7
Riley
Dee and Spring Rolls
I’m thirty-one years old. My body fat ratio sits around thirteen percent, and dips lower when I train extra hard. I passed the BUD/s test and Hell Weektwicewithout ever intending to become a SEAL. I took advanced physics and calculus classes while in school, and before I attended the police academy, I earned a biochemistry degree at one of the most prestigious colleges this country has to offer.
All of that to say; I’m fit, I’m healthy, I’m young, and I’m definitely not stupid. I have the willpower of a fucking saint, the control of a lion stalking his prey, and the patience of a cat waiting for a mouse to dart across the room.
Andrea Conner cannot break me. She’s the mouse that I intend to wait out, but when I step back into my living room and find her on my couch beneath a fluffy blanket she took from my closet, my chase suddenly vanishes.
I don’twanther to play games, but fucked if I wasn’t prepared for them.
I stop in front of the coffee table with silverware and a bottle of white wine. She was drinking white at the wedding, so it was an easy guess when I stopped at the store on the way home.
“Comfortable?”
Nodding, she shyly lifts the blanket and reveals bare legs, but above that is one of the tanks I wear to the gym as it dwarfs her lean frame and turns me on a billion times more than her tiny skirt did. Sexy and done up has its place in this world, but dressed down and comfortable andstillsexy is a whole other ballgame. “I borrowed your stuff.” She tucks her feet back when I sit by her legs and pull the blanket over mine. “I snooped in your bedroom, and when I wasn’t done, I snooped in your closet and under your mattress, too.”
I open the wine with a grin and let go of a week’s worth of tension when her smooth legs spread out over my lap. “Did you find anything interesting?”
“No whips, no chains, not even a candle that you could pour on me.”
“I could’ve told you that.”
She accepts her glass when I fill it to the brim. “I found a couple guns, but seeing as I’m in a cop’s house, and semi-living with another cop, I’m getting kinda used to that.”
“You didn’t touch them, right? Guns are dangerous.”
Chewing her bottom lip, the innocence I was so sure was under all the confidence shows. “I didn’t touch; I already got the talk from Oz and Lindsi. It’s kinda cliché you have a gun under your mattress though, don’t you think?”
“Say that again next time you need a gun within easy reach.”
She scrunches her nose and readjusts her legs when I finish pouring my wine and sit back. “I’ve never needed a gun before. I’ve never been in a situation I ever needed one.”
“Hopefully you never do. Guns aren’t toys, so unless you intend to learn how to use one properly, don’t even try. If you’re ever in a situation that you feel unsafe, run fast, run in zigzags, and run the fuck away. Then call me; I’ll fix it.”
“Fix…” She takes a contemplative sip of her wine. “Perhaps you need to definefix.”
I shrug. “First we need to define trouble. A guy tries to steal your purse in the street; I’ll just arrest him. He calls you mean names or takes your parking space; I’ll let you deal with your own shit and then work the paperwork on our side to get you out of lockup again. But a guy tries to hurt you for real, if he makes you cry real tears and makes you scared; I’ll take him out before he realizes he’s missing his jugular.”
Her brow lifts. “Savage. Would you still protect me even if I’m all the way on the other side of the country? That’s a long way to go for a girl you met so recently.”
“Even if you’re all the way over there.” I don’t show the way my heart gives a violent thump at the reminder that she lives several thousand miles from here. I have her in my home tonight. I’ve had her in my bed once, and I intend to get her back there a few more times before she leaves. But eventually… “When do you go home?”
“Next weekend. I’m staying this week to look after the kids, then I have to go back to work and control my urge to slam a dumbbell over my dumb bitch boss’ head.”
“I’m a cop, Dee.” I slide my hand along her inside thigh beneath the blanket. “What if that dumb bitch turns up dead in a week? It’s my duty to report your premeditated plans.”
She snickers. “If she dies… I mean, I won’t cry or anything, but I promise it wasn’t me that did it. I don’t hold enough anger for that kind of stuff.”
“You don’t hold anger?” Smiling, I lean forward and set my wine down. Tearing the plastic bag open, I take out a container of mini spring rolls and a small tub of chili sauce. “My entire career centers around observing people and deciding how likely it is they’re guilty of something; past, present, or future. You seemexactlythe type to hold enough anger to whack a bitch with a lead pipe.”
“A pipe?” She accepts a roll when I hold the container up, but declines the sauce. “I said weights. You’re saying pipe. If she turns up dead, and they find it was because of a pipe, will I assume youfixedit? Because I’m not saying you should do it, but if you did, I wouldn’t get mad.”
“No.” I fix the blanket and balance my wine on the arm of the couch. “I’m not taking care of your boss. What’d she do to deserve your wrath?”
Her bottom lip pops. “She’s mean to me.” She smacks my leg when I laugh. “She is! I’m trying to create something for myself, but I’m employed by a dictator. She doesn’t give me freedom to do anything I want. She shucks the clients that she considers hopeless off to me. And God forbid I turn those hopeless people around and help them become independent again.” She rolls her eyes. “Mia sends the old people, or the people who’ve been in therapy for so long everyone considers it a lost cause. She sends me the people she expects to keel over and die any day. But I believe in them. I help them, then we do the cha-cha on the way out the door and flip that bitch off.”