Page 14 of Mountain Defender

She turned her head and looked him fully in the eyes. “Are you trying to find out how old I am? Because that’s pretty rude, Tripp.”

“Now that you brought it up, yeah.”

She directed her attention to the road again. “I’m old enough to know better, how’s that?”

“I’d say we both are, so you can stop with the dick-measuring contest now.” He plugged the new route that would forego the impassable mountain pass into his phone and stuffed it into the holder on her dash.

“Dick-measuring contest?” Alexia couldn’t quite keep the stammer or outrage out of her voice.

“I’m sure you aren’t even aware that you do it. After all, you work in a field primarily dominated by males. You probably get overlooked a lot.”

“I’ll have you know that the reason I’m on this case is that I outshineallmy male counterparts, including my own partner!”

“I see.”

She went silent and chewed on her bottom lip, trapping it between white teeth that probably sported braces when she was a teen. When she released it, Tripp damn near let out a growl.

“I’ve met guys just like you,” she went off. “You think just because you’re trained military that you know everything. Believe me, you’ll never out-think me when it comes to crime cases.”

She kept talking, but Tripp tuned out her voice and became hyper-focused on the color of her lipstick. Not quite brown. Not quite pink. Not red either. He’d never seen anything like it.

“How’s your shooting?” he asked just to keep her talking.

Her lips moved faster with the same speed-talking he saw her do on the phone earlier.

“I have top marks with all calibers.”

“I doubt you can outshoot me.”

She issued a snort that was just as distracting as the color of her lips. A color that he was now picturing ringed around his dick.

Fuck!This was the second time he’d gotten aroused thinking about her lipstick.

“The only thing you can do better than me is kill people.”

Alexia’s statement slammed all the doors on his arousal and flipped the electric breaker too.

Slowly, he turned his head to pierce her with his glare. “I was a SEAL.”

“Yup.”

He continued to stare at her. “Oh my god. You think I killed the boyfriend, don’t you?”

Fucking hell, he played into this scenario she concocted perfectly. She would get him—her suspect—to the scene of the crime in order to study him in the environment.

“It doesn’t matter what I think,” she said. “It matters what the facts prove.”

“Bold of you to get me in your vehicle for nine hours.”

“I’m sorry—what?” She directed her attention to the GPS map on his phone.

“Nine hours. Each way.”

“No way.”

He grinned. “The great melting. Happens every spring. Someone smart like you should’ve known.”

What had she done? Nine hourseach way? That meant at least eighteen hours of time she would be spending in his company.

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