Page 19 of Keeping Ava

How motherfucking hard it is to keep it professional when all I want to do is take her lips—make her moan for me as I pull the pleasure from her body. Make her see how good we could be together.

Keep letting her hide. My attention needs to be on this case and Jason.

Not on her. Not on those curves that are meant to be touched—adored and worshipped.

“Lord help me resist this temptation. Amen,” I say low, looking up toward my ceiling. From the other room, I hear her curse and my cock twitches, thickening at just the sound of her voice. It’s another sign that I’m fucked.

Pulling up the captain’s contact info, I load up the doc with my findings into an email and hit send. Within seconds, my phone vibrates and his name flashes across the screen with an incoming text message.

Reading now. ~CPerez.

Let me know. He’s on the move and my guess is Nevada first. ~Ford

Three tiny dots appear on the screen.

Why? ~CPerez

Better question: Who is leading him back to San

Diego? ~Ford

A tail? ~CPerez

I take a second to answer him, trying to find the right words to explain my theory on how Jason knows that we have her without giving away too much. This is a conversation better had in person.

There’s just too much of a coincidence.

His escape was too easy, and the manhunt seems to be going slow. Neither add up.

Too close for comfort. ~Ford

I’ll be at your building tomorrow at eight a.m. sharp. Talk then. ~CPerez

See you in the morning. ~Ford

Something occurs to me then, and I shoot him another message.

Please bring me the file inside my desk. Top drawer on the right. ~Ford

Okay. ~CPerez

Tossing the small device on the table, I follow the scent of fresh coffee and bacon.

What I find upon entering is utterly delicious and wrong. All thoughts stop, and nothing but this moment exists. No case. No worries.

Watching her like this gives me a sense of domestication that I never wanted before. Being in a relationship wasn’t for me. Women are a distraction I can’t afford, and my last real relationship happened years ago. She couldn’t handle my job, the hours spent away and the danger, so I didn’t try again after. Opportunities to let off steam were very few and far between and not a priority.

The last time was more than six months ago, and up until Ava, I was more than okay with that. My life is my career and there hasn’t been room for anything else, and yet, right now, I welcome this. Her.

This yearning she brings out in me is fucking with my head. I’m fighting the need to take her when protecting must come first.

How easily I give in. Lose focus.

“She’s fucking beautiful.”

Ava is at the stove, oblivious to me as she hums, her hips moving from side to side. Cooking shouldn’t be this attractive. Her total avoidance of my being shouldn’t pull me in closer, but it does. I almost hate that I crave her.

She doesn’t see me as I watch her flip a slice and then another. Nor when she cracks an egg and whisks it in a bowl for scrambled eggs because the woman doesn’t like omelets. But that seems to be a recurrent behavior since arriving.

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