Chapter 9 #2
The words punched into her. For a blink, she couldn’t make her fingers work to type a response. She told herself he just phrased it that way as part of the cover, the same way chili and pizza were part of a story they were building brick by brick.
Still, her mouth curved before she could stop it, and she shook her head at her reaction.
Quickly, she closed the text messages with Sinner and checked her notifications.
Dante had installed that app where she signed up to do odd jobs.
So far, she didn’t have any hits. Days bled into each other, a mix of boring days in a cubicle, dog walks and coming home to whatever amazing food Sinner made them.
She was jumpy and on edge, waiting for something to happen on the op. And…if she was honest with herself, because of Sinner too. After a single day, she’d slept with her partner, but now they seemed to be at a standoff, as if waiting for the other to cross the line.
She raked her fingers through her hair, exasperated with her behavior and yet turned on all over again by the memory of his hands, his lips…and more.
She was shaking off the moment when a task request popped onto her screen.
Walking a dog.
She stared at the assignment, then leaned back in her chair and let out a quiet laugh that had more sharp edge than humor.
She’d gone from infiltrating federal offices to balancing budgets to dog walking. For a whopping ten bucks an hour too. Of course, Kelly Franklin would be overjoyed to have the extra income, but Opal was far from thrilled.
This was probably the universe’s way of training her for the time she would be fired from the FBI and forced to walk dogs to keep a roof over her head. How many dog walks would it take to pay rent in the city? Worst case? Twenty a day?
She clicked on the job details and froze.
Breed: Newfoundland.
She blinked. Newfoundland dogs were enormous. They weren’t even dogs so much as they were mobile pieces of furniture with teeth. And slobber. Probably lots of slobber.
Opal never had a pet. Her mother had once dreamed of having a dog, back when things still felt possible, but then they had to vanish.
She hit accept, then closed the app and pretended to work for another half hour before logging out for the day. When she walked to her car, she scanned the vicinity, hoping to spot a drug dealer. But she only saw coworkers walking to their vehicles.
She made the drive to her second job under the weight of resignation. After arriving at the modest home in the suburbs, she parked at the curb and took a moment before getting out of the car, wondering just how walking a dog was going to get Cipher to show his face.
At least she’d worn the boots today instead of heels, a small mercy she’d learned to appreciate the hard way.
The neighborhood was quiet, the kind of place where nothing much happened and people expected things to stay that way.
The door opened before she reached it. The owner and their dog filled the frame.
It was even bigger than she expected. Its tail wagged once, slow and confident, as if it already knew how this was going to go. Opal took one look at the huge mound of muscle under all that fur and knew she was outmatched.
The owner handed her the leash with a guilty smile and a list of instructions Opal barely heard.
The dog didn’t wait for introductions. The moment they were on the sidewalk, it set off at a steady, determined pace, dragging her into motion like she was an accessory instead of the one holding the lead.
She tried to slow it. Tried to redirect.
The dog ignored her completely.
It followed a route it clearly knew by heart—around the corner, down two blocks, across a patch of uneven grass—all while pulling her along with cheerful indifference.
When it spotted another dog across the street, it lunged, a low woof of enthusiasm her only warning, and Opal lost her footing on the cracked pavement. She went down hard, knee biting into concrete, the leash burning across her palm as she fought to keep hold.
By the time she wrestled the dog back to the house and returned it to its very pleased owners, she was limping and bleeding, her mood as tattered as the knee of her borrowed pants.
She made it back to her car and sat there for a moment, staring straight ahead, breathing through the sharp throb in her knee. This—this—was what her day had become. Fake job. Fake marriage. Two days in a row she went back to the hotel scraped and bleeding.
She fumbled through the glove compartment, shoving aside fake ownership and insurance papers, and found two crinkled tissues. She pressed one to the scrape, wincing, already exhausted by an op that was just getting started.
By the time she climbed the stairs to the hotel room, her knee throbbed and her patience was gone. She fumbled with the keycard, already rehearsing how she was going to explain another injury to the SEAL without sounding like a wimp.
