: Chapter 12

we barely make it inside my front door.

I think maybe it had been the promise of what was to come when we got to my place; maybe that’s why she’d smelled so much sweeter on the drive over. Almost like she was anticipating it. Almost like she was for it.

It’s been a very long time since anyone has been excited to be with me.

My white coat is on top of hers in a pile, her back against the wall as my hands explore every inch of her they can reach. I’m learning that something about Mackenzie makes me impatient, and impatience is not something I’m used to experiencing. I don’t think I’ve felt restless in a long time, but Mackenzie makes me feel damn near unhinged.

“I like your place,” she says breathlessly.

I lift my head from her throat, her eyes as glazed as mine must be. “This is just the entryway.”

“Shut up and keep kissing me,” she huffs.

I thought I might have imagined it, might have made it seem in my head somehow more than it was—how sweet she tastes. Her honeysuckle scent is just that against my tongue, like chasing that one bead of sweetness from the flower and left wanting more with each little drop.

I feel her fingers in my hair, her nails scratching lightly at my scalp as she turns her head to allow my lips better access to her throat. “Did you”—she shivers as my teeth scrape across the trail my tongue has made—“really want me to show you my place?”

“After.” She sighs.

I feel my heart thumping in my chest, my lips pressing under her jaw. “After?”

“Bedroom is fine for now,” she clarifies.

She squeals when my hands curl under her thighs to lift her up and against me, her legs wrapping around me as if by instinct as her mouth finds mine. I would like to say that my hands curving on her ass are for her benefit, that I’m simply holding her tighter while I walk to my bedroom—but that would be almost entirely untrue.

Not that Mackenzie seems to mind.

Jesus Christ, I can how aroused she is. It’s something I could never get used to. What it does to me.

I want to be gentler with her this time, to be able to focus more on her sounds and taste and her body. But even as I’m laying her across my bed, one that has always been large but feels so much with her small frame sprawled across it—already I can feel that same strange sensation of being lost to something taking over. Will it always be like this?

something whispers in the back of my head.

I push those thoughts far away as I crawl over her.

It takes me by surprise, as it has many times since we made this arrangement, just how Mackenzie is. For what must be the hundredth time since she agreed to this insanity, I wonder why in the hell she would even this fake relationship. How in the actual fuck has someone with half a brain not snatched her up?

And how is it that ended up being the one who she came to for help?

“You just gonna stare at me or are you going to take my clothes off?” Her fingers tease my tie that hangs between us, her lips tilted in a smile as she winds it around her fist. “I know it’s just scrubs. But use your imag—”

“I don’t have to imagine anything,” I murmur, sliding my hand under her scrub top. “You’re fucking beautiful.”

I bend to press my lips to her stomach, the gentle slope of her belly quivering under my mouth as I push her scrub top higher. This close, the sweet fragrance of her slick is stronger, more potent, making the blood rush in my ears. I peek up at her as my mouth trips over her hip bone, finding her lips trapped between her teeth and her lids heavy with anticipation as I hook a finger into the waistband of her scrub bottoms.

“Last night I . . .” I have to close my eyes as her scent makes my head spin. “I didn’t—I want to—”

“You can do anything you want, Noah,” Mackenzie says huskily. “Just touch me.”

I don’t need to be told twice.

Her skin is soft—

—and I find myself kissing every inch that I can reach as I roll her scrubs down her thighs and over her legs to toss them aside. The lime green of her underwear is darker between her legs, a glistening shine on the insides of her thighs as her slick threatens to drive me insane.

I hear her breath hitch when I duck to press my tongue there, licking a wide stripe against her thigh and shuddering as the flavor of her explodes across my tongue. It’s a tempting thought to remain like this, to keep tasting her skin just as I am—but I want more. I’m as careful as my trembling fingers will allow, peeling her underwear off her, and she lifts her hips eagerly to assist me until there is nothing but her scent and her skin and the slick wet between her legs that makes my cock ache.

“Fuck, Mackenzie,” I rasp. “Look at you.”

