Page 224 of Nobody Told Me Thrift Shops Sell Stolen Dragon Heirlooms

I suspected she knew. Quinn had become increasingly skilled at reading the places where my restraint thinned. She seemed to enjoy finding them.

At the next stoplight, she lifted our joined hands and kissed my knuckles.

I looked at her.

She smiled, slow and sleepy and pleased with herself.

There were several things I considered saying. None of them were enough.

By the time we reached her building, however, Quinn’s head had tipped against the window. Her eyes were closed. The city lights passed over her face in soft bands. One hand rested over the locket at her throat.

“Asleep?” I asked quietly.

“No,” she murmured.

Max huffed from the back seat.

I smiled.

Her building door latched properly when I opened it.

I would never admit the degree of satisfaction that gave me.

Max stepped out carefully, leaning against my leg for a moment before following us upstairs. I carried Quinn because she muttered something about walking and then immediately failed to open both eyes. She was warm and pliant in my arms, one hand curling instinctively into my jacket.

“This is excessive,” she whispered.

“Yes.”

“Okay.”

Inside her apartment, Max walked straight to his dragon bed, circled once, and collapsed with a groan that suggested the burdens of luxury had finally caught up with him.

I carried Quinn to her bed.

She woke enough to help with her shoes, then fell back against the pillow while I pulled the blanket over her. The locket still rested at her throat. I touched it once, very lightly, then tucked the chain so it wouldn’t catch while she slept.

“Stay?” she asked.

There was no seduction in it now. Only trust.

“Yes.”

“Good.”

I kissed her forehead.

She made a small sound and turned into the pillow.

Max opened one eye, so I crossed the room and bent to kiss the top of his head too.

He accepted it, as always, as tribute.

When I straightened, Quinn was asleep.

The apartment settled around us. Pipes in the wall. A siren somewhere far below. Max snoring softly. The faint city light at the edges of the curtains. This room had once seemed too small for her. Too unsafe. Too far from everything I knew how to manage.

Now it held more of my life than any estate wing ever had.