Page 5 of Mine to Share

Holding a shallow breath, I dared a quick glance over my shoulder. Standing at six foot five, he seemed to loom over me with his height and wide frame, even with the distance between us. With a lovesick sigh, I stared a little too long to be professional. His trimmed beard did nothing to hide the strong jaw beneath. Somehow his slightly crooked nose from one too many injuries added to his good looks instead of the opposite, and the penetrating green eyes highlighted by his thick dark lashes made him breathtaking.

He was and always would be completely out of my league.

As usual, a deep scowl lined his ruggedly handsome face, intense gaze locked on the woman’s feet. Not on my ass like I desperately wanted.

Air rushed past my pursed lips with a deflating breath.

Yes, this somewhat-blind date was terrifying but absolutely necessary. I needed to get over this insane and unrequited crush. This was no way to live day in and day out, working side by side with someone while desperate for their attention, knowing it would never happen.

Slade wasn’t an asshole about his lack of attraction toward his socially awkward medical examiner. If he treated me like my worthless ex-husband had, it would be easy to move on from this infatuation. Instead, he was a grumpy gentleman. Not cold, but clear on the professional boundaries he kept firmly in place between us.

“Hey, Slade,” I said, trying to keep the swoon in my tone to a minimum. This was ridiculous. I was an educated, thirtysomething woman. I did not swoon. Yet every time I allowed my imagination to wander on how his large hands would feel skimming up and down my lean frame, caressing what little curves I did have, the idiotic swooning happened. “You’re stopping by later than usual. Didn’t expect to see you to go over my findings until the morning.”

He grunted something as he moved closer to where I stood over the body, careful to keep a very wide professional bubble between us.

Instead of wrapping his thick arms around me and squeezing me to his hard chest.

Talk about a scalpel to the heart.

Clearing my throat, I forced my focus back on the reason he stopped by.

“I was just about to hit Send on my report and put her away for the night.”

On the other side of the table, he nodded, dark brows pulled in tight as he scanned the dead woman’s face. “Leaving at a decent hour tonight, Rain. That’s as odd for you as it is for me. Hot date to get ready for?”

I stood a little straighter. “Well, actually, yeah. Though I wouldn’t say ‘hot’ since I haven’t met the guy in person yet. Though, based on his profile picture, he’s—”

His green eyes flicked up from the body between us, drilling into my hazel ones. “Are you fucking with me? You’re meeting up with a guy you met online?”

Embarrassment heated my cheeks at his words and incredulous tone. I swallowed hard to calm my racing pulse, giving me a second to form a response. How the hell did a few pointed words from him make me squirm like I’d done something wrong? I longed for his attention, yet when I had Slade’s full focus, I ended up tongue-tied and unable to think straight.

Thankfully, I could always talk about work. Autopsies, pathology reports, and case-breaking evidence I’d found on the body were my comfort zone. Want to discuss the size and shape of a stab wound or the bodily fluids I found on a body? I was ready all day, every day.

A normal conversation about anything else… not so much.

Hence the pep talk I’d had earlier.

With a dead woman.

“You were right.” Slade’s narrowed eyes scanned my face. My shifting the conversation from my date back to work to avoid answering his question clearly didn’t go unnoticed. Like he wanted to know about the date and how I met the guy anyway. He was probably more confused about why someone would use the internet to find a date, considering Slade could walk into any bar—hell, out in public anywhere—and every available, and sometimes not, woman would flock to his side, desperate for his attention.

I would, too, if he didn’t only see me as a coworker.

Most nights I dreamed of him realizing he wanted me as much as I wanted him, that I’d wake up to him banging down my door, ready to test out all my dirty fantasies of us together. But that was all it was, a dream.

Men in my past claimed I was too tall and thin, not curvy enough to be considered conventionally pretty for a woman. Which, with almost zero hips, baby hills for boobs, and feet the size of water skis, I had to agree with them.

“Rain?” I jerked my head up, his gruff tone startling me out of my rambling thoughts. “You said I was right, so what was I right about?”

“Sorry about that. Lots on my mind,” I sighed.

“Because of the date?”

“Yes and no. You know me.” I tapped the side of my temple with a single finger. “This right here never stops. Speaking of stopping, do you think we could talk the chief into going more ecofriendly and stop printing out reports?”

Long, dark lashes fanned up and down with his slow blinks, clearly confused on where the hell that thought came from.

“Sorry, I read an article about the Amazon being destroyed last week, and it just popped into my head.” My awkward, nervous laugh echoed around the morgue.

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