Filed to story: The Alpha’s Pen Pal Book
“Seriously, Wes?” I nodded. “Fine, but it’s not a date.”
“Says who?” I asked, moving around the table to stand closer to her.
She ignored me and took a bite of her sandwich, staring out the window to avoid my eyes.
“Who said this wasn’t a date, Haven?” I asked again, coming right up next to her, my chest brushing her arm with each inhale.
I pretended not to notice the little shiver that ran through her body or the goosebumps that appeared on her forearm just below her pushed-up sleeves.
“What if I want it to be a date?” I asked, leaning down towards her ear.
She turned to look at me. Her nose almost touched mine, and her pupils dilated as we made eye contact.
She moved forward until her lips were just across from mine, her tongue darting out to lick them, and my eyes tracked the movement, my cock twitching as it grew hard again.
“Then I would say it’s very presumptuous of you to assume I would even want to date you,” she cooed, then turned away from me and took a very large, very unladylike bite of her sandwich.
The scent of roasted garlic wafted towards me as she set the sandwich back on the plate, and I was grateful that at that exact moment, the barista called my name for our drinks. As adorable as she was chewing her sandwich the way a wolf would, and as much as I wanted to be as close to her as she’d allow, the garlic scent made my nose itch and my eyes water. Kissing her after this date was probably off the table.
Well, it was off the table, anyway. She wasn’t a wolf. She was human. They didn’t move as quickly as we did when they were in relationships. I needed to keep reminding myself of that. And my lycan.
I picked up our drinks and brought them back to the table, testing the weight of my cappuccino as I handed Haven her latte.
“Oh, good! They got the foam right this time!” I exclaimed, and she raised a brow at me. “Usually, they skimp on the foam,” I explained. “Lots of people don’t like foam, and I don’t understand why they order a cappuccino if they don’t like the foam. If you want more milk, just order a latte. The ratio of the espresso to milk to foam is what makes it a cappuccino.”
And I was rambling. A-fucking-gain. About foam, of all things. Fucking steamed milk. Haven smiled at me with her brows still raised as she sipped her latte. I probably sounded like a pompous windbag.
“How do you know so much about football?” I asked to change the subject and steer us away from my coffee proclivities.
“My adopted parents are BYU fans,” Haven answered as she set her cup down. “They had season tickets every year. I had to learn, or it would have bored me to death.”
She frowned a bit and looked at her cup, turning it side to side on the tabletop.
“What?” I asked, immediately concerned and on alert.
She shook her head at me and ate the last bite of her sandwich. I blinked and held in my “I told you so” to her. She must have been starving to have finished that whole sandwich that fast.
But I was more worried about what had made her so upset. She may have brushed it off, but I could see in her eyes she wasn’t okay. My lycan was on edge, too, ready to defend and protect what we had both decided was ours.
I moved closer to her again, only this time it was to hide her face from the rest of the cafe and offer her some comfort and safety instead of to push her buttons and tease her.
“You can talk to me, Haven,” I breathed. “You can trust me,” I added, covering her hand on the coffee cup with my own, stilling her anxious movements.
I don’t know if she did it intentionally, but she leaned into my touch at my words, her body moving into my space as if seeking solace.
“Not here,” she whispered. “There are too many people.”
“Would you like to go for a walk?” I asked her.
When she nodded, I grabbed both of our drinks and walked to the door, pushing and holding it open with my back for her to exit the shop. Once she was out the door, I handed her the cup and put my hand on her back to guide her towards the park.
WESLEY
We walked through the park, with Haven deep in thought as she continued to drink her latte. She had both her hands wrapped around the cup to keep them warm, and I mentally kicked myself for not realizing it was getting dark and, therefore, cooler outside.
We stopped on the small wooden footbridge, and she set her cup on the railing, folding her arms around herself as she leaned against it.
“We can go back to your apartment if you’re cold,” I said, setting my cup next to hers and reaching out to stroke her arm a little.
“I’m fine,” she replied, and I nodded but kept my hand on her.
As she stood there, staring out at the stream that ran through the park, I waited for her to be ready to speak to me. I didn’t want to push her. I knew I was regaining her trust and didn’t want to take any steps backwards. But my lycan was on edge, sensing her distress and anxiety and mine as well.
“Thank you,” she said out of the blue, breaking my lycan from his angry pacing.
“For the coffee?” I chuckled. “It’s really not that big of a deal, I—“
“Not for the coffee, Wes,” she said, looking at me with meaning.
I swallowed and nodded, my thumb rubbing her shoulder. “I did what I could,” I muttered. “When I discovered you had been adopted, I felt so helpless. So I did the next best thing I could think of,” I told her. “And I would have told you. Eventually. At some point. I was working on a plan to grovel, and—“
“Grovel? How?”
“Well, I hadn’t actually figured out what I was going to do, but I was going to do it,” I admitted with an embarrassed laugh.
She laughed softly, then turned serious again. “I thought I’d never see them again,” she whispered, staring out at the stream.
“You could have looked them up on google or something.”
“No, I mean—” She shook her head and chewed on her lip, her arms wrapping tighter around herself.
“The first year my… Matthew and Melissa had the football season tickets… they tried to… One of the games was the same weekend as the Youth America Grand Prix—that’s a big, prestigious ballet competition. And they told me I had to choose between going to the game and going to the competition,” she told me, changing the subject.
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?