Page 216 of The Darkest Chase

Thank God he wasn’t hurt.

Micah glances back at me, then comes back and kisses my forehead. “I’ll get him cleaned up, then you.”

I smile gratefully and touch his cheek, then watch as he turns away, flicking on the lights at their lowest setting to illuminate the cozy living room before he ducks into the kitchen and comes back with a wet rag.

He settles in with me and Rolf, hooking an arm over the dog’s ruff and getting his face licked. He laughs loudly.

Is it just my imagination, or is he laughing easier now?

Like a crushing weight’s been lifted off his shoulders.

I watch as Micah carefully wipes Rolf’s muzzle clean. He pauses in the middle of the cleanup and looks at me.

“…what? Don’t tell me I have blood on me, too?”

“No.” I shake my head quickly. Well, there’s a little on his bruised knuckles, but that’s not the point. “It’s just… you’re different now. You seem lighter.”

Micah freezes, except for the hand steadily scratching behind Rolf’s ears, and tilts his head. He’s wearing a puzzled look.

“I don’t know. I thought I’d feel empty after this shit went down, with nothing left to live for. Actually, I feel relieved. Like I can finally breathe again, and the air tastes different.”

“Does it taste good?” I bite my lip, holding back my smile.

“Yeah.” He gives me a warm, lingering smile.

And he finishes cleaning up Rolf, then stands and slips away with one more kiss to my head. If I had any inkling of loneliness, that disappears when I end up with my arms full of German Shepherd.

I can’t believe this beast used to hate me.

Giggling, I bury my face in his clean-smelling fur.

That’s how Micah finds me, when he returns with a first aid kit tucked under his arm and one of his button-down shirts folded on top of it. He’s traded his tactical gear for a pair of dark-grey pajama pants and nothing else.

As the lamplight paints his white skin gold, that lingering desire in me becomes a slow simmer. My gaze roams his sculpted chest, the narrow dip of his waist, the way his pelvis arrows past the line of the pajama pants.

With an almost shy smile, Micah holds up his shirt as he settles down on the sofa with Rolf between us.

“In case you wanted to change for bed. If you want to stay here tonight, I mean. I can take you back home. I shouldn’t have—”

“Micah.” I touch his lips, but pull back when I realize my fingers are still bloody and scraped. “Let me stay with you tonight. I need to.”

There’s something reverent about the way he looks at me, this new man peeking past the storm clouds.

“I’m glad as hell to hear you say that,” he whispers. “Because you belong here, Shortcake. I need you, too.”

His confession leaves me dizzy.

We only lock eyes for a moment, my heart trembling in the silence, before he ducks his head and pops the first aid kit open.

He picks through it and finds a gauze pad and a small bottle of alcohol.

“This will sting a bit,” he says. “I’m sorry.”

Understatement of the century.

I think I’d have a better time juggling angry scorpions.

I grit my teeth, hissing as he wipes my fingers, sterilizing the abrasions and blisters before soothing them with some amber cream in an unmarked tin.

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