Page 54 of Deep Feelings & Shallow Graves
“Eat your damn pizza,” I say, voice low. Because if she says one more charmingly unhinged thing, I’m going to start drawing up a very serious ethical justification for turning this kitchen table into a shrine to her thighs and letting her use my face as a throne.
She grins like she knows it. Takes a bite. Chews slow. “So… that’s a no on the kiss?” she asks, voice light but eyes heavy with something darker.
I hold her gaze. My blood starts doing laps under my skin. “Didn’t say that.”
She sets her slice down. Wipes her fingers on a napkin. Real slow, like she’s buying me time I didn’t ask for.
“Well, if we’re doing it,” she says, rising from the chair, “I think it should be here. In your sad little kitchen. Right where we made that beautiful parmesan pivot.”
I stand. I don’t remember doing it. She’s there, suddenly close enough I can smell sugar and sweat and something faintly herbal, like lemon balm and menace.
“I meant what I said,” she says. “I can’t be arrested.”
“I’m off-duty.”
She tilts her head, pretending to consider. “Still. If this goes sideways, I’ll have to bury you with the others. Probably label you ‘friendly fire.’”
“Fair,” I say. My voice isn’t steady. It’s hoarse. Like my throat forgot how to handle air now that she’s in it.
And then she kisses me. Just presses in like she’s claiming the breath from my lungs, and I let her. It’s the kind of kiss that doesn’t ask for permission, just slides its fingers down your spine and tells you who’s in charge now.
I brace a hand against the counter to keep from losing my knees.
She tastes like cheese dust and soda and something dangerous. Her tongue flicks against mine like a dare, and I make some noise in the back of my throat that definitely wasn’t English. My free hand finds her waist, then stops, because any further and I’m going to forget all about respectful time buffers and good cop behavior and just pull her onto the counter like a sinner.
She breaks the kiss first, lips brushing mine like an aftershock. Her eyes are dark and amused and goddamn victorious.
“Huh,” she says, breathless but smug. “It does feel right.”
My brain radios for backup and no one responds. “You’re going to kill me.”
She hums, running a thumb along my jaw like she’s mapping out where to sit. “Not tonight.” Then she turns, grabs her soda, and walks off like she didn’t just dismantle me with her mouth.
I brace on the counter, running a mental background check on every decision that led me here. I try to stay put. Try not to tail her like a rookie with a hard-on and a suspension incoming.
I fail.
Because she winks like she’s issuing an arrest warrant for my last brain cell. And if she told me to lay down and play dead, I’d be halfway to the floor like a K9 drop-out with no impulse control and a weakness for suspects in lip gloss.
Chapter Nineteen
Jennifer
That I walked out of Carson’s house panties intact, edged within an inch of my goddamn life by a single kiss, says a lot for how I’ve grown as a person. Like, emotionally. Spiritually. Whatever. Character development, if you will.
Because Carson is basically a strippergram with a gun and “cuff me, daddy” vibes. He’s got a jaw that begs for sins and hands that make promises. But I’ve got rules. Guidelines. If I’m going to break my long-standing “only one dick at a time” policy, there’s gonna be structure.
Which is why, when Blake shows up on my porch this morning holding a brown paper bag and that stupidly hopeful face like I might give him a gold star for breakfast, I politely explain, “We can do all sorts of things. Many things. Creative things. But no orgasms for me today because I have a date tonight, and that would be rude.”
Because it would be. I may be a murderer, but I’m not an animal.
He just grins like I said something adorable instead of emotionally deranged. “Okay,” he says, like he understands and he’s into it. Then, like the golden retriever of domestic submission that he is, he walks inside and starts pouring chocolate milk into two glasses like this is the most natural arrangement in the world.
I tell him about Cookie and the challenge as I unwrap the French toast sticks he brought and pretend I’m not already thinking about all the ways I could break my no-orgasm rule and blame it on him.
“Yeah,” he says, casually. “So we need to make that bitch choke on her gossipy words. I’ve had your cookies. You’ve got this. What are we baking?”
We.
