“Had the opposite effect on him,” he choked out, obviously trying not to laugh.
“It’s ok, you can laugh. Hell, even my insurance company laughed when I rang them about the damage.”
“Under any other circumstances, trust me I would be,” he said, looking around us like he was trying to find any residual damage. “Something’s bugging me, though, Rose. I live right there,” he pointed out the window at his house, “and you live right here. I’m also a deputy which means I’m a police officer living right there,” he pointed again at his house. “Do you see why I might not be laughing?”
Wincing, I nodded, biting down on my lip and trying to figure out how to explain why I hadn’t involved him. Really, the best option was the truth, but I didn’t want to go with the truth because it sounded really bad now. Shit.
“Ok,” I started, trying to get up so I could explain it with some distance between us, but the big shithead tightened his arms and stopped me from moving. Groaning because it really was going to sound stupid - even though at the time it hadn’t been - I covered my face with my hands and just jumped in. “That was the same day I set those alarm clocks to go off all over your house at three o’clock in the morning.”
That had been a good prank, but he’d been furious and had hammered on my door for twenty minutes to wake me up, too. I’d spent all day looking over my shoulder in case he tried to get revenge on me at work, so I’d been a wreck by the time I got home as it was.
“And you thought maybe I’d been the one to break your house apart,” he guessed, looking offended that I would even consider it.
“I mean, you love your sleep and all, and man were you pissed!” I blew out a breath, thinking back to the glare he’d shot me as I’d driven to work that morning. “Then I realized you wouldn’t go that far, at least I hope you wouldn’t,” I gave him a nervous glance, “and that’s when I panicked and called Ellis and DB.”
Deciding that picking my finger-nail was better than seeing the glower he’d no doubt be aiming at me, I focused on it and went to town. I could feel his eyes burning a hole in the side of my head the whole time I worked on that nail, but I stayed strong and true to the nail cause, not looking up once.
Finally, after long minutes of silence, picking, and glaring, he lost patience with the situation. “Rose.”
Eyes still on the finger prize, I replied, “Mm?”
“Look at me, Rose.”
“In a sec.”
That apparently was the wrong thing to say to an officer of the law, because he picked me up and turned me around so that I was facing him, with my legs straddling his thighs. I would like to point out, not once did I stop what I was doing - although I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t sorely tempted to, especially when he’d picked me up with no warning. Cupping my neck with his huge hands, he used his thumbs to lift my chin so that I had no option but to look at him this time.
“Now, I want you to listen to everything I have to say, and not interrupt. Do you understand?” he growled in a tone that sounded not unlike one I’d expect him to use when he was questioning a suspect. It made me think of him questioning me in a room with handcuffs involved, which would mean I was totally at his mercy, wouldn’t it? “Jesus,” he muttered, his eyes sweeping over my face. “I want to know what’s making you blush, but I’m not sure I’d survive it if I did.”
That just made me blush even harder, wincing at the thought of him finding out that fantasy. Stress makes bitches be dumb – lesson to the bitches. “It’s probably best you don’t know.”
Shaking his head, he breathed in and out a couple of times, and then went back to what he’d been saying. “Rose, no matter what’s going on between us - not even if I’ve dug a grave for you in my backyard - if something like that happens, you call me. It could be the middle of the night, and I still want you to call me,” he said firmly, waiting for me to nod, which I did but I doubted I’d make that call, regardless. “No, baby, you’ll call me, because if you don’t I’ll spank the ever-loving shit out of you. Do I make myself clear?”
Staring at him open-mouthed, I digested what he’d just said, focusing on two parts of it in particular to ask him about. “I have questions” I began. “First off, if you dig a grave for me in your backyard?”