Page 25 of Ace of Spades
His gaze swept over her, and his eyes darkened. “You’d be a top contender.”
Well, just wow, the reticent Nate Gentry really was flirting.
“But the role’s taken. Aces and Eights is the queen,” he said.
Just go and burst my bubble, Nate.He stepped to his desk, lowering his beautiful body—one she craved more than iced mocha coffees, her honest-to-God weakness—onto his chair.
“You got that profile?” He popped one of his wintergreen Tic Tacs into his mouth.
Back to business, then. She handed it to him, watching him as he read. The man was too freaking hot for his own good ... Or maybe more like forherown good. How was she supposed to stop wanting to pull that leather band off so she could run her fingers through his long black hair?
She could totally see him with a sword strapped to his waist and armor covering his body, while the wind from the moors blew his hair around his head. Or better yet, bare chested, wearing nothing but leggings and leather boots. Just imagining how hot he’d be dressed likethat, long hair falling over his shoulders, sent a lightning bolt straight to her stomach and parts below. She picked up a folder and fanned herself.
“Pauline says pretty much what we’re already thinking about our bad guy,” he said, handing the report back.
“Let your hair down.” Well, that had slipped out. But now that the fantasy was there in her mind, she wasn’t going to be able to quit thinking about it. In all the time she’d known him, she’d never seen him without his ponytail. He looked at her as if she were a green alien that had just stepped out of a spaceship.
“Seriously, I want to see your hair loose.”
“No.”
“That just makes me more determined, you know?” He knew how stubborn she was when she made up her mind she wanted something.
He tilted his head, studying her. “You smoke a joint or something? You’re talking weird and fanning yourself.”
“Funny.” If he only knew where her mind was, he’d be fanning her, too. She slid the report she’d already read several times back into its folder. “Want to have dinner with us before you head over to Aces and Eights tonight? Rosie’s making spaghetti.”
“I’ll have to take a rain check.” He pushed away from his desk, swiveling the chair so that he was facing her. “Listen, about you going undercover—”
“Don’t start, Nate. This creep’s going to strike again if we don’t stop him. The women he’s choosing have no one to fight for them.” If someone had cared enough, maybe her mother would be alive. And if anyone in law enforcement had given a damn about a dead prostitute, her killer would be in prison.
“They have you,” he said, softly.
“And you, along with everyone else here.”
“And we’ll catch him. What I was going to say before you bristled—”
“I don’t bristle.”
He grinned. “Yet, you did.”
It took every ounce of her willpower not to do a fist pump at seeing his mouth curve into the sexiest grin ever.Get his lips to twitch. Check. Get him to grin. Check. Get him to laugh. Working on it.
“Did not.” She put her foot on his knee and pushed, sending him rolling away. “Shut your mouth if you don’t want to have your manly self crying uncle.”
His eyes, already black, turned even blacker, and how was that even possible, she wondered. They smoldered as he stared at her with an intensity that almost had her climbing onto his lap. She might have if she hadn’t spied Rothmire coming down the hall, reminding her they were at work.
“Incoming,” she muttered, whipping out Pauline’s profile report.
“Boss man?”
She nodded.
He grinned again, a very devilish one this time. “I think I should tell him you have the hots for my body.”
What in the world had gotten into him? Whatever it was, she liked it, but Rothmire was only seconds away. “I swear, Nate, if you do, I’ll kill you,” she muttered.
His grin grew wider. “Hey, Rothmire,” he said without looking behind him. “Taylor has the—”
