Betrayed Forced Mate (Rosecreek Special Ops Wolves #4)

“You wouldn’t be trying to get into the interface, would you?”

I jump and whirl around, eyes wide, when I see the man with blue hair smiling at me, his hoodie pulled over his hair. My eyes dart between my tablet and the thermometer on the wall.

“No,” I lie, at first, then, at his expression, I clear my throat. “Maybe. It’s just freezing in here, and the thermometer keeps adjusting, and I just want to set the temperature a little higher.”

“You could have just asked,” he says, leaning over and tapping on my tablet, then keying a code I definitely watch to take. “Changes every ten minutes,” he says, eyes flicking to the code, before winking at me.

“I’m Olivia,” I say, trying to catch my breath.

“Yeah,” he says, smirking and backing up the hallway. “I know.”

Later, he finds me again at the beach when I’m trying to make a sandcastle. There’s no hoodie this time, his bare chest gloriously exposed, his tattoos swirling out over his skin.

“I didn’t peg you for a tattoo guy,” I murmur.

“I didn’t peg you for a staring kind of girl,” he says, sitting next to me in the sand, “but here we are.”

“I was not staring.”

“English must be different in California.”

“Oh, fuck you,” I laugh, pushing him in the shoulder. When he doesn’t so much as sway, I turn, pushing on him again, harder and harder, until he goes limp in the middle of a push, and we topple over into the sand, laughing.

“You ruined my castle,” I say, frowning.

“Like I said,” he says, tilting his head at the lump of sand on the beach, “English must be way different on the West Coast.”

I insist he help me rebuild the castle, and he immediately becomes bossy, domineering. Part of me likes it. The other part of me is annoyed.

“We need water,” he says, holding the bucket out to me, completely focused on the castle in front of him. I take the bucket, giggling to myself as I fill it with water.

When I return, I take a deep breath, then dump it over his head, watching his blue hair plaster to his forehead. I squeal with laughter, but then he turns around, his eyes dark and concentrated on me.

“Oh, shit,” I mutter, before turning and taking off across the beach. Byron chases me down, scooping me up and running out into the water.

“Put me down!” I scream, only realizing my mistake a second before I hit the water. “I don’t know how to swim!” I say, when I resurface.

“You really think you’re clever, don’t you,” he says, gathering me up, and I end up with my hands on his chest, that warm, wet feeling from swimming sliding between us.

“I am clever,” I whisper. His face moves closer to mine by just a centimeter, then, something strange passes over his expression, and, without warning, he drops me into the water again.

When I come up for air, he’s gone.

***

An alarm goes off, and I sit upright, panic coursing through me. We have to evacuate the compound. Kaila is scared.

Bigby appears, leading us to Aris’s house, where we’ll be safe. When we walk into the kitchen, Byron is sitting there on his laptop.

I start to say something, but Byron makes a loud noise, which startles everyone.

“Sorry,” he says, shaking his head, his eyes meeting mine momentarily, catching there, and I feel something heavy pass between us before he speaks again. “False alarm. Thought I had it.”

I glance between him and his computer, drag my chair up beside him. Instantly, his scent washes over me, that natural, underlying scent, layered with his body wash, laundry soap, and cologne. I want to reach out and bury my hands in his hair, but instead, I focus on his computer.

“Oh,” I say, “if you look at the user database—”

“I already checked that,” he says, eyes darting over to me, and I get the feeling he doesn’t think I know what I’m doing. I crack my knuckles, wanting to prove to him that I can figure this out.