“You’d be begging me for it until I’d take my tongue and—”
“Okay! Sorry for the delay. I’m locked and loaded.” The photographer didn’t seem to notice that my knees had quit functioning or that Nash was glaring at him with the heat of a thousand suns.
“Rain check?” I whispered.
“What the hell am I supposed to do with a hard-on?” he growled in my ear.
I glanced down and grinned. “Hide it behind your pepper spray. And your flashlight. And your Taser. But whatever you do, don’t think about me screaming your name when you go down on me.”
“Fuck.”
Nash suffered through twelve whole minutes of photos—most of them with a barely disguised erection—before pulling the plug on the shoot like a grumpy man bear. It was six minutes longer than I thought he’d last.
I shifted Piper in my arms and pulled out my phone.
Me: You owe me $20. Nash just gave the photographer the boot.
Stef: Damn it! I thought he’d make it to fifteen.
Me: Sucker. Venmo me. Also, thank you for arranging this while you’re busy doing whatever it is you do in New York. I owe you.
Stef: You can repay your debt by feeding me intel on Jeremiah.
Me: Aren’t you in contact with him?
Stef: Of course I am. I just want to know if he’s lifting weights like a sad, sexy panda while I’m gone.
“Hey. You wanna get out of here?” Nash said, poking his head in the door of his office. His face was scrubbed clean of the makeup artist’s powder. He looked exactly like an all-American hero. Piper thought so too if her tail wagging was any indication.
“Where are we going?” I asked, slipping my phone into my bag and putting the dog on the floor.
“To see a girl about an ass,” he said cryptically.
“After you,” I said, gesturing for him to walk ahead of me. I admired his posterior in those sexy as hell uniform pants as he led the way into the bullpen.
“Did they take any pictures of your face or was it all ass?” Nolan asked, shrugging into his jacket and following us out the door.
“Bite me,” Nash said.
It was a beautiful fall day for a drive. Nash cued up a country playlist and off the three of us—plus Piper—went in his department-issued SUV. I focused my attention on the updates in the WhatsApp group. Naomi and Sloane were taking their assignments seriously.
Sloane had recruited a tiered network of spies on the lookout for Hugo and his henchmen.
Naomi and Waylay had their first jujitsu lesson scheduled for this evening. Knox and Lucian had ordered seven million pounds of security equipment that they would be installing this week.
“Fun field trip, Chief,” Nolan said from the back seat.
I glanced up and saw the women’s correctional facility looming in front of us.
“Figured it was about time I had a sit-down with her,” Nash said, eyeing the prison through the windshield. “Anything I need to know before we go in?”
“She won’t talk if Nolan’s in the room, and she has a crush on you.”
“Tina? On me?” Nash looked like I’d just whipped out a badminton racket and slapped him in the face with it.
“It’s the butt, isn’t it?” Nolan asked.
“Mine or hers?”
“Come on, Chief,” I teased. “You know that every female in Knockemout loves to watch you leave a room.”
Nash’s ears were turning an adorable shade of pink.
“Can we please not talk about my ass?”
“We can stop, but I don’t think you’re gonna shut the whole town up, Studly Do-Right,” Nolan warned.
Muttering under his breath, Nash got out of the SUV and tossed his keys to Nolan. “Stay here and keep Piper entertained. We’ll be back.”
“Try not to get shanked,” Nolan called out.
I stiffened when Nash slung his arm around my shoulders as we headed across the lot.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“We’re working,” I pointed out.
“And?”
“And it’s not professional of us to be hanging on each other, making out.”
“I think we’re gonna have to revisit your definition of making out.”
“You know what I mean,” I said, hating how bitchy I sounded.
Nash pulled me to a stop just shy of the entrance. “You’ve been busting my balls all day, and when you aren’t busting my balls, you’re turning me on. And when you’re not doing either of those things, you’re locked away in that head of yours thinkin’ deep thoughts. Now, I’m gonna go out on a limb here and guess that you’re still in a tailspin over the whole extended sleepover thing.”
“I’m not in a tailspin.”
“Did you know you overemphasize words when you’re freaking out?”
“I do not.” Okay. He had me there. I’d never spent enough time around a man for him to detect my tells before. This was annoying.
And now I was doing it in my head. Great.
“Listen to me, baby. You freak out all you want. I’ll still be here when you’re done. It’s an extended sleepover. That’s it. You’re not locked in a dungeon. You’re not being held against your will. You’re just keeping your clothes in a different closet. We’ll deal with the real decisions after. Okay?”
I was nodding with overemphasis now. Baby steps. “Okay. Yeah. Okay.”
“Good girl. Now help me crack Tina like a walnut.”
I shook my head to clear it. “Fine. Let me think. She likes that you were always nice to her. She said you never treated her badly even when you arrested her.”
“Then why’d she let her boyfriend put a few rounds in me?”
“She says she didn’t know until after the fact. And I’m wondering if Hugo may have decided to start with you because Tina had heart eyes for your ass.”
Nash looked over his shoulder. “Is it really that nice?”
“Yes. Yes, it is.”
Tina strolled into the room with her usual attitude but came to a halt when she spied Nash next to me. Hastily, she brushed her hair out of her face and then approached the table with shoulders-back-boobs-out posture.
Nash did not glance at the bust line beneath the khaki prison garb, but he did smile. “Hey, Tina.”
“Chief.” Tina’s laceless shoe met the leg of her chair and she stumbled, catching herself against the table.
“You all right?” Nash asked.
“Fine as fuck. I mean, yes. I’m fine.” The tough girl trying to be strong enough to resist falling for the cute guy. I didn’t care for the obvious parallels.
“Nash has a few questions for you,” I said.
Tina’s eyes came to me as she sat. She looked startled as if she hadn’t realized I was in the room. “Oh, uh, hi, Lona.”
“It’s Lina,” I said, shooting Nash an I-told-you-so look.
He cleared his throat. “Tina—”
“Look, I didn’t know nothing about him shooting you,” Tina said. “Least, not beforehand. And I laid into him after. He said he did it to make his dad start takin’ him seriously. Why people give a shit about their parents’ opinions I’ll never know. Waste of time if you ask me.”