by April Hunt
Everything seemed easier when it involved Zoey. Breathing. Sleeping. Living. Around her, he didn’t feel like the colossal fuck-up who’d disappointed his entire family.
Knox pulled his cell from his pocket, and got eyed by Cade. “I’m calling your sister to give her her Get Out of Jail Free card. Unless you want to do the honors.”
“Nah.” Cade shook his head. “You were the poor bastard who had to tell her she had to spend another day with your brothers. You need the bonus points more than I do.”
Tallying up bonus points should be the last thing on Knox’s mind. He wasn’t going to be around long enough to collect any amount that would give him what he truly wanted.
Zoey thought after Knox’s phone call and the ending of an agonizingly long game of chess with Liam, her headache would disappear, but she had no such luck.
Massaging her temple with one hand, she reached into her desk drawer with the other, blindly searching for the bulk bottle of Tylenol she’d stashed in there last week.
“Are you trying to communicate with someone telepathically? Because you know we have interoffice mail. More paperwork but less headaches.” Lieutenant Mason leaned a hip on her desk and looked down on her in fatherly concern.
“I hear the words coming from your lips, but I can’t quite string them together.” Her fingers bumped into the bottle. “Aha! Jackpot! My head’s echoing like a tom-tom drum and it brought orchestra friends.”
Zoey popped two pills into her mouth and, realizing she’d forgotten her cardiac meds, shuffled through her purse and added them to the tally. “Did you come over to make bad jokes or did you need something?”
“Someone said they saw you come in and I needed to see for myself. Didn’t you take the day off?”
Zoey quietly returned her meds to her purse. “No, I was directed to take it off by a certain big brother and four obnoxiously large Steele men.”
Mason nodded in understanding. “The necklace thing.”
“You know about it too? Oh, wait. Of course you do. Thank God it turned out to be a coincidence or I’d still be on lockdown.”
“And instead of enjoying the rest of the day and night, you came into work. You young people seriously have your work ethic screwed up.”
Zoey laughed at his sarcasm. “I had paperwork to finish before the next task force meeting. And yes, I realize how pathetic that sounds. You don’t need to rub it in.”
He stuck out his hand. “Give it to me. I’ll finish. You go.”
“It’s my job as the grunt to get this done.”
“And it’s my job to make sure that I don’t scare off my future replacement.” Mason grinned. “If I scare you off before you take over, I don’t get to retire and, kid, I need to retire…to somewhere with a beach and a hammock that my ass doesn’t have to get out of except to take a piss.”
Zoey’s headache melted away her stubbornness. “Okay, I relent. The test report on top is the only one that needs to be interpreted. All the others are already done. And then we need to make copies for—”
“This was my job until they approved for me to have my own servant—I mean, protégé.”
Zoey chuckled, pushing her glasses onto her nose. “Point taken. I’m going to clean my desk and head out.”
“Sounds like a plan.” He winked and left, leaving Zoey to straighten up the mess left behind. Once she was able to see the dented metal surface, she’d pulled her purse from her drawer.
The phone rang, nearly splitting her head in half. A quick glance at the caller ID, and she knew she couldn’t ignore it.
“Adam,” she said in lieu of a greeting because only one person in the lab worked this late on a weekend, “please keep in mind before you say anything that it’s been a long day and my vocabulary pretty much consists of fire-bad, puppy-cute.”
“I need you to come down here,” Adam hissed. “Pronto.”
Zoey swallowed a sigh. Her former assistant was as smart as they came, but he didn’t take unexpected stress well. “Whatever it is, you got this. You’re—”
“Locked in the lab and he’s probably leaving freakin’ fist indents on the other side.”
“I’m sorry, what?”
“Will you please come and fix this?”
“I’m on my way.”
She grabbed her things and bypassed the slow elevator in favor of the stairs.
Located in the precinct basement, the district lab was called the Dungeon for a reason, because except for small half windows that were even with the DC sidewalk, there wasn’t much natural light.
