Page 11 of Swimming for Seduction

I see Becky standing on guard at the front door as we exit our vehicles, so I try to keep a respectable distance between myself and Ricki. Not that she would let me stand too close anyway, but I also put a mental distance between us to remain professional while I’m in front of other deputies. Especially one as intuitive as Rebecca Crawford.

“I’m sorry,” Becky says, blocking Ricki when she attempts to step around her to enter the building. “The dorms are closed until Sunday.”

“Closed?!” Ricki spins around to face me. “You didn’t tell me that,” she accuses.

“I didn’t know that’s what had been decided,” I admit before looking at my colleague. “She’s the only resident on campus. Can I at least escort her to her room to pack a bag?” I ask. Even though I outrank her, this is her post.

Becky eyes me suspiciously, and I see the moment she puts the pieces together. Thankfully, she’s as determined to earn her badge as I am. So, she simply agrees and steps aside withoutcalling any attention to the fact that I’m entering a crime scene with my self-declared ‘explosion.’

As soon as we enter the building, my hand instinctively goes to the small of Ricki’s back, erasing the distance I’d placed between us. The situation must be bothering her more than she’s let on because she relaxes under my touch instead of pulling away like I’d expected. She leads us to her room in comfortable silence and I can’t help but to preen at the fact that my presence seems to be a comfort to her. It’s all I’ve wanted these past few months. When we enter her room and she turns to look up at me with teary eyes, the rest of the mental barrier I’d erected crumbles.

“Talk to me, Ricki,” I say as I lift my hand to cup her cheek. “I know this must be scary, but we’ll make sure everything is safe.”

“It’s not that.” She shakes her head and takes a step back. “I don’t have anywhere to stay. My work study job barely pays enough for my necessities. So, I definitely don’t have the money for a hotel room. Tomorrow is Thanksgiving and I haven’t exactly made any friends close enough to ask to crash with them on a holiday.”

“You can stay with me.” The words are out of my mouth before I can stop them.

“Yeah, right,” she scoffs when I don’t take them back. “You live in the same building as…”

“Brady,” I say, cutting her off. “He’s in Virginia Beach this week with all of his friends. They won’t be back until Sunday.”

“Oh.” She seems to think about it before rolling her eyes at her own thoughts. “Well, it’s not like we are friends.” She waves her hand between us. “I can’t just stay with you.”

“You wound me,firecracker,” I say as I slap a hand over my heart, only half-joking. When she just stares at me blankly, I shrug. “Friends or not, you don’t have a choice. I’m not letting you spend the next four nights sleeping in your car.”

I can practically see the wheels turning in her head as she searches for another option before she finally lets out a heavy sigh.

“Fine.” She points a finger at me when I let my grin spread across my face. “But only because I don’t like you enough to care about ruining your holiday.”

She’s lying. I know it. She knows it. I just have to find a way to make her admit it.

Chapter 9

Ricki

Since Tyler is still on shift for a few hours, he texted me his address and building code while I packed a few days worth of necessities. Then, he walked me back to my car and gave me his key. I followed the directions on the GPS as they took me away from campus, down Main Street, past the places I’ve yet to visit because of the fear of running into my brother or his friends, and straight into the parking lot of the apartment building that houses my biggest hope and my biggest fear at the same time.

I must be out of my mind,I think as I slide the key into the lock and step into Tyler’s apartment. I can just imagine how he’s going to use the next four days to get into my head more than he already has. I feel like I’m willingly walking straight into thelion’s den. Although, it doesn’t look nearly as ominous as I feel it should. While the furnishings scream bachelor pad, the open floor plan lets me see that the apartment is neat and clean. Knowing I have the place to myself for a while, I decide to give myself a tour.

I tell myself I don’t care about seeing where he spends his time as I walk around the living room. I don’t care about where he eats as I walk into the kitchen and see the cabinets stocked with surprisingly nutritious snacks next to the not-so-healthy options. I don’t care about where he showers as I peek into the open bathroom door and take in the huge bathtub and shower combo. I don’t care about where he sleeps as I walk down the hallway and open the only other door. Iespeciallydon’t care about what else he does in the king-size bed taking up most of the space in the only bedroom.

One bedroom, one bed, two enemies with explosive chemistry.Just my luck,I think before jumping like I’ve been electrocuted when my phone buzzes in my back pocket. I pull it out to see a text from the man I definitely wasn’t just daydreaming about.

Tyler:Snooping already?

Before I can type out a reply to lie to him the way I’ve been lying to myself for the past twenty minutes, another text appears.

Tyler:Go on in. Take a nap in that big ole bed you’ve been staring at for the past five minutes. Just make sure you dream about me.

My head snaps up and scans the hallway until I find the camera in the corner above me. I look straight into the lens—hoping his picture is black and white so he can’t see the heat Ifeel in my cheeks—as I raise my middle finger before turning to stalk back to the living room.

I take another trip around the apartment, noticing the other cameras in the kitchen and living room, and hoping he’s too busy at work to be watching me like a creeper. But in his job, being busy means being in danger. And the thought of him in danger is so much worse than the thought of him watching me watch TV in his apartment. So, I do my best to just ignore the cameras as I get entirely too comfortable on his plush couch.

Tyler

As much I wanted to do nothing but watch Ricki on my security feed for the rest of the day, I had a job to do. So, after sending her a text, letting her know that Icouldsee her in my apartment, I put my phone away. I didn’t want her to find out about the cameras later and feel violated. I would have told her about them before she got there, but I didn’t think about it until my phone buzzed with the notification that someone had entered my apartment.

Now that I’m off shift and walking into my building, I can’t resist the urge to pull up the feed to see what she’s doing. I feel my chest tighten when I see her sleeping soundly on my couch. Knowing that she feels safe enough in my place to sleep stirs feelings in me I’m not at all ready to face since I know she’s not ready to admit the truth. There’s more tousthan the battle of wills we’ve been fighting.

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