It’s just your hormones, I tell myself. It doesn’t mean anything.
So why am I breathing so hard when he pulls away? And what’s more, why is he?
It doesn’t help that his scent seems stronger now, and I have to assume this has something to do with him stopping suppressants—but the potency of it almost makes the room spin as I cling to him. There’s a warmth in my stomach and my chest that seems to pulse, and when I try to swallow, I find my throat dry. I close my eyes, thinking this might help me get a grip, but all it does is make all my other senses light up that much more. There is an impulse that is fleeting but strong, one that has me fantasizing about turning up my face and kissing him. Which I know is ridiculous. Not to mention ill-advised.
So why am I wondering what he tastes like all of a sudden?
“Sorry,” he says again. His sudden distance when he pulls away is almost a shock to my system, and I notice his eyes are a darker blue than they were a moment ago. “I didn’t mean to—” His lips press together as he clears his throat. “Sorry.”
I swallow, but it’s still difficult. “You keep saying that.” My voice sounds all wrong. “It’s just part of it, right?”
“Right,” he answers quietly, jaw tensing like he might be grinding his teeth. “Just part of it.”
I turn my face only so I don’t have to look at him anymore, pressing my nose to my shoulder. “I think . . . that’ll do.”
“Yeah.” I can see him nodding from the corner of my eye, slowly, like he’s in a daze. “That should, um, do it.”
I’m not sure when we realize that his hands are still resting gently against my hips, where they settled after he pulled away from me. He draws them back quickly like he’s embarrassed, averting his eyes. Oddly, I almost feel disappointed when he stops touching me.
“Right. Well. I guess I’ll be thinking about that story.”
“Oh.” Our fake origin story is strangely the last thing on my mind at the moment. “Yeah. I’ll be sure to text you later.”
Another tight nod. “Sure.”
Does his scent have to be so nice? It makes it hard to think. It has to be his alpha genes. No wonder he was so religious with his suppressants. If he went around smelling like this, other shifters would either be terrified of him or throwing themselves at him.
I sidestep away from him, putting a bit of well-needed distance between us. “I better hurry up and get out of here,” I say with a nervous laugh. “People catch me smelling this much like you, they’ll think we’ve been making out in your office.”
Noah makes a strange face that makes me regret the joke, but it’s gone as quickly as it comes.
“Have a good night, Mackenzie,” he tells me, his voice sounding thicker than it did a minute ago.
“You too.” I try for a smile. “See you tomorrow.”
I escape before I have the chance to do anything stupid, a good number of hormone-driven suggestions flitting through my brain that are not only ludicrous but also completely unwarranted. The air outside Noah’s office is considerably less . . . Noah, and breathing it in offers a tiny bit of clarity from the urges his scent brings, ones that I know have nothing to do with us and everything to do with biology.
It’s just your hormones.
I repeat this to myself at least a dozen times on the way to my car, but that doesn’t make me think about it any less.
6
Noah
I won’t say that I have been stressing about tonight, but I definitely haven’t been anything remotely close to excited for it. Mackenzie has informed me since coming to my office earlier this week that this get-together we’re going to is at a bar, something I haven’t stepped foot inside since my twenties. I might not have been so willing to tag along had I known.
I check my watch as I glance toward the double doors that lead out of the main lobby of the hospital; Mackenzie texted me ten minutes ago that she was changing and that she would be right down after—and like some sort of massive idiot, I’m currently leaning against my car in the parking lot waiting for her like we’re about to go to prom or something. I know that if I told her this was my first actual date in almost a year, she would probably have all sorts of teasing things to say.
Not that this is a date, I mentally correct.
Although, I can’t pretend that the idea of a date with Mackenzie, fake or not, has definitely had a small part to play in my nerves this week. Especially after that strange moment in my office the last time I saw her.
I don’t know what possessed me to assert the need to scent her again; I remember her talking as if she’d been about to leave, but the entire time her lips had been moving, all I could seem to focus on was the sweetness of her scent and how little of mine had been left to mingle with it. For a brief moment, the idea of sending her back out into the world without marking her again had made me deeply uncomfortable. Which in turn makes me deeply uncomfortable for a myriad of other reasons.
It’s been many years since I have gone without suppressants, so long that the strange urges and emotions that come with the lack of them feel alien. It’s only been a handful of days since I stopped taking them, and that fact alone is enough to make me worried as to how much worse these behavioral side effects might affect me as more time passes without my daily dose. Something about touching Mackenzie had only brought about the urge to touch her more, and I have racked my brain since then for a single time in my adult life when I had wanted to touch a woman so much, even if the urge had been fleeting. It’s probably best that we’ve both been too busy this week to talk outside of texting—even if there has been a part of me that has been slightly antsy about the distance. I assume this is some strange alpha instinct I’ve never had to deal with before.
One thing is for certain, I am going to have to get a better handle on things if we are to continue this arrangement.
I pull my jacket tighter as a gust of cold air whips by, checking the time on my phone again. What is she changing into, anyway? Could it actually be a prom dress? I should have just waited in the car like a normal person. It’s probably stupid to think this is somehow more chivalrous.
I’m just about to say fuck it when I notice the glass doors sliding open from across the parking lot, spotting a familiar tousle of sandy blond hair as Mackenzie pushes up on her toes to look for my car. She doesn’t immediately notice me even though I am fairly close by, and this means that I have a good thirty seconds or so to grapple with the odd pause she gives me with what she has changed into.