And if it’s this bad now, how much worse will it be when she fully goes into heat? I know this is just a taste of what’s to come, and that idea both delights and terrifies. Will I be able to keep my control when she loses hers?
I wonder if there had been some sort of sign I should have picked up on, if there had been any subtle tells that I might have sussed out this morning before leaving her alone. In all my experiences with someone’s heat, it has been something very scheduled, something that comes about almost like clockwork. It’s always been a building of recognizable symptoms that allowed for someone to plan—but I have never seen anyone go into heat this suddenly, and definitely not this fiercely.
It’s enough to make me wonder about all sorts of things, but mostly I find myself concentrating solely on the rise and fall of her chest, the soft sounds she makes in sleep, and the enticing fragrance of her, which washes over me in waves.
I don’t know how long I wait before I catch her lashes fluttering, sitting up straighter when I notice her stirring, her hands slowly pushing her into a more upright position as she blinks around the room in a daze. She notices me sitting at the end of the bed then, her brow furrowing as she seemingly tries to rectify my presence there with what she’s feeling—or at least that’s what I would guess.
I keep perfectly still, wrestling with the urge to touch her, even slightly. “How are you feeling?”
“Tired,” she croaks. “Hot.” She wrinkles her nose down at her rumpled scrubs. “I’m all sweaty.”
I cannot tell her that I’ve been fantasizing about licking the sweat from her body for the last hour or so. Definitely not.
“Did you . . . expect this?”
Her eyes find mine only to widen, looking taken aback. “What? No! I had no idea. I’ve never . . .” Her eyes drift closed as she makes a quiet sound, one that feels like it touches me all over. “Definitely never had one come all of a sudden like this.”
“How off schedule?”
“A month? Maybe? It’s barely been six weeks, and they usually come like clockwork. I promise, I wouldn’t have ever kept this from you.”
“I know you wouldn’t,” I assure her. We both know how irresponsible it might be to dive into something like this without any sort of caution; surely she is as aware as I am of how many mating bonds occur like this, only for those same couples to be undergoing painful procedures later on to break the bond when they realize they’re no good for each other. “But it doesn’t make sense,” I tell her truthfully. “I’ve never heard of a heat coming so off schedule.”
She shakes her head. “Neither have I.”
“There weren’t any signs?”
“None that seemed super obvious,” she says. “I’ve been a little flushed since yesterday, but I thought that was just because you—” She blushes, and as much as I’d like to beg her to finish that sentence, I keep quiet, letting her talk. “I didn’t think anything of it. I had a horrible headache earlier, too, but even that’s weird. It’s never been that bad before a heat.” She looks at me intently. “Have you ever heard of anything like this?”
I shake my head. “Never.”
“What do you think it means?”
“I think . . . it might be one of those consequences I mentioned that we couldn’t have possibly known when we . . . added our little addendum.”
She averts her gaze, sounding almost disappointed. “Consequences?”
“That doesn’t mean I regret the addendum,” I tell her immediately, needing her to know. “But it does mean I have no idea what we should do.”
She looks more placated now. “I know.”
“Does it still hurt? Your head?”
“Not as bad. Not since—” She blushes again. “It got better when you got there. I think your scent is helping.”
“That part, at least, makes sense,” I muse.
We’re both still, both looking at each other from across my bed with what is likely the same question on our tongues. Even if neither of us seems to be able to come out and ask it.
“You’ll need to shift,” I say. “It’ll start to hurt if you don’t.”
“I know,” she sighs. “Usually, I book a stay at the heat retreat at the edge of town, but there’s no way they’ll be able to work me in on such short notice.”
I have to physically restrain myself from prodding about how she took care of this in the past, who she took care of it with—focusing instead on what’s happening right now. I know if I let my mind wander too much in that direction it will be hard to keep as calm as I’m attempting to be for her sake.
“I know a place,” I tell her. “It’s not far. Maybe two hours. We could go there. If you want.”
Her eyes look rounder, brighter, like she’s curious. “We?”
“That is—” I clear my throat, looking away from her. “I didn’t mean to imply that—I just meant—Fuck.” I run my hands through my hair. “I don’t know what the protocol is here. I could still make arrangements for you to go alone, if that’s what you want.”
“And that . . . You could do that?”
It’s almost agony, imagining sending her away from me the way she is right now, but I remember my promise to Parker, and I remember that I am not a fucking animal despite what I am, and I nod heavily. “If that’s what you want. I will do anything you want me to, Mackenzie.”
She looks down at the sheets that are rumpled around her waist, her finger teasing the edge of one as her teeth imprint slightly against her bottom lip. I watch this intently, battling urges to nibble at that same lip myself before I use my mouth elsewhere. Does she have to smell so goddamn good?
“And if . . .” I can hear her swallow, see the way she shifts her body minutely. My eyes track every little movement. “And if I wanted you to come with me?”
Yes. Omega. Mine.
I grit my teeth against the loud growling somewhere deep in my subconscious, willing it to be quiet. “Do you?”
She holds my gaze, her bright, amber eyes much darker now—a raw, deep honey that I could easily get lost in. “I want you to come with me.”
“You want . . .” My fingernails bite into my skin through the material of my slacks, and I let the slight sting ground me. “You want my help.”
It takes her at least ten seconds to answer, “Yes. We . . . we said we could help each other, didn’t we?”
And even as she says it there is a growing part of me that knows it’s becoming dangerous, that the lines of our agreement are blurring astronomically—at least for me. It’s for that reason alone that I should send her to my cousin’s cabin outside of town, that I should put as much distance as I can between us so I don’t risk tumbling headfirst into the disaster that will surely result from me sharing such an intimate experience with this woman who is invading my thoughts more and more each day.
But I don’t do any of those things, because the idea of touching her right now feels more important than water. Than air, even.
“Yes. We did.”
“And you know a place?”