other packs sought to offer gorgeous girls as potential mates for Dayson. He steadfastly rejected these advances, he was not a pawn to be manipulated. But eventually there came a mysterious girl he could hardly say No. Who was she?