Page 43 of The Florist and Her Alphas

“Hell no.” I sit up too fast, my face burning. “I can’t, Mira. Not them. Not anyone. I’d rather die here.”

Mira is quiet for a long moment. Then she says, carefully, “There are services. For omegas in heat. Discreet. Professional. Alphas who can help. They don’t claim or mark. They just... help.”

I stare at her. “What?”

“Heat alphas. It’s a thing. Expensive, but⁠—”

“Since when?”

“Since always. You’ve been off-grid, Lia. There are apps. Services. Alphas who do this as a job. They come, they help you through it, they leave. No strings.”

I have never heard of this. Not once in six years. The idea is simultaneously horrifying and the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard.

“I can call. Right now.”

I bite my lip. My pussy clenches, hard, another wave of cramping rolling through my lower belly.

“Do it,” I whisper. “Please.”

Mira pulls out her phone. Her thumbs move over the screen. I close my eyes, listening to the soft tap-tap-tap, feeling the heat build under my skin again, my nipples aching against the terry cloth, slick pooling between my thighs.

My phone buzzes.

I reach for it blindly. The screen lights up.

Ezra

Would you like to join me for a film tonight? There’s a theater in the Village that shows classics. Thought you might enjoy.

My heart stops. Then starts again, hard and wild, beating against my ribs like it’s trying to escape. Ezra Frostwood. Ice-alpha but warm and soft towards me.

My thumbs move before my brain catches up.

Oh, are you asking me out on a date?

Three dots. My breath catches.

Ezra

If you want to call it that.

Warmth floods my chest.

Ezra Frostwood asked me out. On a date. A real date. With movies and probably dinner and his gray eyes watching me across a table and his voice saying my name in that low, steady way that makes my pussy clench.

I set the phone down. I don’t text back. I’m scared if I do, I’ll say something stupid and desperate.

I don’t want to give away the fact that I’m lying in bed in a damp towel with slick running down my thighs and an appointment with a stranger alpha in my very near future.

Mira is watching me. Her eyebrows are up. “Why are you smiling?”

“Ezra asked me out,” I say. The words feel absurd coming out of my mouth. “To the movies. Tonight.”

Mira’s mouth drops open. Then she laughs. “A date?!”

“It’s not a date-date. He said ‘if you want to call it that.’”

“Lia. Honey. That’s a date.” She shakes her head. “If he knew you were about to get railed by three professional knot-dispensers, he’d probably take it back.”