Page 43 of Crossing the Line

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He pulled his phone back out of his suit jacket and dialed her number. She picked up on the first ring before he could convince himself to hang up.

“Hi,” she said a little breathlessly.

“Hi.”Smooth, real smooth, idiot.He cleared his throat. “Just checking in to make sure you’re still where you’re supposed to be.”

“I’m being held captive by Mari and Louie who want to start planning my tour wardrobe,” she said in a stage whisper.

“Don’t you have him running over here guns blazing,” Mari grumbled in the background. “Being held captive, bah!”

“Mari says hi,” Waverly said. He could hear the smile in her voice.

“Tell, Mari, I said hi back,” Xavier told her. “Is there anything you need? I have some meetings, but I could swing by later today…”God, what was wrong with him?

“Actually, that would be great. Kate still isn’t convinced you’re not ready to string her up by the toenails for helping me last night. So it would be nice to clear the air there. Unless you really do want to string her up, in which case she just got a pedi and you probably shouldn’t mess it up.”

“I promise no maiming. And I can give you an update on where we are with Ganim.”

“Sounds good.”

So did her voice.

“Okay, I’ll text when I’m on my way. Oh, and I have to discuss changes to your security detail with you, too.”

“You’re not quitting!” She sounded worried, and he liked it. She wanted him around.

“I’m not quitting. But I want you to have a dedicated driver for the time being. Only if you’re comfortable with him or her, though.”

“If you’re comfortable with them, I’m comfortable with them.” She covered the phone and murmured something to someone in the background and then came back on the line. “See, X, isn’t it nice when we play nice together?”

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Waverly hung up the phone and dropped it on the bed. She bit her lip and then immediately thought of the last person who had bit that lip. To be fair, she had thought of little but Xavier since last night. The fight, the kiss, the whole evening played on a loop in her brain. She’d enjoyed herself. Hell, she’d enjoyed him. And never in all of her twenty years had she ever been kissed like that before.

She wondered if she ever would again.

“Uh-oh. I know that look,” Marisol tsk-tsked, emerging from Waverly’s closet with an armful of clothes.

“What look?”

“That look!” She pointed a finger at Waverly’s face. “The look of love. I looked at my Henri like that and BAM!” She clapped her hands together. “We were married in a month.”

“I do not have the ‘look of love,” Waverly argued. If anything it had been the look of lust, which was entirely different though no less dangerous.

Louie looked up from the rolling rack of dresses he was organizing by color and harrumphed.

“You look like that when you talk to this Saint on the phone. I wonder what you look like when you kiss him?”

“How did you—Mari!”

Marisol waved a slim hand. “You just told me. See? Not just actors can be sneaky. I have learned a thing or two from you Sinners.”

Waverly felt her face flood with heat. She brought her hands to her cheeks. “Mari, you can’t say anything to anyone. It was a heat of the moment kind of thing and nothing else happened… but you just can’t breathe a word of this. You either, Louie.”

Marisol looked indignant. “When have I ever betrayed a trust, ah? You forget who you talk to.”

Louie winked at her. Waverly flopped backwards on the bed and pulled a pillow over her face. “I’m sorry, Mari.”

Marisol perched next to her like a dainty Latin bird and pulled the pillow away. “So? What was it like?”