Page 23 of Surprise Baby for the Enemy

I realize too late that I’m staring. I can’t help but think about the last time we were together, in his cell. His tongue… those lips. When he gave me oral sex, and he’s standing within three feet of me. I also remember that I’m supposed to be mad at him.

My stomach does a hard flip. Of longing, of guilt, of anxiety, I’m not sure.

Oh- and he’s asked me a question.

“I-I’m here for a drink,” I say, fighting hard not to step away from him, just in case it’s somehow glaringly obvious that I’m daydreaming about him and he’s about to figure it out. I try to keep my words breezy, but they stumble over each other.

Derrick looks from me to Cooper’s, probably the saddest building on the block, then back to me. “Bit out of your way, isn’t it?”

I tip my nose up at him, even though he’s nearly a foot taller than me. It’s the pose that counts. “Is this an interrogation, officer?”

Derrick’s eyes narrow a little, and he reaches for his belt. “Well no, actually.” He puts a hand on my shoulder- and turns me toward my car so fast I can’t brace against it. Before I even realize what’s happening, my arms are behind my back, and handcuffs are clicking shut around my wrists.

“What thefuck?!” I spit. Derrick tugs me off my car by my upper arm and starts walking me toward the cruiser parked on the curb. “I haven’t done anything! This is fucking illegal!”

“I’ll deal with it,” Derrick says flatly. He opens the door to the back seat and stuffs me inside. I kick the partition separating me from the front seat, nearly twisting my ankle when my heel slips off. Derrick climbs behind the wheel and glares back at me through the thick plastic. “Behave, or I’ll handcuff your ankles too.”

“You remember what happened last time I was kidnapped?” I shoot back. I absolutelyrefuseto blush at the way he just said the word ‘behave’. “Iris killed a fuck-ton of people. I promise she won’t blink twice if she has to kill you too.”

“While you’re talking about your associates, care to explain what you were doing at a notorious mafia meeting spot with Silver?” Derrick asks, completely ignoring my threat.

Fuck, he saw Silver too?

I switch from threatening to deflecting. “Don’t you have to read me my rights? I’m not answering questions until I get a lawyer.”

“I thought this was a kidnapping,” Derrick counters. To punctuate that, he starts the cruiser with an angry twist of the key. “If you’re a kidnappee, you don’t have any rights.”

What. The fuck. Is going. ON?!

“Let me go,” I demand. “Let me goright now!”

Instead, he pulls off the curb and starts driving. “Not until you explain why the hell you went from being locked in a room by Silver to fucking working with him.”

My instinct is to tell him that that’s none of his business to know. But I’m handcuffed in the back of a police car right now, and Derrick seems unfazed by the fact that this puts him directly into the Warwick’s spotlightandthat he’s made what I’m pretty sure is a false arrest. Without any way to threaten him, bluffing would just be stupid.

So I give in and tell the direct truth.

“I’m not working with Silver,” I admit sullenly. “I was at the bar to tell him to fuck off. It was supposed to be a final warning.”

“Right,” Derrick scoffs. “That’s why you went alone and unarmed, dressed like a 1950’s sailor girl pin-up.”

I flush from the tips of my toes to the roots of my hair. “The fuck did you just say to me?!”

His blue eyes glance back at me in the rearview mirror. “What’s really going on, Raleigh?”

“I said it already!” I snap. “I told Silver to stop walking all over Warwick territory.”

Derrick just shakes his head, dismissing me completely.

“Oh yeah?” I bristle. “What about you? How am I supposed to know that you aren’t working with Silver?”

I see his fingers clench on the steering wheel. Did I insult him or hit a little too close to the truth?

“I’ve been exhausting every resource to hunt him down sincewewere abducted by him,” he says stiffly.

“Nice canned response, sheriff. If you’re trying so hard, why didn’t you catch him today when you saw him leave the same bar as me?”

“Do you see two other officers in here with me?” Derrick demands. “Unlike what you’re claiming to do, I don’t make a habit of squaring off against my armed enemies without backup.”

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