Page 113 of The Alpha’s Unclaimed Mate

Heat floods my face. He drops his mouth to the side of my throat, grazing the skin. “I like that one. I’d work very hard to hold on to the title, every single night.”

“I was thinking partner,” I manage breathlessly.

He goes still, then pulls back to squint at me. “Partner? Are we filing our taxes together now?”

“Marcus.”

“No. We’re keeping lover.”

“I’m not introducing you to anyone as my lover, and I’m not saying boyfriend either.”

“Fine. Partner for other people.” His arm bands tighter around me. “When it’s only us, I’m your lover.”

“You’re a very clingy man.”

“I’m not.” He noses along my jaw. “With you, though, it seems I can’t help it.”

I’m past flustered and past arguing, every wall I spent a decade building coming down under him. When he tilts my chin and kisses me this time, slow and sure, I let him.

Makeup covers a lot of sins. Before nine I stand at the office bathroom mirror and pat concealer over the yellow-green stain on my cheekbone until it passes for tired. The split over my right eyebrow has scabbed to a thin line, and I brush my hair down over it. A couple of people glance twice on my way in. Not one of them asks.

At noon I walk to the coffee place on the corner for something to keep me upright. The line’s short, just four people ahead of me. A man steps in behind me, takes the small table by the window, and orders nothing at all. He only sits there, watching me. I catch him in the mirror behind the register, then look off and pretend I haven’t.

He’s tall with a dark beard and a gray cap pulled low. A windbreaker’s zipped to his throat in weather that doesn’t call for it, and a dark mark is inked across the back of one hand. My skin crawls. I get my coffee, over-tip out of pure nerves, and walk back to the office without turning around once. My nerves don’t settle the whole afternoon.

By five, the light outside the windows has gone thin and gold. I pack up my things, and when I reach the lot, I spot him again. A gray sedan sits two spaces down from my car, engine off, and he’s behind the wheel with one arm slung along the door, watching me cross the asphalt.

My stomach drops. Bolting won’t help, so I turn on my heel, walk back inside, and find Priya and Gwen still at their desks.

“Hey.” I keep my voice light. “Would you two mind walking me out? There’s a creep in the lot. Probably nothing.”

They come without a single question. The three of us head out through the doors together. My keys are in my fist, half a joke loaded, when I round the hood of my car and stop dead.

All four tires sag on the rims, sidewalls slashed, rubber peeled open where a blade went in.

“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me.” Priya crouches by the front wheel. “That’s not random. Somebody did this on purpose.”

“Vandals.” I hear how even I sound, and that steadies me a little because inside I’ve gone cold to the bone. “This lot gets hit now and then. Kids with a boxcutter and nothing better to do.”

Gwen frowns toward the street. “Shouldn’t we call the police?”

“I’ll deal with it tomorrow.” I make myself smile. “Actually, could one of you run me over to Crestline? My kid’s there, and I’m already late. The car can wait till morning.”

Gwen drives. I keep my eyes on her side mirror the whole way. Three cars back, the gray sedan slides into the lane behind us, never once closing the gap. My pulse won’t drop. I chatter about nothing and laugh in the right places. When she pulls up at the academy gate, I thank her twice and wave until she’s gone.

The sedan noses to the curb across the road. I walk through the gate at a stroll, chin up, slow and easy, until the hedge cuts the street out of sight behind me. Then I run.

The drive vanishes under my flats, through the front doors, past the trophy cases and the framed jerseys. I hit the corner into the junior building too fast, nearly go down, catch the wall, and keep moving. Marcus’s door is shut. I shove it open without knocking.

There’s another man in the office with him, big through the shoulders, an old scar splitting one brow. Marcus is on his feet before the door’s done swinging.

“Jessa.” He’s around the desk in two strides. “What’s wrong?”

“I think I was followed.” It rushes out of me. “All day. Since this morning.”

“Slow down.” His hands come to my shoulders and steer me into the chair across from the desk. “Start at the beginning.” I get it out in pieces: the man in the coffee shop who ordered nothing and only stared, the same face waiting in the lot at five, all four of my tires opened to the rim, the sedan trailing us the whole way here.

“Describe him,” Marcus says.