The Dungeon consisted, in total, of three rooms. The smaller, outer room off the hall looked like any other office space with desks and computers. Techs typed up reports and sent them upstairs to the appropriate detectives.
Purgatory was the middle room. A window-encased clean-prep area tucked between the actual lab and office, it was where staff donned their gowns and gloves before heading into the glass-protected lab—the third room—on the other side.
Scott Reed stood in Purgatory, shouting a string of curses at the man in the lab, already gowned, gloved, and wearing his favorite Minion operating cap.
Through the slit between his cap and his mask, Adam’s eyes caught Zoey’s.
Zoey prepped herself for contact and cleared her throat. “Is there something that I can get for you, Officer Reed?”
“What are you—?” Scott spun around, shooting Adam a death glare through the window. “Seriously, you little pipsqueak? You called her?”
“Hell yeah I called her. No one will protect this place quite like the Mother of Dungeons.” Adam’s muffled statement would have made Zoey grin if she hadn’t been standing face-to-face with Reed.
“He’s right,” Zoey agreed. “I may not be in the lab anymore, but I worked damn hard to get it to the point it is now. What can we do for you?”
“I tried finding out from this little pip what was taking so damn long with this fucking Cupid case. I mean it’s been six months and nothing? I find that hard to believe…unless there’s a moron running the ship.”
“I assure you that Adam’s far from a moron. He probably has as many letters behind his name as are in the alphabet.”
“Which makes it even harder to believe that we’ve got jack shit to fucking go on.” He took a small step closer and Zoey inched to the left, farther behind the desk…and closer to the panic alarm if needed.
If Reed didn’t like her presence, he really wouldn’t like the slew of officers that alarm would bring. But no way would she let him compromise the lab’s integrity and all the testing happening inside either. “I must have missed your name on the task force roster. When did you transfer onto the team?”
His face hardened as he shifted on his feet, a subtle but noticeable move. “You think I can’t get on that team? I’m waiting for the official word, and then you better believe that things will move along.”
“Just a little bit of advice. Harassing the lab manager to the point that he locks himself in the lab isn’t how you go about moving things along. It’s a good way to increase the likelihood that something happens to irreplaceable evidence.”
Scott snorted. “What-the-fuck-ever. Forget it. I’m not going to be part of a team that doesn’t know the difference between their ass and their elbow.”
Scott stormed out through the main office, slamming the door behind him.
Adam buzzed himself back into Purgatory, and immediately wrapped her in a bone-crushing hug. “I can’t thank you enough.”
“What the hell was that about?” Zoey shook out her hands, not realizing until now just how bad she’d been shaking through that entire sideshow. “I knew he was a hothead, but cheese and crackers.”
“Damned if I know. He came strolling into Purgatory like he owned the place and tried badging into the lab. He could’ve ruined six months’ worth of results. Prick.” Adam glared at the door before his cheeks reddened. “Sorry, I know you had a temporary moment of insanity with him.”
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Zoey tugged his cap off his head and smacked him with it, making him laugh. “Seriously, am I ever going to live that down?”
“Not until you have something juicier that I can use against you.” Zoey clamped her mouth shut, and Adam immediately latched on to her silence. “Oh, man. I know that face. That’s an I-know-something-that-would-be-gossip-fodder-for-the-entire-precinct-for-a-year-but-I’m-not-saying-anything face.”
“You think too much of my faces.”
He chuckled. “Fine. Be close-mouthed. You’re going to tell me eventually. Or Grace will let it slip after I ply her with a pitcher of margaritas and some good ol’ Cade bashing.”
“You are pure evil.”
He grinned. “Even got the horns, baby.”
Zoey scanned the room. “You’re okay now? You’re not going to lock yourself in the freezer or anything if I leave, are you?”
“Heading to a secret rendezvous?” Adam teased.
“Yes, my secret rendezvous with my very comfortable bed.” A bed in which she hoped to find a very sexy—and naked—former Ranger. But he didn’t need to know that.
