Chapter 19
Honeysuckle and ginger caught me like a slug to the gut. Carla saw the look on my face a moment before catching the scent herself.
“Shit,” she mumbled, and pushed me into one of the offices and closed the door. “I’ll let you out when she’s gone.”
I pressed my forehead against the barrier keeping me away from what I hadn’t realized I still craved so deeply.
She’s here.
My omega.
Take her.
It was coming up on two years since I had seen Allie. Dr. J had meticulously kept us apart at my request, but Allie must’ve come in unannounced today. My nails curled against the door as if by will alone it would shatter and let me go to her. All I had to do was turn the knob. She was closer than she had been for a long time and I hadn’t expected all those days between us to evaporate into nothing. She was a memory burned into my muscle, every inch of my body prepared to take her back to bed and claim her like I wanted to. It was too soon.
The legal barrier wouldn’t be gone until a couple months after her heat was over. If I saw her now it would restart the clock. I couldn’t be her nurse, couldn’t be her heat helper, couldn’t take the risk that I wouldn’t be able to control myself when we came face-to-face. Sure, I couldn’t bond her unless she went into heat, but with how taut my body was, and how loud my instincts were screaming, I was liable to throw her over my shoulder, and take her home to wait until she was in heat so that I could make her mine.
Dr. J had put me to work at one of the other clinics whenever Allie had an appointment here. They kept me away for days at a time so that the ghost of her scent would be unable to haunt me.
All I wanted was a glimpse, but I wasn’t strong enough to give myself that indulgence.
Next year it would be different.