Page 99 of Playing With Danger

“Yep.”

“Today?”

“Well, I was already planning on spending the night.”

Valentine’s eyes turned warm and he smiled a smile I’d never seen him make. He looked happy. Joyful. Relaxed.

“If you keep smiling at me like that, honey, I’m gonna request you take me home to celebrate and I’ll miss meeting your friends.”

His happiness instantly transformed to desire. It felt great knowing he was just as attracted to me as I was to him. But, seriously sometimes a girl needed a break.

“Come on, Romeo, introduce me to your friends.”

He waited a beat, then two, and when I thought he was going to break the silence he opted to kiss me instead.

A sweet, slow celebratory kiss.

A promise of good things to come.

Please and thank you.

“I’m sorry what?” I sputtered. “A dog peed on his boot?”

We were all sitting in lawn chairs in Shiloh and Luke’s backyard. “We” being Shiloh, Luke, Riddle, Chip, me, and Valentine. Their teammates, Watson and Gordy, had left a bit ago after we’d devoured the burgers Luke grilled. Shiloh had a bunch of store-bought sides from the deli that were better than any homemade potato and macaroni salads I’d ever had.

My belly was full, I was relaxed and having a great time, everyone seemed to like me and I totally liked them. Especially Shiloh and Chip. Shiloh was my soul-sister—that was, if her being a badass and me not being a badass meant we could still be sisters of the soul. She was a straight shooter. She didn’t waste time pretending to be something she wasn’t. You took her as she was or you didn’t take her at all. She was also watchful and obviously the little sister to all the guys. They gave her gruff and she gave it back ten-fold. It was fun to watch. And Chip was a riot. His real name was Alan but everyone called him Chip because his front tooth was chipped and had been for years. The story behind it was something about him taking down a suspect who was twice his size. The chipped tooth was his claim to fame. He was also the most soft-spoken out of all the guys.

Now Riddle was telling stories and this latest one was about Valentine and a dog peeing on him.

“You didn’t tell her about the time you were assaulted by a naked woman?” Riddle asked.

“Jesus. Here we go,” Valentine mumbled. “I need a beer, anyone else?”

“I bet you do.” Luke chuckled.

“Sunny?”

“Thanks. I’m good.” She held up her bottle of water in salute.

Valentine tipped his head then smiled at her before he looked at me.

“You good?”

“Yes, but I’ll be better when I hear the story about you getting assaulted by a naked woman. When was this?”

His eyes did this funny thing where they got wide and twitched at the same time.

“Last week.”

Last week?

“Oh, shit, he’s in trouble,” Chip put in.

“Please tell me you disinfected before you came home.”

“I used all the soap in the shower stall at work and half a bottle of hand sanitizer, and I tossed my boots, and my vest has been dry cleaned twice.”

“Your vest?”

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