Glumly, she put away the puzzle box, powered down the lab equipment and locked the place up. Reese had barely opened the door before she turned off the lights, joined him in the hall and locked the door behind herself.
“Let’s go,” he said tersely.
At least the man had the good grace to get her out of the building before he ripped into her. That was classy of him.
Saying nothing to her, he strode out of the basement, leading her out the back way to a police-only parking lot behind the building. It was dark outside and his strides were so long and quick that she had to half jog to keep up with him.
He opened the passenger door of the truck for her and closed it behind her without comment. In fact, he drove out of the lot, turned down the street and made it all the way to the Dexter house, where her car was still parked, without breaking his stony silence. Was he that furious at her?
He pulled to a stop in the circular drive behind her little car and she blurted, “I’m sorry, Reese. I got mad that they were laughing at you—at us—and I didn’t stop to think. I’m sorry I embarrassed you, and I shouldn’t have done that in our mutual work environment. It was unprofessional and stupid. And given that I’ve been sexually harassed at work before, I should have known not to do the same to you—”
He leaned across the truck swiftly and kissed her hard as he swept his arms around her. He pulled her tight against his body and kissed her every bit as passionately as she’d kissed him earlier.
Shock stilled her in his arms. What did this mean? Was this some sort of revenge kiss? Or could it possibly mean he wasn’t as mad at her as she’d thought? Was he punishing her? Saying goodbye? Showing her what she couldn’t have in the future?
But then the kiss itself commanded so much of her attention that the little voices in her head faded into the background of his mouth moving against hers, his body moving against hers, his arms going around her and drawing her close.
His mouth was hot and wet and dark, and tasted of coffee. She threw herself into the kiss, gladly losing herself in him. In the moment.
Even now, he made her feel desired. Sexy. Beautiful. She reveled in the hardness of his chest, loved the strength of his arms. His breathing was fast and light, and she delighted in doing that to him as he kissed his way across her jaw and took the lobe of her ear lightly between his teeth. If this was a last kiss goodbye, she was going to miss this more than words could express.
“Next time you want to kiss me like that, do it in private, okay?” he murmured against her neck, just below her ear.
She froze. Had she heard him correctly? Next time? He was prepared to kiss her again, as in continue a relationship with her?
“Of course,” she panted. She tilted her head back to give him better access to her throat, and he took immediate advantage of it to kiss the pulse fluttering wildly at the base of her throat.
His lips moved on the delicate skin there. “Because I don’t want to have to stop kissing you again once we get started like that.”
She leaned back far enough to look at his shadowed face as he lifted his head to stare down at her. His eyes were hard to see in the dim interior of his truck. “Does that mean you forgive me?” she asked in a small voice.
“Yup.”
“Are you mad at me?”
“Nope.”
“Are you sure?”
He continued to stare down at her in the electronic glow of the dashboard for a long moment. “Yes. I’m sure.”
She smiled up at him tentatively. “I can’t tell you how relieved I am. I was terrified I’d blown it with you.”
He smiled crookedly. “Are you kidding? I’m a hero, department-wide.”
“Why?” she blurted.
“You’re generally considered to be the unattainable ice queen. The gang was pleased to discover you’re human after all.”
“Don’t BS me. They’re teasing you like crazy over it.”
“Absolutely.” A smile started with an upward curve of the corners of his mouth and spread slowly across his face. “But they’re all jealous as hell of me.”
“Why?”
“That was some kiss you laid on me.”
“Mmm. It was, wasn’t it?”
His mouth descended toward hers again. “Yes, ma’am. It was.”
The windows of his truck were completely steamed up when Reese finally pulled away from her with a sigh. “I’m not making love with you in the cab of my truck. At least not the first time. But if we don’t stop soon, that’s exactly where we’re headed.”
She looked around, measuring the distance between the seat and the dashboard. “If you push your seat all the way back and I straddle—”
“Stop.” There was enough pained discomfort in his voice that she took pity on him and didn’t finish describing what she had in mind for christening his truck.
“You going to Lou’s retirement party?” he asked casually.
Crud. She’d totally forgotten about that. “I think I’ll skip—”
He cut her off. “I could really use you to show up, even if just for a few minutes.”
“Why’s that?”
“Your, umm, attention to me over the past couple of days is causing a lot of talk. It’s interfering with me doing my job.”
“I’m sorry,” she said quickly.
“It’s okay. I just need you to show up at the bar, be casual around me for a few minutes while I’m casual around you, and then you can split. But Chief Hilton’s asking questions about whether or not you and I can work together professionally or not. I’d hate to have the, umm, recent incidents impact our performance reports.”
Gulp. The last thing she wanted to do was hurt Reese’s career or chances at promotion. And goodness knew, she didn’t need any reprimands in her permanent file about harassing a coworker. Not if she wanted to get hired by a big, prestigious forensics lab in a year or two.
“I get it. Not to mention I owe you one for saving my neck at the Dexter house.”
“You don’t owe me for that. I was just doing my job,” he protested.
“Nonetheless. I’m the one who’s caused you problems with the boss. It’s up to me to fix it.”
