Page 25 of Match My Alpha
"What's this one about?" Milo asks over his shoulder, holding up a battered paperback I read three years ago.
"Guy goes on a road trip," I say. "I think there's a dog."
"Sold." He tucks it under his arm like he's planning to borrow it, which he is, and turns back to the shelf.
My thumb typesbookshelfinto the search bar. I look at Milo in my apartment—barefoot, reading my books, wearing a sweater that smells faintly of my shampoo, the bite mark a dark curve at his collar—and I think about shelf brackets, and whether the hardware store opens early enough for me to get there before my shift.
Milo
I'm rearranging Callum's throw pillows for the third time when my brain finally catches up to my hands.
We migrated back to the couch after dinner. Somewhere in the last twenty minutes, the conversation lulled, my book went ignored, and my body went on autopilot. The post-dinner version of us is warm and heavy, leftovers in the fridge, Callum's arm a comforting weight behind my shoulders. It's been a perfect night.
And now my hands are pulling the blanket off the back of the couch, folding it, tucking it around my legs, untucking it, and folding it a different way. I've adjusted the same throw pillow four times. My face burns. I know exactly what this is.
I'm nesting on Callum Hayes's couch like some kind of feral interior decorator.
I freeze mid-fold. The blanket bunches in my tight grip. I risk a glance at Callum. He's watching me from his end of the couch, his phone forgotten in his lap. He sees exactly what I'm doing, and he isn't going to make a big deal out of it. Honestly, thefact that heunderstandsmakes my chest ache more than if he'd teased me.
"The bedroom has more pillows," he says. His voice is perfectly level, like he's just offering directions to the bathroom.
I look at him. He looks back. His eyes are steady, the corner of his mouth tilted up in a soft half-smile. His entire posture is an open invitation.Go ahead. I'll be right behind you.Permission I didn't know I needed to do something I didn't fully realize I was desperate for.
I drop the blanket, get up, and walk to the bedroom.
The second I cross the threshold, my instincts swallow me whole. I stop pretending I have any control over this. This isn't what I do at home—piling blankets on my bed and telling myself I just run cold. Those were blanket piles. This is deliberate. This is a den.
I start with the bed. I pull the comforter back and stack the pillows against the headboard in a configuration that makes zero logical sense but feels so fundamentallyrightit vibrates in my bones. I grab two blankets from the foot of the bed and layer them. Fleece on the bottom because it's softest against the skin. The heavier knit on top because the weight of it settles my frayed nerves.
Then I need his clothes.
I yank open the closet and start pulling things off hangers. Not his nice button-downs. The worn things. The soft T-shirts washed a hundred times until the cotton is tissue-thin. A flannel shirt that feels like butter against my cheek. His firehouse hoodie that smells so intensely of cedar and smoke andCallumthat my teeth actually ache.
I drag them to the mattress, weaving them into the blankets and pillows. My hands move on their own.
Callum appears in the doorway. He leans against the frame, arms crossed over his broad chest. He looks amused, awed, andunderneath it all, undeniably aroused. He watches me tuck a flannel against my makeshift side wall and doesn't say a word. He's just letting me tear his bedroom apart without a single complaint.
"You want the ones from the hamper?" he asks quietly. "Those smell stronger."
My chest cracks wide open. It's the exact right thing to say. Notwhat are you doing?orlet me help.Just offering me more of his scent. He knows. His alpha instincts read me the second I touched that blanket in the living room, and instead of taking over, he's feeding the nest.
"Yes," I say, my voice embarrassingly small. "And can you move that plant? I need the space on the nightstand."
He moves the potted fern without blinking. Then he hands me three T-shirts from the hamper. They smell like sweat and raw alpha. The scent bypasses my brain entirely and slams straight into my lower half. A hot pulse of slick floods my underwear. I press my thighs together, my fingers trembling as I take the shirts from him. I force myself to ignore the heavy ache between my legs. I'm working here. The need has to wait until the nest is finished.
I weave the damp cotton into the base layer. When I'm done, it doesn't look like Callum's bed anymore. It's a den. Soft, deep, and completely saturated with his scent. I sink into the center of it, letting the heavy blankets press me down. My palms flatten against his lived-in T-shirts. A humiliatingly loud, satisfied purr rips out of my chest.
This is what I've been craving. Every breath fills my lungs with him.
He's still standing in the doorway, tracking my every move. He just watched his omega claim his territory, and he looks like he wants to eat me alive.
"Get in here," I demand.
He crosses the room and climbs onto the mattress. It dips under his heavy weight, his large frame filling the space beside me. He doesn't rearrange a single pillow. He doesn't adjust the blankets or try to put his mark on what I built. He just lies back against the headboard and lets my nest hold him. The sheer power of this massive, capable alpha submitting to the space I created sends a fierce, possessive heat straight to my gut.
I lean over and kiss him. It's slow and unhurried, tasting of garlic and the wine we had at dinner. His hand drops to my hip automatically, his thumb finding the curve above my waistband. My hand flattens against his chest. His skin is radiating heat through his shirt. I push the hem up. I want it off, and I don't feel like asking.
He pulls it over his head and tosses it aside. I drag my hands over his bare chest, mapping the smattering of freckles, the hard lines of muscle, the trail of hair disappearing beneath his jeans. I tug my own sweater off.
