“Of course.” She doesn’t protest in the slightest when I pull her into my arms before standing, holding her against my chest to cradle her there. “I’ll take you home.” I look at Parker then, noticing he still looks more than wary of me. I step closer, lowering my voice. “I would never do anything she doesn’t want, but right now, my scent can at the very least keep her calm. Let me take care of her. If all she wants is to be near me, then that’s as far as it will go. You have my word on that. All right?”
He still looks unsure when I pull away, looking from me to Mackenzie and back again, finally nodding reluctantly. “I’m going to fucking hold you to that, Taylor.”
I’m already turning away from him before he’s even finished speaking, pushing through the crowd with Mackenzie in my arms even as she burrows closer against me, her face tucking into the crook of my neck as her breath puffs against my skin.
“Don’t let go,” she murmurs, sounding pained and tired.
I don’t know if she hears me answer—Never—since she dozes off then, but it’s probably for the best, given that I have no idea why I even said it.
* * *
?I’ve been watching her sleep for more than an hour.
On any other occasion, I might worry that I was being a total creep, and there’s still a high possibility that I could be—but I don’t think I can physically take my eyes off her.
She’d woken only for a moment when I laid her in my bed after I had gotten her back to my place, only long enough to bury herself in my sheets and wildly pull the blankets around her. Almost like she’s nesting. Every so often she makes a tiny, pained sound in her sleep, and each one tugs at something inside of me that I don’t recognize. Each one pokes at that barely checked mania that seems to seep out of me whenever I’m near her. And those feelings are a thousand times worse now, with her scent filling my bedroom and most likely permeating the walls to the point that it might never fade. I can’t even find it in me to mind, honestly.
Admittedly, this isn’t the first time I’ve experienced this. I’m seasoned enough that I’ve helped more than one shifter woman I’ve dated through her heat in the last decade or so—but I have never felt something as blinding as what I’m feeling sitting only a foot from the tiny omega in my bed whose scent threatens to drive me insane. What I’m feeling now seems bigger, more consuming, even. What I’m feeling now makes it hard to keep still. Almost like every fiber of my being is protesting that it isn’t wrapped up in her.
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.”