“Shh!” I coo.
Damon reaches over, his fingers gently stroking the blanket-covered bundle in my lap.
“He’s warming up,” he says. “That’s good. Caroline will be so happy we found him.”
“I shouldn’t have let her go out in this weather,” I say. The words come out rough. “I knew something was wrong. I could feel it. But she was so set on finding him, and I couldn’t just?—”
“You did the right thing. We found him. He’s alive.”
“That’s not what I mean.” I take a breath. “I mean with us. Me and her. I’ve been so focused on getting her back, on making her see that I never stopped loving her, that I didn’t stop to think about what she actually needs. What she wants.”
“What does she want?”
“I don’t know.” The admission tastes bitter. “I thought I did. I thought she wanted me… but then there’s you, and there’s a Council envoy sniffing around who apparently knows her from somewhere, and she looked at him tonight like?—”
“Like what?”
“Like she recognized something.”
Damon doesn’t respond. His hand is still resting on the blanket, on the cat, and his gaze is fixed out the windshield. The rain is starting to let up, the wards finally getting a proper grip on the storm.
“I’m not going to fight you for her,” Damon says quietly.
“What?”
“I’m not going to fight you. If she chooses you, I’ll step back. But I’m not going to pretend I don’t feel what I feel. That wouldn’t be fair to anyone.”
I stare at him. In the dim glow of the dashboard, his face is unreadable. It’s more like he’s made peace with something. Accepted it.
“You’d really do that?”
“I’m the sheriff of this town, Griffin. My job is to protect people. Sometimes that means protecting them from myself.” He leans his head back against the seat. “Besides, I get the feeling Caroline isn’t a woman who wants to be fought over. She wants to be listened to.”
He’s right. That’s exactly what she wants. And I’ve been so busy trying to win her back that I haven’t done any listening at all.
Thistle stirs in my lap, a weak meow escaping the blanket. I look down at him, at his tiny face, and something in my chest cracks open.
“I just want her to be happy,” I say. “Even if that’s not with me.”
Damon nods. “Yeah. Me too.”
The rest of the drive passes in silence. The streets are empty, the town shut down against the storm. When I pull up in front of Caroline’s house, the porch light is on.
Damon kills the engine. I reach for the door handle, but Damon’s hand lands on my arm.
“Wait.”
I frown at him. “What?”
“Just… wait a second.”
Then I smell it.
Honey and cinnamon, thick and cloying, rolling through the cracked windows of the cruiser like a wave. Underneath it, something darker. Musk.
Sex.
My cock goes hard instantly.
