Page 13 of Leaving Lando

I study him, memorizing his expression so I can pull the image up later. His slow, smoldering smile lifts a corner of his mouth. “You keep lookin’ at me like that, you’re gonna be late to work.”

The flesh between my legs twitches. “Look who’s talking,” I retort, relieved to have something to argue with him about. “Did your thing go okay last night?”

The smile vanishes. “No. We got a tip about a location, but when we got there they’d already skipped out. Not only moved all their gear, but wiped the place down. They were long gone before we even got close.”

“Hmm. You think the tip was planted to throw you off? Send you chasing your tails?”

Lando squints at me thoughtfully. “Maybe; can’t rule it out. Something about the witness is itching at the back of my neck, but I don’t know why yet.”

I wish we could stay here and talk it through; maybe it’d help him figure something out. Blowing out a breath, I pull on my metaphorical big girl panties, which are not nearly as much fun as the very real boxer briefs I’m wearing. “I better get going.”

He reaches out and cleans a speck of peanut butter from the corner of my mouth with his thumb, then licks it off. My pussy spasms, and it must show on my face because his eyes get darker. For a long moment we watch each other, the pull between us getting stronger until I think we’re going to go at it right here in the kitchen.

Then Lando pulls out his keys and the moment disintegrates. I follow him to the door and out, sucking in a breath as the frigid night air hits me. Fuck, it’s cold.

He blasts the heater in his truck again, which I know is primarily for my benefit. I’m reluctant to leave the warmth of the cab by the time we reach the alley behind the bakery. Sucking it up a final time, I say, “Good luck with your case. I hope things go better today.”

“Yeah, me too. Happy baking.”

“Always.” I smile at him and open my door before we can have another moment, because I can’t keep resisting them. Scurrying to the door, I unlock it and wave goodbye, then dart inside.

My sisters are already there. They eye my clothes — the same ones I wore yesterday — and I know I’m in for it. “Morning,” I say, as if it’s any other day, and get straight to work.

They do too, but as soon as we have a free moment, Quinn says, “Well?”

No one would guess that she and I are fraternal twins. We don’t have the same coloring, and our personalities are nothing alike either. But we’ve always been close, despite our differences.

“What happened last night?” Jade says. “I called you back but you didn’t answer. And you weren’t at Carlotta’s this morning when I came to pick you up.”

I check my phone. Sure enough, there’s a missed call from her. My brain was so busy melting from Lando’s kiss I never even heard it.

“You didn’t call out the cavalry?” I tease.

“I heard Lando’s voice, so I knew you were with him.” She takes a tray of croissants from the oven and transfers them to a cooling rack. “He sounded mad.”

“He was.”

“What did you do?” Quinn says.

“Why do you assume it was something I did?”

“Hello, this is Quinn, your twin sister.”

I have to laugh. And then I tell them about what happened at Revved, and my idiotic but fortunately brief walk in the cold. Not about the mind-blowing, panty-melting kiss, though. I’m not ready to talk about that yet.

And I don’t mention the trip to the diner and hiding a witness away in a motel, either. Not that my sisters aren’t completely trustworthy, because they are. But I want Lando to know that he doesn’t have to worry about what I overhear, or what I see, when I’m around him.

“You spent the night with him?” Jade says.

“Yeah, but nothing happened.” Almost nothing. “He had to go do the thing, for the case he’s working on.”

"So let me get this straight. He's already gone, doing the thing for the case, when one of his cousins calls to tell him you're out walking in the cold. He drops everything, comes to get you, takes you with him to do the thing, then takes you to his place and goes to do the other thing, and now he's brought you to work ... but nothing happened."

“I was asleep when he got back.”

“Where were you sleeping?” Quinn.

“In his bed.”

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