: Chapter 9

noah hasn’t said a word since we left Gran’s, and I can’t tell if it’s because he’s embarrassed by my proposition or because he’s actually considering it. In my head, it had seemed like a perfectly reasonable and logical thing to propose—or at least, it had seemed that way in the afterglow of that kiss. Because it was . . . a of a kiss.

I’m not stupid. I know a lot of what I felt out there on Gran’s deck was just hormones and biology and compatibility—but that doesn’t change the fact that it felt good. Noah’s kiss had been rough and messy and a little bit desperate (but that might have been me, who can say), but not once in my life have I been so turned on by just a kiss, and it makes me wonder how good everything might feel with Noah Taylor. Plus, I’m honestly getting a little tired of being revved up in offices and closets and having to brush it off for no real reason.

I mean, when will we ever get a chance like this again? If biology is going to dictate how compatible we might be in bed together, why not enjoy the benefits? We’re medical professionals, after all. It can be like . . . an experiment of sorts. Plus, it’s not like I’ve had a lot of luck in the phallic department, since every date I’ve been on in months has been an utter disaster.

He’s still quiet when we pull up to my apartment building, and I linger in the passenger seat for a second too long as I try to think of what I should do here. I’ve never had to anyone to sleep with me before, and I’m not even sure if I should. Is this somehow beneath me? Or am I empowered by trying to take the bull by the horns, as it were. Honestly, I’m too horny to care.

“Do you want to come up for a drink?”

There. Simple. Easy. Only slightly suggestive.

Noah frowns. It really is a sexy frown, I’ve decided. “Are you asking me for a drink, or something else?”

“Both? Maybe?”

“Mackenzie . . .” He pulls his hands from the steering wheel to pinch the bridge of his nose. “I’m really not sure that’s a good idea.”

“Why not?”

“Because we have an arrangement, and sex was not part of the deal. It could make things very complicated.”

“Think of it as a perk.” I snap my fingers. “Oh! An addendum! Contracts have those all the time.”

“I’m not sure any contract has ever had a sex addendum.”

“Ours could,” I venture.

He looks at me with an odd expression then, his brow furrowing. “I’m still confused as to why you would to.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, well. You’re . . . And I’m . . .” He sighs. “I just feel like you could easily find another partner who would be a lot less . . .” He waves his hand as if searching for a word, huffing out a breath when he decides on, “Me.”

“What’s wrong with you? You’re tall and pretty—” Noah looks stunned by this. “When you’re not scowling, that is. Or, actually, sometimes when you are? It’s kind of growing on me. Plus, you’re built like a brick shithouse. I don’t really see any downsides for me.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“Also, you’re the first alpha I’ve met. Like, ever. At those odds, I’ll be in my fifties before I meet another one. I could be postmenopausal by then. Would I even enjoy it?”

“So this is an alpha thing?”

“I would be lying if I said that it’s not a little bit of an alpha thing,” I tell him truthfully. “But also, scowling aside, you’re the most normal person I’ve dated all year, fake or not. I’m going to get carpal tunnel if I don’t give my poor hands a break.”

Noah’s eyes go wide. “That’s very . . . forthcoming.”

I reason that it’s not a good idea to make a coming joke right now. It’ll probably spook him.

“Come on. We’re obviously compatible. I mean, you begrudgingly think my jokes are funny, and I’ve come to find your perpetual grumpiness kind of cute. It’s like someone dropped a sex gift basket in our laps. It would be rude not to open it.”

“I don’t know if I take more issue with ‘sex gift basket’ or you calling me cute.”

“I said your was cute. Kind of.” I can tell he’s still wavering. “I mean, aren’t you curious? Don’t you want to see what all the fuss is about?”

“I . . .” He still looks unsure. Like there’s a chance this might all be a trap. “I don’t want to take advantage of you.”

“Oh, spare me,” I laugh. “I promise you, Noah. I’m not reading anything into this. You can come up to my apartment and have sex with me and nothing will change. Scout’s honor.”

“And you’re . . . sure you want to?”

