Page 40 of Deep Feelings & Shallow Graves

Oh, for fuck’s sake. Officer Carson? I shovel cheese in my mouth like it might help.

She sips her wine, cheeks glowing. “That’s complicated.”

“Complicated how?” I ask. I’m trying to sound neutral. I do not succeed.

“He’s a cop,” she says with a wince. “We’ve had… well, there was coffee. And I ate a cookie while he questioned me. Then later there was pizza. Zebra cakes. But he also left snacks at my door, which I didn’t technically eat with him, so maybe that’s one and a half dates? I don’t know. I like him though. A lot.”

Her math is insane, but I’d kill a man with a spoon to be her final answer.

“And where do I fall in this hierarchy of men and meals?” I ask, spearing another tomato, because stabbing something feels good right now.

She gives me a look like she’s peeling back my ribs to check how fast my heart’s beating. “God. I knew from the moment you turned around in that sub shop that you were trouble. The good kind. I’ve never met anyone like you.”

She sets her wineglass down, fingers tracing the rim absently, almost nervously. “And since we’re being honest, I might as well admit I’ve been picturing you bending me over caskets and pinning me against the walls of this place since I walked in with that pastry box.”

Fuck.

My chair suddenly feels like a restraint device.

“Well,” I rasp, adjusting my position as subtly as possible, “have I red-flagged out? Or are we heading toward rewriting each other’s pleasure thresholds?”

She leans forward slightly, jacket gaping, thighs parted just enough to obliterate every rational thought I’ve ever had, andsays, “I think our red flags are so alike, they might cancel each other out. Do you agree?”

I do not remember how to speak. So I just nod. Slowly. Like a man condemned. Like a man blessed.

She dips a graham cracker into the pudding cup and sucks the chocolate off slow like it’s the only thing that matters in the world.

I forget my own name. I forget oxygen. I forget why I haven’t torn the pudding from her hands and poured it directly over her thighs to worship with my fucking teeth.

“Can we have date five?” she asks, licking a smear from the corner of her mouth like she didn’t just casually detonate my sanity. “Maybe not here? Unless you have a coffin kink, because I’m not opposed.”

“I have kinks,” I say, voice like someone’s strangling me with my own tie. “Plural. So very many. When?”

She hums. With her fingers still dusted in graham cracker crumbs like that’s not the hottest shit I’ve seen all week. “Well, I’ve got two dates tomorrow and that’d be rude, so… the next day?”

I nod, immediately, stupidly, possibly drooling. “Let me take you out. A proper date.”

Her head tilts, that curious, hungry look overtaking her expression like she wasn’t expecting the words proper or date to exit my mouth. “Proper?”

“I’m still a gentleman. Mostly,” I say, adjusting my collar before it bursts into flame. “The steakhouse, if you know how to order, is excellent. Then the band in the park after. Friday night.”

She looks genuinely startled. Like I didn’t just spend the last twenty minutes trying not to imagine her bent over my embalming table while I eat whipped cream off her spine.

“Oh,” she says softly. “Oh.”

It’s too much. She’s too much.

She stands and suddenly the room tilts because fuck, she’s closer, warm and sugar-scented and flushed from wine and pleasure. “Can I kiss you goodnight? For real this time? With tongue and teeth?” she asks.

I should say no. I should walk her out like a gentleman and not like the beast I am under this pressed shirt and funeral-home calm. But I want her mouth on mine like salvation.

“Is that acceptable fourth date behavior?” I ask, already moving toward her.

“Yes,” she says, breath catching. “As long as we stay dressed.”

“Unfortunate,” I say, “but doable.”

Our eyes lock. And everything else vanishes.

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