Page 21 of Out of Sight

“Hey, eyes up top!” Will interrupted me.

I could hear the tease in his words, but I was too on edge to try to interpret their meaning, so I just raised an eyebrow at him.

“You know, it’s a bit degrading to stare at me like that. You can look me in the eye when you speak to me, not ogle my junk.” He gestured toward his crotch through his jeans where my eyes had kind of focused as they facing down toward the ground.

“God, you’re so narcissistic!” I exclaimed, my fire officially rising up again. And why did he look so pleased with himself? “I wasn’t looking at anything specific, you know.”

“Yeah, sure, that’s what they all say. I’m going to go to the cops and tell on you for sexually harassing me,” he threatened with a smirk.

I scoffed. Even though I knew he was just trying to get a rise out of me, I couldn’t help rising to the bait. “Even if that were true, you do it more. You think I haven’t noticed your eyes on my boobs or ass nonstop since we met?”

He shrugged, not ashamed to be caught out.

“Maybe I’ve noticed the tits and ass, but it hasn’t been nonstop. I’ve been admiring things like your clavicles and slender neck just as often as that other stuff.”

I blushed, stroking my hair where it fell loosely over my neck and chest.

“And your hair, my god! Keeping my hands to myself and away from all that has been hard enough—pun intended—but now? Up close and personal like this, where I can feel how soft it is against my skin and smell your shampoo?”

I dropped my hands and looked back up into his deep blue eyes. His smile was affectionate, like we were old friends and not strangers who were stuck together for the foreseeable future. I felt the heat on my cheeks. I wasn’t expecting a poetic declaration about how hot he was for me.

I was very aware of how hard my nipples were, both from his unabashed confession and the wet drink that was spilled on me. My chest was just a couple inches away from his. I wanted to close the distance and-

Something banged on the wall from the outside, bringing my eyes back to the door with Jim leaning against it, an amused grin on his face as he tapped at his phone screen.

“Okay, that’s really inappropriate,” I said, shifting a couple inches farther away until I was practically sitting on the shelving unit behind me. “Someone change the subject before I need to slap some manners into him again.”

“What’s your title, Jim?” Will asked, the immediacy of his question startling me. Jim, too, by his look of confusion. “I mean I know you’re a US Marshal, but what do people call you? Like Agent Blake and Officer Rosenberg.”

“My title is US Marshal.”

Will grinned wickedly.

“So you’re…Marshal. Jim Marshall,” Will let out in his best 007 attempt. I snorted. How long had he been holding this in?

Jim burst out laughing. “Okay. I don’t know why I never thought of that before.”

“Right?” Will chuckled, leaning forward to brace himself on the shelf behind me. I could feel the warmth of his breath along my neck as he laughed at his ridiculous joke. “I mean there’s the obvious: those redundant old Marshal Marshall jokes, but I wanted to go a step further. I try to be an overachiever, you know.”

I rolled my eyes, but fought to keep my own smile at bay.

“Hey, Marshal Marshall?” Will began in an exaggerated enough way I knew there would be another stupid joke coming. “Are you thirsty?”

Jim smiled widely, happily falling into whatever trap Will was laying out. “Why yes I am, Will.”

Will reached a hand up to my face and I held my breath. He reached past me to grab one of the bottles of water on the shelf then turned as best he could to extend it to Jim. “I assume you’ll take that water shaken, not stirred?”

I snorted again, catching Will’s eye. He winked that damned wink again, but it was a lot more charming when he was messing with Jim instead of me. He was still right next to me, leaning one arm next to my head against the storage shelf. He was being respectful—for once—and not a single part of his body touched mine. His strong jaw flexed at the same time his bicep did, like hewas straining even as he stood still. His eyes still sparkled at me. I felt my body straining as well, wanting to close the distance.

“Okay kids,” Jim grunted. “Normally I’d tell you to get a room if I saw fire like that, but it’ll have to wait. In the meantime: Will, take off your shirt.”

Will turned those burning eyes over to Jim, letting amusement cloud their intensity. “I think you’re a great guy, Marshal Marshall, but I’m not into threesomes. I’m a one-woman kind of man.” And the hand resting near my head finally lowered, coming an inch from my face before he seemed to remember himself and put his hands in his pockets.

I was so thankful he wasn’t trying to make a move on me that I didn’t even have it in me to come up with a scathing response to him for almost losing himself.

I flipped my hair nonchalantly over my shoulder. “As if. I wouldn’t ever be interested in a felon in that way, no matter the circumstances.”

“Anyway,” Jim interrupted when Will opened his mouth to reply. “Will’s going to give you his shirt, Claire. He can put that coat on to cover himself, but—and no offense meant, darlin’, I’m just telling it like it is—but we’re trying to be incognito here, and you’re winning a wet t-shirt contest with your tits out and wet like that.”

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