Page 75 of No First Kisses

“You don’t have to go.” I give them an out. “I’m not going to arrest him.” I pull the badge off my hip, along with my service weapon, and I put them on the table. “I’ve given everything, literally every single piece of myself, to my country and the community. I’m not going to let him take her.”

Silence, thick and heavy, fills the air around us.

One by one, they each leave their badge on my table. All of them except for Ian.

“If I walked away, Parker would kill me. But worse than that, I wouldn’t be able to live with myself.” Remy touches his badge with one finger, tapping it lightly.

“Wearing the badge, we live up to a higher expectation,” Linc adds grimly, closing his eyes.

Dom clears his throat. “I’ve got a sugar momma if I lose my job.” He laughs darkly. “But I’d never be able to look my wife in the eyes again. I’d never be able to live with the shame.”

I look at Ian, trying not to show the hurt.

“What?” He looks around the table at the others. “You guys know I don’t carry my badge around with me, right? I only work part-time at the police station. I’m a fuckin’ psychiatrist. Of course I’m in.” He shakes his head and leads the way out. “Fuckin’ pussies. Every single one of you. Thinkin’ I’m not in. I’m telling Chloe on you assholes.”

27

POPPY

Who in their right mind thinks that an abandoned hunting camp is a good idea for a hideout? Literally every single hunter that I know in Maine has hunting cameras that are kept on their property. Not only that, but we are only a few months from the opening of hunting season. That means that hunters are busy stocking their camps, making repairs, and getting everything ready for a productive season.

Ortega really is an idiot.

But I have bigger problems than him.

Mainly the fact that we’ve barely made it two steps toward the camp when my water breaks, making it look like I pissed myself.

Admittedly, if I hadn’t just gone through it with Parker a few weeks before, I would have thought I had peed my pants.

“Did you just pee?” Ortega stares at me like I’m the disgusting one. “Can’t you fuckin’ hold it, you fat cow?”

“Look, asshole,” I snap, losing control of my anger. “I’m not fat. I’m pregnant. Also, no, I can’t hold it. Because I’m pregnant and not fat. You also drove me four hours into the northern woods and what? Expect me not to have to go to the bathroom at all? I’ve got a basketball attached to the front of my body, pressing on all of my internal organs. You’re just lucky I didn’t pee myself in your stupid car.”

While I do my best to ignore the taunts he throws my way, I’m busy counting the actual seconds to make sure that the baby isn’t coming anytime soon. Unlike Parker, I haven’t had two other kids. I’m really hoping that I won’t have to run into the woods and try to have a baby without the crazy man coming after me.

But I go a full five minutes without a contraction, and I finally take a deep breath. Maybe, just maybe, I’ll be able to get out of it before the baby comes.

I count three cameras on our way into the camp, which means it isn’t quite as abandoned as Ortega hopes.

“What are you going to do with me?” I finally find the courage to ask. “It’s not like you have to keep it a huge secret. Part of the fun in torture is knowing that you’re actually causing pain to your target. But I’m not your target, am I, Ortega?”

He stands in front of the camp, and I stall. Yes, it is stupid, because he is the man holding the gun. But I also know that if he gets me into the derelict building, I may not be coming back out again.

“You’re a means to an end,” he says, sniffing the air, then running a dirty hand through his filthy hair. “Your man, if that’s what you want to call him, fucked with me and I didn’t do anything wrong.”

I glance around, trying not to make it obvious that I’m looking for an escape, and cringe.

“You killed his sister.” I tried not to say it.

Okay, that is a lie. I relish the fact that I make him angry, but I regret it immediately.

“That slut was a cocktease. Always flirting but never putting out. She was too over the moon for that dumb ginger. You know the one. Your brother, whatever his name was. But I asked her out and she finally said she’d go. I kissed her, you know. And she liked it. Didn’t try to run away.”

Wow. He really is deluded if he thinks the measure of someone enjoying it is that they don’t run away.

“She didn’t start to fight until I got her legs open. What sort of slut does that?” He waves the gun in the air dramatically, and I nod along, hoping to feed into his delusion.

My tongue hurts from biting it so hard, because he is wrong on so many levels. I keep it in check, though, when the first contraction rolls in a full twenty minutes after my water breaks.

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