Total pages in book: 117
Estimated words: 111416 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 557(@200wpm)___ 446(@250wpm)___ 371(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 111416 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 557(@200wpm)___ 446(@250wpm)___ 371(@300wpm)
No way would she tell a girl, only fifteen-and-a-half years old, how hot an adult man was. That was just weird and a bit icky.
“Figured she was stretching the truth, since apparently you don’t think I’m hot.”
It always surprised her how fragile men could be when it came to their sexual prowess. “I never said that. I just think it’s smarter if we don’t get involved in that manner.” At least while on the task force. “We need to remain professional.”
“Then you should’ve said no, Kitten, and not let it get that far.”
Of course, he made it her fault. “I thought we were just getting it out of our system so we could think with clear heads,” she hissed.
“And we both knew that might be a complete failure.” His nostrils flared and his brown eyes became sharp. “Obviously, it was.”
“It’s only a failure if we allow it to be.”
“That why you’ve been freezin’ me out since the bathroom incident?”
The bathroom incident? “Look, I’m trying my fucking best here. I’m here to do my damn job, Ghost, not do you.”
“Wasn’t good enough?”
She sucked in a sharp breath. “Where the hell did you even get that idea?” She lowered her voice. “During… the incident, you were even commenting on how,” she leaned closer to him, whispering, “wet I was.”
She leaned back after getting a whiff of a mix of Hoppe’s No. 9, used for cleaning firearms, and a pungent gun oil. Two scents she was very familiar with.
“You kept disappearin’ into your head. Coulda been thinkin’ ‘bout someone else like—”
“If you say Russo, I’m going to kick you in the damn nuts.”
“A past lover,” he finished.
Are they really going there? Here? In the pawn shop where they were supposed to be a biker and his ol’ lady who slept together regularly and not task force partners who shouldn’t? “I guarantee you there’s not one lover from my past living in my head. And do you seriously need me to prop up your ego?”
One side of his mouth pulled up. “So, you’re sayin’ I fucked you good.”
She released a long sigh, and somehow managed not to roll her eyes. She deserved a medal for that feat. “Yeah, Ghost, you fucked me good,” she whispered sharply. “That doesn’t mean we should do it again. It wasn’t that you sucked, it’s that things between us could get complicated.”
“I disagree.”
“Then we’ll have to agree to disagree.”
“What’s the major issue with us doin’ that again?”
She bugged her eyes out at him. “Do we really need to be talking about this here?”
“You’re right. We shouldn’t. You’re done with your shift. Let’s go.” He grabbed her arm and, even though they were on opposite sides of the display case, he began to pull her around to the end.
When she tried to jerk her arm free, he only tightened his hold. “I have to tell Ivy I’m leaving.”
“Ivy, Kitten’s leavin’,” he yelled, not stopping until he had dragged her through the store and out into the late afternoon sun.
Since the pawn shop had no windows, she blinked at the shock of brightness as he kept pulling her through the side parking lot toward the apartment stairs. She had to walk faster to keep up. If she didn’t and she stumbled, he probably wouldn’t care and she’d end up with road rash.
“Slow down, Ghost!”
“Keep up, Kitten,” he growled.
“Why are you in such a damn rush?” She tried to slow him down by leaning back. She failed.
“‘Cause I want a fuckin’ answer.”
“Another thirty seconds isn’t going to change that answer.”
Without warning, he released her wrist at the bottom of the stairs and with jerky movements, hiked up them, jammed his key into the lock and shoved the door open.
She took a calming breath at the bottom of the metal stairway and shook her head before following him up and inside.
As soon as she shut the door behind her, he spun on her with his hands clamped on his hips and his expression not showing any kind of happy. That made two of them. “What’s the major issue of us doing that again?”
“You know why, so I shouldn’t need to answer that, but I will since you’re purposely being obtuse. I need to focus on being Kitten. You need to focus on being Ghost. We both need to focus on gathering intel on the Demons.”
“And you can’t focus because we fucked? Why?”
“Because…”
“Because what happened in that bathroom keeps replaying in your head twenty-four seven.” That wasn’t posed as a question, he stated it as fact.
A fact she couldn’t deny. She slowly pulled in a breath through her nostrils.
“Wouldn’t it be less distracting if we don’t withhold what we want? That’s what’s making me lose my damn mind, Nova. I fucking want you and I’m not afraid to tell you that I can’t fucking stop thinking about what we did and how much I want to do it again. That’s my fucking distraction. Not the sex part. The not having sex part. If I knew I would get to fuck you later tonight, maybe I wouldn’t be so goddamn obsessed with you and this whole fucking thing. Ever think of that?”