Adam glanced at the door through which Scott had left. “You know what? I’m heading out too. Walk up with me?”
“Sure thing.”
Zoey helped lock up the lab, and then they headed up to the main floor. Low voices echoed from the direction of the cubicles, one of which never ceased to send warm tingles of excitement through her.
Adam, standing next to her, grinned. “No secret rendezvous my cute rear end.”
At Adam’s tease, Knox and Mason glanced their way.
She hadn’t seen Knox since this morning, and she admittedly hadn’t been in the best mood. The second he’d left to meet up with Cade, she’d felt bad for taking her frustrations out on him.
It wasn’t Knox’s fault that someone broke into her apartment, or that the Cupid Killer decided her necklace was a good way to deviate from his normal pattern. Sometimes in her quest to stand on her own two feet, she experienced a little…tunnel vision.
“Angel.” Knox’s eyes devoured every inch of her as she walked closer, his mouth curling into a naughty smirk. “When most people get a Get Out of Jail Free card, they usually do something fun. Not head into work.”
“Exactly what I said,” Mason chuckled.
“Are you offering to take me somewhere fun now?” Zoey ignored the older officer and kept her gaze on Knox.
Next to her, Adam coughed. She ignored him, matching Knox’s grin with one of her own.
She really hoped his answer was going to be yes.
Chapter
Twenty
It was hard to believe it had been over a week since Zoey and Knox crossed that line from simple friendship…to something else. As happy as she was to be out of her comfort zone, being in uncharted territory wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.
For one, she couldn’t begin to guess what was going through his mind. They’d said goodbye to Mason and Adam and walked to the rear lot, not one word spoken. It would’ve made her paranoid if it weren’t for the fact that he’d found some way to touch her the entire time.
In front of Mason and Adam, it had been his palm on the small of her back. Now it was the firm curl of his fingers around her hand.
After unlocking her car, she tossed her things into the passenger seat. Across the street, a green sports car peeled away from the curb, leaving behind the stench of burnt rubble. “Sometimes I think Roman’s antisocial ways are the way to go.”
Knox smiled, slowly easing his arms around her waist. “That…makes me feel a little paranoid, I’m not going to lie.”
Zoey laughed. “Not you. Scott.” She nodded toward the now empty parking spot. “The jerk was in the lab giving Adam a hard time.”
“About?”
“He claimed because things weren’t moving along on the Cupid Killer case.”
“Is he on the task force?”
“Nope. But he doesn’t care. For as long as I’ve known him, which, unfortunately, has been since we were kids, he’s always pranced around like he gets special privileges because his father’s a state senator.”
“And yet you went to the movies together.” Knox leaned his rear end against her car and tugged her into the cradle of his pelvis.
Zoey threw her hands in the air, exasperated. “You’d think that I took out a billboard ad or something.”
“I’m teasing you, angel. Trust me, I have no room to rag on you about bad dating choices.”
“Because of FBD?” The second she said the words, she slapped a hand over her mouth.
“FBD?” He chuckled, prying her hand from her over her lips. “You’re not getting tight-lipped on me now, are you? Come on now. Spill. What, or who, is FBD?”
“FBD.” She grimaced. “Fire-Breathing Dragon. Francine. It sorta came natural. I mean, her last name’s Smoke, and she has the temperament of a dragon.”
“You’re right. It’s…suitably fitting.” Knox laughed.
“Grace and I thought so.”
Zoey’s finger traced the edge of the white bandage peeking out from beneath Knox’s shirt sleeve. “How’s your shoulder? You haven’t done a lot of resting since last night.”
“If I say horrible, will you come to my place and play nursemaid?”
“I don’t think you want me playing nurse. I’d be more likely to create fresh wounds than help them heal.”
“I think we’d both manage.” Smirking, Knox slid his hands from her hips to just beneath the hem of her shirt. “But I’m not going to lie. I have a few ulterior motives, and they’re not all innocent in nature.”
Both the course of his hands and the heat in his eyes gave her hope. “Yeah? Maybe it’s something close to what I imagined.”
