Page 45 of An Indecent Longing

“Thank you. I wasn’t sure what you had planned so I wasn’t sure what to wear.”

“Trust me, whatever you wear will be fine with me. Just so long as you stay with me. I have a feeling I’m going to have to beat other guys off with sticks. You look amazing.”

He wasn’t kidding but her mouth lost a little of that smile and he made a note about how far he could push her.

Tonight, he wanted to discover as many of her boundaries as he could. Then he’d know how far he could step over that line.

Now she gave him a look that made him think maybe she was going to be a tougher case than he’d thought.

Usually a little flattery worked like a charm to get women to open up. This woman…not so much. That’s okay, though. He had all night to figure her out.

“You’re pretty fast with words, aren’t you? You know what to say and how to say it.” Her gaze slipped away to look down at her purse, as if checking for something though he knew she wasn’t. “I’m not good with words.”

“You don’t have to be. I’d be happy if you just sit across from me all night and let me look at you.”

Offering her his arm, he walked her through the front door to his car.

“I made reservations at Fork. Hope that’s okay.”

And there was that smile again, the one that made him want to take her picture and text it to Ian with the note, “You’re an ass.”

And that, he decided, was the last time he was going to think about his cousin tonight.

“I haven’t eaten there,” she said. “I’ve heard it’s wonderful, though.”

“The food’s amazing. I’m no food snob. I’ll eat pretty much anything you put in front of me, and if it’s burgers or pizza, all the better. But this place is amazing. Adam and Tristan took us one night after we joined the firm.”

“We?”

Shit, he really had to stop thinking in terms of “we.” But he’d gotten so used to it now that he was living and working with Ian, it’d become habit.

Unlocking his car with the remote, he opened the passenger door for her and helped her in before heading around to the driver’s side. It gave him a few extra seconds to think about how to answer that. It gave him the perfect opening to divulge the fact that Ian was his cousin.

But as he slid into the driver’s seat, he decided against it.

“Ian and I.”

“You two must spend a lot of time together.”

Since it wasn’t a question, he didn’t feel the need to respond. And since he really didn’t want to talk about Ian right now, he changed the subject.

“I handle threat assessment. I’m the guy who figures out if you need a bodyguard or just need someone to go talk to the creepy guy at work and tell him to back off. Or I figure out if the threatening texts you’re getting from an unknown number are something to worry about or just some dude with a grudge who lives in his mom’s basement and thinks it’s fun to screw with people’s minds. And sometimes I have to watch some guy’s back and make sure he doesn’t take a bullet because he’s a greedy asshole.”

“Sounds like you hate your job.”

“I don’t, actually. Most days I enjoy the hell out of it. It’s different every day so I never get bored, but it can suck the soul out of you if you’re not careful. But everyone’s got something they don’t like about their job. What’s yours?”

She didn’t answer right away, but he could see she was thinking. He wanted to know about what, because he’d bet that what came out of her mouth wasn’t what was going through her head.

“I enjoy being able to help people but…sometimes there’s nothing you can do for them. Sometimes you don’t win. And when that happens, someone ends up dying.”

She said the words so matter-of-factly that he could almost believe she didn’t have any feelings at all about it. But as he shot her a quick glance—he was driving along tight Philly streets, after all—he knew she felt every one of those deaths.

“Have you lost many people?”

Dorrie had no idea how they’d gotten to such a personal level of questioning in such a short amount of time.

But Ben had managed to get past her shields with very little effort and that was…exhilarating.

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