AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Instead, I was going to pretend this was the perfect start to our perfect life which would be filled with perfect orgasms and perfect naked naps in the backyard.
Real life could wait.
Chapter 8
Zane
Today, it was all about routine. If I allowed myself to go outside it, I was going to be in trouble. As it was, I was on the struggle bus. Keeping my hands and my mind busy was my only hope not to spend every second thinking about him.
I couldn’t even think of his name, because that would send me into a tailspin. It was safe to say I was a hot mess. I never should’ve let last night get that far. And yet I did, and if I was in the same position again, I’d do the same thing. I was weak—at least when it came to Corey. And if I was being honest with myself, I wasn’t sure that was a bad thing.
The taste of him lingered on my lips, and my skin tingled where we had touched. I was walking around in a constant state of arousal like some sort of hormone-driven teenager. He had infiltrated every fiber of my being.
I couldn’t let him affect me like this. It wasn’t good for either of us. But also, there was nothing I could do to avoid it, not for long. Instead, I decided to allow today to be a game of pretend.
My plan was to act as if today was like every other day before I met him. I worked at the shop, I was there for my den, taking care of whatever needs they had. That was it. There could be no more. My duties came first, second, and every other spot. I was Beta because Aydan trusted me, and even though I slipped up, I couldn’t allow myself to break that trust again.
My plan was solid.
Except, it wasn’t.
I was on my third oil change of the day, and I could do those in my sleep. So, my mind tended to wander even if I did not want it to. Right now, it was wandering to a certain bear who, instead of working here on my books, had gone to the diner. Probably because both of us needed a break from one another. Or rather, we had decided that a break was what we needed, lest we were going to lose control around each other.
Gods, that would be wonderful.
No. Awful. We needed to not cave in.
My bear was protesting our distance very much and was hanging close to the surface. He didn’t understand any of this. Corey was our mate. To him that was all that needed knowing. It wasn’t as if I wanted to be away from Corey. If it was up to me, we would be spending every waking moment together. That just wasn’t in the cards for us. At least not yet.
“Hey, boss, I thought Corey was going to be working on the books today. I have a lot of receipts organized for him.” Leave it to Russ to find a reason to talk about Corey. He wasn’t doing it to be a dick or to poke the bear. The books were a mess, and Russ was all about getting them back on track—or at least giving them to someone who could get them on track.
“Not today,” I said, dipping the dipstick back into the oil reservoir and then removing it to check the levels… again. Mostly I wanted a reason not to look Russ in the eye. He’d see instantly that I was covering something up.
“How many times have you checked that, boss?” Nate asked.
Fine. Maybe my crew had already noticed something was up.
“What?” I said, dipping the stick back in. The car was an old Buick with six figures worth of miles, but it had been well maintained. It was from the days when you could keep a car running forever if you wanted to, unlike now when everything was designed to have a shelf life.
“That’s the third time you’ve checked the level on that machine. I think it’s done.” Russ gave a knowing look. But what did he know?
“Right,” I said. “I’ll just top off the washer fluid.”
“You did that twice already, too. That’s why we have a spill on the floor,” Nate piped in and gestured to where the blue liquid pooled in the center of the bay where we stood.
Had the two of them talked or was I… Fuck, I was way worse off than I thought. When had that even happened?
“It’s close to lunchtime. Why don’t you take a break before you change the oil on a perfectly good machine?” Russ patted me on the back as he walked by. At least he had the decency not to laugh at me. The rest of the guys on my crew were barely containing their grins. And fair. I deserved it.
“Right,” I said. I couldn’t go to the diner, though, where I normally went. That was where Corey was working, and if I did, the sweet torture would only get worse.
The last time I left him, it physically hurt. I wanted to carry him inside and take care of him, I wanted to make love to him all night long, I wanted to mark him, to show the world that he was mine.
Even though he wasn’t and couldn’t be.
Before I could think of another lunch solution, the garage door opened and one of the den members, Pete, pulled his SUV in. Pete worked at the barbershop. He and his family lived in the apartment above it and were one of the nicest families. One nice thing about being a barber in a town of shifters was that you never ran out of business. We grew a head of hair like nobody’s business.
“I’ll work on this,” I said.
