“I’ll take her back,” Griff growls.
“Jesus,” I say, taking a step away from Dozer to put myself squarely in the middle of them again. “I want this shit to stop. It’s stressful enough with what we’ve got to do. I don’t need you two going at it.”
Griff just stares stonily at Dozer, and he glares back.
Christ… they’re children.
“Dozer,” I snap, forcing his attention to me. “Let it go. I have. Things are cool between Griff and me.”
I hold my breath to see what he’ll do, and I’m discouraged when he mutters. “Yeah… whatever. I’m out of here. I’ll text you the photos when I get home.”
He storms out of the apartment and I only hesitate a moment before I run out after him. Catching him halfway down the stairwell, I reach out to grab his arm in frustration. “Dozer… why are you acting this way?”
He pivots to face me, a broad grin on his face. His hands come to my shoulders, and he pulls me in to place a hard, fast kiss on my forehead. “I’m all good, baby girl. But if you haven’t noticed, my little display smacked of jealousy, which implies you and I might have a thing together. And that means the man in there will stay on his toes and not loiter when it comes to you. I don’t want him getting complacent.”
My jaw drops, and I mutter, “I don’t understand.”
“Girl, you are just blind.” Dozer laughs. “That guy in there likes you, and I mean a lot. But he’s also got this whole, ‘I’m FBI and bound by duty, and I don’t have time for romance’ vibe going on. So I want to keep him on his toes. I don’t want him to take you for granted, and the best way to do that is to make him think I’m interested in you and that’s why I can’t stand him.”
I just blink at Dozer.
Repetitively.
“Now, if something happens between you two tonight after he takes you home, then you can thank me for it at work on Monday, okay?”
“I don’t even know what to say to you right now.”
“Thank you, Dozer, will suffice.” He chuckles, then kisses me on my cheek. As he bounds down the staircase, I just shake my head.
I refuse to thank him for his matchmaking shenanigans, returning to the apartment still feeling bemused. Griff is standing in the middle of the living room where I’d left him. “No offense, but your coworker is an asshole.”
I snicker. “He can be. But he’s also my best friend.”
“Not apologizing for the asshole comment,” he mutters.
This makes me laugh. “Wouldn’t ask you to. And might as well just confess it to you, but Dozer was just acting that way to make you jealous.”
Griff frowns. “What? Why?”
“Because he thinks there’s something between us, but he doesn’t want us to get lost in working on the case and ignore it. He thinks you’re FBI, which to him means stuffy, and so you won’t take advantage of the situation.”
Griff looks ever so serious as he says, “Dude pointed out I’ve got long hair, a beard, and tattoos. I came here to stalk and kill you. How in the world can he even consider me stuffy?”
I snicker, giving him an appreciative once-over. He’s as far from stuffy as can be, but still, I have to admit, “You’re a Fibbie, and you guys are pretty strait-laced.”
Griff gets a gleam in his eyes, taking a calculated step toward me. “So, if I were a stuffy, strait-laced FBI agent, I most certainly wouldn’t do this, would I?”
My entire body braces to see what he’ll do, and my skin tingles from head to foot. No man has ever made me feel lightheaded before, but I go dizzy when his big hand comes to the back of my neck. Like weak in the knees, jello-legged, ready-to-collapse-to-the-ground kind of woozy. He moves in closer, dips his head, and brushes his mouth against mine.
In this moment, I realize I’d give him anything he asked from me. If I had more time to think on this, I’d think this might have to do with the fact I’m not only insanely attracted to him and beyond repressed sexually due to prison circumstances, but also because I trust him.
After all, he did save my life.
My entire body surrenders, sags right against him, and his arm comes naturally around my waist to hold me tight. The kiss is gentle, exploratory, and yet possessive at the same time. Griff is affirming he still has genuine feelings, and he’s not afraid to act on them.
But then the kiss stops, and I don’t know what any of this means. Without the pressure of his hand on my neck or his lips whispering against mine, I feel insecure and out of my depth. This man—almost a near-stranger—sent here to kill me, only to protect me instead, and now he’s giving me an opportunity to put my past to rest once and for all. He kissed me, yet we should have a purely professional relationship, but I don’t want to abide by rules that would have us maintaining a distance.