Smoke & Mirrors
Page 31
He cupped her face with one large hand. “I missed you.”
She was absolutely certain she had a ridiculously goofy smile on her face, and didn’t care one bit. “I missed you, too.”
The heat coming off his body made her want to fan herself. Or maybe that was just her own reaction to being this close to him. Only a few inches of air between them. She wanted that space to be zero, she wanted them both naked, and she wanted them in a bed so she could touch him skin to skin.
“When are you finished for the day?” he asked, his voice making her breathing catch.
“Now. You?”
“Finished,” he agreed. “Do you want to go…” He frowned. “I don’t have a hotel room yet, but—”
“I’ve been staying at a hotel not far from here,” she said quickly. “I was offered an apartment in the same building where some of the other people on the task force live, but I wanted to talk to you about it first.” She waited for him to speak, to show some enthusiasm for the possibility of living together, but he seemed frozen in place. “Unless, you want to get your own place?”
“No,” he replied abruptly. “No, I’d rather live with you.” He swallowed. “If that’s what you’re suggesting, I mean.” He sounded tentative, nervous even.
It hit her between the eyes. Good grief, they were both scared the other one had changed their mind about being together.
She leaned forward and kissed him, light and sweet, then retreated for only part of a second before returning to suck on his lower lip.
One of his big hands cradled her head as he took over the kiss, showing her in no uncertain terms that he was all in.
They broke apart, both breathing hard.
She said, “I love you.”
“I love you, too.” He smiled, a sinful expression promising all kind of naughty things. “Wanna shack up with me?”
She sighed, happiness fizzing through her bloodstream. “I can’t wait.”
He took her hand and they walked slowly out of the building. He cleared his throat. “So, our boss wants you to take a couple more weeks to recover.”
“And she asked you to make it happen?” Kini asked, laughing.
At his nod, she said, “She told me to do the same for you.”
“Huh. Sneaky.”
“Two whole weeks together, with no one bugging us and nowhere to go. Whatever will we do?”
He wrapped an arm around her and drew her close for a kiss. “I think we can come up with something.”
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Acknowledgments
Special thanks to the tireless staff at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for their ongoing work to identify, surveil, treat, educate, and prevent disease inside the United States and around the world.
About the Author
Julie Rowe’s first career as a medical lab technologist in Canada took her to the Northwest Territories and northern Alberta, where she still resides. She loves to include medical details in her romance novels, but admits she’ll never be able to write about all her medical experiences because “Fiction has to be believable.”
Julie writes romantic suspense and romantic military thrillers. Her most recent titles include Viable Threat, the first book in the Outbreak Task Force series, and Viral Justice, book three of the Biological Response Team series. You can find her at www.julieroweauthor.com, on Twitter @julieroweauthor, or on her Facebook page: www.facebook.com/JulieRoweAuthor.
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Viable Threat
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