Total pages in book: 185
Estimated words: 180510 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 903(@200wpm)___ 722(@250wpm)___ 602(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 180510 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 903(@200wpm)___ 722(@250wpm)___ 602(@300wpm)
“Well, I’m meeting with a client. Tell your office to call me back.”
I give her a tight smile. I won’t be telling “my office” anything.
“Call me sometime, Detective.”
Last I knew, she was married. But her “call me” sounded personal, not professional.
“Should I tell her, or do you want to tell her that you don’t call people?” I ask the second she saunters off toward the exit.
“New phone.” He pulls said phone out of his pocket. “I haven’t downloaded anything from the cloud yet, so I didn’t have your number.”
“And you forgot where I lived?”
He slips his phone back into the pocket of his suit jacket. Then he loosens his tie and unbuttons the top two buttons to his shirt. “I had a little trip to the ER last night.” He shows me the bandaged area on his neck. “Seven stitches. Missed my artery. I brought a gun to a knife fight, but I was outnumbered.”
I stare at his neck without saying anything.
“Don’t gasp like that, Josie. I’m good. I’ll be fine. Really, no need to overreact.” He feigns when I don’t react.
I smirk and lift my gaze to his. “You weren’t on my table this morning, so I wasn’t worried. Maybe I should teach you how to use your gun properly.”
“Maybe I should put something in your mouth to shut you up.”
Again, I let my amusement free with a small grin. “Small things are choking hazards.”
“Fuck you,” he says on a laugh.
“I thought you would, but you tried to get yourself killed instead.”
Complete satisfaction lights up his face. I haven’t forgotten how to verbally spar with him.
“I have a stack of paperwork. There’s a slim chance that I get more than two hours of sleep tonight. But I want to take you to dinner this week.”
I step closer to him, picking at the corner of his bandage and pulling it back just enough to see his stitches. Yes, whoever cut him missed his carotid, but just barely. After I replace the bandage, I button his shirt, basking in our little bubble as he watches me. I fix his tie and glance up at him, my hands still on his tie.
“Do you love me, Josephine Watts?”
My lips twist as I lift a shoulder, not ready to declare a single emotion because they’re all so blurred. “I something you.”
He returns an easy nod. “I have to get back to the station.”
My gaze returns to his tie as I nod several times. “I figured. I have to get to court.”
His hands take mine, pulling them away from his tie and interlacing our fingers while guiding our hands behind my back, forcing me to look up at him again. “Go set the record straight.”
“I will.”
My confidence pleases him. I can see it in his eyes. Can he also see that he’s the weakest part of me?
I’m too busy looking at him to see anyone else, but I feel people’s gazes as they pass us. Maybe people I know; maybe people he knows. They’re wondering what we’re doing, our intimacy on public display.
I don’t care. I’m done hiding, and I think he is too.
“Are you going to—”
He doesn’t let me finish before bending down. “Yeah, I am.” He kisses me. It’s soft and quick, too quick. “Bye,” he whispers over my lips before releasing my hands and adjusting his tie.
I get one last smile from him and a sexy wink.
That evening, while making dinner, I get a call from him.
“Did you find my number in the cloud?”
He chuckles. It’s deep and slow. “Not yet. I haven’t had time to mess with the cloud, and by mess with the cloud, I mean have the IT dude do it for me. I got your number the old-fashioned way.”
“By asking me and writing it down on a napkin or the back of a junk mail envelope? Because I don’t recall that.”
Again, he gives me that chuckle, and it reaches through the phone and touches me in a way that makes me miss him despite having seen him earlier today. “No, I pulled it from the internal database.”
“Did you get a warrant?”
“I did. It was Sunday afternoon, which I know how hard it is to get a warrant on a Sunday, but I did. It was at your house. I had to get on my knees to do it, and it required some very particular lip service. Eventually, I was granted a solid ‘yessss,’ which I interpreted as permission to gather information on you in any way I deem necessary.” He sighs. “I’m drowning in paperwork. I’m so fucking tired. My wound itches. And I just want to know what your bed feels like because I can’t seem to make it there despite two solid attempts. How are you?”
I don’t answer right away. Instead, I let his voice and his words echo in my head. He’s the old Colten, using me as his safe place to let go of his day’s frustrations. And he’s the new Colten with different frustrations. But one thing hasn’t changed … not being with me still brings him down.