But it doesn’t feel like it. Right now, it feels completely unfair. So, I kiss her before she can answer, unable to resist touching her while we’re alone.
It's slow and sensual. Her mouth is warm against mine, and I let myself have just this. The soft press of her lips. The small moan she makes when our mouths meet, and the way her hands come up to rest on my damp chest, leaning into me.
When I finally lift my head, I keep her face in my hands and linger there, an inch between us, breathing her in. My bear is howling, and I commit every second to memory, because I may never get another.
Then I let her go.
I step back and turn for my truck without looking back at her, because if I look at her once, I won't leave.
The sweep of her headlights across the car park as she drives away feels final as I get into my truck and rest my forehead on the steering wheel with a curse.
Protecting her means staying away… but that doesn’t mean I can’t still watch out for her from a distance.
The roads are empty as I pull onto the main route back toward town. Her taillights appear ahead of me, and I fall inbehind her at a careful distance, needing to make sure she gets home safely.
Twice, she takes turns I hadn’t predicted, and I have to hang back further to keep from spooking her, but the roads narrow as we get further out of town, and there aren't many places she could be going.
When she finally slows and signals to turn, I drive by in case she notices me behind her.
Moving past the entrance to the property at a normal speed, I watch in the rear view as her brake lights flare, and her car turns into the dark mouth of the drive. I count to thirty, find a verge wide enough to turn around in, then kill my headlights and roll back the way I came.
I tuck the truck in, maybe fifty yards down from her driveway, behind a stand of trees thick enough to hide it. The road is empty in both directions, so I sit and wait. And watch.
The house is visible in glimpses through the trees, and it's exactly what I should have known it would be. Even in the dark, with only the lights from a few downstairs windows to go by, I can tell it’s huge, two stories of stone and timber.
The driveway curves up through trees in a way that means the front is invisible from the road, providing privacy and security. The grounds vanish into the darkness on either side, and I can't tell from here where they end. Only less than ten feet from the front door, though, like my rental. I can tell that much.
The downstairs lights move as she walks through the house. A small lamp comes on in what might be a study and goes off again a minute later, then a light comes on upstairs. After a few minutes, the curtain at the upstairs window moves, drawing closed, and a shadow passes behind it. The fabric twitches, like she's standing at the glass, looking out at the dark.
I sit very still in the cab of my truck. The big fat drops falling from the branches above are pounding on the roof while theengine ticks as it cools. Watching her shadow makes every part of me want to cross that lawn, bang on the door and tell her she doesn't have to give me up.
My bear is pacing the inside of my skull, snarling at me to do it.
Fuck her colleagues. Who cares what they’ll say. Choose me over your career. I’ll make you happy…
But I can’t do that.
She might be mine, something my bear has known since she walked into that hotel bar, but I’m not hers. At least, not yet, and maybe not ever. So, forcing it now, when dating me potentially comes at the cost of her job, would only make her resent me.
Upstairs, the bedroom light goes off.
I sit there for another long minute looking at the dark window. Then I reach for the key, start the engine once more, and pull away with my lights off until I'm well past her drive. The house disappears in the rear view, lost behind the trees, and I force myself to keep going.
Leaving my mate behind.
13
LISA
One hand on the lid of my takeaway coffee cup, I hurry across the precinct car park, but by the time I push through the front doors, I've still managed to spill some of it down the cuff of my jacket.
Inside, the bullpen at shift change is already half-full and noisy. I drop my bag at my desk and head straight into the briefing room.
The Monday morning debrief is already mostly assembled, uniforms standing along the back wall with their notebooks out, day-shift sergeants up front, and the chief at the head of the room with a small, dark-blue box in his hand that I clock immediately as a pit opens up in my stomach.
Please, no.
Shrinking back, I pray that I’m wrong, but that hope diminishes when he waves me forward, expression bored.
