Present day…
Saturday morning
"I'm heading up to take a swim and cool off…" Andrew ground out the words at his frazzled-looking Girl Friday. A heat wave had hit the city this morning, and the estate's air-conditioning had been out for almost an hour—they'd had assurances it would be fixed soon, but in the meantime, her sweat-soaked T-shirt stuck to her non-existent breasts like a second skin and made her nipples stand up. Her hair clung to her face and neck and a light sheen of sweat sparkled on her fair skin, it was driving him wild. Without noticing he had started to release his scent.
Look away from her hard nipples, buster.
However tempting, he had to stop obsessing about touching her again, about peeling away the soaked cotton and feasting on those hard, ripe nipples…
He blinked, shaking his head, desperately trying to control the erotic visions that had been assailing him for over a week, ever since he'd felt her rampaging pulse thundering against his thumb a week ago when he'd made the mistake of touching her. She was such a lithe creature; she could easily be mistaken for a very feminine young man.
Thinking back to his conversation with Greg…
"Would I feel the same if she was a guy?
I-i think so" Andrew Pearce had lost most if not all his sexual desire for women, not even pornography turned him on, yet this flat-chested beauty made his blood boil and his groin ache.
The only thing putting his lust into perspective was the memory of her earnest expression after he'd forced himself to let her go. He'd seen the puppy-dog sincerity in those dark brown eyes when she'd told him he needed a family—which had been way more disturbing than the hard shot of arousal, the insistent desire to seduce her and the constant yearning.
Abstinence no longer felt like a necessity to maintain his sanity. But intimacy was another proposition entirely.
No way. Not happening, not ever.
As desirable as Tatum Adams was, as much as he had begun to obsess about breaking his celibacy rule with her, there was something about her that disturbed him on a visceral level.
The sense that she could see way more than he wanted her to see, and the fact that she seemed ethereal in some way. That she could threaten his hard-fought-for equilibrium on a level that went way beyond physical release. And another thing that confused him, even more, was the fact that she never wore alluring clothing, never tried to seduce him and that she never showed too much skin other than her arms, he had also become obsessed in a way with catching her in confined spaces where they were mere centimetres apart so that he could see the pulse in her neck and the awareness of him in her eyes. He was getting more and more convinced that she was hiding something.
"Okay, Mr Pearce," she said, way too meekly to be believable. "I'll start working on lunch."
"Call me Andrew, Tatum," he said, unable to keep the cranky snap out of his tone. "It's been two whole months now."
"Yes, Andrew," she said, her skin blushing a vivid pink, which only annoyed him more.
How could she appear so innocent, so transparent, when she was tying his damn libido in knots? It was starting to really bug him, because her honesty, and her compassion was just one more thing about her that had started to captivate him. And disturb him.
Was she really this innocent? It was then that he noticed a slight twitch in her nose like she was trying not to inhale through it but rather avoid inhaling through it. He then realised he was releasing pheromones after having lusted after her hard buds, he looked at her more closely she was biting her bottom lip. Is she really a beta? Or can she smell my pheromones?
Very peculiar he had never met an omega who could resist his Dominant alpha pheromones they always threw themselves at him if he wanted them to.
"I have to test this"
I don't have the courage to ask as Greg suggested.
Alongside her mouth-watering cooking, her phenomenal butt, the undisguised desire in her eyes whenever he entered a room, and the stories he'd become addicted to coaxing out of her about her family in London. Talking about her family made Tatum's eyes light up, and her whole personality blossomed in a way he didn't get but felt weirdly jealous of. He wanted her to look that way when she thought of him.
He paused. Shuddered.
Get a grip, man.
He didn't want her to care about him; he just wanted to fuck her.
She was still watching him, waiting, and the awareness crackled between them like an electric force field. And suddenly he knew the only way to make this hunger something he could compartmentalize and ignore was to feed it.
To hell with it. Just go for it. You're making this more of a thing than it is because you haven't desired anyone in so long.
"You want to join me?" he heard himself saying. "In the pool? You look as if you could do with cooling off too." It wasn't the subtlest pickup line. But then it had been over ten years since he'd practised.
And we are only meeting Greg and his family at 7 pm tonight so lots of time to get a shower and get ready afterwards.
"I…I don't think that a good idea?" The vivid colour on her cheeks intensified, making him smile. Something he'd done more and more of in the past two months. She couldn't possibly be as artless as she appeared—she was twenty-three years old and she'd been living alone in New York for months—but those instant blushes had begun to captivate him too.
"I don't have a swimsuit," she added.
The insistent pulsing in his groin went ballistic at the vision of her diving into the pool naked—and he had to stifle a groan.
He gave a stiff shrug that probably looked about as nonchalant as he felt—i.e., not at all. "Up to you."
"I really don't think it's a good idea Mr Pearce" That low husky voice of hers.
She just called me Mr Pearce again, is she nervous or is it something else?
"Why is it not a good idea Tatum?"
Her eyes glazed over, the way they had that first morning when she'd devoured the sight of his naked chest—and every day since whenever she got fixated on his face, his body, and she seemed incapable of hiding it.
"Tell me the real reason you can't or won't join me in the pool "He made his voice seductive, and released a waft of pheromones to aid in his persuasion.
"U..uhm I..I'm not what you think I am Mr Pearce" She looked down momentarily then flicked her gaze up to his and away again.
I don't have to ask her outright, this is my chance…
"What do you mean by that"? Andrew asked stepping closer to grab her if she bolted.
"I'm going to get fired anyway after this, so I'll just show you, and then we can part ways" Tatum spoke very softly.
"Would you please cease releasing pheromones Mr Pearce?" she asked
Andrew Pearce's gaze fixed more intently on Tatum the moment she asked him to stop releasing pheromones. How could she smell them if she was a beta, better yet if she was an omega how was she not begging him for sex? He had released a seduction burst she should be putty in his hands yet she was standing here unfazed exactly like a Beta.
Sir, if you don't stop excreting I will have to do something I don't want to.
He quirked an eyebrow at her.
Andrew stopped releasing his scent, and the air cleared in moments as the windows were all open because of the air-conditioning problem.
Thank you