“Okay. This is starting to make me seem borderline desperate, so I’m just gonna ask one more time if you want to come up for a drink, and if you say no, we’ll forget this ever happened. But if you say . . . No more worrying about my delicate sensibilities. I’m a grown-ass woman, Noah, and I know what I want.”

The change in Noah is subtle, so much that one might miss it, but there is less tension in his shoulders now, less uncertainty in his eyes. I take it as a good sign.

“So, Noah,” I start again carefully as I give him a sweet smile. “Do you want to come up for a drink?”

he’s still acting like he might bolt at any second. Like he’s arguing with himself in his head about all the reasons why he shouldn’t be here. He’s sitting stiffly on my couch like one of those bronzed park bench statues—frowning at my carpet in a way that lets me know he is completely in his own head right now.

I study him from the kitchen counter as I pour him a glass of wine, letting myself drink him in. He really is . . . something. Now that I’m actually assessing. I’m honestly not sure how I haven’t given him proper notice before all this, regardless of his formerly sour attitude. Which, I really have begun to realize, is just a weird part of his charm. His dark hair has started to curl at his temples, a product of his fingers running through it nervously one too many times, and his full mouth is pressed almost into a pout-like shape with how hard he’s thinking. When I gather up our glasses to join him on the couch, I take note of the width of his forearms, completely visible with the rolled-up sleeves of his button-down. Just looking at them sparks memories of being wrapped up in them only a few hours ago, which has me pressing my thighs together.

I hand him a glass, and he looks almost surprised to see it, then he notices me settling on the other side of the couch. “So, you really meant a drink?”

“It feels like you could use it. You look like you’re about to jump out of my window.” I chuckle as I take a sip from my glass. “If I didn’t know nerves were to blame, I might be offended.”

He looks confused, his hand stilling just before his glass touches his lips. “Offended?”

“Well . . .” I swirl the dark red liquid of the rioja as I avert my eyes, peering into my wineglass. “I’ve never had to talk someone into sleeping with me before. Not exactly great for my ego.”

“It’s not—” He makes a disgruntled sound, taking a sudden swig from his glass and swallowing it forcefully before shaking his head. “It’s not because I don’t want to.”

I turn more to my side to face him, leaning on my elbow as I let it rest against the back of the couch. “Could have fooled me.”

“I think we both know by the state you left me in on that deck that I very much want to,” he says more quietly. He takes another swig, for courage, maybe. “I worry.”

I frown. “Worry?”

“I know you’re a grown woman, I know that, but . . . neither of us fully understands the implications of what we’re doing here. We haven’t ever experienced . . . something like this.”

My mouth makes an O shape. “So, you’ve never . . . ?”

“No.” He shakes his head. “I’ve never met anyone like you.”

I let that knowledge settle, considering all the things that come with it as I take a larger sip from my glass this time. Everything he’s saying makes sense, and there is a part of me that wonders if I being reckless. No one’s ever accused me of being overly careful in my life, that’s for sure, but still . . . I can’t bring myself to change my mind. Not after the all-over pleasure I’d felt just from him. A girl can only withstand so much, really.

“Your apartment is nice,” Noah says in what I suspect is an attempt to break the silence. “Cozy.”

“You mean it’s small,” I laugh.

He glances around my studio, his eyes moving from the kitchen behind the couch to the bed that sits on a platform to our left. “No, no, I just meant . . .”

“It’s fine,” I assure him. “I’ve never liked big houses.” I frown into my glass then. “Too much space.”

“What’s wrong with space?”

A familiar melancholy settles in the back of my mind, a brief glimpse of my dad’s face leaving our house for the last time flashing through my thoughts. I quickly shake it away as I take another swallow of wine. “Just feels lonely, I guess.”

“Oh.”

More silence. Noah isn’t looking at me, eyes transfixed on my carpet again as he holds his glass against his chest like some sort of tiny security blanket. My glass is nearly empty now, I realize, and the warmth the wine leaves in my belly is giving me that same courage Noah might have been chasing.

“So, if you’ve never been with an omega,” I try carefully, watching his jaw tense, “does that mean you’ve never knotted anyone?”

