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“Have fun in there,” I coo.
“You fuckingbitch,” Dennis growls as he takes a step toward me.
He doesn’t even make it a foot before Noah has him pinned against the wall with his forearm pressed to Dennis’s chest, Noah looking murderous as he speaks slowly and carefully.
“Dr. Martin,” Noah says, a simmering rage in his tone. “If you ever touch her, I will show youexactlywhat that famous alpha temper looks like and rip both of your arms off to ensure it never happens again. Do you understand?”
I notice Dennis swallow thickly, his face white as a sheet. He looks older like this, frailer. Still, I don’t feel the least bit sorry for him. He is a complete fuckhead, after all.
“I’m going to set you down now,” Noah tells him. “And you’re going to walk away. And you aren’t even going tolookat Mackenzie.”
Dennis says nothing, his mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water.
“I said,” Noah repeats darkly, “do you understand?”
Dennis’s lips roll together. “Yes,” he says quietly. “I understand.”
“Good.” Noah smiles cheerfully, his entire demeanor changing in the blink of an eye. “You have a good meeting.”
Dennis turns on his heel quickly, like he’s afraid that Noahmight come after him, and I can’t pretend it isn’t incredibly hot, seeing Noah turn on the alpha switch like that. I’m all for feminism... but hot damn.
“That was... intensely satisfying,” Noah says after a second, turning back to me.
“Mm.” I press my hands to his shoulders. “It would have been better if you’d hit him.”
Noah shakes his head, laughing under his breath. “I think the board is going to hurt him more than I ever could.”
“God, I wish we could be in there to see it. Do you think he’ll cry?”
“I am choosing to imagine that’s how it goes down, yes.”
I grin. “Still okay with giving up the Albuquerque job? It’s a good opportunity, you know.”
“Mackenzie...” He pulls me against him, his hand pressing against my spine. “You’re the best opportunity I could choose.”
I feel warmth flushing my cheeks down into my chest. “Wow, you’re getting downright sappy, aren’t you? What’s next, a sonnet? You know, you could—”
Noah’s mouth reallyisa very effective method of shutting me up.
I wind my arms around his neck as I sink deeper into his kiss, not caring in the slightest that we’re in a very public hallway of a very public hospital, which anyone could come strolling down. We are officiallyofficialnow—nothing fake about it. They can just keep walking. I feel his hands curve around my waist to squeeze, and my head starts to dizzy with the potency of his scent, already thinking about how I might persuade him to get out of here with me and take me back home so we can resume his “groveling.”
Noah pulls away with a blissful look on his face, happier and lighter than I’ve ever seen him. And it’s forme. It makes my heartpound and my head spin, and all those notions about fate and destiny are still foreign to me, still a little outside of my wheelhouse—but looking at him now... it makes me feel things I never thought were possible.
Noah looks down the hall. “Should we get out of here? If we keep this up, I’m going to drag you into another clos—”
“I think I love you,” I blurt out, blandly, like I’m announcing the weather.
Noah looks at me like I’ve just told him the sky is made of cheese, blinking down at me dazedly as he processes what I’ve said. “You think you love me?”
I nod, feeling the words rising out of my throat before I can stop them. “I’m not totally sure, because I’ve never loved anybody before. Well, except for my grandparents. And Parker, obviously, but that’s just as a friend. I know it’s probably silly, because it hasn’t been that long, but someone said something to me not long ago, and it got me thinking, and I think there’s a good chance that I—”
He shuts me up with another kiss—he really is getting so good at that—and all the nerves that I’d just been experiencing melt away, my pulse thumping in my ears and under every inch of my skin as actualjoypumps through my blood. I relax with the pressure of his mouth, and he lets his lips linger for several seconds, as if he’s savoring this moment.
And when he breaks away, he’s actuallybeaming. “I love you,” he tells me. “I don’t care how long it’s been. You’re the only one I’ve ever wanted, and you’re the only one I everwillwant. I don’t care if it’s silly or crazy or whatever else—Iloveyou, Mackenzie.”
“Oh, okay,” I answer airily, still processing everything myself. “Is it okay that I’m still onlykind ofsure that I love you? Because I don’t want to—”
“I will take”—he presses another heavy kiss to my lips—“whatever you have to give. I just want you. However I can have you.”
