Butterface

Then, he glanced over, and the I’m-gonna-sex-you-up look transformed into the curious expression he’d had before he’d checked out the back shed that hadn’t been opened in forever and came out with six mousetraps. Used mousetraps. It had been nasty.

“What’s that?” he asked, tapping the top of the box.

“No clue. My brothers dropped it off and told me not to peek.”

Ford tensed. “Do they do that often?”

“Not really.” Okay, it happened every once in a while, but it had always been a surprise for a family member—earrings for their mom’s birthday, hockey tickets for her. Suddenly, though, seeing it through the eyes of a detective, the box Rocco had left started to look more sinister, and she hated that. Her family and Ford’s work stayed separate. They had to in order to make this whatever-it-was work. “They don’t bring their work to my house.”

Curious face got replaced with cop face. “Work?”

It was a single word, but it carried so much meaning. They weren’t lovers from different sides of the track. They weren’t Romeo and Juliet—although thank God for that, considering how that ended. But her last name hung over them like a lead weight held up by a fraying rope. Someday, it was going to come down and land on them, no matter how hard they both wanted to ignore it. She may not be doing anything illegal, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t tainted.

What saved everything from going straight to shit was the fact that they’d been upfront and honest with each other since the beginning. They didn’t lie to each other. Ever. It was the one rule that Gina needed people to keep, especially after what had happened that had led to her getting that awful nickname in high school. It had taken years to trust a man after that.

Ford pulled away and fastened the top button of his jeans, his gaze shifting over to the box before he spoke again. “Gina…”

She hated the way he’d just said her name. “Ford, stop. It’s probably just a surprise gift for when the house renovations are done. Paul and Rocco like to do little things like that. It’s nothing that should change this.” She reached out and put her hand on his chest above his heart. “I trust you. I need you to trust me, too.”

He glanced up from the box, then back down again before bringing the full force of his attention to her. “I do.”

“Good, then we don’t have anything to worry about,” she said with more cheer than she felt at the moment, but so determined to make the best of what could be a weird situation when everything between them was so new. “I’ll be done by eight. You want to meet up after?”

“Sure.” He gave her a quick kiss. “Let’s grab a beer at Marino’s.”

The nerves making her heart beat in a jerky pattern calmed, and she let out the breath she’d been holding. “Sounds perfect. I’ll see you then.”

He gave her a wink and walked out of the kitchen, giving her a perfect view of his ass as he did so. Damn. The man’s ass was truly a thing of beauty. How had this happened to her? From Kiss Cam to flirty kisses in her kitchen and so much more upstairs, her life—an undateable’s life—had taken a turn for the much better, and she promised herself that she’d enjoy the ride for as long as it lasted.

By the time Gina walked into Marino’s, she wasn’t humming any more.

Her newest clients didn’t know what they wanted to do for their pre-engagement party, but they sure didn’t want to do any of the eight million things that Gina had proposed. Some days, clients were the absolute worst.

She had to scan the crowd a few times before she spotted Ford in the back of the bar near the dartboards. He was standing with a bunch of guys that she could tell were cops even from across the room. There was just something about their stance, the way they scanned the crowd with suspicion, that gave them away in an instant. Of course, the fact that Marino’s was one of the most popular cop bars in Waterbury made it a pretty solid bet that almost everyone in here either had a badge or wanted someone with one.

Just as she started toward the dartboards, Ford turned. She knew the moment he spotted her, and her step faltered in response to the uptick in her pulse and the way her bra suddenly felt way too tight. He started toward her, and she forced herself to keep walking, although swooning kinda seemed like a possibility. Good Lord, what was happening to her?