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Because she was finally feeling what I’d known for a long time.
That it wasn’t just one-sided, me and my damn inconvenient Claiming.
No.
She felt something too.
But she’d been working so hard denying it, locking it behind a wall, that when the full force of it hit her, she lost her fucking shit.
Not that I could blame her. I hadn’t exactly handled the news in a healthy way when I first realized it, either.
Which was why I didn’t press it.
Some part of me thought that when it was fresh and new and confusing, it would be easier to talk to her about it, to try to ease her into it, so she didn’t spiral for weeks or months like I’d done.
But the other part of me knew that Dale was not the kind of woman who responded well to being pressed. She needed time and space to think.
Did all that thinking mean something positive for me, for us? Honestly, knowing her, probably not.
I was willing to bet, though, that while she might be able to convince herself that it was nothing, no big deal, when she was alone, that each time we were around each other, it was going to get harder and harder to deny.
Eventually, hopefully, she would learn to accept it.
Then, some time after that, possibly even be happy about it.
Was that a whole fuckuva lot of wishful thinking?
Yeah, probably.
But it was the first time since the whole Claiming thing that I had even a chance of something real with Dale.
I wasn’t going to psych myself out of it.
I made my way home, intent on asking Ace about the situation, but he had gone off to bed already.
It was okay.
I had time.
In fact, the more I could drag the whole thing out, the better.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Dale
Okay.
It was okay.
I just needed to calm my ass down and focus.
It didn’t matter if he, you know, loved me.
Or whatever the demon version of love was.
That didn’t matter.
It changed nothing.
Now, did a little, niggling voice keep whispering that it meant quite a bit? Sure. But I went ahead and drowned that little bitch out with some metal music as I scrolled through the archives back at The Academy.
The wall, well, I kept it most of the way in place.
Not completely.
We had a deal, after all. But up enough that I was pretty sure I was able to keep him from feeling any of the conflicting feelings I was having when one managed to pop up despite my defenses.
It was down enough that I could feel him relaxing as he likely dropped down into bed. But it wasn’t so far down that I could feel whatever it was I could sense him trying to project toward me.
Whatever it was, I didn’t need it.
But, God, a part of me wanted to know what it was.
I wasn’t entirely sure how the hell I was going to face him after that moment of pure insanity in the backseat of my car. My Academy-owned car. You know, the same Academy where I was employed. Where I lived. Slaying demons.
Not, and I repeat not, falling in love with them.
Not even a little bit.
And certainly not romance-movie-love.
Nope.
I figured that maybe if I hit the books and news articles hard enough, if I managed to figure out why Minos had fixated on that park, then I wouldn’t need him anymore.
If that park was some sort of hot spot for the demon I was after, then all I really needed to do was go there. Wait. And then do what I was designed to do.
Slay the demon.
Then it would all be over.
I could slam that wall between Minos and me back down.
I could reinforce it.
With bricks.
Barbed wire.
And holy fucking water.
Then all I needed to do was, well, not see him again.
Sure, my track record with that wasn’t great. Hell, even as I sat in front of the Microfilm with bleary eyes and too many discarded energy drinks at my side, I could still feel his lips on mine, his hand on my throat, his cock pistoning inside me.
“Ugh,” I grumbled, leaning my head backward over the chair.
And it was right then that I realized I wasn’t alone.
Because there was the bottom of a coffee cup above my face.
There was only one person in the whole damn world who would bring me coffee.
Gideon.
“You look like shit, Dale,” he told me as I swiveled the chair, and reached for the coffee like a lifeline, grabbing it with both hands.
I was suddenly very aware of how cold I was.
I could blame Minos and his warmth for that.
No.
Nope.
I could blame the cold, damp basement for that.
That was all.
“Always such a charmer, Gideon,” I said as he moved around me to lean against the edge of my desk, eyeing all the spent energy drink cans.
“You do realize that while you have some supernatural powers, that you are, in fact, human. And require sleep. Not just all that stimulant shit.”
