Chapter 17
17
DAX
If looks could kill, I’d be dead. Except instead of the glare scaring me, it turned me the fuck on. Especially since Fiona pulled her gun on me.
I never had the hots for anyone in law enforcement before, but I sure as hell did now.
“You seem ready to shoot people a lot,” I commented.
While I might now know why she was armed and so skilled with taking down a perp, I wasn’t going to tell her that. She hadn’t mentioned it in any of the time we’d been together. Sure, the first time had been during an armed robbery and the second we’d fucked, and she hadn’t said much more than harder and deeper.
No, a fixer knew when to hold onto intel and when to share it. I never knew when I might need leverage .
“What are you doing in here?” she asked, not lowering her weapon.
“For a woman who I made come twice not three hours ago, you’re remarkably unhappy to see me.”
“How did you get in?” She glanced around looking for a broken window or something. As if I’d be that sloppy. Locks didn’t keep me out.
Slowly, I shook my head. “You seem tense. Come climb on my dick and I’ll make it all better.”
Instead of doing that, she kept prodding. “Circling back to my first question, what are you doing here?”
I lifted my chin. “My gun is bigger than yours, sweetheart. I know you like it that way.”
She rolled her eyes, sighed, and lowered her arm. “Jesus Christ, Dax.”
“You did call me God a few times.”
She turned her back on me and went into the kitchen. It was when I heard the fridge door open, then the beeps of a microwave did I realize she wasn’t coming back.
I couldn’t help but smile. Fuck, I hadn’t had this much fun in a while. She didn’t shoot me, so the chances of doing something like we did earlier, but with a bed, held promise.
“Why’d you rush out?” I asked her when I joined her in the other room.
She spun around, the microwave counting down from thirty by her head, and leaned against the counter. “Because we had sex in the middle of a bookstore .” She studied me. “You don’t seem like much of a cuddler.”
“Neither do you.” I wouldn’t say she had ice in her veins, because I’d met some women who’d be classified as stone-cold bitches. Plus, I knew for a fact that Fiona ran hot. Real hot. No, she was… prickly. I was smart enough not to say that aloud, even though it seemed I got hard for prickly.
She shrugged. Definitely didn’t let people in easily.
“Nice place,” I said, looking around. It was a small house, updated. Two entry doors, easy access windows in the bedroom, over the kitchen sink, and in the laundry room. Smoke alarms were up to date. The locks on the doors were new and sturdy. But not sturdy enough to keep me out.
“It’s a vacation rental.”
The microwave dinged and she turned to pull a steaming plate from it. This was why I was here. To find out why an FBI agent wanted to fuck me on a bookstore floor.
Since Nitro told me the news, I had a shit ton of questions.
Was she investigating me?
Was she investigating Jack?
If so, why? There were years and years of whys she could be looking into. Murder. Bribery. Removing body parts. Dumping dead bodies. The list was really fucking long.
But why now?
I’d already stewed on that and figured our meeting at the convenience store was by chance. She’d been there first. It wasn’t like she followed me up from Denver. It wasn’t like she knew a guy was going to try and rob the place. Was it another coincidence we both ended up in Coal Springs? What about the bookstore?
She wasn’t in town for me.
It had to be Jack. Whatever it was she was looking into, it had to be old. Jack and I took care of Sal Reggiano over the summer so he could walk away from his hitman gig. The mafia guy was behind bars until his trial, or a plea deal. Either way, Jack had been on law enforcement’s side for that takedown. Plus, he hadn’t killed the guy.
I was out of ideas.
It was a good thing Jack was away on vacation where Fiona wouldn’t find him. I’d get the info I needed, and I’d fix the problem Jack didn’t even know he had.
No, I wasn’t going to kill her. I was going to see what her angle was and then perhaps let him know he and Hannah needed to relocate to a non-extradition country.
“You from out of town?” I probed.
“You broke into my place. Don’t you think I should be doing the asking?”
“Let’s just say I didn’t get enough of you earlier.” That was the truth. Hell, my balls had been telling me to track her ass down and fuck her again ever since I pulled out.
Her blue eyes held mine and there it was. The connection.
Fuck, she was pretty. Not fancy, but not a Colorado granola chick who didn’t shave her armpits either. What was the word?
