Page 152 of Rising Heat

Standing outside her apartment door looking at me like she already knew where this was headed and was trying to decide how brave she felt about it.

Christ, she’s perfect.

Whoever let this woman walk away had to be the biggest idiot alive. And every time that thought crosses my mind, I like her ex-fiancé a little less and my own situation a little more.

I’ve seen a lot of pretty women. Been with a good amount too. But pretty’s never been enough to hold my attention.

Darcy does, easily.

She has this way of looking at you like she can see the parts you spend your life convincing yourself don’t exist. And then she laughs, and before you know it, you’re smiling too.

I’d been thinking about how tonight would go since Tyler sat across from me in the station kitchen the other night with that grin—the loose, pleased one he gets when he’s done something he wants to talk about—the one I wanted to wipe off his face.

That was new. I never felt suddenly territorial about a girl we’d both slept with, then again, we’ve never kept anyone around long enough to start making moves on our own.

“She came by the station.”

He’d shrugged it off, like it was just a passing thing. Like Darcy showing up at our firehouse while I was buried under paperwork less than thirty feet away was some unremarkable event and not the thing I’d been fuming over for the past fifty-six hours.

He hadn’t held my gaze after. Didn’t need to. I’d read everything in the way he’d said it, and that alone pissed me off enough that I didn’t wanna know the rest.

Cute.

They thought they could have a moment between themselves and leave me out of it. Like that’s how this worked.

I didn’t say any of it. Just finished my coffee, let Tyler think he’d gotten away with something, and came upstairs tonight with a plan.

The plan had been simple. Take her somewhere that was mine, let her relax, keep things easy and see where she went with it. I’ve done this before. I know when to move and when to let something come to me.

With Darcy, it always felt like she’d get here eventually. My job was knowing when to stop pushing and let her make the choice herself.

Then she opened the door and the whole plan fell to shit the second I saw the look on her face.

She pulled herself together as soon as she saw me, but for a split second she’d looked relieved to see me. I didn’t know exactly what she’d been carrying, but she wasn’t carrying it alone anymore.

After that, the rest of the night got real simple. Make her feel better. Everything else could wait.

Now she’s standing a few feet inside her apartment watching me, hair loose from the wind and the way she kept pushing it back behind her ear at the bar without realizing I was watching every time.

Somewhere between downstairs and up here, her sweater slipped off one shoulder, distracting me momentarily until my eyes drift to the pulse beating at the base of her throat and the bourbon-flushed pink of her mouth.

She’s not pretending she doesn’t know why she pulled me in here, and I’m not pretending I came up here by accident.

Good. We can skip that part.

I set my keys in the little bowl on the entry table beside hers and step toward her. Her chin lifts, her eyes never leaving mine.

There she is. The woman who’d walk into a burning building before she’d let anyone see her rattled. I respect the hell out of that, but it doesn’t mean I’m gonna make this easy on her.

“You good?” I ask.

“Yeah.”

Too quick. Her chin stays tilted up at me as I close the distance between us in two slow steps.

I let the silence sit for another second, just long enough for her to know I heard it. Her jaw tightens, then she squares her shoulders a fraction, digging her heels in instead of backing down.

I almost smile.