My best friend's brow furrows, and she glances over at me. "You all right?"
"I feel like I might be running a fever." I shake my head as I swipe my hand over it, expecting to find sweat but not finding anything.
Though the motion does make my bags slide along my arm, and I get a bit dizzy, thrown off-balance.
Harper shoves at my shoulder, her eyes wide as saucers but not an ounce of sympathy on her face when I send her an outraged glare. "You're not serious. Brylee! You're ruining our shopping day!"
"By getting—" I cut off before the word "sick" because suddenly all that heat swoops into my belly and dives low. There, it starts to spiral into a tight coil, dragging up a deep-seated need. "Oh. Shit."
"Yeah. Oh shit," she mocks teasingly as she lifts an arm and waves Colter over. "Didn't you take suppressants?"
"Yes."
She purses her lips and shakes her head.
"You're swooning over them again, aren't you?" she accuses. "Duringgirl time."
My mouth opens to protest, but she cuts me off as she holds up a hand and starts flicking out fingers one by one.
"Movie night—ruined. Waterpark—we didn't even make it out of the parking lot, you horny bitch. I thought the mall would be safe! Ugh!" She rolls her eyes but starts laughing. "I'm so jealous. And you owe me. Again."
I give an apologetic shrug as Colter jogs in our direction, and I begin to perfume. The sweet scent drifts up from me as mypupils dilate, and the world becomes hazy, as if I'm watching it through a gentle rainstorm. I latch onto his massive forearm, and my palm glides up and down his skin in admiration.
He's so strong.
I forget where I am. What I'm doing. Who's watching.
Desire hits harder and faster than it did the prior times. I plunge into a full-blown heat, and I lean toward him, lips pursing for a kiss as my nerve endings scream wildly, all of them arguing over which one of them he should touch first.
One-handed, Colter scoops me up and clutches me to his side. I cling to him like a koala, wrapping my legs tightly around his toned waist as he grabs his cell from his other pocket, already walking, urgency quickening his stride.
We move smoothly toward the exit as he dictates to his phone. "Text Team X. Say: Brylee's in heat. Car. Now."
"HOLY FUCK. You smell that?" some lanky alpha in all black clothing yells from the other side of the mall balcony.
But his voice is distant and metallic, and I can't make sense of what he's fussed about. Don't care to. Because my mate has his hand on my ass, and his broad shoulders look like they need to be kissed.
In a drunken daze, I bend my head and start to kiss a line along the seam of his shirt, heading in the direction of his neck. My chest presses against him, and suddenly my nipples are so sensitive, so peaked and ready. It's as if matches have just been struck, the tips flaming, burning. I rub myself against Colter's broad pecs, and a breathy exhale of pleasure escapes me.
He breaks into a run.
"Send it!" Colter yells at the phone to shoot off the text as a group of alphas turn in our direction.
Some start to jog along their own side of the balcony, parallel to us, a crowd of them starting to gather, their own alpha scents reacting to mine, growing more potent. More disgusting. Bread. And rotting cut grass. Motor oil. Terrible scents that I can't believe they don’t cover up in public.
My shoulders rise, and I recoil from them, trying to pull myself even tighter against my alpha. A few of them cheer, rowdy and randy.
My head swims when I turn to glare at them for making too much noise. Vaguely, in some tiny and distant part of my mind, I register the threat that's driving Colter to move so quickly, though it doesn't seem to penetrate my senses. My nerve endings are far too tied up by my heat to think more than a very basic,They'll fight over me.
But I trust Colter won't let that happen.
Curling my hands around his neck, I nuzzle closer, tugging the collar of his shirt so that I can pull it up over the lower half of my face. God, yesssss. His musky scent drowns out the horrible soupy, swampy mess of mall smells, and I inhale deeply, pulling in breath after breath of pure Colter, trying to erase everyone else.
I can't hide my ears as easily, and a tiny frown mars my features as I send out resentful thought waves toward the other alphas, hating the sounds they make. Hating that it's not my other mates' voices I hear. They're all I want.
Suddenly the mall is too big, too bright, too hard with the stone and marble. And it's far too filled with alphas that I want nothing to do with.
"Need some help with her?" an alpha with a nasal tenor calls out lewdly to Colter.
