Page 42 of The Mating Game
A stretch of silence before: “Well, go on then.”
I remind myself that Noah is practically an android and that I shouldn’t be offended by his brusqueness.
“There’s a woman—”
“I’m the last person that you should be asking for advice on women.”
I scoff. “Says the happily mated man.”
“Yes, but”—his tone goes a fraction softer, as it often does when he speaks of his mate—“that was mostly Mackenzie’s doing.”
“Are you telling me I should call your mate?”
I smile at the prickliness in his tone when he answers, “No. You can ask me.”
“There’s a woman here working on the lodge, and—”
“What’s wrong with the lodge?”
“Are you going to let me finish a question or are you going to keep rudely interrupting?”
“You introduced a new topic into the conversation,” he says. “It’s not rude to ask for clarification.”
Literally an android.
“The lodge is fine,” I explain. “Jeannie—” I frown, not exactly wanting to put it out there that my aunt strong-armed me. “I meanIhired a team to do some renovations.”
“That’s nice,” Noah says. He’s quiet for a second before: “Even the corner bedroom upstairs?”
“Yes, I’m sorry to say we will be touching your unspoken heat room.”
I can practically hear him frowning; I don’t want to think about all the reasons that room isspecialto him—it took a week of uncomfortable boners to air out the scent of Mackenzie’s impromptu heat last year.
“I suppose if you have to,” he says petulantly. “What about this woman?”
“She’s heading up the team doing the renovations.”
“And?”
“Andshe’s experiencing some…strange symptoms.”
“What sort of symptoms?”
“Like, a-week-ago-she-was-a-beta symptoms.”
“Ah.”
I rear back. “ ‘Ah’? That’s all you have to say?”
“I’ve heard of this happening,” he tells me.
“You have?”
“Mm-hmm. This isn’t the first case I’ve been made aware of. What sort of symptoms is she experiencing?”
“Heatsymptoms,” I tell him through gritted teeth, tensing from just thethoughtof Tess spiraling into another episode. “Ones that go as fast as they come.”
“How long do they last?”