She swung the door open and stopped short.
Sinner stood in the kitchenette, a pizza in hand, looking entirely too pleased with himself. Then the smell hit her—hot dough, tomato sauce, delicious grease—and her stomach rumbled in an audible growl.
He raked a look over her and abruptly dropped the pizza pan on the counter. That dark scowl he wore made her forget that her knee stung, and the flex of his biceps as he reached for her took her mind on an entirely different path.
“What the hell happened? Did that drug dealer come for you?”
She shook her head. “Dog.”
A crease appeared between his brows. “A dog did this to you?”
“I got a job on that stupid task app Dante hooked up for me. Walking a dog. Only it wasn’t a small dog. It was a newfoundland.”
He looked her over, stare lingering on the ripped knee of her trousers. “Come here. Let me clean your cut.”
Before she could protest, he picked her up. Just plucked her off her feet and spun toward the counter. He set her down gently and leaned in to examine the injury through the ragged tear in the cloth.
“I’m going to take off your pants.” Warm brown eyes met hers, doing just as much to her insides as his words did.
Her stomach growled again, and she forgot about her libido in favor of a slice of the homemade pizza Sinner was famous for on the team.
She started to slip off the counter but he was right there, hands on her waist, lifting her gently to the floor. She toed off the boots and pushed her pants down her hips. She didn’t get to step out of them before he lifted her and set her on the counter again.
“I’m gonna need that first-aid kit.”
“I’m gonna need a slice of pizza.” She tilted sideways to snag one. Watching the muscled SEAL turn to the dresser where he’d set the first-aid kit, Opal brought the pizza to her lips.
The instant the flavors hit her tongue, she forgot all about her knee. By the time he returned, she was happily devouring the food.
“I’m starving,” she said around a bite by way of apology.
He gently probed the edge of the bruise. “Not in the mood for your turkey sandwich?”
“I didn’t have time to eat. I was too busy looking for drug deals and being dragged down the street by a hundred-fifty-pound squirrel chaser.” She made a noise—part humor, part appreciation for the food as she swallowed another delicious bite.
Sinner’s eyes simmered with an emotion she couldn’t name. As he inspected the cut, he issued a grunt. “It’s nasty.”
“I’ve had worse. Just clean it and put a bandage on it.” Spices danced on her tongue, who cared about a cut knee?
As he worked, she gave him the short version of meeting the big dog who outweighed her by a good fifty pounds and how he walked her around the block.
He made a sound that might have been a chuckle and knelt in front of her. The scrape was angry, but superficial, and she watched his long fingers—that had been inside her—as he cleaned the wound.
At that moment, her phone chimed.
He stiffened, pausing in cleaning her wound.
She glanced at the notification and groaned.
“What is it?” His voice came with an edge that made her meet his stare.
“It’s another task. The couple I walked the dog for gave me a five-star review.”
“That’s good.”
“They want me back tomorrow.” She groaned. “Sounds delightful. Maybe he can take out my other knee.”
His rumble of amusement shot sensations through her whole body. Her nipples pinched, and she resisted the urge to squeeze her thighs together.
She took another bite and then another, chewing more slowly as the day began to fade to the background.
“I walked into an office this morning pretending to care about budgets. I spent my lunch break watching street corners for anybody who could spot me prescription pills. After that, I got dragged a mile by a dog.”
He glanced up at her, eyes warm. “Sounds productive.”
She snorted. “If this op doesn’t get me fired, nothing will.”
He applied the bandage and rose. She watched him, the easy way he moved…and remembered how he moved over her in bed.
He put away the first-aid kit and returned to lean against the counter beside her, handing her a second slice of pizza.
As she took it, their hands brushed, leaving her with another trickle of need deep in her core.
He took a slice for himself and they ate in silence, her sitting on the counter and Sinner leaning on it.
She couldn’t remember a time she felt so…at ease. A gorgeous fake husband who made terrific pizza and was good in bed?
What took place between her and Sinner might be more dangerous than anything she’d face on the streets.