When He's An Alpha (The Olympus Pride #2) - Suzanne Wright Page 0,39
let them live at the shelter because they’re too afraid to go out into the world. It gave me the idea of providing a place purely for loners to live—call it my good deed for the decade. Almost every tenant in this building was sent to me by Madisyn.”
“I see.”
Tate watched her as she began to clear the table. “Do you? Or do you still doubt me?”
She lifted her shoulders. “I just can’t see how you could have no interest in someone you once tried to imprint on—that’s no small thing.”
Tate pushed away from the table and crossed to her, liking how her pupils dilated and her heartbeat kicked up. His cat purred, straining to be closer to her. “Did I seem interested in her when you saw me talking to her earlier? Or did I seem more interested in you?”
“I didn’t really take much notice. I only glanced your way for a second or two.”
“But that highly perceptive brain of yours will have absorbed everything there was to see.”
“In any case, we don’t need to talk about her. I shouldn’t have brought it up.”
“In your position, I’d be wondering if you still had feelings for your ex, so I’m going to make sure you get that that’s not the case here. She and I were together three years ago. The relationship didn’t work out, and I don’t wish that it had. Neither does my cat.”
Havana really wished he’d drop the subject. It hurt to hear he’d once cared for someone so much he’d wanted to imprint on them, because it highlighted that he hadn’t even come close to experiencing any such feelings for her.
The hurt annoyingly did nothing to douse the sparks of electric sexual tension that bounced from him to her. Nor did it make her hormones cease doing the damn foxtrot. It was impossible to stop her body from responding to him, apparently.
“She’s part of my past—that’s it,” he added. “She’s not important. I don’t want her back. I want you back.”
Havana rolled her eyes even as the claim made her stomach flutter. “What you want is a weekly hookup. There are plenty of women out there who I’m sure would be more than happy to be your new fuck buddy.”
He edged further into her personal space. “I don’t want other women. I want you. And don’t make out like you were just a convenient body to me, Havana. What we had might not have been serious, but it wasn’t cold or impersonal either.”
“True. You never treated me with anything less than respect. But the fact is that I never meant anything to you.”
His eyes briefly flared. “You meant something,” he said, his voice low and soft and so damn intimate it made her pulse jump. “You still do.”
“I don’t buy that.”
“You should. It’s the truth. I’ve never lied to you before. Why would I start now?” He tucked a loose strand of her hair behind her ear and then gently flicked her lower lip with his finger. “Did you know I have a policy not to get involved with any of my tenants?”
She felt her brow pinch. Actually, no, she hadn’t known that.
“It’s not wise to mix business with pleasure, and I’m not in the habit of going against good sense.” His warm, calloused hands loosely cuffed her wrists, his gaze glittering with so much heat and carnal promise. “But,” he began, dropping his tone to bedroom territory, “I knew the second I first laid eyes on you that I was going to have to have you.”
That soft, velvety rumble danced down her spine, hummed along her raw nerve endings, and tightened her nipples. Four months of them sleeping together had trained her body to respond to his “sex voice.” And he goddamn knew it.
She swallowed. “Tate—”
“I knew there’d be no fighting it, and I sure as fuck didn’t want to fight it. So I didn’t bother trying.” He slowly smoothed his hands up her arms, over her shoulders, up her neck and onto her face. His eyes dropped to her mouth, gleaming with unabashed hunger, and her heart started working overtime. If she let him kiss her, she’d be lost. Still, it was an honest to God’s struggle not to lick her lips in invitation.
She didn’t dare try to push him away, because she didn’t trust that she actually would shove him backwards. She didn’t trust that her hands wouldn’t instead yank him closer. “You should go,” she rasped.