Chase offered to give me a tour of the house. The mansion. Chase had seemed wealthy when we met, and the large amount of cash he’d given me for the trip, not to mention the first-class seats, had hinted at a little more. It turned out that a little more was an understatement.

We started downstairs, in the kitchens and the servants’ dining room, which was bizarre to me. People still had servants, apparently. Who weren’t allowed to sit with them at dinner.

He showed me the first bathroom, and the first dining room, and the second bathroom, and the second dining room, and the third dining room, and they were all shimmering with gold and crystal.

Every counter was real marble, and quite a few of the windows were stained glass, the red, green, blue and amber light dancing along the polished, unscuffed hardwood floors of each hallway. Everything was painfully clean, not a sign of dust in sight, and I wondered, naively, who had time for that before realizing no one did—they just had money, and maids.

It made me dizzy. I knew I wouldn’t remember where any of this was, or whether a given dining room was the first or the third; but I let him show me, anyway, just to hear his voice and feel his presence. Chase was addicting.

Annoyingly so. I couldn’t make myself walk more than an inch to his side, so we kept almost bumping into each other. I just wanted to be close to him, like there was a magnet deep in the pit of my stomach that drew me toward him whenever we were together.

It was exciting to get a peek at how he lived. How he had been raised. Exciting, and intimidating.

My story was a little different: working-class parents, a small town in Nebraska, and when they’d passed away in my late teens, they hadn’t left me much more than it took to cover the funeral. It was only through my own hard work and lucrative career choice that I’d gotten a place of my own in the city.

Chase, obviously, could have bought the whole building.

I did wonder what it meant that this place looked so untouched. Had Chase grown up allowed to play? To make a mess? Could living in such a breakable, expensive house be good for a child?

As Chase brought me through every one of the home’s two dozen rooms, I got a little overwhelmed by it. It was just too much. Too much space, too much glitz, and it smelled bizarrely sterile and un-lived in.

It dawned on me, at some point during the tour, that this wasn’t even Chase’s family home—it was their summer home. Their cabin. I tried to keep breathing, my eyes everywhere, trying to take it all in like we were in a museum or a famous palace.

I’d had wealthy clients, of course—alphas tended to be—but I’d never stepped into any of their worlds before. Usually they came to me, and fucked me, and left me a wet mess. But they didn’t invite me home.

Michael was the only one who had even shown interest in me (not that I wanted him to) outside of a rough fuck. And I was pretty sure Michael wasn’t even half as wealthy as Chase.

Chase was beyond wealthy. If he had any access to his family’s money, he was swimming in opulence. It was, maybe, a little off-putting.

I wasn’t really sure. It made him seem untouchable, and, well, I’d kind of liked touching him, earlier, during the introductions. Holding his hand. Feeling that strange and yet oddly familiar burn in my veins.

I could feel the whisper of it, against my hand, like a brand on my skin where Chase had touched me. The only place, so far, that Chase had touched me. Was that all he’d want, all weekend?

I felt another tinge of disappointment at the thought that he would never let me have his knot, that I would never get to kiss his hot lips. It was really starting to look like he’d meant what he said when he hired me. I was just a pretend boyfriend.

Part of me wondered why I wasn’t good enough for him, but I knew why. I wasn’t his omega, not really; I was an omega for rent, and Chase would never lower himself to fuck that.

“It’s a lot, I know,” Chase admitted, noticing how quiet I was. “May I show you the grounds?”

I could use some fresh air, and nodded gratefully. “I’d love to see them.”

He led me back outside, and we were greeted by lush lawns and gardens filled with peonies and petunias. There were three marble fountains, each with its own cherubs carved into delicate poses, in the pond nearby, and in the distance, a huge, shimmering lake with a large dock, where a speedboat was tied.

Summer house, indeed. This was a summer estate.

In a gentlemanly way, just to lead me down the stairs and onto the garden path, Chase placed a hand on the small of my back. It sent ripples of sensation through my body, and I was so curious about those large hands in other places, touching, owning.

I pictured him grabbing me by the back of the neck instead, shoving me into the bed doggy-style. The wolf part of me wanted to be bred like an animal, face down, ass up, his knot locking us together and tearing me apart.

Even though it wasn’t a usual part of my fantasies, I even thought about what it would be like if he came inside me and got me pregnant.

That was especially weird because the thought turned me on, satisfied some inner breeding instinct I hadn’t known I had. After all, I took a pill specifically to prevent that from happening, and it wasn’t like it would have been hard to get pregnant if I had wanted to, with all the alpha knot I regularly took.

When it came to Chase, my fantasies got scary. I had never wanted someone to claim me for life before. Usually all I thought about was sex, not what came after. I didn’t just want to fuck Chase; I wanted to belong to Chase, I wanted to smell like him, even though smelling like an alpha would turn any other client I could get away.

He made me so uncomfortable, and yet, when presented with the chance to step away from his touch, I only leaned in closer.

I liked being led through the garden, and when he took his hand away, I was disappointed. I glanced over at him, trying to catch his eyes, but he was admiring the flowers, almost deliberately so.

I thought he must want me more than he was willing to act upon, and that thought was like a challenge. Still, I had a job to do, and it wasn’t to seduce Chase. It was to make his family think we were already completely together.

Chase took me everywhere before he took me to the room where we were staying. One of the servants (I was still baffled by the servants) showed us in and made sure we had everything we needed. There was one king bed and a couch.

I began to explore, my fingertips sliding over a golden bureau. Was it solid, I wondered, or painted?

“Sorry about this; I’ll take the couch,” Chase offered.

I shrugged, but glancing over at the large king-sized bed, I couldn’t help but picture it. How Chase would look, his bronzed skin against all that cream silk, the sun glistening off his body in the early morning light, his alpha knot just visible, pulsing, relaxing after Chase used it to breed me until I screamed with it…

I blushed a little and cleared my throat. Luckily, Chase didn’t seem to notice just how much I wanted him. I was grateful when my phone rang, snapping me out of that wildly inappropriate daydream—and then not so grateful when I saw who was calling.

Michael, the Stage 4 Clinger alpha, on his sixth attempt to get hold of me that day. I cancelled the call and stuffed my phone in my pocket. Chase looked at me like he might be concerned, but he didn’t ask any questions.

“I’m starving; how about you?”

“Starving,” I agreed, my eyes wide with hunger for more than just food. I wanted him, his enormous body and its intoxicating alpha scent that surrounded me, most of all. Despite the libidinous thoughts taking up most of my consciousness, my stomach also rumbled, so I smiled gratefully at Chase, cheered up by the thought of trying rich-people food.

“I’d like to avoid my parents if at all possible; how do you feel about ordering something to the room?”

Because in this world, that was something you could do in your own house. I lived in a one-bedroom apartment with a kitchen-living room combo. None of it made sense to me.

“Wait, really? We can do that? Do you guys have, like, caviar?”

I’d given myself away. Chase chuckled. “I like it on bagels with cream cheese,” he admitted.

I was practically salivating at that idea, even though I had no idea what caviar actually tasted like, when Richard knocked on the door and poked his head in. He looked deeply apologetic.

It was time to meet the father.