Chapter 6 #3
He’d smiled more in the hours he’d spent with Rosemary than he had in the past year.
How could he not? The joy with which she embraced life was infectious.
She was a woman who made the most of every moment.
He liked how she settled in and made herself at home on his couch.
He liked that she ate and drank with gusto.
He liked how she savored his favorite beer like it was a fine wine.
He liked how she’d leaned into his musical comment that very first night and danced on the stairs in public.
He liked that she openly shared whatever was on her mind.
He liked that she had strong muscles and soft curves and the most compelling lips he’d ever laid eyes on.
“Chain Reaction,” she said, reading the beer label aloud. “This is awesome.” She looked at the label again. “Thin Man Brewery. Is that around here? I’d like to check it out.”
Of course, she would. Just one more thing to like about her.
He confirmed that the fire was in good shape, then walked over and sat down next to her on the couch, picking up and taking a long drink of his own beer. He loved the hints of pineapple, passionfruit, and berry that balanced the dankness of the IPA.
“The brewery is in Buffalo, so it’d have to be a road trip. Luckily, a local place carries the brand, so I can get it here.”
He lifted the part of the blanket pooled between them, spreading it over his own lap. “Mind if I share?”
Pink tinged her cheeks and neck as she nodded affirmatively.
Did she blush everywhere? Would her breasts and thighs turn that bright, rosy pink when she came?
His cock instantly responded to the thought, and he shifted on the couch, trying to get comfortable in pants that suddenly felt too tight.
“Am I crowding you?” she asked.
“No. All good. Just still recovering a bit from that strong right knee of yours.”
“I’m sorry...” she started.
“Don’t say it. There’s no need to apologize. Like I said, if anyone should be apologizing, it’s me. I shouldn’t have assumed it was okay to kiss you.”
“Does that mean you owe me?” she asked.
Owe her. That was an intriguing thought. If he said yes, how would she want to collect?
“I guess I do.”
She set her can on a coaster and clapped her hands together like an excited child. “That means I can get you to answer my questions.”
What the hell was she talking about?
“What questions?”
“Remember when I said at the bar that you had to tell me one thing about yourself for every solid I dropped? Since I never got my Aleksei facts, I’m going to get them now.”
He groaned. Partly because he didn’t want to spend the night playing improv and partly because he knew she would think his sour reaction was funny, and he loved the chime-like sound of her laugh.
“I don’t like talking about myself,” he said.
“No one does.”
“Actually, almost everyone does,” he retorted.
She rewarded him with more tinkling laughter and an even deeper flush of the portion of her chest the few open buttons of her blouse exposed. Again, the image of her soft skin, pinkened with arousal, flashed through his mind. The blanket covering his lap was a godsend.
“We’ve been out twice, and I feel like I don’t really know anything about you. I thought you lived in Philly, but you live in DC, and I don’t even know what you do for a living.”
“I never said I lived in Philly.”
She scrunched her pert nose and rolled her eyes, making him laugh. If she kept making him smile, his jaw might actually hurt.
“You never said you didn’t, and that’s a big omission. When you meet someone walking a dog down the street, a normal person would assume they live in the area.”
So, it was going to be improv after all.
The more time he spent with her, the harder it was to imagine her being in thick with Moresco, but he still needed to hold his cards close to his vest. If there was accounting fraud, maybe she didn’t realize what she was doing was a crime.
Or maybe she knew the numbers were phony but felt loyal to Pannetone & Associates and didn’t view fiddling with some numbers for an important client as a big deal.
He’d seen how she was about her sister. Her loyalty ran deep.
To him, right was right, and wrong was wrong, but he knew lots of people didn’t view crime that way.
Not that the police were always right and criminals were always wrong.
He’d known plenty of bad cops. It was just that sometimes people thought certain crimes were victimless.
He knew better. Behind the scenes, when crime was involved, people always suffered.
People like his mom.
People like Phillipe.
And for Phillipe, he was going to lead this bright, shining woman through a game of question and answer.
He would give her a mix of truth and lies, because her reactions to his quasi-truthful answers would probably reveal more about her than his answers would reveal about him.
He would just have to be very careful—she was clever.
And that cleverness showed in her first question.
“So, what exactly is your job? And don’t give me that consultant nonsense. What company do you work for and what, specifically, do you do?”
Shit. This might be harder than he thought.