Mackenzie sighs. “Look, I know all the dumb stories about alphas and omegas and fated pairs and all that bullshit—and I just didn’t want you to go all crazy on me if you found out. We have a good thing going here. I don’t want to change that.”

“You realize that by not telling me, you were putting us both at risk for some sort of misstep we can’t take back.”

“Don’t tell me you believe in all that garbage about us affecting each other more,” she scoffs. “It’s all a bunch of nonsense.”

“Is it?” I swallow thickly. “It’s been quite a while since I was off my suppressants, but I can never remember being this . . . affected by someone’s nearness.”

This takes her by surprise. Almost as much as it does me for saying it. “You’re . . . affected by me?”

“I only mean that it’s . . . difficult. Scenting you. More than it was before. Knowing what I do now, I have to assume it will only get worse as time goes on.”

“Oh.”

“You really haven’t noticed?”

Her nose wrinkles. I’ve decided it isn’t annoying.

“I mean . . .” She reaches to rub at her neck. It makes her scent bloom in the air. It’s extremely distracting. “I thought it was . . . I don’t know. You’re already a lot, Noah. I guess I just assumed that was all you.”

“I’m a lot,” I repeat dumbly, not quite sure of her meaning.

“I just mean . . . you already smelled good before you stopped your suppressants. I just thought you were . . . a lot.”

She says the phrase again like it makes total sense, but I’m still not sure it does.

“So what do we do about this?”

She is quiet for a long moment, her eyes calculating as she considers. It’s reminiscent of that look she gave me on the dance floor at the bar—like she’s trying to figure out some puzzle in her head. I can see when she comes to a decision, throwing me for a loop when she actually smiles.

“Why do we have to do anything about it?”

“What?” I make an exasperated sound. “Mackenzie. I can’t continue to be close to you without being on some form of suppressants.”

“Why not?”

“You know why,” I huff. “Eventually, being around each other is going to drive us crazy. We won’t be able to interact at all without feeling the need to—” I catch the way her eyes widen, and I clear my throat. “It’s a terrible idea.” I reach to pinch the bridge of my nose, sighing. “Maybe this entire thing was.”

“What?” Her tone turns desperate. “It’s seriously not as big of a deal as you’re making it, Noah.”

“You’re being reckless,” I accuse. “I’m thinking of you here. I wouldn’t ever want to put you in a position that you might regret.”

“I’m a big girl, Noah,” she grumbles, crossing her arms as she looks at the ground. “I know what I can handle.”

I feel my frustration building, her flippancy only making it worse. “I don’t think I can handle it, Mackenzie.”

She peeks up at me with a confused expression, moonlight painting one side of her face and making the amber in her eyes seem to glow. “What?”

“It’s getting . . . very difficult,” I admit quietly. “To scent you. To not be affected by it.”

Her mouth parts, then slowly closes again. “Oh.”

“Which is why I don’t think it’s a good idea to—”

“Mackenzie? Noah?” Moira’s voice rings out from inside the house, startling us both. “I got the book out. I’d love to show Noah some of my ideas.”

“Oh my God,” Mackenzie groans. “Not the fucking wedding book.”

“What is it about this book?”

“She’s coming outside,” Mackenzie says with a panicked voice. “Jesus. She’s got this damned book where she’s planned out my entire wedding, Noah.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Mackenzie?” Moira’s voice is getting nearer. I can tell through the slight crack in the patio door that she’s entered the living room. “Are you out there?”

“You have to kiss me,” Mackenzie says suddenly.

This throws me off. “What?”

“Kiss me,” she repeats. “Right now. It’ll make her leave us alone.”

“I don’t think it’s a good idea for me to—”

“If you don’t kiss me, she’s going to have us combing through that book all night.”

My eyes dart to the patio door, where a very Moira-like shadow is nearing the glass. “I don’t want you to have to—”

“Just shut up and kiss me.”

I feel her hands at my collar just before she tugs me down to her mouth—her lips colliding with mine only moments before I hear the creaking sound of the glass door sliding in the track behind me. I hear a distant oh followed by a soft chuckle, but even when the door quietly slides closed it feels like a faraway thing, because suddenly . . . all I can seem to focus on is Mackenzie’s mouth.

I’m fully aware of the biological happenings that come with being so intimate with a female shifter—but Mackenzie’s lips on mine feel much less textbook than I’d believed it could be up until this point. The soft shape of them melds against me as her fingers fist the collar of my shirt, and beyond all reason, I can feel the barely-there slide of her tongue over my lower lip, which makes me groan in a way that feels far from pretend.

I can’t fathom what drives me to open my mouth any more than I can guess at why her tongue tangles with mine, but as her flavor explodes there, making me dizzy, I can’t really contemplate anything more than the way my hand fits against her spine when it finds a place to rest there. Does she even realize what she’s doing?

Fuck, do I?

Something in the back of my head tells me I should put a stop to this, that I should pull away from her before things get complicated—but that voice is viscerally silenced by the soft sound that emits from Mackenzie’s throat, one that I all but swallow down as my fingers find their way into her hair. I am a mess of scent and touch and sensation as her body presses closer to mine, and I am fully aware of the way I’m getting hard against her stomach—I just can’t seem to do anything about it.

I can’t say how many seconds it takes to break away from her—to untangle myself from her soft body and her softer mouth—but when I’m finally able to, I find her breath as ragged as mine, and her lips as red and as swollen as my own must surely be.

Her lashes flutter dazedly as the tip of her tongue swipes at her lower lip, and I feel a carnal need to pull that same tongue back into my mouth, to kiss her until the sun comes up, maybe. I’m not sure.

I’m very careful, as I peel myself away—trying to steady my breathing even as all of my senses scream at me to get closer to her.

“This is—” I have to clear my throat, my voice sounding all wrong. “This is what I mean,” I warn roughly. “We won’t be able to control things like this. If we keep this up.”

Mackenzie is still looking at me, her eyes moving over my face in a lazy but calculated way, as if she’s considering the pieces of a puzzle. I watch her tongue trace her lip again, and I’m pretty sure if she does it one more time, I will go insane.

“Say something,” I urge. “Help me figure this out. I could get back on my suppressants, or maybe . . . Maybe we should call the whole thing—”

“What if we just . . . do it?”

I freeze, staring at her. Surely she said something different than what I heard. “What?”

“We could just . . . try it out,” she goes on. “See what all the fuss is about.”

“You can’t be serious,” I say incredulously.

“Why not?” Her eyes look less glazed now, sharper, like she’s really thinking about this. “I mean, it’s not like it has to be a big thing,” she reasons. “We’re already pretending to date. Why not enjoy it a little?”

“I can think of a dozen reasons as to why that’s a bad idea.”

“I can think of one reason why it’s a very good idea,” she counters, nodding at my still-tented pants. “I mean, it doesn’t seem like you’re too opposed to it.”