None of it sounds like me. None of it sounds like control, either.
I lean back in the chair, rub the back of my neck. Boone Walker’s name flashes through my head—the on-call paramedic Gabe mentioned. Boone’s young, competent, trustworthy from what I’ve seen. He’d keep it confidential. Probably.
But Driftwood’s small. Too small. Word travels fast here. One house call, one curious neighbor, and suddenly the sheriff’s having “medical episodes.” That’s all it would take. A rumor. A whisper. And the job I’ve built my life around would unravel before it even started.
Still…
I can’t keep going like this.
Every time I think about her, my body reacts before my brain can catch up. Every time I catch the faintest hint of vanilla, my pulse jumps, my chest tightens, and I feel like a man half-feral. It’s been years since I’ve had to regulate myself like this.
I open another tab.Alpha hormonal regulation therapy at home options.
The search bar fills with quiet desperation. Suppressants, sprays, slow-release implants. All the ways to dull what I am.
It’s almost laughable.
The sheriff of Driftwood, sitting behind his desk in full uniform, looking up ways to keep from losing his mind over a twenty-year-old volunteer he should’ve never touched.
The thought makes me groan out loud. I close the laptop with more force than I mean to.
Jasmine pokes her head in from dispatch. “Everything good, Sheriff?”
“Yeah,” I say quickly. “Just paperwork.”
She nods and disappears again, the faint sound of the scanner following her.
I lean forward, elbows on the desk, head in my hands.
I can still see Millie’s face when she looked up at me in the car this morning—eyes red, voice trembling, the faint scent of salt and vanilla heavy in the air. I told myself I was helping her, that I was being kind.
But it wasn’t just kindness. I wanted to touch her. To comfort her. To breathe her in.
I’m supposed to be better than this.
If I don’t get this under control, I’ll spiral. I know what that looks like. The late nights. The sleeplessness. The agitation that turns into something worse. I’ve seen it happen to other Alphas in the field—men who let their instincts run wild until the line between protection and possession blurred.
That won’t be me.
I glance down at my hands. They’re steady, but my pulse isn’t.
I stand, pace to the window. The street outside is calm. Ordinary. A couple of kids ride past on bikes. An older man waters his plants across the road.
It’s a good town. It deserves better than a sheriff who can’t get his instincts in check.
My reflection stares back at me from the glass. The pressed uniform. The badge. The man who should have everything under control.
I straighten my collar, forcing a slow breath.
If I can survive New York, I can survive this. I’ll find a way to dull it down, to regulate. Maybe it’ll fade with time. Maybe if I avoid her long enough, the scent will lose its pull.
That’s what I tell myself.
But when I close my eyes, I can still feel the ghost of her in my arms—the scent of her, the sound of her breath, the way my body answered hers like it had been waiting for that moment all along.
I press my palms flat against the desk, grounding myself in the solid feel of the wood.
It’s not weakness, I remind myself. It’s biology. Instinct. Nothing I can’t control.
