Page 18 of Catnapped

“Right. Smart.” She chews her bottom lip. “Okay, so nothing fancy.”

A few more cars roll past, and one pulls in to fill up. A man steps out, his eyes obscured by a baseball hat.

“What about that one?” She points. “He has a mustache. Everyone knows bad guys have mustaches.”

“No, look.” I take her hand and guide her pointer finger to the back seat, where you can barely make out a pair of kicking feet in booties.

“A baby. I guess you wouldn’t bring a baby to a kidnap job?”

“Not usually, no.” Another few cars pass by, and the time has gone too far. “We missed it somehow. Let’s look again. This time, focus on things that seem particularly ordinary. No speeding. No loud cars. We have to look for someone hiding in plain sight.”

“Got it.” She leans closer, the side of her breast pressing against my shoulder.

Fuck, my mind goes back to that place where it’s completely disconnected, where my only thoughts are about this strange, beautiful woman who seems to have come from nowhere.

“Here.” I take her waist and pull her into my lap. “You can see better,” I say, my voice gone gravelly.

“Thanks.” She wriggles in my lap, her round ass teasing against my hardening cock.

Holy shit. Bad idea. Bad fucking idea. But damn if she doesn’t feel amazing. I take a deep breath to try and calm my racing heart, but all that does is flood my senses with her.

“Um, Carson?” She’s looking over her shoulder at me. “Are you okay?”

“I’m–” I have to clear my throat to get it out of the gravel pit. “I’m good. Let’s look again.” I play the feed and do my level best not to grab her hips and rock her against my cock. I need to pay attention. This is my job, for crying out loud.Be a goddamn professional!I can yell at myself all I want, but I’m hanging on by a thread, and May is right there at it with a pair of scissors. I can’t keep–

“A laundry truck?” She cocks her head to the side.

I hit the button on the mouse, freezing the image, and force myself to actually look at the screen instead of studying her soft hair and the curve of her neck. What would she do if I kissed her there? If I just pressed my lips to the sensitive skin between her shoulder and her throat and sucked?

“The people who live out here wouldn’t hire out their laundry, would they? I mean, they have a whole staff. Mrs. Farrol hasa bunch of full-time maids. There’s no way she’d be down with them sending out their work to somewhere else. Would she?”

“Hmm.”Focus, asshole. I study the truck, only half of it in the frame at any given time thanks to the shitty angle of the camera.

“‘Hmm’? Or, I mean, I could be wrong.” Her voice is softer, unsure. “I mean, I don’t know what people with means do.”

“It wasn’t a badhmm.” I back it up a couple of frames to get a better look. “Does that say ‘Moist’?” A few more frames back and it’s clearer. “Get the Moist out of your Drycleaning!” The name above it is obscured by the gas station awning. I move it forward a bit and catch a few of the license plate digits, but not all of them.

“I can make out the phone number.” May grabs a pen and a Post-it and jots it down. “I mean, it’s probably just a regular dry cleaners. We should keep looking.”

“Hey—” I take the Post-it from her and fire off a quick text to Squirrel. “Always trust your gut. It’s a van, plenty of room to stow a cat and accomplices. It’s also smart to use a business–even if it’s a fake one–as they don’t raise as much suspicion. I think you’re on to something.”

She turns sideways in my lap, her ass rubbing my cock in all the right ways. “You really think so?”

My phone chimes.

“That was quick.” She watches as I click on the message from Squirrel.

Squirrel: Fake number. Give me some time on the plates. I like the slogan, but it’s not real either. No such business.

“You nailed it.” I meet her eyes.

Her smile is so open, so fucking warm that it melts every little piece of me that I didn’t know was frozen. “Really?”

“Really.”

She jumps up and squeals. “Yes! We did it!”

“You did it.” I take her hand again and lead her out of the skunky back room and to the car. “Come on, we’ll need to hunker down for the night and wait for Squirrel.”

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