He held his mouth a hairsbreadth away from hers. “In your imagination, do we end up naked in my bed, passed out from sexual exhaustion, and waking up to do it all over again?”
“It’s like you were in my head.”
Zoey sighed as Knox caressed his mouth over the curve of her neck.
He chuckled. “If we’re both thinking it, then I guess it’s meant to be.”
After a few long, drugging kisses and her adamancy that she wasn’t leaving her car at the precinct to be stranded in the morning, she and Knox parted ways long enough to meet back at the marina.
This time, she managed both the gangway and the stairs leading below deck without incident. Knox’s military upbringing showed not just in his uncluttered space, but in the way he reacted. The things he said. The passion he showed.
They kissed their way across the small living room, Zoey’s legs bumping against the back of the couch. She stumbled onto the cushion, chuckling at her own klutziness. “Guess I’ll take a seat.”
“I was about to ask you to take one anyway.” Knox’s mouth arched into a sexy half grin. Keeping his hot gaze focused on her, he eased onto the sofa and glided her legs over his thighs until she sat astride his lap.
“Right here?” She wiggled, pulling a groan from his throat.
“No place better.” Palms braced on her hips, he shifted her closer, and tugged her mouth down to his. “You have no idea how bad I want you right now.”
“Probably as bad as I do you,” Zoey flirted brazenly. His confession sent a warm thrill through her. “But you were shot twenty-four hours ago. As much as I want this, maybe we should take a breather.”
“It’s nothing more than a scratch. Trust me, I’ve had worse.”
She didn’t doubt it, but he also couldn’t hide his pain. Not from her, a verifiable expert on glossing over physical discomfort. She’d had a lifetime experience of masking it. “Knox.”
“Angel. I’m fine.” He trailed his mouth up the curve of her neck, making her sigh. “But I could be fan-fucking-tastic if we stopped talking and started doing.”
Zoey chuckled. Days without his hands on her body, and her skin ached to feel him again too. Grinning, she slid off his lap and gently pul
led him to his feet. “Then we’re going to do this my way.”
“This just keeps getting better and better.” Knox dropped his hands to his sides and watched her shove his jeans and boxers down his legs. When they hit his ankles, he kicked them away.
“Sit.” She gently pushed him back onto the couch. “And behave.”
“Do I have to?” Knox smirked.
Taking charge felt odd at first, but then it just felt…right. She knelt on the floor in front of him, spreading his knees wide enough to fit her shoulders.
Knox swallowed a curse as she wrapped her fingers around his hard shaft and squeezed. “Fuck. You don’t have to do this, angel.”
“I know I don’t. I want to.” More than anything.
She flicked away a clear drop of fluid with the tip of her tongue. Knox groaned, sliding his hand into her hair. “You’re killing me here.”
“Killing you softly?”
“Yeah. Not so soft.”
Fueled by his pleasure, Zoey wrapped her mouth around his shaft and slowly slid her mouth down his entire length, inch by inch. His cock nearly hit the back of her throat, and she swallowed, her muscles contracting around his girth.
“I love your mouth, baby.” Eyes hooded with desire, Knox watched her, his face softening from raging lust to pure bliss.
She couldn’t tear her eyes away from his as she tightened her lips around him and set a slow, firm pace. Knox gently bumped his hips up to meet her mouth. The taste of his pre-come seeped onto her tongue, coaxing her faster.
She tightened her lips and felt his body respond. His breath, the only other sound on the boat other than the wet slide of her mouth, grew louder.
On the next upswing, he pulled her off his cock. “I want that sweet pussy of yours wrapped around me when I come.”
“Condom?”
He tore through his wallet, distracted by her shimmying out of her pants and underwear. “Shit. You’re so damn gorgeous.”
She left her shirt on, and he didn’t say a thing or look the least bit deterred.
“Come here, baby.” Having already donned the latex, he gripped her hips and eased her onto his lap. His fingers slid through the wetness between her legs, making her groan.
