Page 23 of Two Wrong Turns

The soft-spoken word pulled me out of the daze. “Heat,” I repeated.

Nolan nodded. “You’re in heat. That’s what this is. It has to be.”

Before I could ask what heat was, he pulled out his phone and dialed a number. Placing it on speakerphone mode, he held it between us.

“Everything ok, Sheriff? Your mate pass out again?” the voice asked as they answered.

The man beside me growled. I whimpered as more sweat poured from my body.

“Oh!”

“Yes, oh. I think he’s gone into heat. How is this possible? He shouldn’t be able to without the bond, right, Doctor?”

At Nolan’s question, the doctor spluttered out a few noises. “Well, actually… In rare cases, I’ve heard the proximity to a mate can speed things along. I’ve never seen studies on this or experienced it in a patient though."

“Is that why you failed to mention it? Because it would have been really fucking helpful to know my mate would plead for my knot when I arrived home today. I can’t ask for his consent now because of the haze, Doctor. If I knot him, he could hate me forever. And if I don’t, he’ll be in pain for hours.”

“Days,” the doctor corrected. “It would likely be days since it’s the first.”

Nolan cursed loudly, then hung up the phone. Whatever other information the doctor would have said was lost to the quiet of the forest around us. The only thing I heard was my heavy breathing and my mate’s muttered words.

“I consent, Nolan. You can have me if you want.”

He whipped his head in my direction. “You aren’t fully aware enough to do this, mate. The heat haze is too strong. I can’t hurt you. I’d never forgive myself.”

I shook my head. “Not too strong. Was – was reading before you came home. Needed to know more before I could say yes.”

His face transformed with a look of confusion. I blushed as I handed him my phone. The story I read was still on the screen.

As I watched, he read a bit of what was there. When he finished, he laughed.

“My mate was curious and didn’t want to ask, huh?” Nolan trailed the back of his fingers over my cheek.

I leaned into the touch, sighing at the relief I felt from his closeness.

“Need you,” I repeated. I was getting desperate for him. He might have thought I wasn’t thinking straight, but I knew enough to understand what I was getting into.

He shook his head again. “You’re so fucking beautiful. I want you more than anything, but I don’t know if I can.”

His words angered me. It spurred me to do something I never would have before now.

Pushing him away, I stood on shaky legs and moved down the back porch steps to the grassy area. I turned to face him, then reached down to pull off my shirt.

“What are you doing?” he asked, voice full of hunger.

He wanted me. I knew he did.

I just had to show him I was as ready as he needed me to be. There was no stopping this. If Fate wanted us together, then it was about to get its wish.

Once my shirt was gone, I pushed down my pants and underwear. I laid them out on the grass to cushion my body from the cool earth. While I would have loved to roll around on it to cool off, I had a feeling Nolan wouldn’t want me to.

“You might not believe my words, so maybe my actions will clear your doubts,” I called out.

With a spin, I sunk onto my knees on top of the bundled fabric and bent forward. I pressed my chest to the ground, giving him a perfect view of my ass.

If he was like the shifter in the story, he’d love this pose. They’d called it ‘presenting for your Alpha’.

Remembering that it also said shifters had excellent hearing, I softly spoke the words I hoped would finally break his calm.

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