Chapter 11
“It’s okay to eat junk food in the car on road trips because calories don’t count at highway speeds. I don’t have time to explain the science behind this, but it’s sound.”
—It’s science
Hector
After my own quick shower—a cold one, I might add, thanks to Iris—we were finally on our way out the door.
“I’m actually really excited to see your office,” Iris said from the passenger seat of my SUV while Sarge leaned over her shoulder from the back seat. “Despite living here for nearly two years, I haven’t actually been to the visitors center.”
“Let’s take Sarge into my office when we first get there so he stays out of trouble, and then I can give you a tour after I get all this paperwork squared away.”
“Oh, that would be awesome, thanks.”
The minute we walked into the building, the few rangers who were on staff all clocked me and the gorgeous woman at my side.
She had on a simple red V-neck shirt with black shorts.
Her hair was up in some kind of messy bun with a few loose strands framing her face and glasses. Simple yet so damn sexy.
Diden, having seen her the instant we cleared the door, took the opportunity and pounced.
“Hey, boss. What are you guys doing here?” she asked in all her nosy glory, hidden behind a sweet, saccharin voice.
I told her and the other three rangers in sight that I needed to fill out some paperwork and then give Iris a tour of the place.
Diden and Jennings looked at each other conspiratorially and then turned to us.
“I can give you a tour. It’s the best part of my job,” Diden said.
“I’ll help you with the paperwork,” Jennings said to me.
That must have been their plan. Diden interrogates—I mean, gives a tour to—Iris while Jennings gets the scoop from me, and then they would share all their gossip after we left.
The only good news was that Jennings did, in fact, help fill out the paperwork with me, though he did it while asking me four-hundred questions about the case, including whether or not we should get a restraining order for the podcaster.
What I hadn’t planned on was Ranger Diden giving Iris the tour of a lifetime—a long one. So it had taken nearly two hours for us to get out of there.
At that point, I was already hungry since all I’d had was a measly bagel for breakfast. Given that I lived so far from the city, we still had roughly thirty more minutes to drive to her place, so we decided to grab some lunch on the way to her apartment.
Iris picked a spot that had a nice, covered patio with misting fans so we could have Sarge sit with us.
Knowing she was the weaker link, Sarge had set up shop directly next to Iris, setting his head on her thigh with the biggest pleading gaze I had ever seen.
“Hi, sweet boy,” she said, leaning down to scratch his head. “I would feed you, but grumpy daddy over there is glaring at me with the heat of a thousand suns. I might get in trouble if I give you food.”
“Yes, you would definitely be in trouble,” I confirmed.
She looked at me and smirked. “But, like, how much trouble? And what kind? Might be worth it.” She shrugged and popped a french fry into her mouth as she smiled wickedly at me.
“Dear Lord,” I mumbled quietly. This feisty woman was certainly going to be the death of me. “Iris, do not feed him,” I practically growled.
“Sir, yes, sir,” she said, full of sass as she saluted me and winked.
Three words and a wink, and I felt myself getting hard under the table.
Fuck, this woman was definitely, one hundred percent going to be the death of me.
“I have dog treats at my place,” she stage-whispered to Sarge. “They’re really for Cocoa, my neighbor’s dog, but you can have one when we get there.”
Pretending I hadn’t heard that, I intentionally broke my gaze from hers and chose to look down at my plate.
“Ann is really nice,” she said.
Not following her line of thought, I lifted an eyebrow in question.
“Ranger Diden,” she clarified, looking at me like I was supposed to have known that.
Yes, I knew her first name was Ann, but we all usually called each other by last names, especially since we had two Johns, two Amys, and two Davids.
“She taught me so much about the history of the park, and I love the topography maps you guys have on display,” she said while taking her glasses off and wiping them with her shirt.
I stopped paying attention to what she was saying at that point.
Pulling the hem of her T-shirt down from the bottom to wipe her glasses effectively caused the fabric to slide lower across her chest. As she leaned forward a bit, I suddenly had a clear shot of quite possibly the best pair of tits I had ever seen—and I was only seeing part of them.
“Don’t you think so?” she asked, startling me out of my deep gaze.
Thankfully, Iris’s gaze had been on her food when I looked up, so she hadn’t noticed my staring.