It’s still a little frightening, the urges that roil inside me to make my emotions murky and my senses turbid when I’m with her like this. It’s almost like there is another person inside me trying to claw its way out and touch more of her, taste more, just . . .

.

I hear her breath catch when I nudge my shoulders between her thighs to settle there, my fingers curling around each one to hold her close as the aroma of her slick only worsens the feral urges that I’m doing my best to bridle down. My breath is ragged, and I can feel my eyes roll back as I breathe her in, barely able to contain myself as I lean in to let my nose nuzzle against the patch of dark blond curls as I tentatively tease my tongue through her wet center.

“

,” she gasps. “Noah, that’s—”

I do it again, with less hesitance this time. My tongue passes through her folds as the taste of her makes me dizzy. The front of my slacks is stiff and uncomfortable, and I flex my hips against the bed for some relief as I swirl my tongue around the little bundle of nerves at her apex. I like the sounds she makes, like the way her fingers card through my hair to tug—all of it only spurring me on, only making me want more.

I grip her thighs tighter as her heels dig into my shoulders, focusing my attention on the swollen bud of her clit even as her slick wets my chin. I close my eyes as I let the soft sounds of her hitched breath heat my blood, teasing her with the back-and-forth swipe of my tongue before I wrap my lips around the most sensitive part of her to suck. She cries out in a quiet, almost wordless way—as if it’s trapped in her throat. Her hands falling to my shoulders and the scratching of her nails against my shirt say more than enough though.

“R-right—right there,” she chokes out. “Can you—a little harder—

.”

I hum against her core, pulling at the taut bud of her clit as her back begins to bend, her hips jerking as if trying to escape of their own accord. I grip her thighs tighter, sucking at her messily as she softly gasps my name. Her skin under my hands is almost as hot as the softer flesh between her legs, so warm that it almost feels like she might melt against my tongue.

With every pull of my lips there is another trickle of her slick, each little bit only worsening those urges to bury myself inside her and keep her knotted until morning. There is a distant thought that wonders if these urges will just keep getting worse the more I touch her, but there is a more present one that says it absolutely doesn’t care as long as I keep touching her.

“You taste”—I lick one hot stripe up her center—“as good as you feel.” I wrap my lips around her clit for one long pull that makes a wet sound when I release it. “I want to know what you taste like when you come.”

She lets out a strained laugh. “Well, if you keep doing that, it won’t be a prob—

.”

She lifts her hips to press deeper into my mouth when I focus all my attention on her clit, unwrapping one hand from her thigh and bringing it between us to tease a finger at her entrance. I hear her whimper when I press it inside, stroking her inner wall and pressing against it to rub deep circles there as my tongue makes a mess of her.

Her fingers go from tapping at my shoulder to tugging at my shirt and back again—a chorus of whined es and s ringing out into the quiet of my bedroom. Her thighs press harder against my ears as they begin to shake, and her back bows from the bed as her fingers drop to the comforter to twist in the fabric.

She’s panting my name when I feel her tip over the edge, and there is a satisfying gush of slick that I lap up even as it makes a mess. I can feel it on my lips and chin and even trickling down my neck, and still it’s like I can’t get enough. I want to do almost as much as I want to be inside her again. I only pull away from her when I feel her hand snake between us to grab for my tie, urging me up from between her legs as I look at her in a daze.

There’s a dreamy sort of smile on her mouth as she winds the silk of my tie around her fist, giving it another gentle tug. “Get up here.”

I come like a puppy being called, with just as much eagerness—crawling over her until I’m hovering with my hands braced on either side of her. My breath is still ragged and I still feel a little wild, but her fingers reach to brush along my cheek, her thumb sliding across my lower lip; I can’t say why it’s so calming.

“Your first consult isn’t until nine,” she says calmly.

I nod. “That’s right.”

“And I’m on mid-shift,” she goes on.

Another nod. “I know.”

Her mouth tilts on one side as I feel her hand sliding over the front of my slacks to give my straining cock a squeeze. Her hands feel just as hot as the rest of her. “How much sleep do you need?”

