I swallow thickly. “What else?”
“What else . . .” He leans in, his nose brushing against my throat to breathe me in as I shudder. “Now that I know what you taste like, what you feel like—your scent makes me remember everything.” I feel a barely-there press of his lips against the scent gland at the base of my throat, and if I weren’t already sitting, my knees would most likely be buckling. “The sounds you make when I’m inside you.” His tongue flicks against that same place, and I gasp softly. “The way you taste when you come on my tongue.” I have to close my eyes; I’m not sure I could have ever imagined Noah talking to me like this, but I can’t say I dislike it. “How fucking soft you are when you’re spread out on my bed, wrapped around my knot.”
“Noah,” I whimper, feeling that heat building all over again, obliterating the little calm I’d been experiencing.
“Do you want that, Mackenzie?” His teeth graze my skin, and I have to grasp his shirt just to keep me grounded. “Do you want my knot?”
I squirm under him, all reason whooshing out the window and into the snow. “Noah, I—”
“I can smell how wet you are,” he growls. “I always can. Do you know how crazy it makes me, knowing that’s for me? That I made you that way?”
He’s right; my underwear is practically soaked through, and every inch of my skin feels stretched to the point of burning. In fact, I feel like I’m burning. Burning from the inside out.
I let a hand wander, fingertips grazing his shirt as they trail down to the bit of skin bared at the hem. When I cup him lower I can feel how much he wants to give me what he’s offering, his cock straining against his jeans and feeling hot even through the fabric. I know what it will feel like now, how it’ll stretch me to points of pleasure that could almost be pain they’re so intense—and I do want it. Right now there’s nothing I want more.
“Fuck,” Noah hisses as I squeeze him through his jeans. “You make me crazy, Mackenzie.”
“I kind of feel a little crazy too,” I whisper.
I draw a sharp breath then as a cramp tears through me, a burst of heat like a current of electricity coursing under my skin to make me feel like I’m on fire. I make a pained sound as Noah pulls away from me, his eyes looking dark with arousal but his brow wrinkled in concern as he presses a hand to my cheek.
“You need—” His breath is ragged, making it obvious that I’m not the only one affected here. “You need to shift,” he says, almost disappointedly. “Soon.”
I can feel his disappointment as a mirror to my own, because I don’t exactly want to give in to the basic instincts of my biology right now, not if it doesn’t involve Noah fucking me in this bed until the burn subsides.
But I know he’s right.
“Can you—” I swallow, but my throat feels dry. “Can you come with me?”
Noah tilts up my chin, his thumb swiping along my lower lip slowly before it slips past my teeth to press against my tongue. I can’t help but lick the pad, rewarded with a rumbling sound from deep in Noah’s chest, his mouth parting with a stuttered breath.
“I’m not going anywhere,” he says. “As long as we’re . . .” His jaw clenches, and there’s that same wildness in his eyes that I can only glimpse in moments like this. I know he is feeling not like himself right now, can scent on him the way he’s affected by what’s happening to me, but strangely, instead of being scared, there is an unfamiliar thrill coursing through me. “As long as we’re here . . . you’re mine, Mackenzie.”
Rational me is still worried this is all hormonal nonsense.
Irrational me doesn’t fucking care.
16
Noah
It’s been a long time since I’ve shifted, and the fresh snow against my paws is a welcome sensation as I run through it, following Mackenzie’s trail. I had only caught a glimpse of her before she bounded off into the tree line after shedding her clothes, just a flash of sand-colored fur before she’d disappeared into the woods. It’s clear that with her impending heat she is more in tune with her instincts than I am, especially given how long it’s been since I’ve used them.
The suppressants really do stave off the urge to shift, just like I’d told Mackenzie weeks ago, but running like this makes me wonder why I hadn’t chosen to do so sooner, anyway. Like this, the worries of work and my personal life seem further away, leaving only the scent of Mackenzie in the air and the strong desire to get closer to her.
I catch sight of her in a clearing, the sun filtering through the trees and casting a spray of sunlight against her fur, and I notice she’s just standing there on all fours, waiting for me. She’s smaller than me, but no less strong, I think. Her amber eyes are sharp, and her ears are turned up attentively as she watches me approach—her head low to the ground as if she is ready to flee at any given moment. What is she doing?
I yip at her, wondering if there is a chance she doesn’t recognize me in her primal state, and she snorts against the snow, snapping her jaws in answer. She turns in place to kick up a bit of a flurry as she watches me near, and just as I move to spring myself closer, she bounds off again as fast as her paws will carry her through the trees, leaving me puzzled. She gets another thirty yards away, only to stop and turn back and look at me again, giving that same guarded pose that is starting to feel somewhat like a challenge.
She’s toying with me.
Even in this form I can almost see her teasing grin, can almost hear her sweet voice calling out some taunt solely to try and get under my skin so that she can laugh at my reaction. My fur bristles with the anticipation of her game, kicking up a bit of snow and throwing back my head to make a warning sound, letting her know I’m up to play. Her answering huff of air and the toss of her head seem unfazed, and I paw at the snow, lowering my head while I ready to pounce.
It feels like a different time; what we’re doing seems reminiscent of an age where our kind lived in woods like these, where we hunted our food and claimed our mates in a similar dance to this one. And with my hindbrain running the show right now, that thought is a satisfying one.