She climbed in her car and followed him downtown to Dusty Rusty’s. The parking lot was close to full with the muscular pickup trucks a lot of the cops favored, and she winced as she parked her little car among them.
She spotted Reese parking and waited for him to go inside ahead of her. Giving him enough of a head start that nobody would suspect they’d arrived together—she hoped—she took a deep breath, climbed out of her car and trudged toward the bar.
Casual. She could do this. They still hated each other’s guts and were just enjoying a temporary truce. Reese was an uptight jerk. He made her crazy.
Yeah. Crazy to kiss him senseless and get inside his pants.
Drat. The I-hate-Reese pep talk was a total flop.
Plan B: go inside and ignore Reese. It was what she would have done a few days ago.
Okay. She could do that. She stepped inside and was bombarded by heat and noise and the overwhelming smell of beer. And man sweat. Ugh.
Did the fire marshal know this many cops were all crammed into Rusty’s tonight? She was half tempted to call the fire department and report a building capacity violation. Until she spotted the fire chief bellied up to the bar. Sigh.
“Hey, Yvie!” Her sister’s voice rose above the din.
She turned toward the sound but couldn’t see Jordana in the press of big bodies. Lord, she hated being short, sometimes. She stood on her tiptoes, craning to see around the crowd and finally spotted her sister’s auburn hair between the shoulders of a couple of big guys hunched over the bar.
“Beer?” Jordana’s boyfriend, Clint, shouted at her when she finally reached the bar.
“Hate beer,” s
he shouted back. “I’ll have a seltzer water with a twist of lemon.” Not booze but it looked like a drink. Saved a whole lot of explanations about how she had so little body mass that she was a complete lightweight when it came to drinking. And besides, she made a practice of never drinking with her colleagues.
Eventually a glass was passed to her filled with clear, fizzy liquid, ice and a lemon section. Jordana and Clint had their heads pressed together and appeared to be having an intense conversation, so she picked up her drink to leave.
“Don’t go,” Jordana shouted. “We have something to tell you.”
She turned back to the couple, who looked so in love they practically glowed. A frisson of jealousy shivered through her belly. Must be nice to find that great a guy and have him fall head over heels for you. She noted the way Jordana leaned into Clint’s side and how he angled his body protectively beside her. Yeah. That. Having a little of that would be nice, someday.
“What’s up?” She leaned in close to avoid having to shout at the top of her lungs to be heard.
“I’ve decided to move to Chicago to be with Clint. His vacation is over and he has to go back to work. I’m going with him.”
She stared, shocked. Of all her siblings, Jordana seemed the most connected to Braxville. She was a cop, here, and everything. “What about your job? You love being a cop.”
“Tyler has offered me a job in his company.” Tyler was their oldest brother and a partner in a high-end security firm.
“It’s based in Wichita, not Chicago,” Yvette responded, confused.
“He’s opening an office in Chicago and wants me to head it up.”
Yvette looked back and forth between Jordana and Clint, who were still doing that glowing thing, darn it. “Well, of course, I’ll miss the heck out of you, but I’m happy for you guys.”
Jordana reached up to push her hair back and Yvette spied a sparkle on her sister’s left ring finger. She squealed and grabbed Jordana’s hand. “Lemme see! He proposed? When did this happen?”
“This afternoon. After I accepted Tyler’s offer and it was official that I’m moving to Chicago.”
The diamond was big and beautiful, surrounded by a ring of smaller baguettes and more diamonds across the band. “Dang, sis. That thing is a lethal weapon. Punch someone with that and they’re going down.”
“Hopefully, the security business will be slower paced than police work.”
Yvette grunted. Not bloody likely.
Clint grinned ruefully at her. “I keep trying to tell her to ease off the pedal a little, but I doubt that’s going to happen any time soon.”
Yvette laughed. “Good luck with that. We Coltons tend to live life at ninety miles an hour with our hair on fire.”
“I’d noticed that,” Clint replied dryly.
Yvette leaned forward and hugged her sister. “I’m so happy for you two. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go find your partner and act casual around him so Chief Hilton will stop asking if Reese and I can work together like adults or not.”
She turned away fast to avoid being quizzed by her sister and plunged into the crowd. The trick at a party like this, where she knew a lot of people but none of them were close friends, was to keep moving and always appear to be headed across the room toward someone.
She kept an eye out for the police chief, Roger Hilton, and for Reese. If she could catch the two of them together, or at least in visual contact with each other, she could stroll up to Reese, act casual for a minute or two and then get out of here.
Rusty’s opened up in the back to a big seating area with dartboards along one side and a dance floor taking up the back half of the party space. TV screens mounted along the ceiling opposite the dartboards played several different sporting events at the moment. Thankfully, they were muted and weren’t competing to be heard over the noise of the whole police department, most of the fire department, most of the off-duty EMTs from the county hospital, and a host of other people from around town who knew Lou Hovitz.
Dang. Popular guy. If she retired tomorrow and threw a party, maybe a couple of her siblings might show up—if they weren’t busy doing laundry or something equally important. She supposed her mom would come. Lilly was loyal that way.
