“I’m very attracted to you, your scent is making me half hard as we speak, and you just told me you want sex. I want to have sex with you. So, the only missing link is whether you’re attracted to me too.”
He rubbed his face with both hands. “This wasn’t my intention.”
And still,not a no.
“I live five blocks away, alone,” I said. “I’m currently single. And I swear, I’ve never hit on a client before.”
“Am I to believe that?”
I shrugged. “It’s true.”
“God. Stop with those puppy-dog eyes.”
“Do you find me attractive, Jay?”
“You’re a twenty-five-year-old PT with the body of a Viking god and the face of an angel. I would have to be dead not to find you attractive. And jeez, I’m such a cliché!”
I white-knuckled the edge of the bench to push back the urge to fist-bump the air. Then I stood up, and he followed my movement with his gaze, lingering on my thighs, bulge, and abs in my tight shirt. Yeah, he liked what he saw.
He licked his lips.
“I finish in fifteen,” I said. “Meet me at the bus stop in front of the parking lot just after eleven.”
I spentthe last minutes of my shift obsessively reorganizing everything I could put my hands on—the heavier, the better. I even rolled the medicine balls around so they were lined up along the wall from lightest to heaviest.
At seven minutes to eleven, I ran to the staff showers.
At eleven, I jumped up and down at the bus stop, trying not to freak out. How long should I wait? Would he stand me up?
He came four minutes past eleven, his hair still damp from the shower.
He had his hands in his coat pockets, the canvas bag over his shoulder, and he rocked on his heels.
“This is a spectacularly bad idea,” he said, but he smiled a little too.
I decided not to respond to that. “I’m this way.”
I still half expected him to back out, but he got into step by my side.
It had stopped snowing, and the air was frigid, the sidewalk covered with almost an inch of powdery snow. This late, only a few footprints disturbed the perfect surface. For once, Dalton City looked clean and innocent, all the grime hidden under the pristine blanket.
“I can’t believe I’m doing this,” Jay muttered. “And fuck, you’re young.”
“How old are you anyway?”
“I’m thirty-seven, Chase.”
Did he think that would put me off? No way. “And you said you were a nurse?”
“I work at an omega health clinic downtown. I have a thirteen-year-old son. I share a house with my older alpha brother, who’s helped me raise Monty.”
A thirteen-year-old named Monty. Thirteen years of caring for someone, always putting someone else first. What must that have been like? Jay’s being a single father only made him more fascinating to me.
“Monty. Is that short for Montgomery?”
“Lamont, actually.”
The name sounded unusual. How did he come up with it? I wanted to ask but didn’t. What if it weirded him out that his hookup wanted to talk about his kid?
