No, I’ll make sure of it.
The salty breeze caresses my cheeks, whispering promises of lazy mornings and endless possibilities. Well, on the days I don’t have to work anyway. I have to remind myself that I’m here to get a job and earn back a little of what my father stole from me, not to have a holiday.
At least I don’t have to worry about heats.
Whatever my father did, it worked.
There’s…something inside me that wants more, that always has been, but wanting doesn’t mean anything when you’re not built to tip over into instinct.
I’m a beta. That means I get to choose. No instincts. No bonds. No one else deciding for me.
Just choice.
Still, hope stirs beneath my skin, relishing the change in air, the absence of my father’s cloying, whiskey-laced scent. Here, I can breathe. Here, I can be free.
I take a break from searching for the key that my grandmother said she’d leaveright under the plant pot on the porch– because the entire porch is like a damn greenhouse covered in pots – and I glance toward the monstrous house next door, all modern glass and steel sharp lines. A song I don’t recognise is blasting from inside the house somewhere and the bi-fold floor to ceiling wall of glass is open and stealing my attention.
It couldn’t be further from my grandmother’s house in terms of style, age and design, though it’s definitely more in keeping with the other properties around me. Everything is shiny and modern and new. Designer. Fancy. My grandmother’s crumbling old house doesn’t fit, even though it was here first.
Seems unfair to me. That the natives, the locals, are being pushed out and priced out by the city folk who only want to appreciate this place for a few short months of the year when it’s in its prime. They don’t hang around and support the local businesses or the struggling economy out of season, and now people who have been born and raised here their entire lives can’t afford to live in their childhood neighbourhoods.
I shake myself out of my internal rant, but before I can return to my key hunt, I feel it.
A presence. Not just awareness.
Pressure.
My eyes lock with a captivating stranger leaning against the white picket fence bordering our properties and a surge of electricity dances along my skin when I realise that he’s been watching me.
In this single moment of my grey-blue eyes meeting his fathomless brown orbs, I know, without a doubt, that thescorching summer ahead holds far more than sun-soaked days and tranquil nights – it holds a host of tantalising possibilities, which could all start with the enigmatic man before me.
My cheeks flush and my mouth turns parched, which has nothing to do with the midday heat beating down on me.
He’s not just an alpha – no. APrime Alpha. The kind who could have me on my knees with a single command if I wasn’t careful. And that’s without biology getting involved.
No, I’d choose to submit to him?—
The thought hits hard enough to make me suck in a breath.
And then I shove it away just as quickly.
I don’t know him.
And I don’t lose control like that.
He is fine. Hot. Gorgeous. Whatever adjective you want to describe him, he’s them and more. Everything about his presence is so commanding. Mr tall, dark and handsome, ripped and built and stacked.
He looks like he could be here to make all my summer fantasies come true.
Except…why is he scowling at me?
“You’ve got the wrong place,” he calls over the fence. The gruff timbre of his voice sends shivers down my spine and distracts me from his actual words.
“Sorry, what?” I call back, raising my hand to shield my eyes from the relentless sun, in the hopes of seeing him better. It doesn’t work, and dark spots dance across my vision. I blink them away rapidly and try to focus on the handsome, stroppyshirtlessstranger.
“I said, you have the wrong property. That house isn’t one of the summer rentals.”
“Oh, I know that,” I reply cheerily, shooting him a wide smile. “I’m not here to rent it.”