Page 55 of Rooster

"Morgan?"

We both look toward the conference room door at the sound of her name being called, and I'm out of my seat, walking toward her before she can fully stand.

"It was nice spending time with you," I tell her. "Maybe we'll see each other again this evening?"

Her eyes find mine, and I swear, even with everything we've talked about, she seems a little shy right now.

I reach down, taking her hand in mine, watching her watch me as I lift it to my mouth. I press my lips to her palm, and from her sharp intake of breath, you'd think I put my lips somewhere else entirely.

"See you soon, Morgan," I tell her as I release her hand and take a step back.

She blinks up at me. As much as I love the attention, it tells me that she probably hasn't had men put in but the most minimal effort to date her. By her own accounts, she has been involved more in casual sex than anything else, and we both know that I'm not even the slightest bit interested in something like that.

If my lips on her palm cause such a reaction, I can't wait to see where else I can touch and press my lips that will make her squirm.

"O-okay," she whispers, but her feet seem locked in place as she watches me.

"Morgan?"

I lift my eyes to the door, finding Kaylee standing there watching us.

We aren't doing anything outwardly unacceptable, but it makes me wonder what thoughts Morgan had running through her head for her to spin around and rush toward her friend.

There's still a grin on my face a minute later when Heathen enters the conference room.

"You look like the cat who ate the canary," he says, but he has a wide smile on his face as well.

It seems that marriage and waking up with his wife in his bed every morning suits him.

"So do you," I say as I sit back at my desk.

"Believe me," he says. "No canary eating in my life. I have different preferences."

"Are you here because you actually need something, or are you bored and just want to bother me?"

The man presses a hand to his chest, a look of mock shock on his face.

"That hurts my feelings."

I shake my head and chuckle. "You're ridiculous."

"I actually do need you to run a quick check on these license plates, and I have a couple of addresses I need info on," he says, walking closer and handing me a folded piece of paper.

"This is for that escort service?" I ask as I unfold the paper.

"Yeah. I'm trying to establish how long some of these players have been in town."

"You want a printout of all this?"

"That'd be great," he says, but instead of leaving and letting me work, he pulls out a chair and sits.

"You want this right now?" I ask, knowing that everyone thinks everything is an emergency and that I should do it right now, but we also have to pace ourselves.

Doing that was something that Kincaid harped on when we were still learning the ropes in New Mexico. We can't always be going a hundred miles an hour. We have to pace ourselves or risk getting burned out. Burnout means we'll miss something, and with what we do, it could be a life-or-death situation for someone.

"What else do you have to do?" he asks, and I can tell it's a genuine question. He's not just trying to be an asshole.

I can think of a hundred things I could be doing with Morgan and my mouth alone, actually, but I don't say that out loud. I can't monopolize her time, no matter how much I'd like to drag her to my room, sit her down on my bed, and tell her my entire life story with the hope that she'd do the same and share with me everything that has ever happened in her life. I know a lot of stuff from my research, but there's also so much I don't know that I'd love to learn from her lips alone.

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