Page 28 of Fated to the Alpha

Kimberly giggled. “Be nice. They’re not bad. Some are a little on the corny side and borderline weird, but they have some good storylines.”

Shane let out a breath and reached for his pizza, sliding his arm away from her for only a moment while he tugged off a piece. “Pick whatever you want, but not one you’ve seen already and turn off the subtitles. Neither of us can know what’s going on.”

“I remember the rules,” Kimberly chided as she searched for the right one that sparked her interest.

She picked one about a thousand-year-old dragon deity trying to find the reincarnation of his long-lost lover from the feudal ages. She knew the plot template well enough, as it was a general go-to for some of these Korean fantasy stories. Some cursed, possessed, or otherwise tortured soul of a man was hopelessly in love with a weak, awkward, mortal woman and they had to make their forbidden love work despite countless obvious obstacles. For some variety, the genders of the characters were swapped, but she had seen the pattern countless times.

“That’s a series,” Shane pointed out.

“We can watch a couple of episodes. They aren’t too long.”

“What if we get hooked and have to narrate the whole series? I’ll have to come over every week.”

She elbowed his ribs. “We could make it a thing.”

Shane shot her a pleased look. “I think I might like that.”

Kimberly caught herself looking at the episode list and calculating how many weeks, how many months they could drag out this new fun date night tradition. Would he be gone before they could finish the series? Would they have to watch some shows over the phone? That wouldn’t be the same. Not by a long shot.

But how much time did her wolf need to fully recover so she could shift again? One date night might not be enough, but would anything ever be enough? A gut-twisting thought came to mind. What if she managed to restore her wolf and shift again, but then Shane left and everything would go back to the way it was? What could she do then? Another hard shake brought her back to the present. She couldn’t sabotage the date by thinking too far into the past or the future. Stay in the moment. Enjoy the time they had.

Kimberly curled her legs up beside her on the sofa cushion and leaned into Shane’s sturdy body. The scent of his old, dearly missed body wash was like the best aromatherapy in the world. As the opening scene played, Kimberly let herself melt, every muscle releasing and nerves coming unwound. This felt so right, to be with Shane like this, the way they used to. Only now, they didn’t have a chaperone in the other room with keen ears and noses peeled for anything unmated teenagers had no business doing.

After several minutes of quiet and one pizza slice to stave off the hunger, Shane started the mock dialogue.

In the scene, the future love interest was a child and was visited by the dragon prince in human form. He crouched to her level, long black bangs framing his pale forehead.

In a deep voice, Shane spoke over the fast, clipped Korean dialogue. “This will sound crazy, but twenty years from now, we’ll be banging each other.”

Kimberly gasped and slapped his abs. They were just as firm as they looked back at Larson Caves Park. “Shane!”

He shook her shoulder a little. “Here’s your part,” he whispered.

Flustered, Kimberly looked back at the screen. The little girl with chubby cheeks and black pigtails stood with a smile and twisted, her dress swaying with the motion.

She put on a high-pitched kiddie voice. “Gee, mister, I don’t know what that means.”

“You will,” Shane growled. “And you’re gonna love it.”

Kimberly tilted back her head. “Okay, time out! We gotta keep this PG until she’s grown up. Agreed?”

She felt the vibration of his chuckle. “Fine, fine.” He waited for the next line and corrected. “You be a good little girl and eat your peas.”

“That’s better.”

Shane sighed. “This is supposed to be fun, not like we’re rewriting the script.”

“If you went back in time and got to see five-year-old me, would you be saying shit like that?”

There was a smile in his voice. “We haven’t banged yet, so not exactly.”

Her face went hot at the yet part.

“I would try to tell five-year-old me to get the rocks out of his britches and start dating you sooner, but he’d probably do something like stick out his tongue and scream about cooties.”

That made her laugh. “And I’d tell my younger self to kiss you after that fifth-grade recital.”

Shane looked scandalized, but she knew it was all an act. “Fifth grade? You little vixen.”