Page 161 of Hot Cops

She looked at her schedule. Eleven photo shoots and twelve portraits to touch up in less than two weeks. She was screwed.

Her phone rang. She glanced at the number and sighed. Her last model. Blake was the only man who hadn’t answered when she’d called. “Hey, Blake.”

“Back in the land of the living?”

He’d called her every day since their impromptu hook-up on Tuesday afternoon. It was strange how easily they’d fallen into familiar patterns. Blake called her as soon as he got off duty and then again before bedtime. Their conversations had only touched on safe subjects—like their jobs, the weather, sports—but they’d become the highlight of each day for her.

She hadn’t questioned him about his disappearing act ten years earlier and they never addressed what his return in her life meant.

“Yeah,” she replied. “I’m back and sort of wishing I could crawl under the covers and hide again. There’s no way I’m going to hit this calendar deadline.”

Blake didn’t sound concerned. “Of course you can. I’m around if you need help.”

“Uh, thanks, but no thanks. I tried to give you some photography lessons a long time ago. All you managed to master was dark and blurry.”

Blake chuckled. “That was before I got my iPhone. Now I take great pictures.”

Chloe groaned.

“Besides, I wasn’t offering to take the photographs, just to lug your equipment, help you set up the shoots, stuff like that.”

“And you’re doing this all out of the goodness of your heart and not because you want to play chaperone while I’m taking pictures of the shirtless, hot guys, right?”

“Absolutely.” His tone was pure innocence, but she knew him better than that.

“Forget it. You’d just clam jam me.” She restrained her giggle at the silence that followed her comment, then he gave into curiosity.

“I give,” he said. “What the hell is a clam jam?”

“Female equivalent of a cock block.”

Blake snorted with laughter. “God. There is something seriously twisted and wrong with you. I blame it on all those brothers you grew up with.”

She leaned back in her chair, propping her feet up on the one across from her. She was smiling and happy for the first time in days. In less than five minutes, Blake had found a way to make the stress she was feeling over her work vanish and the tension in her shoulders subsided.

“So I see I missed your call. You putting off our date again?”

She had called him for that reason. “Yeah, I’m sorry. I’m wicked busy.”

“I understand.”

“Hey listen, I need to try to find a time to do your photo shoot. Are you still determined to take the pictures on your Harley by the lake?”

“Yep. And you’re riding with me.”

“I told you, Blake, my equipment?—”

“Downsize it as much as you can. I borrowed a big-ass motorcycle bag from a friend of mine. We can put your cameras and stuff in there.”

“What if it rains? My equipment costs?—”

He cut her off. “It’s waterproof.”

“Why do you want me to get on that bike again so badly?”

“Why are you so resistant?”

Chloe wasn’t sure how to answer. They’d spent that entire summer so long ago on his motorcycle. It was the last time she’d felt carefree, wild, over-the-moon happy. He’d also driven off into the sunset on that motorcycle. While it wasn’t logical, it was easier to forgive Blake, the cop, the man who didn’t exist all those years ago, and hold on to her anger toward his bad-boy biker persona.

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