Yvette continued to move back and forth through the crowd in search of her twin targets, to no avail. Funny how lonely it was possible to feel in the middle of a big crowd. She’d left behind all her friends of the past several years in Virginia when she’d moved back to Braxville, and she felt that loss keenly now.
“Why the long face?” a male voice shouted in her ear.
She jumped and spun around to face Reese. “Where did you come from?”
“I’ve been playing darts. Your sister just kicked my ass, again.”
“We have a dartboard in my dad’s billiard room. Jordana’s been throwing darts her whole life. She’s the Colton family champion.”
“Are you kidding me?”
“God’s honest truth,” she shouted back.
He swore under his breath and then said to her, “Thanks for coming tonight.”
“Do you know where Roger Hilton is? He’s the one guy who needs to see us getting along tonight.”
“He’s dancing with his wife. Been out there a while.”
She turned her gaze to the mass of people currently boot scooting their way around the dance floor. It was so crowded she couldn’t spot the Hiltons at all. She leaned in close to ask Reese, “Should we wait for him to come off the floor and then go over together to say hello to him or something?”
“I have a better idea. Dance with me.”
Reese grabbed her drink and set it down on the nearest table along with his half-empty beer. He grabbed her around the waist and spun her out onto the dance floor before she even had a chance to say no.
The music was just changing into a country song made for two-stepping, and Reese confidently began shuffling around the floor with her. She hadn’t two-stepped in years, but she relaxed and let him guide her around the floor to the quick-quick-slow-slow rhythm. As it came back to her, she let her feet move on autopilot.
Reese wore a crisply starched white shirt with the sleeves rolled up to reveal fine dark hairs on his forearms. His jeans were probably pressed and starched within an inch of their life, but she didn’t dare glance down to find out.
His hand was firm on her waist as he guided her smoothly around the crowded floor, his thigh occasionally rubbing against hers. She had to tilt her head back to look up at him which threw her more than a little off-balance. More than once, she had to catch herself by tightening her hand on his shoulder.
After two or three of those balance checks, each of which pulled her closer to him, she realized she was more or less plastered against him, her chest rubbing against his, her belly rubbing against the zipper of his jeans. Her breath came faster, and it had nothing to do with the dancing. Nope, her dance partner made her think about doing all kinds of hot, naughty things to his delicious body.
The song ended and the next one was slow and sexy with sultry vocals that melted her from the inside out. At least she hoped it was just the song. Otherwise, it was Reese having that dramatic effect on her.
He stared down at her, his normally blue eyes black in the dim light of the bar. Or maybe his pupils were so dilated that his eyes appeared black. Either way, his gaze smoldered with intense heat. Oh, dear. Was he feeling the incendiary attraction between them, too?
His hand pressed against her back, drawing her even closer against him until her thighs nestled on either side of one of his. They were in intimate contact from her knees to her shoulders, and everywhere she touched him, he was hard and burning hot.
Her right hand rested on his shoulder, and her left hand curled around his waist, where she noted there wasn’t even a hint of an inner tube. Nope. This man was hard and lean, all muscle and
restless energy.
And right now, that energy was aimed squarely at her. It vibrated through her, breaking the bonds between the molecules of her body until she felt like nothing more than a mass of tangled, separately tingling nerves. Taken all together, she was one giant hot mess.
Reese turned her in a slow, swaying circle, gradually spiraling her through the couples dotting the dance floor until the two of them were tucked in the back corner of the room, in the darkest, most heavily shadowed bit of the floor.
His head dipped down toward hers, and his mouth brushed against her temple. It was the lightest of kisses. It could even have been an accident. But then he murmured, “Is it just me, or is something definitely not casual happening between us?”
She pressed her eyes shut in chagrin. It was all she could do to stop herself from crawling all over his big, yummy body, right here, right now.
“We’ve got to dial this back,” he muttered. “You know. For our careers.”
“Right. Careers.” Good grief. When did she get so breathless? All they were doing out here was swaying back and forth in slow motion. Nothing athletic that would steal all the air from her lungs like this.
She realized she was leaning in to him, craving the heat of his body, reveling in the feel of it pressed tightly against hers. They fit together perfectly. He was taller than her, but not so much so that her small stature made her feel like a half-grown child next to him.
His arms surrounded her, holding her snugly against him. Given the quick rise and fall of his chest against her breasts she surmised he was relishing the contact between them as much as she was.
Casual. Careers. Truce. The boss.
Nope. Nothing was distracting her from her pool of liquid heat forming in the pit of her belly, yearning toward the hard, sexual promise of Reese’s body to fill that hungry void.
He turned to put his back to the room, effectively hiding her from everyone else in the joint. One of his hands left her back and reached between them, tilting her chin up. He leaned down and kissed her carnally, his tongue plunging into her mouth in a rhythmic imitation of sex. She surged up into the kiss on her tiptoes, her own tongue swirling around his. The smooth glide of lips on lips, the wrestling tangle of their tongues, the mingling of breath, stole what little breath she had left.
Harlequin Romantic Suspense December 2020 Box Set Page 33
