My heart does a complicated little flip-flop, a reaction I can’t control, no matter how much I might want to. This is the first time I’m seeing her since I fucked her. The memory hits me with the force of a physical blow, an embarrassing pulse that makes my cheeks burn.
I stop the truck, the engine still running. “Hey,” I say, climbing out, the door closing with a heavy thud.
She stops, turning to face me. “Hey,” she says back. She looks tired, her shoulders slumped, but there’s a defiance in her eyes that I recognize all too well.
“Where are you headed?” I ask, my voice rougher than I intended. I clear my throat and then curse myself for being too obvious. She doesn’t seem to notice how nervous I am.
“I’m meeting June at the apothecary,” she says. “We still have some cleanup to do from… well, from everything.”
I pocket my keys, then pull them out again. “Can we talk?”
Caroline looks around, at the empty street, at the dark windows of the surrounding buildings, and finally nods. “Okay.”
She climbs into the passenger seat of my truck, the leather creaking under her weight. I slide back into the driver’s side, the space between us feeling both too small and too vast. The moment I’m in, I breathe in. And I know, with a certainty that settles deep in my bones, that this was a mistake.
She smells too fucking good. It fills the small space, wrapping around me. It’s the scent of her skin, her heat. It’s a memory I can’t escape, a phantom limb that aches with a sudden, fierce longing.
I grip the steering wheel, my knuckles white. I have to say something. I have to break the silence.
“I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you.” The admission is ripped out of me, raw and unvarnished. “I’ve wanted to come see you. To talk to you. But I know Griffin is back, and I don’t understand…”
A short, bitter laugh escapes her lips. “You don’t understand? Join the club.” She looks away, staring out the windshield at the empty street. “There’s no ‘me and Griffin.’ Not anymore. He left. He’ll probably be gone for weeks. Rosehill needs him.”
Weeks. The word hangs in the air. All this time I thought she was with him, that I was just a momentary lapse in judgment, a convenient distraction while her boyfriend was out of town. The thought is a punch to the gut.
“So you two aren’t together?”
“We haven’t been together for a really long time, Damon,” she says again.
How? I mean, I spent just one heat with her, and I almost went crazy from withdrawal. How could someone belong to her fully and choose to let her go. How?
“What happened?”
She stares at me for a couple of seconds. “Is that why you’ve been avoiding me? You really thought that I would cheat on my Alpha?”
“Heat makes Omegas do stupid things.” The look on her face quickly makes me backtrack. “We were high on emotions. I was only supposed to come in and check up on you. None of what happened was planned. It… it’s been so complicated trying to understand what the hell happened. So humor me, Caroline. Tell me that I didn’t make a fool of myself, pining over an Omega who belonged to someone else.”
She swallows thickly before licking her lips. I have to look away because I’m so tempted to lean in and lick her lips too.
What the hell is wrong with me?
“I meant what I said about me and Griffin. We weren’t working. It was never going to work. He wanted the city, a life on a fast track. I’m… tied here. To the apothecary, to my life. To my mom. To this town. We just wanted different things. The friction was constant.”
She shakes her head, a self-deprecating smile on her face as she continues.
“After we broke up, I decided to steer clear of men. I was going to focus on learning and working at the apothecary. So when you say that what happened was unprecedented, no one understands that more than me. I was never supposed to… fuck. And then I go and do that. With you. I practically begged you to fuck me.” Her voice cracks on the last word. “God, I feel so pathetic. Pining for a man who left me and then throwing myself at my best friend’s cousin? That was stupid. I was so stupid.”
“Hey. Don’t talk about yourself like that. Don’t talk about what happened like that. It wasn’t pathetic.”
“Wasn’t it?” she snaps, turning to face me, her eyes flashing in the dim light. “I was a mess. I was in heat, and I was lonely, and I used you. I’m sorry, Damon. I really am.”
I don’t want her apology. I don’t want her to feel sorry. I want to understand. “That’s not why I stopped you.”
“Then why?” she challenges.
“Because I need to know what’s going on with you. I can smell it on you. Your scent… it’s not right.”
Her shoulders slump, the fight draining out of her. She looks down at her hands, clenched in her lap. “That’s the other thing. I think I’m going out of my mind.” She takes a shaky breath. “My scent keeps shifting. It’s been happening since my last heat. One minute it’s normal, cinnamon and honey. The next it’s… this.” She gestures vaguely at the air between us. “Sugary. Strong. Like the potion I spilled today. And sometimes… sometimes it’s something else entirely. Something I don’t recognize. I don’t understand what’s happening to me.”
