Page 35 of Knot Only For One Night

Not off to a great start, buddy.

Mike Harrison is a white male athlete with the muscles to show for it. He’s got blond hair and green eyes. He waves, though his wave is weak as fuck and his brows scrunch a bit as he takes in Neven and I. Both in casual jeans and leather jackets with Midnight Wolves on the back.

Good.

“Um, when you said you were bringing…” Mike trails off, his eyes bouncing between Neven and me. I pull out Esper’s chair before taking my own seat. Neven sits on the other side of Esper.

“Yes!” She nods her head a bit and waves her hands in front of us as she introduces us. “This is Reed and this is Neven. They both go to the same school.”

“School?”

“Yeah. Business”—I point to myself, then to Neven—“Computer programming. What are you going for? Esper hasn’t talked about you much.” I tilt my head, trying to dampen my smile at his shock of her two other partners being… well, us. Not only are we MC, but we’re smart as fuck too. (Well… Neven is.)

People see the tattoos, the bikes, think we are dangerous, bad news, what fucking ever, and for once I’m happy this fucker obviously thinks this way too.

“Sports medicine,” he answers, hardly taking his eyes off of us. His stupid-ass polo shirt pisses me off. I glance at Esper who is beet red, so dang cute. She’s too perfect for this guy already.

He can’t be her Pack.

“That’s cool,” Esper interjects, taking a piece of her cookie and offering it to Mike, who rejects it. Which erases her smile as she withdraws her hand. I hate to see her feelings hurt, but I’m glad he didn’t take the cookie. I didn’t buy that shit for him. I bought it for her.

“I’m going for design,” she says, offering me a piece of her cookie, which I take, if only to show Mike how a halfway decent partner treats their omega. Neven is offered a cookie too, and he smiles as he immediately devours it, stretching his arm out over the back of her chair. Damn, I should have thought of that. I wonder if I can shove his arm off her chair without her knowing?

“I’ve been so disciplined in my diet. I don’t know how you can eat that.”

“A cookie?” I am completely unamused. “You can't handle a cookie?”

“I have to stay in top shape⁠—”

“And a single cookie would ruin that?” I ask, shedding my jacket, knowing my biceps look fucking huge in this shirt. What’s this fucker trying to say? And if it is what I think it is, he’s got bigger problems flying his way.

“It’s not a single cookie, it’s—it’s⁠—”

“It’s okay, more for me,” Esper says with a put-on cheery tone, and he has the fucking nerve to curl his lips in an almost-growl at her. The fuck?

“You got⁠—”

Esper’s hand drops to my thigh with a hard squeeze. I glance down at her and her eyes are wide, pleading. I decide to let it go, for her sake.

But I’d fucking remember this.

“You got a, uh…” I wrack my brain for something to say, but Neven saves me from this one.

“So Mike, have you ever been with an omega?”

“Of course,” he says, making me roll my eyes. What does this fucker mean by of course? I don’t miss the way he squares his shoulders when Neven starts talking either. “I don’t have a steady partner. Mainly one-night, one-heat situations.”

His eyes drift around the shop while he talks. On the menu board, on the convincing but fake plant towering in the corner, the door that hasn’t opened since we sat.

This fool can’t even give a beautiful, sweet omega his full attention when planning his next one-night, one-heat situation? He can fuck all the way off.

Letting Neven bore himself to death talking to this dimwit, I lean in toward Esper who is trying to listen to them but failing, playing with her napkin.

“Want another?” I whisper in her ear. Her cranberry scent and the warmth of her skin so close begs me to scent mark her, to rub my cheek along hers, moronic onlookers be damned. My brain must still be halfway functioning, though, because I hold myself back. She perks up and nods, looking back at that fucker, who hadn’t offered her shit since we sat down. I stand to get Esper another cookie, more than okay to miss hearing about the latest basketball scores or whatever the fuck.

Mike’s eyes track me as I return and hand Esper her next cookie. She beams, looking up at me and glowing.

“Do you really need that?”