Until Cece (Happily Ever Alpha World)

“Looks like I’ve got more homework to do than just stupid Algebra.” I sigh, and he chuckles, resting his hot palms on the tops of my thighs he still stands between, making me jerk at the contact.

“I’m here for you a hundred percent of the way, naekkeo. If you need to talk, all you have to do is say something, and I’ll be there,” he assures me, and there is so much sincerity in his tone that my heart calms from what had been an erratic beat.

“Because of your liquor therapy license?” I joke, smiling shyly.

He shakes his head. “Because I have personal experience with this shit and can help you through it,” he replies, and it just now registers that he has a son and isn’t with the boy’s mom, so he would have some experience dealing with at least child custody agreements.

But the next words out of his mouth, words that I never in my wildest dreams thought would ever be aimed at me by a man I’ve fantasized about since the day I met him, make the tequila in my veins sizzle, warming me in a way I’ve never felt before. And all I can do is swallow and nod.

“And because the moment those papers are filed, there will be no stopping me from making you mine.”

10

Winston

It’s been a week since I was pressed between Cece’s legs, feeling the heat of her pussy against my abs as I took her mouth in a kiss more searing than my fucking cooktop I’m currently flipping three burger patties on for Table 14. And in that week, I’ve had to jack off no less than ten times, because I can still feel the way her tongue danced with mine, shyly at first, as if relearning how to kiss, and then more boldly when she allowed her instincts to take over. And every time I let myself reminisce the hottest experience of my life—which is saying something, seeing as we’d only made out for a couple minutes before she pulled away from me—I have no choice but to take care of my raging hard-on, or I can’t sleep, my mind replaying it over and over again.

In that week, I helped her find a lawyer, paid all the costs, and have managed to evade all her sweet attempts at setting up a payment plan in order to repay me. Little does she know, she won’t be giving any of it back to me. I think of it as an investment in my—our—future, in which what’s mine is hers and vice versa.

I’ve thought a lot about what else I need to take care of before Cece and I can truly start our life together, and so far, I’ve only managed to come up with a plan for her side of the equation. As far as mine goes, I haven’t found any fucking loopholes, and it’s making me fucking crazy. And I still haven’t come up with a way to tell her about that part of my past without her thinking I’m a lying sack of shit.

But I still have time. I just need enough to make her fall in love with me first, to make sure she won’t put an end to us before we even begin, before I tell her everything.

Does that make me the liar I worry about her thinking of me as?

Oh, most definitely.

I’m a terrible person for lying by omission to the woman I want to make mine and spend the rest of my life with. She deserves so much better than a scheming motherfucker who plans to woo her and get her emotionally attached before revealing my past mistakes in the hopes she’ll more readily overlook them.

But I can’t just let her go. I’ve known from the moment I laid eyes on her that I wanted her. And as I’ve gotten to know more about her and about her life, I’ve fantasized what it would be like having her as my wife. What it would be like for my son to have a mom like her. What it would be like to be a father figure for her girls, one who is actually present and willing to spend more than one day a week with them. What it would be like to have hers, mine, and then our own children together. One big, blended, happy family.

“Table 14,” comes that sweet voice, and I peek under the range just as I finish filling the other side of the plates with french fries to go along with the finished burgers.

“You have news for me, naekkeo?” I ask her, the same thing I’ve asked every day this week, to which she’s always replied “Not yet.”

But this time, her cheeks flush an adorable pink, and she won’t meet my eyes. She goes to tuck her hair nervously behind her ear, seeming to forget it’s up in a perfectly slicked back ponytail that’s curled at the end like Betty’s in Riverdale, only hers is a sultry dark-brown instead of blonde.