Or at least, that’s what I thought before today.

“Okay,” Noah says evenly. “I was afraid I had overstepped with . . . you know.”

Ah. So he had been second-guessing it.

“You mean making out in the hallway?”

He flinches. “More or less.”

“You were just playing the part,” I say, mirroring what he texted me earlier.

“Right,” he answers immediately.

“It’s not like you were being jealous or something,” I laugh, passing it off as a joke even though part of me is perking up for his answer. “Right?”

It takes him a second to answer, but only a second. “Of course not.”

I consider it, reasoning that regardless of his reasons—I definitely didn’t hate him kissing me in the hallway.

“I think maybe we’re both probably walking on eggshells,” I admit. “I can tell you’re still worrying about last night changing things, but I think we got through it fine. I mean, you’re not mauling my male coworkers, and I’m not begging you to bite me, so all in all, I’d say it was a successful experiment.”

“I guess that’s . . . true.”

“And we both enjoyed it . . . right?”

I don’t miss the way his throat bobs with a swallow, nor do I miss the way his jaw tenses as if remembering. “I did.”

Okay. So we can work with this. Maybe it wouldn’t be so awkward if we laid out some ground rules to begin with.

“You know,” I start, moving away from where I’m standing to circle his desk, “there’s nothing that says we can’t help each other and also, you know, help each other.”

Noah looks up at me as I approach. “How do you mean?”

“I don’t think it will be the end of the world if we get a little enjoyment out of this relationship—even if it is fake.”

“Enjoyment?”

“I just mean . . . we don’t have to think so much about our little addendum.”

“We don’t,” he parrots, eyes on my mouth.

I press my hands on either side of his desk chair. “We both know what this is, and there’s no risk since we aren’t looking for anything to come out of it.”

“Right,” he murmurs. “Since I’m leaving.”

For some reason the reminder of the expiration date of our little arrangement gives me pause, but only for like a second. I remind myself that’s the best part of the whole thing.

“Exactly,” I tell him. I curl my body to bring my mouth inches from his, reaching to cup his jaw. “So let’s enjoy it until then. No more worrying about how I’m doing, okay?”

“If that’s what you want,” he breathes.

I close the distance, letting my lips brush against his in a lazy kiss that makes his scent bloom around me, making my knees wobble. I have to press my legs together when I pull away, and Noah’s expression says he’d like to do a lot more than just this. It’s a very different look for the normally taciturn Dr. Taylor.

It’s weirdly arousing, being the only person to know this side of him.

“It is,” I assure him. I give him another quick kiss for good measure before I pull away. “If you weren’t working tonight, I’d say that you could show me your place.”

The implication is clear, and thankfully, Noah looks much less wary than he did the last time I propositioned him.

“You want to see my place?”

I have to bite back a smile, my earlier uncertainty currently being washed away by anticipation. “For research purposes, of course. I need to be able to tell people with confidence that you don’t actually sleep upside down in a cave.”

He doesn’t laugh, but I think it’s because he’s looking at me now like he wants to pull me into his lap. Should I tell him I would probably let him?

“I could . . .” His throat bobs. “I could do this tomorrow.”

I do crawl into his lap then, my lips curving against his. “Noah Taylor? Procrastinating? Now I’ve seen it all.”

Turns out Noah’s mouth is an effective method of shutting me up.

Who knew.

OceanofPDF.com

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 excited 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 smell 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 larger 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?

Not always, something whispers in the back of my head. Only temporarily.

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 stunning Mackenzie is. For what must be the hundredth time since she agreed to this insanity, I wonder why in the hell she would even need this fake relationship. How in the actual fuck has someone with half a brain not snatched her up?

And how is it me 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.