Twenty-seven years old, and one kiss has completely rewired my brain.
I type three words. Delete them. Type them again. My hand creeps back toward my face.
"You've got to be kidding me."
I jerk upright so fast I nearly tip my chair. Nate Thorn stands in my doorway, arms crossed. He's got about six years and thirty pounds of muscle on me, and right now he's wearing his "concerned partner" expression—the one that means he's noticed something's off.
"Working hard?" He doesn't wait for an invitation, just walks in and shuts the door behind him. "Or hardly working?"
"Just concentrating."
"On the same sentence you've been staring at for the last twenty minutes." He sits, studying me with the kind of patience that comes from being a senior deputy. "You've retyped it six times, Seth. What's going on?"
Damn it. "I'm fine."
"You keep touching your mouth." His tone isn't mocking—it's observation. "And you smell different. Like..." He leans forward slightly, eyes sharpening. "Is that omega scent on you?"
Heat crawls up my neck.
Nate's expression shifts. Not teasing, serious. "Seth. What happened at the festival?"
I could lie. Should lie. But Nate's been my partner for three years, and he's pulled me out of enough tight spots that I owe him honesty.
"Bea Wilson kissed me."
Silence. Nate processes this, his face unreadable.
"Ben's sister," he says finally. "The one who just got back from college."
"Yes."
"In public?"
"In front of half the town."
Nate leans back in his chair, and I brace myself for judgment. Instead, he asks quietly, "You okay?"
The question catches me off guard. "I—yeah. I think so."
"That's not exactly a confident answer." He's watching me carefully now. "Walk me through what happened."
I explain it. Bea looking panicked, her ex crowding her, the way she suddenly crossed to me and kissed me like her life depended on it. The kiss that started as desperation and turned into something that's been burning through my veins for the past two hours.
"So she used you," Nate says when I finish. Not cruel, just stating facts. "To get rid of her ex."
The words land hard. "Yeah. Probably."
"But you don't think so."
"Does it matter? She ran off right after."
"Or she was embarrassed about creating a scene in front of the entire town." Nate tilts his head. "Did she seem into it? The kiss, I mean."
Into it. My alpha side growls at the memory—her fingers tightening in my shirt, how she pressed closer when I deepenedthe kiss, that small sound she made. The scent of her arousal, unmistakable.
"She kissed back," I say quietly.
"That's not what I asked."
