Page 91 of Moonlit Nights & Northern Lights
“So,” I said, trying to sound casual as I flopped onto the bed. “Not that straight after all, huh?” I waggled my eyebrows suggestively. “I’m rather pleased I was the one to turn the great Detective Inspector Theodore Maxwell to the dark side.”
Maxwell shrugged, a touch too stiffly. “Sexuality is fluid. I actually think maybe I’ve always been attracted to men, just never acted on it.” His words came out almost rehearsed—had he been waiting to announce this to me?
“So… you’re not like, freaking out at all?” I asked, watching his fingers drum a pattern against his thigh.
Very slowly, he sat on the edge of the bed, folding his arms tightly across his chest. “Areyoufreaking out? What happened to ‘it’s just sex?’” His voice was steady, but his eyes wouldn’t quite meet mine.
I propped myself up on my elbow, ignoring the twinge in my injured shoulder. I didn’t believe Maxwell’s attempt to appear completely unfazed. I needed to throw him a lifeline. Give him a chance to shut this down before it went any further.
“Well, in that case, I was thinking…” I paused, gathering my courage. “Tomorrow morning, it would be best to um… properly get it out of our system, don’t you think?” I shot him a wicked grin to cover up my bubbling anxiety—that he’d reject me, say that once was enough for him. Say that we needed to forget it ever happened, for professional reasons.
“Hmm.” Maxwell tilted his head to one side, making a show of pondering the question, and my stomach knotted. “I suppose it’s important that it’scompletelyout of our system, yes.”
Butterfliesexploded across my nervous system, but I forced myself not to react.
“Before we get straight back to finding Dev, of course,” he added quickly, as if reminding himself as much as me.
“Of course,” I said.
The realisation sent a wave of guilt flooding through me. Here I was, flirting and joking while my ex-boyfriend was still missing, and we hadn’t made any headway on the case. But the way Maxwell looked at me—like he was seeing something worth wanting, even as fear flickered behind his eyes—made it hard to focus on anything else.
When we both crawled under the covers, we left a generous amount of space between us, an unspoken reinforcement of our “it’s just sex” agreement. My leg started bouncing beneath the duvet almost immediately—a restless rhythm that matched the spiralling thoughts in my head. What if Maxwell changed his mind? What if Devwasin real danger while I was here selfishly focusing on whether Maxwell wanted to keep kissing me or not? The mattress shook slightly with each bounce of my foot.
Maxwell spent several minutes lying stone still, staring at the ceiling, his breathing carefully measured. Then, almost hesitantly, his hand crept across the mattress—pausing twice as if he might change his mind—before finally making contact with my elbow. His touch was feather-light at first, uncertain, before settling into softly caressing up and down my arm. The restless energy in my leg began to ebb, the bouncing slowing to a gentle tremor before stopping altogether.
And when I finally fell asleep, it was to his fingertips brushing tenderly around the angry marks Callum left on my shoulder, as if he could stroke my pain away.
13
Theodore
Knock, knock. Knock, knock.
The sound yanked me from sleep, my consciousness resurfacing like a drowning man breaking through dark water. My eyes snapped open to unfamiliar shadows dancing across an unfamiliar ceiling. For several disorienting seconds, I couldn’t remember where I was.
Knock, knock. Knock, knock.
Insistent now, demanding.
I tried to move but found myself anchored in place by a warm weight. Rory. He was draped across my chest like a living blanket, one leg thrown rather possessively over mine, his face buried against my neck. His breath tickled my collarbone in slow, even puffs.
Dead to the world.
The knocking came again, more urgent this time.
“Rory,” I whispered, gently attempting to disentangle myself. He responded by clutching me tighter, mumbling something incomprehensible against my skin. I carefully extracted my arm from beneath him, then lifted his leg off mine, earning nothing but a soft snore for my efforts.
I slid out of bed, my bare feet hitting the cold wooden floor as my hand fumbled for my glasses on the side table. The cottage was still cloaked in near-darkness, though the window showed the faintest hint of dawn’s light. Who the hell would be knocking at this ungodly hour?
Padding down the narrow staircase, it wasn’t until I reached the bottom that I realised I was wearing nothing but my briefs.
Well, if they were going to knock at this ungodly hour, they could hardly complain.
The knocking resumed, three sharp raps that seemed to echo through the silent cottage. My mind flashed to Callum, the wolf who’d attacked Rory. Had he come to finish what he started?
My sleep-addled brain vaguely registered I should grab something—a kitchen knife, a poker from the fireplace—but as I approached the door, I let my telepathy reach out instead. Two minds waited on the other side. Two minds that felt… familiar.
Taking a deep breath, I unlatched the lock and pulled the door open.
