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KATIE
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I LEANED ON THE COUNTER in the bathroom, staring sadly at my alter ego. She didn’t look good this morning. There were dark circles under her eyes and her hair was frizzed out around her head. Her skin was pale and sort of streaky, like she’d gone to bed in her makeup and then cried herself to sleep.
And there was a good reason for her looking like that, because it was exactly what she’d done.
I’d been furious at Adam last night after his little speech in his room—which had resulted in all three of our suspects leaving in a huff, including Rachel, who I now thought was absolutely never going to talk to me again. The worst part was that they’d all essentially proven themselves innocent, not by their grandstanding and turning over their phones, but by the simple fact that another transfer was initiated out of the company coffers while the three suspects were in our room.
Now, granted, Arthur was good enough with computers that he could have set a transfer up to happen while he was with Adam, just on the off chance that someone was looking and he needed an alibi. But a quick phone call to the detective in New York had told us that this transfer had been set up in real time, not planned out ahead.
Which made Arthur, Joseph, and Rachel all innocent.
Even worse, Adam hadn’t talked to me before he’d made that move. I’d been caught completely unaware and had been flying by the seat of my pants, more or less. I hadn’t had an answer prepared for when Rachel inevitably asked me about my role, and the answer I ended up giving her—brutal truth—had been so rough around the edges that it drove her right off.
No surprise there.
But Adam not telling me about it beforehand...
Therein lay the biggest problem. No, I hadn’t been doing a very good job of being a private investigator down here. I’d screwed up the first week and now the second week as well, and we still didn’t have anything solid. Sure, I’d gotten to trot out some of my skills for Adam to see, but they hadn’t come to anything.
I was failing. And it didn’t take a genius to figure out that Adam was starting to think he needed to move on his own. Without including me.
“You,” I told my reflection, “have got to get it together.”
It was a cold, hard statement of fact. I’d been failing at this job for two weeks now, and I was woman enough to know when I wasn’t going to be able to pull something off. The problem had always been admitting it to other people.
In this case, admitting it to a guy I’d been falling in love with.
“And you,” my reflection said back, “know exactly what you have to do. So stop stalling, get up to his room, and do it.”
I bit my lip and glared at her. It wasn’t that she was wrong. I did know exactly what I had to do. I just very desperately did not want to do it.
I hated admitting defeat. And I hated the thought of admitting it to someone I cared about as much as I’d come to care about Adam Miller.
***
WHEN HE OPENED HIS door, he looked nearly as bad as I felt.
Honestly speaking, though, he probably felt even worse than I did. Yes, this was my job, and I should have done more to solve the case. In the same breath, this was his company and his money being stolen. It was his work being damaged, his employees who were going to be hurt if he had to close the place because they ran out of money.
Because of a thief that I’d been unable to catch.
“I need to talk to you,” I told him firmly.
He cringed. “Are you going to yell at me for having done something so stupid last night?”
I brushed past him as I walked into the room. “No. Because if you hadn’t done that, we would still be investigating the wrong people. It’s more that you did it without telling me first.” I turned in the middle of the room and stared at him. “It’s more that you took the investigation right out of my hands and into your own.”
A frown creased across his face. “I didn’t do that at all. I just figured that with all the money disappearing—”
“I don’t blame you for doing it,” I interrupted. “I would have done the same thing if I was in your shoes. Because the truth is, I’ve been failing at doing my job from the moment we first got here. I’ve gone after the wrong people, and I’ve done a sloppy job of it. I’ve been slow to react and distracted. I’ve had my eye on something other than the case.”
The frown deepened. “But you’re one of the best in your field. I’ve seen your history. Sometimes it takes you longer to solve a case, but you never fail.”
“Do you actually have time for me to take any longer on this one?” I asked. “Do you actually have time for me to continue to look at the wrong people? I don’t think you do. I think that’s why you acted last night without talking to me first. I think that’s why you took the investigation right out of my hands.”
He started to argue, but I put a hand up to stop him. This was the right thing. He was just going to have to come around to seeing that.
“I quit,” I told him simply. “I’m not the right person for this case, and I’m not going to continue wasting your time. You need to put someone on the case that will solve it for you, and I’m obviously not that person. I don’t want to do it, but I’m a big enough person to admit when I’m in over my head. I’ve been too distracted on this case, and you’ll be better off with someone else. I’ll pack my things and be out by mid-day.”
Instead of just accepting my resignation like I’d expected, Adam took three steps toward me until he was standing right in front of me. Then he put a gentle hand to my cheek and gazed deeply into my eyes.
“You,” he said quietly, “are the most amazing person I’ve ever met. I screw something up and destroy a case all by myself, and yet you’re standing here trying to take the blame for it.”
“I’m the professional here,” I said, my voice shaky.
“And I should have remembered that and let you do your job,” he replied. “It’s not your fault I got impatient, and it’s certainly not your fault we’ve been handing the incorrect leads. Tell me, Kate. Why have you been distracted?”
