“Hey,” Jessica said as she tilted her head to look at me. It was like she knew I was already awake, though I’d been laying perfectly still.
“Good morning,” I whispered with a huge smile on my face.
She hummed in the back of her throat as I kissed her. Something I realized I wanted to hear more of. Like I wanted to wake up to it every single morning.
“I’m so fucking hungry,” she said as she rolled out of bed. “I’m going to shower so we can get moving.”
“Okay,” I told her as my hungry eyes roamed over her naked body. She didn’t even try to cover anything up as she strolled to the bathroom. My eyes were glued to her perky ass and I was completely memorized by the sway of her hips.
“Are you going to join me?” she asked as she looked over her shoulder.
Fuck, she was so damn sexy.
It took me forcing all the blood to my brain to give her the right answer instead of jumping off the bed and taking her up against the wall.
“In a minute,” I told her with a lazy smile. “Get started without me.”
“Okay,” she replied with a tiny hint of concern knitting her brow.
I waited a minute after I heard the water start up before I climbed out of bed.
I pulled the new burner phone I’d set up out of my bag. I hadn’t used this one yet, but I had it ready to go. Maybe I knew this moment would be coming.
The line rang after I dialed the number.
And rang.
Finally, I heard the click letting me know that the other line had been answered.
“I’m out,” I blurted out right away before I could change my mind. Not that I really thought that was going to happen.
“You want to repeat that?” he said in a tone that almost sounded as if he hadn’t heard me right.
“I’m out. Done. Finished. Hanging up my hat. Punched my time card for the last time.”
“Yeah, yeah. Okay, I hear you,” Dalton grumbled under his breath stopping me from giving him any more ways of saying I wouldn’t be taking jobs from here on out. “One bad experience and you’re calling it quits?”
“I thought you wanted this,” I shot back.
“I do, I just think there’s more to your story than you’re letting on.” He was silent for a moment as he waited for an answer that I didn’t have to give right now. Was there more to it? “Fine. Been nice knowing ya. I’m off to a tropical island where twenty-year-old girls are running up and down the beach in skimpy bikinis. Need to find something else to annoy me now that I won’t have you.”
I let out a low laugh.
I could just picture him sitting on a beach, annoyed as hell at everything from the sand around him to the crashing of the waves.
“You need to go somewhere cold. Somewhere that you can drink your beer outside and it won’t be piss-hot in a matter of minutes.” I got a grunt at that comment. With him, it was as good as a laugh. “I owe you, and I know you haven’t called to cash in, but I’m giving this to you.”
“You’re serious.” It was more of a statement and less of a question.
“Yep,” I told him just to make sure he got it.
“Okay, I’ll get the word out. Have a feeling some people aren’t going to be too happy but that’s their damn problem to deal with. Probably for the best, given everything that’s happened.”
“Do I need to worry about your safety?” I asked with a tiny hint of concern in my tone. I wasn’t clear on the details of how he handled the FBI thing and getting Jessica cleared from that mess, but I knew he’d more than likely given up some information that he shouldn’t have.
“No more than a normal day.”
“I owe you a huge thanks for that,” I told him.
