Page 33 of The Alpha’s Unclaimed Mate

Sloane spins on her heel and storms out, the dish abandoned on the counter, the door cracking against its frame behind her.

We stand there in the quiet. Jessa is still pinned to my chest, her wrist still ringed by my fingers, and neither of us moves for a beat too long.

“Can you let me go now?” she murmurs.

I release her at once. “I’m sorry.”

She steps clear and rubs at her wrist, studying me, and I brace for a slap or a snapped word about handling her without permission. Neither comes. She just looks at me, curious now, her temper nowhere in sight. “Marriage partner?”

“Yeah. My uncle keeps trying to set me up with her. She’s my old manager’s sister.”

Jessa frowns at the door Sloane vanished through, her brows knitting together.

“What?” I ask.

“She looks familiar.” She frowns harder. “I’ve seen her somewhere before.”

“Where?”

“I don’t remember.” She shakes her head slowly. “I’ve seen her somewhere, though.”

I drop it and step in closer, lowering my voice. “About what we were doing—”

Her palm presses to my chest before I finish. “I don’t think so. You may not want Sloane, but I don’t want you, so we make a tidy little triangle. Back off.”

I deflate, and she returns to the soup with the matter closed. With a sigh, I settle a hip against the counter beside her.

“I can’t work out whether you’re playing hard to get or you actually can’t stand me.”

She doesn’t look up from the pot. “I actually can’t stand you. Sorry if that wasn’t clear.”

I grin before I can stop myself. “Really? So what is it you can’t stand? The money? That I’m good-looking?” I start counting reasons off on my fingers. “The charm? The—”

“Do you ever shut up?” She finally turns her head.

“I will if you make me.”

She lifts a loaded spoon from the pot and comes toward me. I straighten off the counter, certain my luck’s about to turn, certain she’s about to kiss me. She leans in close enough that I catch the warm scent of her over the soup, takes my jaw in her free hand, and pushes the spoon into my mouth.

“How’s that?” she asks.

I give her my most wounded look, swallow, and mutter, “It’s good. You could’ve just kissed me.”

“I’d rather kiss a toad.”

I sidle closer until my shoulder brushes hers at the stove. “I’ll be your toad. I’m very open to roleplay.”

She elbows me back a step, but the corner of her mouth keeps twitching toward a smile she thinks I can’t see.

She isn’t half as immune as she wants to be, yet she keeps pushing me off, and I can’t figure her out. No one in my life has made me want to chase this badly. Now that she’s in front of me, I have no intention of quitting. On one hand, I told myself I’d stay single till Bella was an adult, but in front of this woman, that rule is weakening.

Jessa starts preparing the sandwiches and looks at me. “Tell the girls to come down.”

I go to the foot of the stairs and shout for them, and moments later, footsteps come thundering down the steps.

Jessa sets them to work before they’ve cleared the last step. “Mia, plates. Bella, sweetheart, grab the napkins and the spoons.”

Bella, who normally treats a single chore as a personal injustice, scurries around the kitchen doing exactly as she’s told. My niece sets out napkins and lines up the spoons, beaming the whole time. I stare at the sight of it. She wants to please Jessa, plain as day, and somewhere in the last hour, she’s decided she adores her.