Page 59 of Worth the Fall

Her brow narrows, but she doesn’t move. “I’m meeting Desi,” she says into the phone instead of taking the ten steps to tell me face to face.

“No, you’re not. She isn’t coming. I called her and told her to turn around and go back home.” Temper stews on that gorgeous face of hers. “Tell him.”

She doesn’t say a word to the man next to her, who is still eyeing her, but rather slides some cash across the bar, pushes her chair in, and then stalks over to me, phone still held to her ear.

She stands in front of me, and every part of me begs to kiss her. Fuck her. Anything with her because it feels like forever since we kissed and a lifetime of foreplay that has in no way been satisfying.

“You don’t get to tell me what to do.”

Okay. This is how she wants this to go. “Have a seat.”

“No.”

“Have a seat, Emmy.”

“It’s Emerson.” She glares, her feet shifting as she lowers her phone from her ear. I eye the seat next to her and then look back to her.

“Sit.”

“You’re an asshole, you know that?” she sneers.

“Yeah. Probably. But I’ve had a shitty day, so fucking sue me if I want you to sit and have a few drinks with me and maybe see why your day was so goddamn crappy too . . .” I shrug. “Sit.”

Her emotions wage a war across her face, but I can see reluctance flash through those eyes of hers before she lowers herself to the seat across from me. Without looking away, I lift a hand to the bartender and motion for another round. We don’t speak until the drinks arrive, tension mounting between the two of us for some odd reason.

Foreplay.

I smile at the thought, and I know it pisses her off.

“Since when did you become such a stalker?”

“Me? Stalker?” I laugh, and this banter is just what I need.

“Yeah, word has it that you’ve been asking about where I live.”

“You mean the one question I asked Desi?”

Her lips quirk as she fights a smile. “Yeah, that question.”

“If I’m going to stalk you effectively, don’t I need to know that info?”

She’s still trying to make up her mind whether she likes this idea, just like I’m still trying to figure out if I like her living in the loft of a hangar doing odd jobs in exchange for rent and transportation. Even if it’s for the harmless caretaker, Travis Barnhardt, it’s still another thing on her plate to do when she already does too much.

“Being a cop and all, I figured you had better means than loose-lips Desi.”

“I happen to have a soft spot for loose-lips Desi,” I say just to irritate her.

“No shit. Give the girl William Sonoma, and she’ll sing like a canary.”

I laugh, which draws looks from others around us. “I’m afraid to know what else she confessed.”

“That’s for me to know and you to never know.” Her eyes glance up from her drink and hold mine.

“So, you had a shitty day, too?” I prompt.

She shrugs. “Something like that. What about you? Why was your day so bad?”

“I had a donut delivery even though I hate donuts. My cruiser still smells like them.”