Page 19 of The Florist and Her Alphas

Julian closes his eyes. “...fuck.”

“Fuck me. Fuck me. Fuck me,” Pepper helpfully supplies.

“PEPPER. NO.” Julian points at the bird, which has absolutely no effect. Pepper just tilts his head and makes a soft kissing noise.

I laugh. I can’t help it.

It bursts out of me, raw and surprised, and Julian’s eyes snap to my face. The sound of my own laughter in this shop, amid broken glass and a talking parrot and the man who tried to buy me out, is so absurd that I keep laughing until my ribs hurt.

“He’s crazy,” Julian says, running a hand through his hair. “He just repeats things. He doesn’t know what any of it means.”

“It’s fine,” I say quickly, not wanting to think about what the parrot just said, but I’m still blushing all the same.

A small crunching sound draws our attention. Pepper has hopped down to the floor and is cheerfully destroying one of the yellow ranunculus, tearing petals with his beak.

“Pepper!” Julian lunges for him. The bird squawks and flutters up to the cooler, trailing yellow petals. Julian grabs the remains of the bouquet—half-eaten, bedraggled, missing three stems.

“Don’t worry,” I say, giggling at the sight.

“I’m buying this,” he says firmly.

“You don’t have to. It’s okay.”

“It’s not okay,” he says, already pulling out his wallet. “He destroyed your flowers. I’m paying for them.”

He leans across the counter to hand me cash.

“Thank you…” I start to say, but my voice trails off when his alpha scent hits me. He smells so good, like lemon. My knees go weak, and I brace both hands on the mahogany to keep from swaying. My pussy throbs. Slick gathers. I hate my body for betraying me like this.

Julian notices. Of course he notices. His eyes drop to my white-knuckled grip on the counter, then back to my face. “You okay?”

His voice has dropped half an octave. Rough. Warm. The kind of voice that makes heat pool low in my belly.

“Yes. Yes, I’m fine,” I whisper.

His fingers linger against my palm as he hands me the cash. Skin on skin. One second. Two. I don’t pull away. I should pull away. I don’t.

When I pull my hand away, my skin turns cold, and I quickly shove the money into the cash register without looking at him.

“Sorry about my badly behaved bird,” he says, completely oblivious, but his nostrils are flaring like he can sense the sexual tension between us. My pussy clenches when he gives me a look. It’s a certain look that an alpha reserves for his omega. “Have a good day, Liana.”

“Bye,” I whisper, and I watch him leave.

My heart is beating so hard I can feel it in my throat. I walk around the counter and kneel to gather the yellow petals from the floor. They’re soft between my fingers, torn and wet. I throw them in the trash and chuckle to myself. Pepper is something else.

But the shop is deathly quiet now. It’s way too quiet now.

I hate it.

The yellow bouquet is still on the counter. Half-destroyed and paid for, but he never took it. Picking up the bouquet, I rush out the door after him with the bell ringing wildly behind me.

“Julian!”

He’s twenty feet down the sidewalk, about to climb into a black luxury car idling at the curb. He turns. Sees me holding out the flowers. His expression softens. He walks back, takes the bouquet from my hands with a smile that makes my stomach flip.

“Thank you,” he says.

The driver revs the engine. Julian starts to turn away. Something cracks in my chest. A small, brittle sound I didn’t mean to make. My vision blurs.