His knuckles go white against the wineglass in his hand, and for a moment I think he could almost break it in his grip. It’s subtle, the change in him, but with that one word I can sense the slight increase of his breathing, the ragged quality of it. It makes my heart pound a little faster, sets off a tingling between my legs.

And his .

It might as well be a wax melt, with the way it’s filling the room.

“No,” he says quietly, almost hoarsely. “I haven’t.”

I finish my glass with one quick tilt—reaching to set it on my coffee table as I slowly scoot closer to him. I can feel the warmth of him when my body presses to his side, feel the slight trembling in his skin when my fingers graze over his forearm. It makes me feel strangely powerful, knowing I can make this big alpha shake like this. I pluck his glass away to set it by mine, bringing my hand to his chest to tease at a button there, my mouth inches from his jaw.

“Would you like to?”

This close I can see the subtle flecks of green hidden in the clear blue of his irises, the discovery short-lived with the way his pupils continue to dilate to a point where his eyes almost appear black. His heart is pounding so hard I can feel it against my fingers, and at this point, its cadence more than matches mine.

I like the way that his breath catches when I lean into him, the way his hand settles at my waist as if by instinct (and well, I guess it is, if I took the time to really think about it) when I situate myself so that my knees press on either side of his hips, straddling his lap. Already I can feel the press of a hard against my core when I settle there, and I find I like this too.

“Mackenzie,” he says roughly, his voice seeming to have dropped an octave. “Are you sure that you want to—?”

I catch the rest of his sentence at my lips, kissing him gently as his continued attempts to be chivalrous fade into a soft groan. He really does talk too much, for someone whose preferred form of communication I’d previously thought was scowling. On any other day, I might celebrate a man being so decent—but it’s been at least a year since I’ve been past second base, and right now I am wanting Noah to be entirely .

There’s a bit of a bite of his nails as they press into the softness of my hips, a slight sting that I can feel even through the material of my dress. His lips part immediately when I urge them to with my tongue, and the taste of him when I deepen the kiss might be more dizzying than an entire bottle of the forgotten wine on my kitchen counter.

I don’t mean to rock into him; my body seems to have some sort of unconscious need to be closer, but the feel of his cock slotted against me, rigid and hot, seems to undo him. I feel his fingers in my hair, winding around the length of it to fist it tight so that he can pull me in, and then there is the shape of one large hand on my ass that grips me in a way that is anything but decent.

I think.

I’m not sure if he actually recognizes that I’m undoing the buttons of his shirt; I guess I would have trouble being overly aware of my surroundings, too, if I was kissing someone senseless like he is—but when my fingers slide across bare chest and press higher over his shoulders, I feel him shudder against me, a pained sound in his throat.

“Bed,” he grinds out, his mouth hardly breaking from mine.

Not much of a question, but the meaning is all too clear. “Yes.”

“Condom,” he grunts. “I don’t—”

“IUD,” I urge breathlessly. “And hell, you might know my gyno. She works on the second floor. So as long as you’re negative, we can—”

I yelp with surprise when he lifts me from the couch in one smooth motion, hands gripping the backs of my thighs as he takes me to bed.

My back hits the mattress when he practically throws me into the middle of it—the earlier hesitancy Noah had shown nowhere to be found as he crawls up and over me lightning fast as if he can’t stand to be away from my mouth, his lips finding mine greedily.

“You smell”—I feel his breath huff against my cheek—“fucking .”

I’d like to tell him he smells pretty good, too, but his tongue at my throat makes me forget the desire altogether.

“You taste even better,” he growls against my pulse, his voice sounding unlike him.

His hips roll into me, and I can feel his cock straining in his jeans where it rubs against my thigh. There is a mess between my legs already, my body seeming to know more about Noah’s alpha than I do, if the slick there is any indication. I can’t actually remember any time before this when I’ve ever been as wet as I am now. Then again, it’s hard to remember much outside of the way Noah is continuing to suck at my pulse.

“Noah,” I gasp, tilting up my hips in a silent plea. “Will it hurt?”

