Page 60 of Examining the Bond

I hungrily take in the sight of Skylar ordering food. As does the server, the two women sitting at the table next to us, and the busboy cleaning a nearby booth.

She gives the beta an easy smile, and he hurriedly jots down the order before scurrying off.

My gaze skips around the packed restaurant, with nearly every table full. A mix of chatter and laughter bounces around the room, and several large flatscreens are playing live highlights from a recent women’s MMA fight.

Skylar’s back is to it all, her attention completely focused on me.

“There’s no way we can eat that much food.” I stare at her across the table.

“Don’t worry, we can take the rest home,” she assures me.

Home.

I shift as the uncomfortable truth sets in further; I don’t know anything about her home life or how I would possibly fit into it. What does she do outside the clinic, aside from work out? Does she have roommates? Pets? What are her hobbies? Aside from fucking like a goddess, obviously.

I’m not even sure how to start asking her the questions pestering my mind. I don’t want her to feel like I’m interviewing her, especially considering how well we know each other physically, but where do I start?

Do I ask her favorite color? Or dive straight into asking her if my stuff will fit in her house?

I startle when I notice her staring.

“What?” I ask, worried I have something on my face.

“You’re so fucking gorgeous,” she says, not even trying to keep her voice down. Thankfully, her words are swallowed by the noise floating through the room. “Everyone’s looking at you.”

I snort as I shake my head. “It’s not me they’re looking at.”

“Are you sure?” She runs her eyes over me appreciatively.

Leaning forward to prop her elbow on the table, she rests her chin on her palm. “You really don’t know how stunning you are, preciosa. You could have anyone you want in this restaurant, but you’ve chosen me.” Heat scorches my cheeks, and she gives me a smirk before continuing, “I’m already tempted to drag you out of here, but I want to make sure you get your chocolate shake.”

I want to fire back something incredibly witty and sexy, but all I can do is awkwardly twirl my fingers in the end of my hair as my blush intensifies.

Skylar's lips part, and she’s about to say something before the waiter shows up with our drinks. He slides the milkshake in front of me and my mouth waters, my eyes glued to the mountain of whipped cream that’s topped with a fat cherry.

“What ispreciosa?” I ask as I pluck the cherry off my milkshake and pop it into my mouth. “What does that mean?”

She runs her tongue over her teeth and reaches for my cherry stem as soon as I set it down, twirling it between her fingers without breaking eye contact.

“It means… precious,” she admits with a bashful smirk that makes me melt. “If it bothers you, I can stop, I just?—”

“No, don’t. I like it,” I cut her off. More than like it, I don’t think I’d ever want to be called anything else. I tuck a strand of hair behind my ear. “I just don’t speak Spanish.”

“Te enseñare,” she says in an accent that has me swooning. “I’ll teach you.”

I smile to myself at the thought of Skylar teaching me way more than she’s already shown me, and my mind races again with possibilities of the future. However, my train of thought derails and crashes when she pops my cherry stem in her mouth and turns it into a knot with a few swipes of her tongue.

Heat pools between my thighs and curls upward, winding around my nipples before desire rests in my heart. The last thing I want is to soak the booth with slick, so I quickly change the subject.

“What do you do when you’re not at the research center? Aside from working out?” I ask, shifting in the booth and taking a quick glance of the room. I can't look at her mouth right now without thinking about all the delicious things her tongue can do. “Do you have any weird hobbies? Pets?”

“I’m kind of a hermit.” She sets the knotted cherry stem aside, and it takes every shred of my self-restraint not to stare. “And I do good to keep myself alive, so pets probably aren’t a good idea. What about you?”

I raise my shoulders in a shrug, trying not to dig up the conflicting emotions surrounding my life back home. “I live at the academy—no pets allowed. And I don’t do much besides hang out with my best friend, Ziel. He’s great. You’d love him…”

The thought of him slipping into the booth with us right now makes me chuckle. He’d be playing twenty-one questions with this alpha, trying to determine if we’re a good match, and he’d enjoy the hell out of it.

“Do you have siblings?” she asks.