I grinned. “That’s why I brought pants. With a drawstring.”
“This is not the kind of peer pressure TV movies prepared me for. ‘Hey, Lina. Sleep snuggle with me so I can feel alive again,’” she said, faking a deep baritone.
I gave her hips another squeeze and pulled her an inch closer to me. “‘There’s nothing I’d rather do than go to bed and not have sex with you, Nash,’” I said in a breathy, Marilyn Monroe imitation.
She blew out an aggrieved sigh. “It’s annoying how cute you are.”
“Annoying enough that you’re gonna let me sleep with you tonight?”
She squeezed my shoulders and brought her forehead to mine. “I’m really trying to make better decisions, but you are not making that easy.”
I gave in to temptation and kissed her nose.
“Ugh. You’re impossible!” she complained.
“What was wrong with your previous decisions?”
She bit her lip.
“Need I remind you that I’ve been disgustingly vulnerable with you for, what, forty-eight hours now? I just spent twenty minutes tellin’ you all about my day. It’s your turn. Give and take. Talk, Angel.”
She wrinkled her nose. “I don’t like sharing. Especially not when I don’t come out looking good.”
“I repeat. Fetal position at the foot of the stairs.”
“I was leading a team during an operation. We had to make a quick, unplanned exit off a roof when our thief came home early. I didn’t know the guy I was with was afraid of heights. I made the jump and landed in the canal. When I looked back, he was still standing there frozen. I yelled, and he panicked and landed on his ass on the hood of a car.”
“Ouch,” I said, deciding I didn’t need to know exactly what danger required an escape by roof.
“He broke his tailbone, so he was lucky. But I should have known better. At the very least, I shouldn’t have forced him to take the risk.”
Her fingers traced tiny circles on my chest.
“The thing is, there are rewards for doing my job well. Bonuses, status, the thrill of the chase. Being the hero and bringing home the win. In my company, aggressive tactics are praised. I got a bonus and Lewis got a busted ass. I realized that as good as I am, sometimes it just comes down to luck. And I don’t want to count on that forever.”
“Minus the money part, I get that.” It galled me that I was here in this kitchen because of luck.
“It’s more heroic to be a hero for something other than a big, fat paycheck,” she said.
“How big and fat are we talkin’？” I teased.
Her smile was feline. “Why? You have a problem making a lot less than your emotional support bed buddy?”
“No, ma’am. I do not. Just curious how much ‘a lot less’ is.”
“I have a brokerage account and a walk-in closet full of very nice designer duds. That sexy Charger out there in the parking lot? I paid for it in cash with last year’s bonus.”
I let out a low whistle. “Can’t wait to see what you get me for my birthday.”
“If memory serves, you and your brother barely spoke for years because he gave you money.”
“Now that’s a dirty lie,” I said, picking up my wine. “We barely spoke for years because he forced money on me, told me what to do with it, then didn’t like what I chose to do instead.”
“Well, in that case, Team Nash,” she said.
“Figured I’d get you there.”
“What exactly did Knox want you to do with the money?”
“Retire.”
Her eyebrows skyrocketed. “Retire? Why?”
“He hates that I grew up and became a cop. We had our fair share of brushes with the law growing up. Knox never outgrew his distrust of authority. He’s mellowed some. But he still likes to dabble in the gray area. Like those illegal poker games I’m not supposed to know about.”
“What about you? Why aren’t you still dabbling in the gray?”
“If you ask my brother, it was a ‘fuck you’ to him and our childhood. Us against the man.”
“But that’s not the truth.”
I shook my head. “I thought, instead of operating outside the system, why not make changes within it? Our scrapes with the law were pretty minor. But Lucian? No one was there to protect or serve him. He was thrown in jail at seventeen and sat there for a week, which never shoulda happened. That’s what changed for me. No amount of hell-raising and lawbreaking was going to help him out of that jam. And all it would have taken was for one good cop to do the right thing.”
“So you’re out there doing your job for all the future Lucians,” she said.
I shrugged, feeling a little embarrassed. “And the free uniform. Rumor has it the pants make my butt look good.”
Lina grinned and I felt that warm campfire-like glow in my chest. “Oh, Studly Do-Right, that rumor has been substantiated. It is official fact.”
“Studly Do-Right?”
“Something around town you don’t already know?” she teased.
I closed my eyes. “Tell me that’s not my nickname.”
She fluttered those long lashes at me. “But, Nash, I know how important honesty is to you.”
“Christ.”
SEVENTEEN
PILLOW TALK
Lina
“So you went from a high-profile, roof-jumping assignment with a team and now you’re here?” Nash asked.
We were in my bed staring up at the ceiling. Nash was on the left side, closest to my bedroom door. Piper was curled up snoring in his armpit. I’d shoved a pillow between us to prevent any repeat performances of last night.
I hesitated, surprised by the desire I had to confess the whole truth, to tell him why we were both looking for the same man. But I squashed it. I’d already committed to the plan. I didn’t need to waste energy second-guessing myself. “I needed some breathing room to think things through. There’s a new job opening up. More travel. Longer jobs. It’s my dream job. But…” I trailed off.
“Does your family know what you do?”
“They think I travel the country providing corporate trainings. I prefer to live my life without carrying the responsibility of other people’s opinions. Especially opinions about how I should find a safer, easier way to make a paycheck.”
“Fair enough. What’s in the box of files?”
“Nash, this sleeping together thing only works if you shut up and go to sleep.”
“Just turning things over in my head.”
I didn’t like where this conversation was going. It felt like he was forcing me into little white lie after little white lie. And I was getting more uncomfortable by the minute. So I dug into my arsenal and deployed my favorite weapon: misdirection.
“I ran into Lucian today,” I announced, rolling to my side to face him in the dark.
“Here?”
Interesting. So the overprotective pain in my ass really hadn’t wanted Nash to know about our chat.
“No. Down in Lawlerville at a diner.”
“Lucian was eating in a diner? Are you sure it was him and not some doppelg?nger?”
“He didn’t actually eat. He had coffee while I ate,” I told him.