Having no idea what she was talking about, I chose to reroute by not answering.
“I’m glad you had fun. Diden likes giving tours. It’s her favorite part of the job.”
“I could tell, and I’m happy to have benefitted from it,” she said, now smiling up at me.
“She asked me about the break-in. She seemed really concerned. She also asked me a bunch of questions about Steve’s letter.
She offered again for me to stay with her.
Apparently, she was a big collegiate wrestler and won a state championship or something. ”
I hadn’t known that, but then again, I didn’t exactly try to get to know my colleagues outside of work.
I knew Diden was probably just trying to be nice and offer protection for Iris, but if she needed to stay somewhere other than her own place, she would be staying with me.
I didn’t know why I had this overly acute sense of protection when it came to her, but I did.
Sarge whined loudly next to her, giving his best effort to con her into sliding him a fry.
Instead, she just leaned down to kiss him on the top of his head and scratch behind his ears. In return, he leaned up to lick her face, effectively getting slobber on her glasses.
“I just cleaned these, buddy,” she sighed, taking them off to clean them again.
Not wanting to risk getting a hard-on—again—at lunch from watching her shirt slide down—also again—I chose to get up and dispose of my food tray and throw my trash out.
Fifteen minutes later, we were at her apartment complex. We swung by the front desk first to get the new key the apartment manager was supposed to leave for her.
She walked in to get it, but when she came out and slid into my car, she looked defeated.
“What’s wrong?” I asked as she hopped back into my SUV, and Sarge immediately sniffed her from the back seat as if she had been on the most exciting adventure in the four minutes she was out of the car. “Sarge, leave her alone.”
“Apparently, the maintenance supervisor had a family emergency, so he won’t be able to change my door lock until tomorrow,” she said, sighing.
Well, shit. There was no way I was letting her stay at her place until they replaced the lock. Was the same person likely to come back? No. But I also didn’t want to take that chance, especially since she lived alone and didn’t have any other form of backup security.
“You can go ahead and pull around,” she said to me, looking down at her phone. “I need to pull up the schedule and see what shifts Leah and Christine are working, because I don’t want to stay with one of them if they’re on the overnight shift.”
I should have nodded and let it go. That would be a better idea—a safer idea. But I found myself needing to be the one to make sure she was safe and covered.
“We’ll go to your place and grab some more clothes, and you can stay with me again tonight,” I told her, even though I knew this definitely wouldn’t be easy on me. But it would be easier on her, and that mattered more to me than my own discomfort.
“Hector, you’ve already let me stay with you one night. I don’t want to be a burden or overstay my welcome.”
“Iris, I wouldn’t have offered in the first place if I wasn’t okay with it.”
She stared up at me, trying to gauge my sincerity or perhaps to decide whether she even wanted to stay with me another night.
“Okay. Thank you. I know it’s highly unlikely, but if this really was a targeted break-in, I don’t want to take the chance they could break into Leah’s or Christine’s places too. ”
She turned to me, her hands twisting in her lap, and rushed to add, “Not that I want you to be a target either…It’s just that…well, you can protect yourself better.”
I knew what she meant, and she was right. I didn’t want her to feel bad about her comments though.
“I get it, it’s fine,” I told her, reaching for her hands that she was twisting in her lap, but she pulled them away at the last second, causing my hand to land on her thigh.
Her skin was burning under my touch. The palm of my hand was on her shorts, but my fingers brushed against her incredibly soft skin, and I found myself wanting to run my hands over more of it.
I lifted my hand off her leg quickly, putting it back on the steering wheel.
“Let’s go grab you some more stuff,” I told her, driving the car over to her unit. “You can give Sarge a treat while we’re there.”
“Or two,” she said, grinning. “Maybe three.”
“Well, how else do I get to know you?” she asked while we were sitting in my living room after eating dinner that night.
We had been back at my place for two hours now after grabbing her stuff from her apartment and coming back to my place.
“You don’t,” I told her matter-of-factly.
She sighed loudly. “Why not? What’s so wrong with me wanting to get to know you, Hector?”
“Because getting to know me complicates things,” I grumbled.
If she got to know me, then I would get to know her, which would make me like her more and make her harder to walk away from. I needed her to keep a distance from me so I could keep this platonic.