Total pages in book: 104
Estimated words: 95676 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 478(@200wpm)___ 383(@250wpm)___ 319(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 95676 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 478(@200wpm)___ 383(@250wpm)___ 319(@300wpm)
"Can we not talk about this right now? Please?" She pleads, squirming in her seat. Her cheeks are flushed, her blue eyes dark and dazed. She's turned on and trying like hell to hold it together and not let me see just how much.
I want to push. I want to unravel her. But I take a breath and back off.
"Yeah. We can talk about this later." I pause. "But we will be talking about it."
She exhales a tiny breath. "You said you were going to help me. Why? I can't pay you."
I send her a hard look, growling, "Did I ask you to pay me? I don't want your money."
"No, you just want my body," she snaps and then immediately squeezes her eyes closed and sucks in a deep breath. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean it that way."
"How did you mean it?"
"I don't know." She sighs, pressing her palms to her cheeks. "I'm so confused."
"You keep saying that."
"And you keep ignoring me when I say it."
I mutter a curse and pull to the curb before putting the SUV in park and turning to face her. "Look, I meant what I said this morning. I'm not helping you because I expect you to sleep with me. I'm helping you because I don't think you did this, and I don't want to see you get thrown under the bus for a crime you didn't commit. Not all cops are assholes. I prefer to see actual criminals go to prison, not innocent schoolteachers. Do I want you in my bed? Hell yes. The thought of you riding my cock makes me crazy. But I don't expect anything from you in exchange for helping keep you out of jail. When you decide to sleep with me, it won't have anything to do with this. Okay?"
She examines my face for a long, silent moment, searching for something, some hint that I'm just bullshitting her. I don't like it, but I get it. She doesn't know me. Unlike me, she hasn't spent the last week sifting through every facet of my life. I'm an unknown to her, a virtual stranger. Worse, I'm the detective who pulled the rug out from beneath her. She has no reason to trust me. But she takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly, giving me her faith and her trust. "Okay."
"Yeah?"
She nods.
I grin, feeling like king of the fucking world. She might not be ready to admit it yet, but she likes me too. She feels the same connection, the same pull. It's a start. I pull back out onto the road, merging with the early morning traffic.
"You said when I sleep with you," she says a moment later.
"Hmm?"
"You said when I sleep with you, not if I sleep with you."
"Oh, sweetheart," I say, turning a smirk on her. "It's only a matter of time until I get you naked. We both know it."
She hesitates for a second and then sniffs haughtily.
I laugh quietly.
Chapter Eight
Ivy
"Where are we?" I ask Cam, glancing around. We're at an old house somewhere in the middle of the Tenderloin District, but I have no idea who lives here or why we're here. The house is old, the brick crumbling in places. Paint peels from the shutters over the windows and the wrought iron of the porch railing is rusted. The yard is neat and tidy though, the little bit of grass along the sidewalk neatly trimmed.
"You'll see," Cam says ominously, striding toward the front door.
I mutter under my breath and hurry after him, reaching the bottom step just as he raps on the glass storm door.
"Come in," a high-pitched male voice calls from somewhere inside.
Cam doesn't even hesitate before pulling open the door and stepping inside. I follow behind him, cautiously stepping over the threshold. The house is dark, very little light trickling in from outside. It smells like floor polish, coconut, and bacon grease.
"Yo, Dee! Where are you?"
"I'm in the kitchen, Cameron," that same voice calls back, making me jump.
Cam grabs my hand, giving it a squeeze, and then practically drags me down the hallway. We turn right and end up in the middle of a massive kitchen. Unlike the hallway, this room isn't dark at all. It's all kinds of colorful. Large bay windows overlook a ramshackle backyard, the panes thrown open to let in light. The walls are a bright white on bottom, with retro wallpaper depicting grapevines and fat purple grapes covering the top portion. Bright watercolors hang here and there, clashing garishly with the room. I don't think the paintings are the chosen décor though; they look wet, like someone just hung them to dry. Newspapers are stacked on one edge of the table, with flecks of paint all over them.
"Cameron, honey!"
I take a step into Cam's side when I notice the guy at the stove with a spatula in his hand. He's wearing a hot pink robe, with curlers in his hair and long lash extensions. He's about my height and about twice my size. He's huge in a body-builder way, but he's very pretty, wearing bright pink lipstick and dangling earrings.