Alpha's Impossible Healer Mate

0009

“You know, you should be more careful around people you don’t know,” he said with a small smile, although there seemed to be a heavy trace of sincerity in his voice.

Dhara took her time to take in his position. With his body hunched over her frame, he sat on the armrest of the couch. She shuffled backward, suddenly overwhelmed by so much of him. Averting her gaze to avoid the way his eyes seemed to pierce into her own, as if hell-bent on skimming through her soul. Something, for some reason, she thought he might as well be capable of. However, a finger hooked underneath her chin, bringing her back to face him. Dhara blinked, confusedly.

“Who are you?” he muttered softly, caressing a loose curl of her dark hair behind her ear. His calloused fingers scraped her skin with the lightest of touch, searing her flesh so close to contact. Her heart raced underneath her chest. Her lips grew dry, all of a sudden dehydrated.

Dhara swallowed against the warmth spreading throughout her body, starting from the back of her neck to the tips of her toes. He seized her gaze as if it was his to hold, compelling her to look into him and reach for his heart if she wanted.

Dhara couldn’t tell what persuaded her to believe that it was alright if he was leaning into her, cupping her face gently and bringing himself closer until his lips hesitated inches away from her own.

Something about their compromising position seemed normal to her brain. Something that was meant to happen. Something she approved of with all her existence. There was nothing wrong if he wanted to have a little taste of her lips. She wanted to have a bit of his too. It felt like a fair trade. A trade of touch and the moisture of their mouths.

“Oops, am I interrupting something?”

A female voice, followed by a snicker, yanked Dhara’s senses back into place. Her eyes bulged out while her mind backtracked, shaking off the blurriness crowding her brain.

“What the hell? Not again!”

Panicked, she pushed him away. But immediately regretted it when he almost fell over. She tried to get a hold of his arm, but only a chunk of his shirt she could grab. He caught her wrist for support, but that only hauled her off the couch, and both of them landed on his back, with Dhara flattened on top of him.

She gasped.

He grunted.

“Sorry, sorry, sorry…” frantically muttering the apology, Dhara picked herself off him and bit her lip, pushing the loose curls out of her face.

“f**k, man! Can you stop being such a violent mess?”

“Me?” She couldn’t believe he was accusing her of hurting him. Once again. Wasn’t he responsible? Why was he so close to her in the first place? “It’s you. You need to stop trying to kiss me every time you think it’s fine. Because it’s not.” She was breathing too fast.

“You think I can help it?” he growled, pushing himself off the floor and patting his hands against his pants as if dust caught his skin. “I don’t have the kink of forcing myself into random girls either, alright? I was doing fine until you showed up unannounced with your aggravating ass.”

“If I bother you so freaking much, then why don’t you let me go? I was ready to walk out of here. It was your demanding ass that forced me to stay.”

“Oh my, oh my! What the hell did I walk into?”

The same female’s voice cut through the thick air electrifying between them. Dhara tried to breathe through her nose while swallowing down the irritation delirious to surface. The Alpha guy, too, flicked his glare away from her and to someone who had entered through the unbolted door.

“Jasmine!” the Alpha guy greeted, stepping past Dhara and heading over to the dark-haired woman who seemed to have gotten there straight out of some strip club. The red dress clung to her lean body looked so revealing, Dhara felt her own cheeks flush.

“I broke three red lights, and probably someone’s leg on my way to get over here on such short notice, so this better be worth it,” Jasmine slurred with a tipsy grin, fluttering her long eyelashes up at him as he took her hand for a handshake.

“Of course, you’re drunk,” the Alpha guy muttered.

From where Dhara stood, she couldn’t see his expression but could trace the scraps of light-heartedness in his tone. “When was the last time you were sober?” he asked, releasing her hand and leading her further in.

“Ah well, let me think,” Jasmine made a thoughtful sound before shaking her head. “Nah, I’m too wasted to take that long rewind. Let’s say when you broke my heart on New Year’s Eve three years back.”

The Alpha guy chuckled while Dhara felt like a pathetic third wheel. “Still holding a grudge for that, huh?” he c****d an eyebrow, leaning against the minibar island.

Jasmine’s eyes skimmed throughout the room as she sauntered in before settling on Dhara. “First love and first heartbreak are always hard to forget. Am I right?” she asked Dhara with a mischievous wink.

“So…” shifting her attention back to the male, she exhaled dramatically, before throwing herself on the couch and bouncing a little with it. “What’s up this time? What’s the urgency?”

The Alpha guy pointed his gaze at Dhara. “She is,” he mumbled, jutting his chin out and running a hand through his hair.

“If you called me to make a love potion, you know I don’t do that stuff anymore,” Jasmine rolled her eyes, sinking more into the couch.

Barely being able to wrap her head around the conversation between the two people in the room, Dhara frowned at the mention of a love potion. What the hell was that? She thought.

“Not that,” he shook his head, switching weight from one foot to another. “I want you to look into her and see what you can find.”

Jasmine diverted her gaze to Dhara, scanning her with almond eyes. Deep and dark curiosity filled those blue eyes. “Why? What’s so special about her?”

“That’s for you to find out,” he shrugged, helping himself with another drink.

“Oh well, I almost forgot I’m the witch here,” she snickered. “Alright, come on, you little one,” she patted the empty seat next to her, a puckish grin curling up her red lips. “Let’s get on with it, shall we?”