Page 62 of The Packaged Deal
Kandi’s eyes blow wide open. “Fuck no. I just, we’re, and I….” She looks around, and then swears and steps close to me, and puts her hand in the back pocket of my jeans.
It’s intimate, and she’s close, and I absolutely love it. I almost preen under the beta’s casual affection.
“I’m good now. We can go,” Kandi says.
I look away from where I've been staring blankly at the wall and focus on her face. Her lashes are really long. She’s so sexy.
“Stop thinking about those things,” Sven grumbles.
“I’m not thinking about anything,” I protest hotly. Lies, naturally.
“Your scent says otherwise.”
I roll my eyes and catch Kandi doing the same. We burst into laughter.
“Come along,” Adrian says. He grabs a trolley and walks inside. It’s different from what I expected, for one thing, it’s cold. Freezing, even. The lights are brighter, the smells of fresh produce and cleaning products are intense.
We walk in and get shot with a spray that immediately deadens my scent.
“What was that?” I squeak.
“Scent neutralisers, don’t worry, they wear off after an hour. It’s just to help people shop without having crazy hormones causing scenes.”
“What kind of scenes?”
“Well, about ten years ago, there was this pack. They went into a supermarket, and their omega got too close to a heat. Legend says they fucked on a pile of lettuces. It took twenty cops with dart guns, five hours to tranq the entire pack, and when they did clear them out, they found they needed to burn everything. It cost the franchise millions of dollars. And thus the scent neutralisers were born.”
“Wow!” I whisper.
Kandi grins. “Of course, that’s the fun version. The not so fun one is that some scientists in a lab discovered that if you remove the need to mate and fight, people will spend more money.”
“I like the first version better.”
Kandi’s fingers flex in my pocket, and I turn my face towards her. She’s smirking, but she’s not looking at me. My sly beta.
She’s a tease. I love it.
“What do you want to look at first?” Kandi asks. There is a wealth of compassion and understanding in her voice. She doesn’t tell me I have to figure it out, or know what to do, or like it, or hate it.
I glance up at her, a little overwhelmed. Her expression softens.
“How about we just follow the guys around and shove things in the trolley that we want?”
“Okay,” I whisper. “Let's do that.”
seventeen
Jade
Adrian pushes the trolley ahead of us. I’m moving slowly, my head whipping from side-to-side as I try to take in everything, but there is so much to see.
We’ve done the fruit and veg section, and I’ve decided to try three new fruits I've never seen before. The trolley is filled with food and snacks. Sven and Adrian handled the meat section after I picked up what was apparently for animals. I just grabbed it because it looked weird.
Now, we’re walking down the aisle with toiletries. I pause when I see some familiar-looking boxes. There’s just so many. How do people choose?
“Kandi?”
Kandi turns back instantly, following my gaze to the boxes on the shelf. Her smile and dimple comes out, and she bites her lower lip to hold back a laugh.