Page 9 of Criminally Yours

She bit the hand against hermouth.

“Fuck!” Their hand dropped, but fingers still gripped her hip, digging into her flesh.

“Get off me,” she screamed, kicking back to escape her captor’s clutch.

“Millie?”

No. No way. It can’t be.

A familiar scent punched her chest as she gasped.

He spun her around, his hands gripping her shoulders, and that was when she came face-to-face with the man she hoped never to see again.

His big blue eyes fixed on hers, and all the words she’d been ready to scream escaped her.

Caleb was back.

CHAPTER 4

Millie

The man whose presence had littered her dreams over the last ten years stood in front of her.

Before, he was barely a boy, on the cusp of his nineteenth birthday, preparing to go to university before ditching it to join the army, but now he was all man.

She snarled at the realisation that he was even better than her fantasies.

With his dirty blond buzz cut, he resembled the focus of her teenage longings, but now, lines sat at the corner of the ice-blue eyes that were boring into her and demanding her secrets. A scruff of hair covered his chin and the space above the peachy lips that she’d spent two perfect weeks kissing after he’d declared his feelings for her.

He was solid when he’d crowded her and held her against him. Now, she saw the muscle that tested her focus.

But he was her enemy. He was on Hugo’s side, and she needed to escape him.

“Millie, it’s Strike—I mean, Caleb,” he grunted.

His voice, rough but with an edge of recognition, rumbledthrough her. It reminded her too much of the times he used to sit on her bed, whispering as they watched the latest action movie or teasing her as she made them ice cream sundaes.

She shook her head. “Get off me.”

With a shrug of her shoulders, he released her. She scrabbled for her now smashed phone.

“I’m picking stuff up,” she snapped, shoving it in her pocket to sort out later.

Strike had been surprised to see her. Hugo hadn’t called him yet. If she could sneak away in a blasé fashion, she could be out of here and at the airport before Strike caught up.

She yanked the box off the bed and attempted to duck away from him. His body filled the doorway, blocking her exit.

He glanced at glittery shoebox. She’d decorated it after he stopped by on his way back from the boxing club. That was the summer his friend Drew moved in next door

“You sneaked in to grab your teenage memory box?”

He smelt of dust and a scent that was a combination of sandalwood and vanilla. Surely, his taste in body spray had improved. Still, she breathed in the scent of her favourite memories.

“I didn’t sneak anywhere.” She tried to slink under his arm, but he eased her back, his thick fingers curled around her shoulder.

“You crept around in a dark house, turned the light on when the blind was down, wore your hood up, and didn’t park in the driveway.”

Her blood chilled. “Nosey bastard,” she spluttered, yanking her hood down.