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With a satisfied smirk, I swiped my almost-empty smoothie glass off the table and leaned back, quite proud of myself.

“Oh hell. What did you do?” she hedged, eyeing me when she came back. The brown bags crinkled as she set them on the table. “You look way too pleased with yourself.”

My mind went straight to the gutter at her innocent words.

“Nothing.” I cleared my throat. The last few sips of thick liquid filled my mouth as I tipped the glass back, draining the contents. “All right, I’m going to get ready for work. We’ll leave in an hour.” Standing, I hooked an arm around Rain’s waist and yanked her to my side. “Send me the insurance information, and I’ll handle it today. Understand?”

Eyes wide, she nodded.

“Words, Rain.”

“Yes, sir.”

With a grunt, I marched out of the kitchen, needing to take yet another shower.

This time, I’d be envisioning those same words on her lips as she obeyed my every order.

And loving every second.

23

JAMESON

Iwas a horrible man. Her crazy ex destroyed her house, we had a serial killer to catch, and all I could think about was finding spare time to have her again. Scrubbing a palm over my face, I stared at the laptop screen, silently begging my notes to answer the plethora of hanging questions.

Spoiler alert: it didn’t work.

Something helpful might be there, but my brain was being pulled in too many directions to notice. Between the break-in, knowing Rain’s ex was somewhere out there toeing that line between stalker and violent threat, and the sexual tension that simmered between me, Rain, and Slade, I couldn’t focus for shit.

Which was problematic considering focusing solely on the case was the reason I came to Santa Coasta. My frustration with the case in general didn’t help either. It’d been a week, and I still didn’t have a strong profile to give to the detectives to help narrow down a suspect pool. And that messed with my head big-time.

Sure, this case was multifaceted with zero evidence and still no firm connection between the victims, but I should’ve had something solid by now. Doubt crept in every time I looked at the case files and couldn’t find anything new. Maybe Rhyan was wrong to hire me and I wasn’t cut out for the profiler job. When I’d worked those cases with Cooper, I had someone to lean on, but alone, it was clear I was fucking it all up.

Elbows pressed onto the desk, I held my face in both hands.

“I’m a fucking joke.” The words were muffled by my palms. “I need help.”

A desperate groan rumbled in my throat as I pressed Charlie’s number and hit the speaker icon.

Balancing two cups of coffee in one hand, Slade walked in as the ringing filled the office.

“I’ll call you right back. I think I have something for you.” The call cut off as quickly as it’d been picked up.

“That your tech friend?” Slade set one to-go coffee cup in front of me while taking a sip of his own. I eyed the cup, unsure of the quality of coffee inside the plain white cardboard. “It’s from a decent place around the corner. Not great but not terrible. Come on, you know I wouldn’t poison you with the shit they serve upstairs.”

Blowing out a slow breath, I snagged the full cup and leaned back in the chair. “Everywhere I turn, I hit a fucking roadblock. This case is….” I took a sip, wincing as the steaming liquid burned my tongue.

“Challenging,” Slade offered.

“Making me debate all my life choices.”

His bark of laughter made the corners of my lips tug upward. Hand wrapped around the back of the sitting area chair, he dragged the piece of furniture closer to the desk and carefully lowered onto the cushioned seat. I hid a smile behind my cup at the hilarious vision of his massive frame perched on the edge of the small teal armchair.

“After all this time together, I didn’t realize you were so damn dramatic.” I shrugged, the swirling doubts still clawing at my confidence, and he whistled. “Oh shit, you weren’t joking.”

“No, I’m not. This is my first case flying solo, and I’m fucking failing everyone.”

Slade kept his intense, all-seeing stare locked on me as he took a long drink from his coffee. “And you’re thinking that because we don’t have a solid list of suspects after you’ve only been here—alone, like you pointed out—a week?”

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