Chaos Remains (Greenstone Security 4)

Another reason I did what I did.

The reason a lot of previously logical people did very stupid things.

Alcohol.

I’d gone past my two drinks rule because I needed the wine, it tasted so great and because I needed something.

Which meant I was tipsy.

I didn’t stumble or anything as I walked Lance to the door after he spoke the first words since the infamous ones.

“Better go, it’s late, you’ve got an early morning.”

I had nodded to this. It was all true.

“Thank you, for dinner,” I said, my voice little more than a whisper.

He gave me a long, not at all blank look. “Dinner was for me, dinner was selfish.”

That was a punch to the ovaries. But like a good one. A really good one.

I didn’t say anything as we walked through my living room, though I did start to panic at my magical moment being over. Obviously it had to be over. He couldn’t stay.

Could he?

So that was when I did the stupid thing, right as we got to the front door. Something, more than wine, something animal took over me. When he turned to presumably say goodbye, bark at me to lock the door behind him and set the alarm as he always did, I pounced on him.

My hands fisted his tee, pulling at the thin fabric and yanking him toward me. Now, Lance wasn’t exactly a man that could actually be manhandled by a woman like me, so I knew that this had to be consensual. I was a woman, I knew by the way he looked at me that this was most definitely consensual. In my wine addled brain, I knew that despite what his looks, his words told me, he wasn’t going to be making the first move. Maybe any move. He thought of himself as bad, maybe he was. But right now, I wanted bad. More than anything.

Which was why I grabbed him the way I did and crashed our lips together. Lance didn’t react at all, at first. The man who I imagined dodging bullets better than Neo in The Matrix, being able to react to anything and everything, seemed shocked still by me kissing him without warning.

That didn’t last for long.

Pretty much until my tongue teased at the seam of his lips.

Then he reacted.

He did that my grabbing my ass, palming it rough enough that I knew I’d have bruises I’d savor tomorrow, the other hand tore through my hair and he yanked at me so my body slammed into his. My hands were still at his chest, trapped there so I couldn’t do anything. It should have panicked me, the fact I was all but trapped.

Because I was kind of distracted by the fact the Lance was kissing the shit out of me.

All of that emotion, all of that heat that had been absent, only hinted at since I’d met him, it all flooded into that kiss. Flooded into me with enough force that my knees were close to giving way. My heart crashed against my ribcage. Every nerve ending in my body responded.

He wasn’t tender or patient with me. Not like any other man who knew my history might have been. Another man might have thought I needed to be treated with care. Tenderness. Maybe I did.

But not at this moment.

Holy shit, not at this moment.

I moaned into his mouth as he yanked at my hair, beautiful pain erupting in my scalp.

Immediately the kiss stopped.

Not just stopped, Lance was no longer touching me but totally out of touching distance.

Out of pouncing distance.

Everything was blurry, red-tinged with my passion, with the fire. I lifted a shaking hand to my swollen lips, blinking rapidly so Lance came into focus.

And when I focused on him, I sobered.

Instantly.

The moment was over.

Well and truly.

The moment was destroyed.

I’d done that.

He proved it by looking at me for a beat longer then striding out the door. It slammed behind me. It took a long time for me to realize I hadn’t heard his boots thumping down our walk, or his SUV start up.

He was waiting on the stoop for me to lock up.

A weird part of me wondered if he’d stay there all night if he didn’t hear me. A big part of me hoped for that.

But then the logical part of me took over. I walked over to the door. It took three tries to slide the new locks home. To set the alarm.

The beeping of the new system echoed through my ringing ears.

I waited at the door for Lance to leave, wishing he wouldn’t. Wishing he’d storm back in here, finish that kiss.

Give me another moment.

But he didn’t.

Chapter Fourteen

Lance

“We clear I’m taking point on this?” Rosie asked him, pulling a brown manila envelope out of her purse. She didn’t wait for him to answer as he opened the door of the precinct for her. “Because we’re in a police station, it’s probably one of the worst places to commit murder,” she said conversationally, her heels clicking on the floor. Only this bitch would wear heels on the job. Granted, today’s job wasn’t meant to get dicey, their location being the main factor in this.