Page 19 of Dealing Dirty
We all stand, reluctant to get back to reality. Juliana embraces each of them in a tight hug, and Jack’s hand envelops mine when I approach. I squeeze tightly, quietly promising to keep things about the PD and Ben’s involvement with Bruce quiet for now.
“See y’all at work tomorrow!” Cassidy calls from the doorway.
The night is refreshingly cool as we approach the middle of October. Gone is the humidity that’s usually thick in the air and the critters chirping happily late at night. Now, the air is crisp and fresh. I take a deep lungful to clear my head and resist the urge to shake Juliana for being such a stubborn ass.
Grinding my jaw, I open her door before stepping around the bed of my truck. I climb up into my seat, and the second my ass hits the leather, she whirls on me.
“What is your problem,D?”
A muscle beneath my right eye twitches. Her smug smile strikes the intended nerve, but for once, I’m not in a teasing mood.
The gearshift snags as I try to move it into drive. I whisper a curse, pulling it harder until it finally shifts. Flooring it away from Jack and Cassidy’s house, I stew in silence. For the second time today, I’m speechless.
My hands are tied. I’m bound by desire for the little vixen and letting her continue to push me away the way she’s hell-bent on doing. The latter would surely be easier, but where’s the fun in that?
“Are you going to clue me in or should I start guessing?”
Huffing a laugh, I take my eyes off the road. “You’re the one avoiding me like the plague. I have no problem respecting your little one-night stand rule, but boy, if I’d known you were gonna wig out like this, I would have kept my hands to myself.”
The words taste like ash, and I know I don’t mean it. From the moment I met her, keeping my hands off this wild woman has been nearly impossible.
Her eyes widen as she clips, “Wig. Out?”
I swallow hard, averting my gaze as I coast us farther along the highway. My palms curl around the steering wheel. “You know exactly what I mean.”
I’m awarded more silence from her side of the cab.
“I needed some time away, that’s all,” she whispers, and it’s her turn to shift away from me.
I slide my eyes to her incredulously. “So you don’t care how worried Cassidy was about you, then?” She stares out the window, ignoring me. “Or how she thought you might slip so far away that she may never see you again?”
Juliana’s excuses push my frustration to the point of using Cassidy as a scapegoat. Of course her best friend was concerned, but it’s me who felt I may have lost her. And I have no idea what to make of that realization.
“Cassidy and I had an understanding.”
I yank the steering wheel toward the exit that’ll take us to the precinct. “Yeah, well, what about me?” The words are out before I can think through what I’m saying, but there it is. The statement eats up all the air around us, pressing a weight against the center of my chest.
Juliana curses quietly as I make a U-turn.
“What did you want me to do, Derrick? It wasn’t exactly classy of me to get drunk and force myself on you.” Sarcasm encompasses her laugh. “I blacked out! I don’t evenrememberhaving sex with you.”
Gradually pressing my foot on the brake, I pull into the PD parking lot and guide us into a spot several feet from the entrance. My neck heats red, but that same blanket of shame covers her. I see it there, pulling down the corners of her lips and sprinkling worry lines between her brows.
We offer each other nothing more as our angry gazes collide for several heartbeats.
“Happy now?” she asks, breaking some of the tension.
When her shoulders visibly droop, my frustration begins to crumble, dissolving into a chaotic mess. What am I going to do with her?
I lean in close, intending to test her limits, butfuck…I want to kiss her right now. She doesn’t reciprocate the impulse, but she doesn’t shy away either.
“You didn’t force yourself on me,” I murmur in the quiet of the cab.
The scent of her long brown hair—coconut and salty ocean waves—drifts toward me. Those full scarlet lips part slightly when my eyes trace their outline. I get the sense we’re toeing a boundary.
Her brows furrow, fully on guard, while I’m still trying to decipher this game she insists on playing. She shoos me away like an annoying dog, but then she gives me thatlook. The one I know she’ll give me when I’m finally buried deep inside her.
It’s going to be earth-shattering.
