How are we supposed to have a serious conversation when it keeps veering off course?
I make a big show of eating my food. When he raises his glass, I clink it with mine. The wine is a shot to my head. A couple of weeks without going out and drinking like a fish have lowered my tolerance threshold. I feel dizzy, giddy.
“This lasagna is excellent,” he says as the silence stretches.
“You haven’t eaten not even half of what’s on your plate.”
“I know. I’m… nervous.” He chuckles. “Haven’t felt this nervous since my mom came into my room to tell me she and Dad were getting a divorce and I had that bad feeling in my stomach.”
“Do you have a bad feeling now?”
“No. It’s not bad. Just… uncertain. When it comes to you.”
I grimace. “That sounds bad.”
“No, no. I’m explaining it badly. I’m certain I want to be here, with you. I’m certain I want… to be with you, period. But I’m not sure of what you want.”
We have both stopped eating by this point.
Grabbing my wine glass, I take a generous gulp. “I barely know you, Zach.”
He leans back and opens his hands. “I’m an open book. Ask me anything.”
“Would you bake cookies with me if I asked?”
His brows go up. “Yeah, but?—”
“Would you do a buddy reading of fantasy books?”
“Um, sure. You?—”
“Would you build me a pink nest with donut-shaped cushions?” I demand.
He grins. “Yeah! If?—”
“Will you take me shopping in bookshops and never tell me I bought too many books?”
His grin turns into a warm smile. “You got it.”
“Will you always praise my cooking and my sense of fashion?”
“That’s easy,” he says. “Always.”
“Goddammit,” I breathe, “come here and kiss me.”
I said I was going to resist, dammit. But I’m dying to see his knot. And his cock. And all of him.
44
ZACH
My crazy omega girl.
I’m still laughing at her questions, though I can sense they mean a lot to her and I hope my answers please her, when she launches herself out of her chair and runs around the table to me.
I catch her in my arms and pull her against me, onto my lap, letting her feel how much I want her. There’s no hiding it, not when she’s pressed to my hard-on and the knot swelling at its base.
She gasps as she squirms, and I stop her because fuck, I’m about to come in my pants. “Zach?—”
