TEMPORARY MATES PERMANENT CRAVINGS novel Chapter 68

Sixty-Eight

Lisa

+15 Benus

The night air hit us like a wall when we stepped outside, cold enough to make my breath come out in small white clouds. Cora and I walked in silence for a while.

“So?” she asked eventually. “Learn anything?”

“More than I expected.” I smiled. The knotting stuff especially.”

We walked a little farther, past darkened storefronts and quiet houses with warm light leaking through their

curtains.

“Thank you for bringing me,” I said.

Cora nudged my shoulder with hers, and I felt her hand find mine in the dark, squeeze, and hold on.

Back in my room, I kept catching myself staring at the wall where Evangeline’s portrait used to hang. It had been replaced with a bland landscape painting, but I still looked at that wall like the portrait might materialize back into existence when I wasn’t paying attention.

Like Evangeline herself might step through it.

The cameras were gone. Franklin had checked every Corner, every piece of furniture, every smoke detector and light fixture. He’d been thorough to the point of obsessive.

But I still felt watched.

Was Evangeline stalking me?

The word felt too dramatic for what was probably insecurity. Desperation. A dying woman trying to maintain control over the one thing she had left.

Except it didn’t feel small.

It felt like being dissected, like my privacy had been skinned off and handed to someone who hated me.

I locked my door every night now. Checked it twice before climbing into bed. And I hated that I had to. Hated that this arrangement had turned me into someone who jumped at shadows.

Nadia breezed past me in the hallway the next afternoon, wearing a short red dress.

“Hot date?” I heard Franklin ask.

She turned, and her smile was sharp enough to cut. “With Alpha Desmond, actually. He’s taking me to that new place on Fifth.”

“That sounds nice.”

“It will be.” She adjusted her earring. “He’s very attentive. Very Alpha.”

The emphasis on that last word was deliberate.

Franklin was pretending to be absorbed in something on his phone.

“Have fun,” he said.

1/5

+15 Bonus

Nadia swept past me in a cloud of perfume. I walked over to Franklin.

“You okay?”

“Fine.” He didn’t look up from his phone.

“You don’t look fine.”

I leaned against the wall beside him and watched Nadia disappear down the stairs. Heard the front door open and close. Franklin’s grip on his phone tightened until I thought the screen might shatter.

“She’s really getting under your skin.”

“I know.”

“So you could do something about it? Instead of standing here looking like someone just kicked your dog?”

Franklin looked at me. “What exactly do you suggest I do, Lisa? Chase after her? Beg her to pick me instead of the Alpha with the trust fund and the fancy cars? That’ll go great.”

I felt bad for him.

“You need to take the fake dating thing seriously,” I said.

He looked at me like I’d suggested he jump off a bridge.

“Cora is willing. And she’s actually lovely, which is more than Nadia deserves to see you with, frankly. Come to the nursery this afternoon. Talk to her. Figure out what this looks like. Because right now, you’re letting Nadia walk all over you, and it’s painful to watch.”

“Fine. What time?”

“Three. After nap time.”

“I’ll be there.”

He showed up at 3:15. Cora was in the break room when I brought him in. She glanced up from the cup of tea she was making and smiled.

He rubbed the back of his neck. “This is weird.”

“Extremely weird,” Cora agreed. She poured a second cup of tea and handed it to him.

I left them to it. Walked back into the main nursery and helped Dorothy organize dinner prep. I heard Franklin laugh, and I smiled despite myself.

Maybe this would actually work.

I’d been horny all evening.

Not the biological need of heat, but a distracting horniness that made it hard to focus on anything else.

It was the workshop’s fault.

Ever since that night, my brain had been replaying everything those women had demonstrated. Every technique and detail. The way they’d broken it down into something I could understand and replicate.

2/5

+15 Bçnus

And now all I wanted was to try it. To see if I could actually do the things they’d taught. If I could make Cameron fall apart the way he’d made me fall apart.

The thought alone made me wet.

I tried to shove it down, distract myself with work, with my mother’s recovery updates, with literally anything else.

It didn’t work.

