Page 49 of Heat Clinic

“How hungry are you?” I ask.

“I’m fucking starving.”

“The diner down the street makes incredible pancakes. You should take it easy today. Stick with easy-to-digest things like carbs. You can add meat back into your diet tomorrow if you eat it normally.”

She gives me a funny look while she’s dressing. “I think I know how to handle the post-heat phase.”

I heft her bag onto my shoulder and pass her by in the cramped room, smacking her bottom as I badge open the door. I raise one brow. “Who’s the expert here?”

Emily shakes her head but smiles, and I walk her up to the front of the clinic and hand her off to Amy so she can do her discharge paperwork. Before I leave, I lean down and give her one last kiss, then set her bag at her feet.

“I’ll meet you in the parking lot. Wait for me.”

Her eyes search mine for a moment before she nods, her ponytail bouncing.

When I go into the break room, there’s a lot of cheering and backslapping and ribald comments. I wave everyone off with a grin and change into street clothes, chucking one last set of filthy scrubs down the scrub machine’s dirty chute. Remembering one final detail, I grab the phone off the wall and dial housekeeping and ask them to bag and tag our nest. I can come back and grab it later after I’ve eaten something other than cold Chinese takeout.

Outside, I scan the parking lot. My gut tightens when I don’t see her right away before I remember that she’s in the omega side lot. I walk around the corner and see her standing there next to a rusty red beater, her arms folded like she’s hugging herself. When she sees me she relaxes, and then she looks me up and down and for a moment, I feel like a million dollars.

Girls love the leather jacket.

I don’t give her a chance to be awkward and shy. Instead, I grab her by the back of her neck and lean down and claim her mouth. I push her up against her car and kiss her until she’s breathless and melts against me.

“Hey,” I say, smiling as I play with some of the short strands of hair that have escaped her ponytail.

“Hey. I wasn’t sure if… you know, after…”

I press my forehead to hers and breathe in her sweet scent. Lemon and sticky-sweet sugar. I don’t think I’ll ever tire of this smell. “You’re stuck with me, baby. I’m all in. Now let’s go get you fed. You earned it.” A smack on her ass makes it jiggle, and my grin widens when she pouts.

I take her by the arm and lead her toward the sidewalk and down the street to the diner. A waitress seats us in a booth, and I sit next to my girl instead of across from her. I like the press of her thigh against mine, and I like being a human wall between her and the room. Alphas should be able to tell by now that she’s post-heat, but I’m still not taking any chances. Crazy people do stupid things. Stupid people do crazy things. And she’s too precious to risk.

The waitress hands us menus, but I already know what I want. I drop my hand to her thigh and rub it through her legging as she looks over the menu and sneaks glances at me as if she’s still not sure this is for real even after everything that’s happened and been said.

I lean down and whisper into her ear. “Do I need to fuck you over a sink in the bathroom or something so you know I’m not going anywhere?”

The waitress comes back to take our orders and ignores Emily’s red face. “What can I get you?”

“Steak medium-rare and eggs sunny side up. Can I get an order of home fries too? And a chocolate milkshake.”

“And you, hun?”

Emily nibbles on her lip and glances at the menu again. “The Belgian waffle with strawberries and a water. Thank you.” When the waitress leaves, she relaxes against me, and we sit like that for a while. Not talking. Just together and present.

“So what now?” she asks, breaking the silence.

“I called Marcus. They want to meet over lunch and discuss everything. And… they requested to court me too. They asked us both to join their pack.”

“Oh, Sam, that’s great!”

Grinning, I duck my head and run a hand through my hair to fluff it. I’m glad that she’s happy about it. A tiny sliver of me worried she might not be. She’s had so many moments of hesitation and self-doubt and… I get it. I never thought I’d find a pack. It’s only a fifty-fifty thing for betas. A lot of us end up in monogamous pairs, but alphas and omegas almost always end up in packs, even if maybe they take a while to get there.

That reminds me…

“Do you want a baby?”

Her eyes widen, and she glances around the restaurant to see if anyone’s staring. “That’s… Okay, guess we’re asking the hard questions.”

“They want to have lunch with us to go over details. I’m assuming whether or not you wanna get knocked up is a detail they’ll wanna know. I know that in the moment during a heat you can think things that maybe you don’t think normally… so you should probably think about it now. Before they ask. And they will ask.”

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