Before I kiss her, I think to myself that I might be in real trouble.

expectedly, i don’t get very much sleep, but even with the workload that I’m facing for the day, I can’t find it in me to be at all put out by it.

I left Mackenzie in my bed this morning, and something about knowing she was sleeping naked and tangled in my sheets as I drove to work had been satisfying in a way I never could have anticipated. Jesus, I even left her a spare so she could lock up. Everything about it feels like the kind of complications I had told her we needed to avoid.

So why am I sitting at my desk, hiding my smile behind my hand?

I check my watch and note that I need to meet my consult in less than thirty minutes, willing myself to get a handle on my own feelings before then. I reach across my desk for the patient’s chart so I can have a last-minute review, barely getting my fingers underneath it before I feel my phone start to vibrate on the other side of my desk.

It’s embarrassing, how quickly I snatch it up, even embarrassing how a flicker of disappointment passes through me when I notice it isn’t Mackenzie calling. I really need to get a grip.

Who calling, however, is effectively sobering.

“Hello, Mother.”

I hear her click her tongue. “Don’t you ‘Mother’ me. Why haven’t you called?”

“I’ve been busy,” I say evenly, my earlier giddiness dissipating. “You know how things are here.”

“Apparently,” she says in that tone that I know means I’m about to get scolded. “They’re even so busy that you couldn’t find time to tell your mother you’re ?”

Mary Anne Taylor is a lot of things, but most of all, the woman is resourceful. I should have known better than to think I could keep this from her until it blew over.

“Listen. About that—”

“And I had to hear it from , of all people. That horrible woman from my crochet club. Apparently, she heard it from her daughter Jessica.”

That name vaguely rings a bell, although I can’t pin down from where.

“Look, it isn’t what you think.”

“How can it not be what I think? How could you get mated without telling us? You didn’t even tell us you were anyone. Your poor mother didn’t get to meet her daughter-in-law before you went and—”

“I’m not actually mated,” I sigh.

“—could be the mother of my future grandchildren, and I’ve never even—Wait. What?”

“I’m mated,” I repeat more firmly.

“Then why is the entire hospital apparently buzzing about you and some woman you’ve been secretly seeing?”

I scrub a hand down my face. “It’s complicated.”

“You think you got all those brains from your father?” She snorts. “Try me.”

“Fuck,” I groan.

“Language.”

“It’s the board,” I say defeatedly. “They found out.”

She immediately discerns my meaning. “Oh no. How? You’ve been so careful.”

“An ‘anonymous tip,’ apparently. It’s utter bullshit.”

“

,” she stresses. “Were you reprimanded?”

“Well . . .”

“My goodness,” she huffs. “After all that work you’ve done. And the Albuquerque job is on the line! Is that going to be affected now that you—”

“I didn’t get any formal sort of reprimand,” I tell her. “I didn’t get anything more than a slap on the wrist, really.” I hesitate a moment, knowing that I’m about to open a can of worms. “It was all thanks to Mackenzie.”

“Mackenzie?”

“The, ah, mate you heard about.”

“But you said you weren’t actually mated.”

“I’m not.”

“But there’s a woman named Mackenzie.”

“There is.”

“And you’re not mated?”

“No.”

“But people think you are.”

“Correct.”

My mother is quiet for a moment, and I feel a little like a boy again, waiting for her to yell at me for breaking her favorite vase.

“Tell me everything,” she says calmly.

My mother listens quietly as I recount everything that’s happened in the last couple of weeks—only cutting in to ask clarifying questions as she lets me explain how Mackenzie and I got wrapped up in our arrangement and how it benefits us both. I pointedly leave out our recent , as Mackenzie calls it; that’s a level I haven’t even really figured out myself yet, after all.

“So, you’re pretending to be mated to this woman.”

“Or dating her, where her grandmother is concerned.”

“Oh boy.”

“I know what you’re going to say,” I sigh.

She makes a disgruntled sound. “No, you don’t. Despite that fancy doctor brain of yours—you don’t know .”

“Fine,” I grumble. “Then say whatever it is you’re going to say.”

“What is she like?”