“I won’t hurt you,” he says in a more soothing tone, a whisper on my skin. “Not you.” His teeth nip at my shoulder, and I can feel his fingers tucking under my dress to slide over my thigh. “Because you’re a good omega, aren’t you?” My breath catches when I feel him pressing against my underwear, teasing the wet slit beneath them. “You can take it, can’t you?”

I feel a shiver pass through me, his crooning words speaking to some part of me that feels almost tight with disuse. Like I’ve never actually touched it before. I feel some sensation like a stretch inside me, like waking up from a very long nap—an all-over pleasure from his praise that I’ve never felt.

And maybe that’s biology, too, most likely is, actually . . . but I’m too far gone now to care.

“I can,” I promise. “I can take it.”

I whimper in protest when he pulls away from me—pushing up on his hands to look down at me with glazed eyes. I notice they’re a dark, stormy blue now that is nothing like their usual clear color, and Noah’s lips are parted as shallow breath escapes between them.

“I don’t—” His jaw clenches. “I don’t feel like myself.” His eyes rake down the front of me with something that only can be described as . “Maybe we shouldn’t—”

Something inside begins to whine, a steady chant of in the back of my head as panic seeps into me at the idea of losing whatever he’s about to give me. Suddenly, the idea of Noah not touching me feels almost .

“Don’t stop,” I manage, tugging at his shirt with too much force until I hear the last remaining buttons tear away. “Please?”

There’s a rumble in his chest when my hand finds the front of his jeans, palming him through the denim. “Mackenzie,” he warns, “I’m having a hard time being gentle with you. I don’t—” He groans as I squeeze him through his pants. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. The way you right now. It’s driving me insane.”

I lean up on my elbows, turning up my face until I can flick my tongue against his throat, where I know he’s sensitive, where his scent is strong. “Then be rough,” I purr. “You can be rough with me.” The word is on my tongue, one I’ve never used before but that somehow feels right at this moment. I reach to pop open the button on his jeans, pulling at the denim until I can reach inside to feel the shape of him through the cotton beneath. “I you, Alpha.”

His mouth is on my skin—lips and teeth tasting every inch he can reach as his hands tug at the hem of my dress. I’m not sure it will survive the night, with the way he’s wrenching it up my body, but I can’t find it in me to care when I feel the heat of his wide palms on my bare skin. I lift my arms so he can tear the dress off, and he tosses it somewhere on the floor before sitting up and wrenching off his own shirt to add it to the pile.

Every inch of Noah seems to have been carved or manufactured, my eyes greedily drinking in every ridge and line of him as the urge to touch and taste threatens to consume me. I notice him working on his zipper next, and I curl my body to bat his hands away so I can do it myself. Even through his underwear the shape of him is daunting—the fabric stretched and straining as the thick length of him presses against it. My hands still at his thighs, fingers curled into the waistband of his jeans as I’m momentarily struck with just how he is.

He’s always been larger than life, even when I barely knew him, but looking at him like this—with his impossibly wide shoulders and his too-thick arms and his cock that looks like it might be a health hazard—now I’m finding it hard to believe that he was able to hide his alpha status for so long. Everything about him it.

I tug his jeans a little farther down his thighs. “Did you know we learned alpha anatomy in med school?”

“Mm.” His lips press together as he watches me shuck down his pants. “I did.”

I let my nails scrape lightly up his thick thighs when his jeans become trapped at his knees, which are pressed against the mattress, allowing me to feel him shiver. “Did you learn about me?”

“I—” His lashes flutter as my fingers tease at the waistband of his boxer briefs. “I—we did.”

“So, we both know how this works. Technically.”

“Mackenzie,” he huffs as I peel the fabric away, the flushed head of his cock slipping out and glistening at the tip. “I can smell you. Jesus, Mackenzie, you’re so .”

His voice is further away now, my attention solely on the heat of him in my hand as I pull him free from his underwear. There’s a little curiosity and a of want when I see what all the fuss is about—the velvety skin of his cock sliding under my hand as I stroke down the length of him to meet the slightly thicker skin at the base. It’s only a hint, only a slight premonition of what it could be, I think, but even like this, seeing his knot sets off a fresh trickling of slick between my legs as if my body has a mind of its own. Like it what Noah can give me.

