Page 69 of Duty and Desire
He wanted her to go to sleep.
He wanted her to go to sleep so maybe he could go to sleep (though he didn’t hold a ton of hope for that) and therefore stop thinking about her in that tiny, green satin nightie with all the cream lace she’d come out of her bathroom wearing.
Or the fact she wasn’t ten feet away from him, that hot little body alone in that big bed.
He did not want to talk about what he did with the extra four hours he had that others didn’t.
In fact, Mo wasn’t a big fan of talking at all.
“I work out,” he said.
“For four hours?” she asked.
“Havin’ a job with Hawk isn’t nine to five. I also work missions.”
“Missions?”
“Yeah.”
“You call them ‘missions,’ not ‘cases?’”
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
Lord save him from chatty women.
“Because we’re all former soldiers, not ex-cops,” he shared.
“All of you?”
“Yeah.”
“How many of you are there?”
Good Christ.
“Lottie, go to sleep.”
He heard her loud sigh and then, “I can’t. I’m always jazzed after a night on.”
She should be exhausted.
She only worked at most thirty-six minutes in the four and a half hours she was at Smithie’s (not counting the hour and a half she needed to be there before her first set to get ready), but when she was dancing she gave it her all.
Not to mention, she did new full makeup and changed her hair for each set, not just the outfit she took off. It was an all-new Lottie every time she appeared on stage.
No one could say she didn’t work for her percentage of the cover, if she got one. But no one bought a house like this on Gaylord a block from City Park who didn’t make some cake.
Mo wanted her to be exhausted. Needed her to be. Not only so she’d shut up, but because he didn’t need to be thinking she was “jazzed” which would only make him consider the varied ways he’d help her work that off, how much he’d enjoy them and how much more he’d enjoy makingherenjoy them.
“Count sheep,” he advised.
“Does that work?”
Fuck if he knew.
“Put your body to sleep inch by inch,” he said.