I could have lied right then. I could have given him any number of answers that skirted around the truth. There were certainly plenty of options. The change of venue. Rachel. The constantly revolving set of players. The danger to my reputation.
But staring into his eyes, hearing him speak to me that way, I found that I didn’t have the heart to lie to him. Not anymore. Not when I was on the verge of leaving anyhow.
Hey, if I was going to be gone in a couple hours, what was the harm in telling him the truth? If I did, I could at least leave here without any regrets.
“You,” I whispered. “I’ve been distracted because I’ve been falling in love with you.”
A touch of a smile crossed his mouth. “That’s a relief,” he replied. “Since I’ve been falling in love with you, too.”
He moved forward and brushed his lips across mine, the move so tender, so full of love, that I almost melted right on the spot.
Luckily, he seemed to know that I was going to have that reaction, because he was waiting to catch me. His arms slid under my knees and back, and he lifted, his strength supporting me without any effort as he started to walk toward the bed. I reached up and slid my hands up his jaw and into his hair, deepening the kiss and making it stronger, more urgent.
Putting every ounce of need and want and desperation into it. Showing him all the things I’d been hiding for the past two weeks.
And when he laid me down on the bed and lay next to me, his hands going gently to the hem of my sweatshirt and beginning to lift it up, I stopped him.
“Adam Miller,” I told him seriously, looking deep into his eyes. “I think I’m in love with you. I’ve thought it for the last week, and I’ve been fighting it so hard, but I don’t want to fight it anymore.”
He pressed a soft, tender kiss to my forehead, right between my eyes. “Then don’t,” he replied in a whisper. “Don’t fight it anymore. Be with me, Katie. Be my partner in this. Stop holding yourself so separate from me.”
I tipped my head and let a smile touch my lips. “Partner?”
“Partner,” he said firmly. “I’m tired of doing it all on my own. I want someone who will walk beside me and help me call the shots.”
“I like the sound of that,” I replied.
I’d never had a partner before. I’d always walked on my own—partly because of my job and partly because of who I was. I’d never even considered letting anyone else in.
But the thought of letting Adam in and walking next to him, with him there to catch me if I fell, and me there to support him when he needed it...
It felt a whole lot like the thing I’d been waiting for.
I pulled him down to me while his hands went back to the hem of my sweatshirt, and when he pulled it over my head, I gasped at the cold air... and then gasped anew at his fingers finding my nipple and rolling it slowly. I arched up off the bed in pleasure, needing more than just that, and yet never wanting him to move on.
“Oh, you like that?” he whispered.
“Fuck, yes,” I moaned.
He dipped his head to my breast and took my nipple into his mouth, tonguing it gently and then nipping ever so lightly, and I cried out, a flood of warm erupting between my legs at the sensation.
Adam didn’t stop sucking on me. Instead, he sucked harder as his hand went to the waistband of my sweats, dipped under them, and moved between my legs. When he parted them and slid his fingers through my wetness, I cried out again, more of a gasp this time, and he smiled down at me.
“Do you like that, too?”
“Yes,” I gasped, writhing against his fingers. “Please, Adam, please. Please.”
“Like this?” he murmured, pushing one finger up into me and starting to stroke.
“More,” I groaned.
“More?” He looked shocked, but a moment later another finger entered me, stretching me in all the best ways. And then his fingers started to move in and out, forcing me to rock my hips to take them.
He was playing with me. I knew it and he knew it, and for the first time, I was absolutely willing to open myself up to him and tell him exactly what I wanted.
I reached up, grabbed his face, and turned it to mine. “I want you,” I told him firmly. “Now.”
“Oh, so bossy,” he replied with a smile.
But he stripped quickly out of his pants and rolled mine down, then nestled between my legs. Lifting my hands up above my head and threading his fingers through mine, he brought the tip of his cock right to my opening.
“Like this, my love?” he whispered.
I shivered at the word, feeling it fly through me like an arrow, and then nodded. “Yes.”
He pushed into me so slowly that it made me scream. And I came for him the first time he moved.
That didn’t stop him from making love to me, though. Instead, he held me through my orgasm... and then kept moving, whispering in my ear how much he loved me while he brought me to the edge again and again, showing me with his body how much his heart desired me.
***
“THAT,” I TOLD HIM, after we’d rested for about half an hour, “might have been the most intense experience of my life.”
“You and me both.” I could hear the smile in his voice, and I smiled with him, feeling completely satisfied and having very little thought for anything but how deliciously sore I was.
“So partners?” I asked.
“Partners,” he agreed. “And don’t even think about trying to leave. I’ll find you and stop you.”
I nuzzled into him, feeling incredibly safe. “I would never.”
His phone buzzed at that moment, interrupting our happy interlude, and he reached for it.
“Shit, the real world already?” I moaned. “Can’t it leave us alone for one morning?”
He was quiet as he read whatever message had just come in, and then I felt his chest rise and fall with a sigh. “Evidently not,” he said. “And it looks like we have to go to New York.”
THE END
