Total pages in book: 87
Estimated words: 84871 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 424(@200wpm)___ 339(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84871 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 424(@200wpm)___ 339(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
“You shouldn’t be smoking,” I hiss. “Does your mother know?”
“I thought you wanted answers, Officer Do-Good.”
I wave him on to continue.
“And your nephew and his friends show up. At first, they were cool and shit, but then he asked if I wanted to get high. Of course I agreed. I thought he meant weed, but no, his dumbass friend, Charlie, legit tosses a bag of dirty meth at me.”
The cop in me wants to arrest everyone, including Dempsey. “You didn’t…”
His lip curls up. “No. I’m not into that shit.”
“So what happened?”
I swear to God, Dempsey should have gone into theater because he certainly likes drawing out the drama of his stories. It’s maddening when I’m dying to get to the point.
“I asked him if it was a sample or if he was selling.” He scowls at me. “He was selling.”
“What did Trevor do?” I ask, voice shaking with a mix of fear and anger. “Please tell me he wasn’t involved.”
Dempsey sits up and then rises to his feet. So close to him, I have to crane my neck up to see him. Intensity rolls off him in powerful waves, threatening to drown me in them.
“Tell me.”
“He didn’t do much until I told Charlie I wasn’t interested in buying. Trevor seemed agitated and all it took was one look from Charlie before he lost it. Threw a punch at me, the fucker.”
It’s then I realize the slight redness on his cheek.
I did this.
I put him in harm’s way.
My family did this to him.
Some cop I am.
“Dempsey,” I rasp out, reaching up to touch his cheek. “I’m sorry.”
He grips my wrist before I can reach his face. His blue eyes smolder with fiery heat and anger. I don’t know if he’s mad at me or Trevor or the situation I put him in, but it’s well-deserved.
“Don’t apologize for him,” he growls, voice so low it vibrates my skin and every cell beneath it. “Besides, I punched him back.”
I open my mouth, unsure what I want to say to him exactly, but he dips his head until our noses nearly touch. This has whatever words I wanted to say dying on my lips. Staring at him this close has fried my brain.
“You can’t touch me, Sloane. I can’t…I won’t be able to handle it.”
He releases my hand, letting it drop, and then sidesteps me to head for the window. I’m left reeling from his words.
You can’t touch me, Sloane. I can’t…I won’t be able to handle it.
Not because he’s angry at me or Trevor. Not because I’m some cop and he’s the town bad boy. Not because I’m his mom’s best friend.
No, he can’t handle it because it would be torture.
He glances over his shoulder at me. Pain is written all over his handsome face, tugging his full lips into a sad frown that breaks my heart.
Why is he hurt?
Why do I feel like I’m responsible for his anguish?
“Dempsey,” I whisper. “I…I’m…”
“It’s fine. It’s nothing. Forget it ever happened.” He shakes his head, teeth grinding together. “See you Saturday.”
But I can’t forget.
It did happen.
Dempsey likes me. His joke about a date wasn’t a joke at all. He really actually likes me—so much, in fact, that my mere touch would have done something to him. What? I have no idea, but I do know he was worried about the outcome.
Holy shit. This is an actual problem.
A big one.
One that I’m going to have to deal with before it escalates any further.
Dempsey
Fuck, I’m going insane.
Sloane is slowly driving me to madness and I don’t know what to do about it. Several days have passed since the weird admission of her effect on me while in her bedroom and I’m still obsessing over it.
I shouldn’t have said anything.
I should have let her comfort me.
But I was barely hanging on by a thread. Seeing her in her pajamas, her pert nipples peeking through the nearly transparent fabric of her shirt, killed me. I was thinking of everyone and everything just to keep my boner at bay.
If she’d have touched me, I might have touched her back.
Fuck.
It would have been heaven, but it also would have meant risking this budding thing between us. At least, as it stands now, she’s opening up to me and agreeing to spend more time with me.
“You’re so quiet and it’s kind of freaking me out.”
Jerking my head to my right, I meet Gemma’s concerned stare. “What?”
“You’re in la-la land. Maybe I should drive.”
I scoff at that. She’s in charge of the shitty music and directions while I’m in charge of getting us there in one piece. “I’m fine.”
“Is it because we’re going hiking with your crush?”
I nearly swerve off the road at her question. “What the hell are you talking about?”
My voice is high-pitched, and I sound guilty as fuck.
“Oh, give me a break, dummy. First, you invited her for dinner, then you brought her coffee, and now we’re going on a hike with her. What exactly am I supposed to think?”