Five #3
“You don’t hafta take me home.”
“Clearly I do if I want to make sure you get there in one piece.”
“What are you talking about? I didn’t get hurt.”
“But you would have.”
And perhaps I would have, but I would never admit it.
“Come with me.”
I followed him back out into the crowded club, and we found the table where the rest of his friends were.
There were three guys, counting him, and five women.
I had no idea what the dynamics were, who was with whom, if they had just met, or if the guys had just attached themselves to the women.
I didn’t know, but I definitely didn’t want to intrude.
“Sit,” Detective Kage ordered me after he sat down on the long sectional.
I obediently took a seat beside him. He didn’t introduce me—it would have been impossible anyway, as loud as it was—and when drinks were ordered I got a mineral water. He was hilarious.
Sitting there, I got to do more people-watching, which I always enjoyed.
Two of the women at the table tried to get Detective Kage to dance, without success.
The woman on the other side of him was more subtle than the others; she leaned close to him to talk, slid her hand over the sleeve of his shirt, touching him to emphasize whatever point she was making.
But when he moved to make room for the others coming back from the dance floor, he ended up closer to me, plastered to my side from shoulder to knee.
“You cold?”
I shook my head. I had to quit trembling every time he touched me.
“Then what?”
I had to think of something quick. “Nothing. I was just thinking…doesn’t the way we’re sitting remind you of one of those horrible high school dances?”
He shook his head, slouching in the booth.
We were at eye level when I turned to look at him. “Never a wallflower?” I teased, smiling.
“No.”
I nodded. “Big jock, huh?”
“How’d you guess?”
“Football? Lineman maybe?”
“Left tackle.”
“Whatever that is.” I chuckled, crossing my arms. “You were popular, so you didn’t have to work at it like the rest of us.”
“And how long’ve you been out of high school, Jory?”
I squinted at him. “I’m twenty-two. I told you that.”
He grunted.
“How old are you?”
“Thirty-four.”
“You’re young to be a detective, aren’t you?”
“Not really.”
“Yeah, but don’t you—”
“Sammy, dance with me!” a woman yelled as she took a seat on his lap, wrapping her arms around his neck and straddling his hips. It was a neat trick considering she had a dress on.
“Oh-kay.” I stood up, not wanting her knees on me or the mojito she was holding to get dumped in my lap. “I think I’m gonna go.”
He just looked at me. Just that much distance made it too hard to hear.
I walked around him to get to the ear she wasn’t blowing in and leaned down close to him. “I’m gonna go. I hafta work in the morning.”
He reached up and fisted his hand in the neck of my T-shirt. “I’ll take you.”
“But…” I gestured at the woman in his lap. “Hello.”
I actually got a grin before he yanked me down beside him.
“Sit.”
“You know, I really—”
“Shut up.”
I felt my brows furrow as he lifted the woman off his lap and set her on the couch to his left. He moved her like she weighed nothing at all. I was smaller than her; he could carry me wherever he wanted.
“Let’s go.”
It was agony to spend another minute with him, but there was no way for me to leave without a scene. So I allowed myself to be steered out of yet another club, onto the street. Before I could even shiver, I was wrapped up in a cocoon of warmth.
“Keep that on till we get to the car.”
His peacoat swallowed me, falling to my knees, hanging long over my hands, but as he had been leaning back against it for more than an hour in the club, it had absorbed all his body heat. It smelled like him too, of some kind of citrus and sandalwood and warm male. I was a fan and sighed deeply.
“See,” he grumbled at me. “You need to carry a damn coat.”
Or get an even better accessory—a man who had a coat.
“Did you hear me?”
“Yes, Detective, I heard you.”
Half an hour later, I was standing in the street in front of my apartment, shivering because I had given back his coat, and leaning against the driver’s side door.
“Thank you so much,” I told him, my hands squeezing both the outside metal of the door and the leather interior. “You were great with my friends, and I really appreciated dinner.”
He nodded.
I smiled at him. “Maybe tomorrow you can have the night off from seeing me. That’d be good, huh?”
He let out a deep sigh, his eyes locked on mine. “You’re exhausting.”
“Yeah, I know. My boss says that too.”
“Speaking of which—it’s, like, three in the morning—how are you even gonna get up for work?”
“I just will, because if I don’t, Dane Harcourt will murder me.”
“That would save me a lot of work.”
I leaned back from the car. “I’m sure, but still…thank you.”
He moved so fast I didn’t even realize he had my wrist for a second. “You need a leash.”
“Whatever you want, Detective,” I assured him breathlessly.
He shoved me back and drove away without another word. I wondered what he was thinking.