And I want it, I’m realizing more than anything else.

I want everything.

I meet his eyes when I lean in, peeking up at him through my lashes when I let the tip of my tongue flick over the head of his cock, and the answering rush of air that escapes him, like he can barely stand to keep still—it’s enough to make anyone feel a little hedonistic. I swirl my tongue there, the taste of him somehow than the all-encompassing scent of him that has somehow grown sweeter, more irresistible, and all I can think about as he looks at me like he can’t decide what to do with me for the want of needing all of me at once is:

My teasing is short-lived, his thick fingers grazing my jaw to tangle in my hair so that he can tilt my head back and pull me up into his kiss as he comes crashing down to meet me. I can’t for the life of me say how he gets my bra off—I actually think it might be in two pieces now, not that I’m complaining—but by the time I’m naked beneath him, I realize that somehow he is nothing but heat and hard muscle against me, not a stitch left between us as he settles over my body.

His hips rut against me like he can’t help it, his teeth and tongue still tasting at my mouth and lower at my throat and back again. I feel his breath in my ear when his big body forces my legs to spread wider, his voice low and gravelly when his cock slides against the core of me.

“Tell me again,” he urges, one hand at my jaw as the other pins my hip to the bed, to restrain me or him, I can’t say. “Tell me you want this.”

“Please,” I hear myself crying, my voice nothing like it’s ever been. I’m practically . Have I ever begged before? Why don’t I ? “I want this. So can you just—

.”

Even with the steady stream of slick I might be embarrassed about at any other time—it’s a stretch. I close my eyes so that I can focus on the delicious friction of it, so I can feel every inch of him as he slowly presses inside me. I gasp when I feel the slightly thicker base slip through, leaving all of him rooted deep as we both struggle to catch our breath just from this.

Even with the bad dates and the busy year and the model trains—I am no stranger to sex. I’m a modern woman who is perfectly fine seeking out what her body craves with whoever she chooses, but I don’t think it’s ever been like this. It’s not just the pleasure of it, because there is a lot of that, but it’s also the strange sensation of Noah . In more ways than just this. It’s the odd feeling of being filled for maybe the first time.

And if that’s all from hormones, then they are some fucking hormones.

“Mackenzie, I—” His head buries against my throat as his hips flex minutely. “I could fucking come like this.

, it feels good inside you.”

“You can move,” I tell him breathlessly. “Can you move? I want to—

.”

The first slide takes my breath away, my toes curling as he draws back, only to push inside once more. Again I feel the ever-so-slight resistance that comes from his knot, and I am torn between worry about what it will be like when it swells and utter impatience to have just that. I to feel full of him, more than anything I’ve ever wanted, for reasons I can’t even begin to comprehend. My knees press at his hips, shifting so that I can take more.

“Mackenzie,” he half whines. “I don’t think—

. I am not going to last. It’s too good. Tell me what to do. Tell me how to make you feel good.”

I want to tell him that I already feel pretty damn amazing, but I can’t seem to remember how to make words right now. I pull his face down to mine to kiss him instead, enjoying the feeling of his tongue tangling with mine as he thrusts inside me just a little harder. He catches my groan against his tongue as I wrap my legs fully around his waist—urging him to keep going. He holds on to my waist with one hand as he pumps inside me, each stroke making his knot swell just a little more, making it that much tighter as he forces it back inside again and again.

And my body . . . my body seems to know exactly what to do. That thickness touches me in places I didn’t know existed, stroking some part of me that leaves me a mewling mess beneath him.

“You can come,” I tell him. “I want you to.”

“But—I need to—”

“Just come,” I urge. “I want your knot. Wanna feel it.

, Noah.”

God, I don’t think I’ve ever wanted anything more.

“I’m—” His forehead rests on mine as his lips brush aimlessly against my mouth. “I can’t—I’m going to—”

Someone shouts, and I honestly can’t say if it’s him or me, but my eyes squeeze shut as stars explode in my vision when I feel his body tense, feel his cock twitch deep inside me right as his knot begins to swell and . It expands until I think it can’t possibly be thicker, locking him inside me as he shudders through his orgasm. I can’t exactly say what I just felt, but it was . . . definitely something.

