Page 27 of He Sees You

“You’re kicking me out? On Christmas?”

She swallows roughly. “Derek…”

I close my eyes for a moment. If she really wanted me to leave, she wouldn’t say my name like that. “It’s snowing out there. And you know what they say…” I angle my hips, thrusting a little, using the friction between our bodies to give my poor dick a bit of relief even as I teasingly sing, “‘Baby, it’s cold outside…’”

“The ‘really should stay’ part only really works if you’re trying to keep the girl with you. This is my place. You’re the one who’s supposed to go.”

She has a point. “You want me to leave you alone? Really?”

Dove hesitates.

Before she can say that she does, I use my ace in the hole. “I could. Maybe I make a phone call on my way out. My mentor knows the overnight guys real well. How about I tell them I was having some Christmas nookie and discovered my girl has Eclipse on her? Then we can both leave the cozy bedroom. Or, if you prefer, we can go back to what we were doing and have a Christmas to remember. What do you think?”

She raises her hands, slipping them between us, shoving me just hard enough in the chest that I know she’s serious. “Fuck you,” she snaps, and I only wish it was an invitation. “How long will you hold that over my head?”

Until I have her love and her loyalty, but she doesn’t need to know that right now. I’ve already pissed her off. That was my mistake, and I’m already regretting taking that route when I probably would’ve been able to talk her into going back to bed again if I’d just had a little more patience… but since the only way to fix this is to own it, I say, “Until I finally understand why you do it. Why you deal when your pretty neck could be on the line if the wrong man caught you on the wrong day.”

Dove snorts. Yup. I fucked up bad, didn’t I? “What? Don’t you know? I thought you knew everything about me.”

I do. Everything butthat. “Humor your cop.”

She shakes her head at the ‘your cop’ line, but that doesn’t stop her from trying. “Okay. It’s for my mom?—”

I raise my eyebrows. “The Eclipse?”

“The money. She’s sick. Real sick. Her insurance… it’s awful. To get her meds, we have to pay out of pocket. I can’t afford it. I had nochoice?—”

And my precious Dove is an amazing actress. Look at those tears glistening in her soft brown eyes. She’s really tugging on my heartstrings. I almost want to let her keep going to see just how sick Susan Yarrow is supposed to be, but since I know the answer, it’s better if I cut her off now.

“Your mother is fine,” I cut in. “Cholesterol is a little elevated, and she needs to keep her salt in check, but other than that, she’s perfectly healthy for a fifty-eight-year-old woman.”

Dove’s lips part, momentarily stunned. When she recovers, she says in an accusing tone, “How do you know that?”

Easy. “I did my research. Once I decided to make you mine, I had to look into the family. See if there were any hereditarydiseases I’d need to worry about it. You’re all the picture of health. Mom’s fine, Dove. So what’s the real reason?”

“My brother needs it for his tuition,” she says, daring me to tell her she’s lying even as she adds, “College is expensive.”

Oh, but she is. Not about higher education being a fucking rip-off, but her brother needing money for school.

“Which one? Brian dropped out in his second year. Colin never even applied to college. So try again, precious.”

She ignores that. “Christmas presents,” she blurts out. “I couldn’t afford Christmas?—”

I laugh at that one. For fuck’s sake, most people can’t afford Christmas. We go in debt in December, then work from January through June to pay off the credit card bills only to do the same shit again.

My laugh does something to her. Whether it infuriates my Dove or makes her realize that she might as well go with the truth, she snaps, “Fine. I just wanted the money for myself. To buy my own photography studio somewhere far away from this dingy city with its gangs and its crooked cops.”

The last of my laughter dies suddenly. Not because of the shot she took at me, either, but because of what she said before that.

She wants to leave Springfield? Not happening.

“No.”

She blinks. “No? What do you mean, ‘no’?”

“I just found you.” I finally got the chance to find heaven in her arms. “I’m not letting you escape me that easily, precious.”

“It was one night?—”

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