“Do you want a beer?” Joe asked. “Otherwise, I’m afraid you’re stuck with water.”
“A beer sounds great. Thanks.”
Joe went to the fridge, but he stopped with the door half-open and turned. The intense look on his face made my pulse speed up.
“What?” I asked.
“When you use that voice, that fucking soft, sweet voice, it’s like… Shit, you might as well have your hand on my dick.”
“Thanks for telling me. I’ll have to remember that when I’m fucking you later.”
He licked his lips, then shook his head and turned back to the fridge. “I never should’ve told you that.”
I loved knowing I affected him. “I’m glad you did, and since were being honest for a change—”
“I’m not the one who lies all the time.”
“I like to call it stretching the truth.”
“Call it whatever the fuck you like, but you’re hardly Mr. Honesty.” He set the beers down as I put one of the omelet halves on a second plate and brought the plates to the table. I winced when I sat down.
“Sore?” Joe look very pleased with himself.
“Fuck yes, and I was trying to tell you that I’ve never come hands-free before.”
His eyes widened. “Really?”
“Yes, and it was fucking amazing, and I know I could do it again. You coming inside me would do it instantly.”
Joe reached down, and even though I couldn’t see his hand because of the table, I was sure he was rubbing his cock.
“Enough of that. Hands on the table. It’s time to eat.”
He gave an exasperated sigh. “You’re unbelievable.”
“I’m pretty fucking special. That’s for sure.”
Joe took a bite of his omelet and made a sound much like the ones he’d made when he was deep inside me. “This is amazing.”
“It’s just an omelet.”
“I didn’t have any dinner.”
I sighed. “We’ve got to do something about your eating habits.”
“Why do you care so much?”
There was a challenging tone to his words, but his cheeks were deep pink. He might be protesting, but he liked being cared for.
“If I could answer that, I might understand this whole mess we’ve gotten ourselves into.”
“You needed your cousin’s name cleared, and I named my price. That’s all.”
I glared at him. “Now you’re just straight up fucking lying.”
He looked away, focusing on his food. “It would be so much easier if that was the truth. If all we’d done was make a bargain and use each other to get off.”
“That wouldn’t explain what we’re doing now, though, would it? The bargain ended as soon as we each fulfilled our part.”
“I also said I wouldn’t hesitate to bring you down if I caught you committing another crime, and I never meant for you to kill Murphy.”
“I never meant for you to dig into my past and threaten me with it. But here we are. You’re after me again, and I’m not going to let you catch me.”
“I already did. You’ve got my cum leaking out of your ass. That’s about as caught as you can get.”
I smiled. “All right, maybe that’s true.”
“I had to have leverage on you. You would’ve done the same thing.”
“True, and no matter what you have on me, no matter what past actions you drag out into the light, I won’t let you hurt me or my family. Normally I would’ve already set a plan in motion to bring you down.”
He took a sip of beer, his eyes never leaving mine. “Instead, you’re here making dinner for the enemy.”
“Yes. This is a new one for me. I don’t want to hurt you, Joe. Don’t make me choose between you and my family.”
“I can’t just let this go. I can’t pretend there’s no connection to you.”
“You don’t have to pretend. You found a stolen ring. It happens to belong to me. I was never there. I wasn’t involved. It’s a simple as that.”
Joe frowned. “When you came to me before, you told me Lucien didn’t murder Lily Milano. Are you going to tell me you didn’t murder the person whose remains are in those ashes?”
“Don’t ask me questions you don’t want the answer to, at least not if you expect me to be honest.”
“Devil, I can’t just let you get away with this.”
That wasn’t true. “You could, but you don’t want to.”
“You’re wrong. I do want to, but then how would I be any different than the criminals I track down and arrest?”
Joe was so different. He was a good man who believed in helping people, a man who wanted to make sure there was somebody there to stand up for people who couldn’t stand up for themselves. In that, we weren’t all that different. He just used the law to do it, and I protected people the law would never help.
I’d finished eating, so I set my fork on my plate, pushed my chair back, and took hold of Joe’s chair. I turned it sideways so I could kneel in front of him. “I know you’d prefer things to be black and white, but my whole life is lived in the gray areas. The only way things can work between us is if you accept that nothing is as clear-cut as you want it to be.”