By night, I was wound so tight I thought I might vibrate out of my skin. And then I felt guilty about it. Because this wasn’t supposed to be about pleasure. This was supposed to be about conception, so I could leave and go back to my life and not obsess over oral techniques and pressure points and how to make him lose control.

By ten p.m., I was climbing the walls, I didn’t want to stay in my room or lie in that bed and think about sex until I went insane.

So I went outside. The front garden was quiet. I sat on the stone bench near the edge of the driveway and pulled my jacket tighter around myself.

Headlights cut through the darkness just after eleven. Cameron’s car. I recognized the sound of the engine before I

even saw it.

My first instinct was to duck behind the hedge before he saw me and this turned into something I wasn’t ready for.

But I was too slow.

Cameron stepped out and saw me immediately.

We stared at each other across the driveway.

He looked exhausted, hair that had clearly been raked through with frustrated hands more than once.

“Lisa.” His voice was rough. “What are you doing out here?”

“Couldn’t sleep.”

“It’s freezing.”

“I know.”

He walked toward me. I didn’t run.

He sat down beside me on the bench, close enough that I could feel the warmth radiating off him despite the cold.

“Long day?”

“You have no idea.” He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, and pressed his palms against his eyes. “Rogurs are making moves. Border disputes. Everyone wanting something from me and no one willing to give anything back.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.”

We sat in silence for a moment. Then I stood and held out my hand. “Come on.”

He looked at my hand like it was a trap. Then he took it and let me pull him to his feet.

The kitchen was dark except for the light over the sink.

3/5

ady tight

+15 Bcnus

I made him sit at the table while I rummaged through the fridge. Found leftover roast chicken, bread, cheese. Assembled a sandwich that was more functional than elegant.

He ate it without tasting it.

“You’re running yourself into the ground.”

He looked at me.

“You care.”

It wasn’t a question, but it landed like one anyway.

“Of course I care,” I said quietly.

“You shouldn’t.”

He finished the sandwich and stood, swayed slightly, caught himself on the edge of the table.

“My legs are killing me.

I knelt beside him and started unlacing his shoes.

“What are you doing?”

“Taking care of you.”

I pulled off his shoes, then his socks. His feet were a mess, blisters from new dress shoes, tension knotted into the arches, toes that had been crammed into leather for too many hours.

I got up and filled a basin with warm water. Added some of the lavender bath salts I’d seen in one of the cabinets. Brought it back and set it down in front of him.

“Put your feet in.”

He stared at the basin. Then he obeyed.

The sound he made when the warm water hit his feet was almost obscene.

I sat cross-legged in front of him and waited for the water to do its work. Then I lifted one of his feet out and started working my thumbs into the arch.

I pressed harder. Found the knots and worked them out with steady pressure. Cameron’s head fell back against the cabinet. His eyes closed.

“That feels good.”

I worked on his feet until his breathing went deep and even.

“I want to sleep beside you,” he said.

My hands stilled.

“Not sex. Just sleep. I just want to sleep next to you.”

“But Evangeline-”

“Is asleep.” He opened his eyes and looked at me. “I’m so fucking tired, Lisa. Please.”

4/5

Sady Gary

+15 Bonus

I should have said no. But he looked so broken.

“Okay,” I whispered.

We went upstairs together, like we were sneaking through our own house.

My room felt smaller with him in it.

He stood in the middle of the floor looking lost, like he’d forgotten what he was supposed to do next.

I pulled back the covers. He stripped down to his undershirt and boxers, climbed into bed. I turned off the light and got in beside him.

For a moment, we lay there not touching. Then Cameron moved closer, wrapped his arm around my waist, and pulled me back against his chest.

Spooned me.

His face pressed into my hair, his breathing already starting to even out.

“Thank you,” he murmured against my neck.

I didn’t respond. I closed my eyes and tried to ignore how right this felt. How perfectly his body fit against mine. How much I wanted to stay exactly like this.

He was asleep within minutes. I lay awake longer, feeling the warmth of his breath on my skin, the steady rhythm of his heartbeat against my back.

And I knew that I was in so much trouble.

Because this wasn’t just sex anymore.

This was intimacy.

The kind that burrowed under your skin and made a home there.

The kind that destroyed you when it ended.

And it would end.

Comments

Support

Share