Page 89 of Duty and Desire
They were grocery shopping as a man and a woman living together and he knew this because when they did talk about shopping, it was when she made him go all the way back through the aisles they’d already been through, forcing him to tell her what shit he wanted in the house.
Making matters worse, personal space was now just gone.
Vaporized.
She didn’t hold his hand or press up against him and give his neck a kiss or anything like that.
But she stayed close, bumped him with a hip if she was being funny or feeling saucy (something that happened often), grabbed onto his biceps to get his attention or hooked a beltloop and tugged to change his direction.
All this meant Mo was in agony.
And that agony wasn’t just about all of that.
Lottie had thrown right down with Tammy, no hesitation, and this wasbeforeshe knew who Tammy was and what she’d done.
There was no way to deny it.
That felt good.
But it was even worse.
It was clear Lottie had claimed her man.
The end.
And he was that man.
Mo couldn’t think on this, mostly how it made him feel.
All of it.
Fortunately, she was talking so much, his mind didn’t have the opportunity to go there.
The FBI had come back with a negatory on the language, or any religious radicals in the area they were keeping an eye on that fit this guy’s description.
This meant they had zero leads on whoever this man was who wanted to harm her, and they’d all made the decision that the second letter, received yesterday, Lottie would not know about because she was already alert and not doing anything stupid.
But mostly they agreed on that because the degree of disturbing in the latest letter had ratcheted up about fifteen notches.
Smithie had called the ball on that one, not telling Lottie about it and not taking it to the police, or the FBI. The last two would, after the second letter, want very badly to get involved.
This was because Smithie wanted the threat eradicated, no dicking around, and although Mo agreed with Smithie (to a point), Hawk did not.
The guy was gearing up to make a move, building his confidence, getting his shit tight, getting off on the increasing extreme of his letters and the fact he hadn’t been caught yetto take him to the place where he could act out his twisted fantasies.
They all knew it.
Smithie wanted it handled.
Hawk wanted this guy on FBI radar.
Mo just wanted Lottie safe.
But Lottie didn’t need to know all of this was going on.
And Mo did not need Lottie being evenmoreof all that was good about Lottie when this guy was on the loose, fixed on her, and working himself up, her being more of all she was only serving the purpose of making Mo want her more.
But for the life of him, he could no longer handle the anger and hurt that had poured his way from her the last three days.