Effortless. Without trying, she was stunning. Also, without trying, she’d drawn me in like a trout to a mayfly lure.
That was why I wanted to cross the room and kiss her. Bend her over the center island. Was it a good idea to fuck the–possible–enemy?
She took the dish which appeared to be a mound of rice and grabbed a fork from a drawer by the dishwasher. Everything in this kitchen was white. Cabinets, counters, appliances. It was clean and bright and… cheery. Then she pulled out a–white–stool and sat at the island.
“Fine. I’m from Denver.”
Good, not a lie.
She forked some rice into her mouth. The scent of it hit me. Fuck, that smelled good. Cheesy.
“You live in Denver and are spending your vacation in Coal Springs?” I went to the same drawer and grabbed a fork of my own. I stood catty-corner to her at the island which put the dish of rice in front of me, too. “It’s not even the ice castle festival weekend or ski season or whatever. Is there some event celebrating hay bales that you just couldn’t miss?”
I scooped up some rice and ate it. Fuck me, that was good.
She lifted her gaze from the plate. Her pale eyes held mine. Taking hold of the dish, she slid it closer to herself, practically hugging the thing. I reached out and tugged it back.
She growled.
I growled back. And got hard. This woman .
“No one taught you to share?” I asked.
“You have cooties,” she replied.
Instantly, I grinned. “We should have had the cootie talk a few hours ago when we swapped spit, and I got inside you. As for other cooties…”
“Other cooties?”
“I don’t have any. I’m clean.”
Her eyes narrowed, catching on. “Me, too. And on the pill.”
“Good, ‘cause that means the next time there will be nothing between us. You good with that?”
She let go of her death grip on the plate and relented. “I’m good.”
Thank fuck.
We sat in silence for a few seconds–a record for us–before I asked, “You make this?”
Around a mouthful of food, she replied, “I don’t cook. Dottie, my new Coal Springs BFF, brought it to me yesterday. A welcome casserole.”
“A welcome casserole?” I asked, not sure what that was.
She waved her free hand in the air. “Right? I was suspicious at first, but she had me with the cheese.”
“Your weakness. Good to know.”
She pointed her fork at me, then the plate between us.
“Your weakness, too, based on the way you’re shoveling it in.”
It was fucking good.
“What are you doing here, Fiona?” I asked, tossing her repeated question back at her .
She took another bite, chewed, swallowed. Lifted her gaze to meet mine. Held.
“I came to town to meet your boss.”
I frowned. My boss? I didn’t have a boss. Great, she was investigating me.
“Hannah Highcliff.”
It was almost impossible to swallow the last bite of rice. She was investigating Hannah? That woman was like Snow White with little animals scurrying around her as she sang to them in the forest. No way Hannah did anything wrong other than forget to bring her mother some potato salad.
Then I remembered what she said when she’d pulled her pants back on after our little fun in the bookstore. Hannah’s on vacation. Hannah. I never told Fiona Hannah’s name, only said my boss was on vacation . I blamed the mental lapse on a life-changing orgasm. This meant she’d already known Hannah’s name when she walked into the store. She really was in town to meet Hannah.
“I don’t really work at the bookstore,” I admitted, hoping she’d tell me she worked for the fucking FBI.
She smiled. “That’s good. While your pretty face might help sell a shit ton of books, you really suck at it.”
I did, and the place had only been open twenty minutes before I closed for the rest of the day.
“My face is not pretty.”
Rugged. Handsome, maybe. But not pretty.
She rolled her eyes, which I was finding more and more endearing, and annoying, each time she did it.
“Fine, you’re hideous. Where are the paper bags in this place?” she asked, glancing around the kitchen as if they’d magically appear.
“Are you applying for a job at the bookstore?” I probed, moving the conversation away from my looks and testing her.
She scoffed, then filled her face with cheesy rice, making her cheeks puff out. “I’m definitely not the romantic type.” Based on the way she talked with her mouth full, that was obvious.
“Then why?”
Her shoulders drooped as she continued to chew, then swallow. She didn’t look away the entire time. Studying me. Deciding something. I practically held my breath. Were my friends in big fucking trouble?
“Hannah and I both had gamma knife radiation at the same place, and I wanted to meet her.”