“You didn’t come,” he pants, sounding frustrated.

I kiss his cheek. “Honestly, it still felt incredible.”

“You’re going to come,” he growls, already moving to a more upright position as he holds me by the waist.

The movement tugs at his knot that is rooted inside, drawing a gasp from me. I have to reach above me to grab for the pillows, needing anything in my hands to steady myself as he lifts my ass to pull me flush against him as my legs fall on either side of him. He’s biting his lip with concentration as sweat beads at his forehead, and I can tell that every time he moves—it’s just as torturous for him as it is for me.

His thumb slides across my swollen clit as sparks dance over my skin—my head falling back and my lips parting as he rolls the sensitive bundle beneath his fingers.

“You’re going to come for me,” he tells me again. “You’re going to come on my knot. I you to, Mackenzie.”

I nod dazedly as my teeth press into my lower lip, hearing needy sounds in the air that I suspect are coming from me. His touch paired with the fullness inside me is almost too much to take, my skin feeling like a live wire as he circles the slick-drenched bud of my clit again and again and . I can already feel a pressure building deep in my belly, the muscles there tightening and forcing my insides to clamp down even harder on what is an already incredibly tight space.

Every swipe of his fingers has me clenching around his knot, and each occurrence has Noah hissing through his teeth. I’m aware distantly that he’s just watching me come undone beneath him, but considering everything that’s happened tonight, I can’t find it in me to be embarrassed. I hear his quiet little urges and his rasped praise in the air around us—murmured utterances of and and ringing in my ears even as he says them quietly.

“Keep touching me,” I beg. “Just like that.

.”

“You’re getting tighter,” he grinds out. “I’m going to fucking come.

.”

“Don’t stop,” I breathe. “Just keep—

.”

Every muscle in my body draws up tight like a bowstring right before I dissolve into a trembling mess, my thighs quivering and my insides trembling even more as a wordless cry escapes me. Even after, I can feel the slow circling of Noah’s thumb on my too-sensitive clit, and I only open my eyes when I feel his hand leave me, watching as he brings that same digit to his mouth to clean it with his tongue. Watching his eyes nearly roll back as he does it.

I open my arms in quiet invitation, and it takes no convincing for Noah to fall into me, pulling me against his chest as my thigh settles over his, feeling boneless and sated even as his knot still pulses dully inside me. Neither of us speaks at first, the sound of our breath mingling in the air as we both attempt to catch it. His eyes are on me when I finally peer up at him—holding that same wild look that had crept into them when he’d kissed me on my couch and every moment after.

“That was . . .” I clear my throat. “Something.”

“Something,” he echoes dazedly. “Yeah.”

The mood feels heavy now that it’s all over, and since I am literally stuck with Noah for the unseeable future, I try to lighten it. “See? Sex addenda are great.”

“Right,” he says, still looking out of sorts. “And we’re . . . okay?”

Oh. That’s what he’s worried about. I laugh softly, turning up my face to kiss his cheek.

“Don’t worry,” I assure him. “I won’t be asking you to bite me anytime soon.”

“Okay,” he says evenly, his brow still furrowed. Maybe he’s not convinced I won’t mate him against his will. “Right.”

I laugh at the thought, nuzzling his chest and smiling at the absurdity of it. I mean, it was just sex, after all. “Go to sleep, Dr. Taylor,” I tease. “You have a morning shift tomorrow.”

I feel a barely-there kiss at my hair paired with his quiet agreement, and I close my eyes as fatigue seeps in, lulled by the satisfied quality of my limbs and the pleasant throbbing of his knot still inside me, the fullness eliciting a faint pleasurable sensation, even now.

I smile again as I yawn, thinking once more how silly it is that so many people might lose their minds after getting a taste of something like this. Sure, it was mind-blowing, but turning your whole world upside down for a great lay? Utterly ridiculous.

I feel his knot pulse slightly, sending a shiver down my spine as I squeeze my eyes shut, focusing instead on the steady of Noah’s heart against my ear as I will myself to sleep, to not let things get weird.

I think absently as I start to drift.