“What is?”
Sid cupped Dante’s face with his warm palm and rubbed his temple with one fingertip. “Whatever just rattled you so bad. Sab and his friends are nice guys but dense as fuck. They probably didn’t even notice.”
“I don’t care about them.”
Sid breathed a slow inhale, then expelled it, like he was breathing life into Dante’s dead soul. “It doesn’t suit you, just so you know.”
Dante scrubbed a hand over his face, tired. “What doesn’t?”
“Being a cold bastard. It’s not who you are.”
Dante didn’t have the energy to argue, not this time. He shrugged and jerked his head at Sid’s car. “Are you okay to drive?”
After a long moment, Sid nodded. “Sure.”
They climbed into the Golf and pointed it back to Wilburn. Sid was uncharacteristically quiet, though his tapping fingers gave his agitation away. On any other day, Dante might’ve reached over and stilled them or prodded Sid to tell him what was driving his restless energy, but he had enough of his own to deal with. And he still kind of wanted to upchuck at the side of the road.
The roads were quieter than they’d been when they’d made the journey in the opposite direction, and without commuter traffic for Sid to yell at, they were nearly home before Dante could blink.
Home.He turned the word over, and more anxiety flooded him. Wilburn wasn’t his home. It was the safe,temporaryplace that prison had dumped him. One day—and that day would come sooner than he could ever imagine—his time in Sid’s garden would come to an end, and he’d have to face nice,normalmen like Saban and his mates all the time. He’d have to accept that the people out there who really did want to kill him were few and far between and stop hiding from shadows.
But the shadows are inside and they’re not going anywhere.
The car door next to Dante opened, and a gust of fresh air hit him straight in the face. They’d stopped. Parked up in the middle of nowhere. Except it wasn’t nowhere. It was the car park where they’d begun.
We’re home.
There was that word again. Dante shuddered, but it was cut off by the world moving as Sid pulled him upright and out of the car.
Sid pressed his forehead against Dante’s, breathing hard. “I hate this, and don’t sayhate what?I’ll fucking die.”
Dante said nothing, numb, now the meltdown he’d had at Anna’s had faded. Instinct drew his hands to Sid’s hips, and he let them slide beneath Sid’s clothes before he realised what he was doing. “Fuck. Sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. I like it.”
“So do I.”
Dante met Sid’s consuming stare. His hands made contact with bare skin, and he pulled Sid closer, mashing their bodies together. “Tell me again why you can’t have it?”
“I don’t want to tell you again. Once was enough.”
“Yeah, but...” Dante oh-so-gently canted his hips, pressing the hardness in his own jeans against the significant bulge in Sid’s.
Sid bit his lip and squeezed his eyes shut. “I know. Why the fuck it’s got to show up now when I should be your mate, I have no idea.”
“You don’t think this is being my mate?”
“Not when all I want to do is drag you into the woods and throw you down on the ferns, no.”
Dante shivered, and for the first time since they’d left Anna’s, it was all pleasure. “I wouldn’t stop you.”
“That’s why I shouldn’t do it.”
“Because I want it? That makes no sense.”
“Because ofwhyyou want it.” Sid opened his eyes. Under the moonlight, they gleamed silver instead of their usual wildflower blue. “You want to forget, don’t you?”
“About what?”