This takes me by surprise. It’s definitely not what I expected my mother to follow up with. “You mean, Mackenzie?”

“No, I mean Regina at the crochet club,” she scoffs. “Of I mean Mackenzie.”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“I’m curious what sort of woman throws herself into such an intricate ruse to help out my son. Especially since she apparently barely knew him before all this.”

“I don’t know.” I frown down at my desk, thinking. “She’s . . . funny? And competent. Everyone here seems to love her. I mean, I’m not really sure why she even agreed to this in the first place. She’s very pretty, after all. I find it incredibly hard to believe that she needs help in the dating department. I guess I should just be grateful that she—What are you giggling about?”

“Oh, honey,” she laughs. “How much do you like this woman?”

“What?” I make a face. “It’s not like that. We’re helping each other.”

I think guiltily.

“I’ve known you for thirty-six years, son,” she says. “And I’ve heard you talk about a woman the way you are now.”

“You what she was like,” I mutter.

“Oh, this is wonderful,” she practically cackles. “Maybe this will make you think twice about packing up and moving to another state.”

“It’s not that,” I continue to protest.

“Sure, sure,” she chuckles. “Does your fake relationship entail her meeting your parents?”

“Absolutely not.”

“It would probably be good for your charade if the two of you—”

“

,” I stress.

“Fine, fine.” She goes quiet for a second as I pinch the bridge of my nose. “I just worry about you,” she admits. “You’re always so closed off, Noah.”

“I am not—”

“Yes, you are,” she argues. “You’ve been so worried about keeping that part of yourself hidden that you never let yourself get close to anyone. Hell, you barely talk to us about your problems anymore!”

“Language,” I say sarcastically.

“Oh, shut up,” she huffs. “All I’m saying is . . . it sounds like Mackenzie might be a special lady. After all, it takes a pretty exceptional person to turn her entire life upside down to help a stranger.”

“I told you, this also benefits—”

“Yeah, yeah, I heard you,” she says, cutting me off. “I’m just saying. There’s one person who clearly stands to gain more from this arrangement than the other, and one person is putting more on the line for the sake of the other.”

“Mom, you’re losing me here.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” she scoffs. “

stand to gain more, and is putting more on the line. All I’m saying is . . . maybe that’s something worth looking into.”

“You just want this to go a certain way.”

“Well, you aren’t getting any younger, son.”

“Wow. Thanks, Mom.”

“It’s not a crime to want , Noah.”

Maybe my mother and Mackenzie’s grandmother aren’t so different. Mackenzie would probably think this conversation is hilarious. Not that I can ever tell her about it.

“Okay, Mom. I really have to go. I have a consult coming up.”

“Just don’t dismiss this like you do everything else,” she scolds. “You can’t just shut everyone out for your whole life. You’ll end up missing out on something . . . special.”

“Yeah. Okay. Will do.”

“And don’t you ever lie to me again. I don’t care how big you are, I’ll whoop your—”

“Okay. Love you, Mom. Call you later.”

I end the call before she can go off on a rant, dropping my phone on the desk and resting my head in my hands. My mother would lose her shit if I were to tell her I’m with my “special woman” and that I’m slowly losing my mind because of it. I haven’t even worked out the specifics of that myself yet.

My phone buzzes again, a text this time, thankfully, and I assume my mother is following up with some last bit of advice, so I’m surprised (and secretly excited) when I see Mackenzie’s name. I swipe open her text thread and nearly drop my phone—a picture of Mackenzie’s bare legs in my bathtub with a caption underneath.

I’m grinning before I can stop myself, feeling a visceral urge to pack up everything, cancel my appointments, and go back to my place to join her—but even in my head that sounds ridiculous. Not to mention dangerous.

I tap out a quick reply, one that reveals none of the heat currently rushing through my blood or the sudden stiffness in my slacks, and I take a deep breath, blowing it out as I set my phone back down. The problem is, I think, that I to drop everything and go be with her. That the urge to do so gets stronger and stronger with every instance that I’m with her. Everything about this predicament screams , and I can’t bring myself to do a single thing about it.

I really am in trouble.