Date with the Detective (Phoenix Police Book 3) Read online

  I can’t stop myself as I move in and kiss her. Her hands find their way to my biceps and she clings on, and the surprise makes her body stiffen until she relaxes into the kiss. When I touch the curve of her lips with my tongue, she opens her mouth so I can taste her.

  She whimpers into my mouth and I pull her closer, needing to feel her body flush against mine. It’s when she starts gripping me harder that my brain finally kicks in, finally realizes what I’m doing. Who I’m kissing.

  I yank back, my heart racing. My hard cock was pressing into her. I was kissing her.

  “I’ve got to go,” I say, leaving my bag and my phone and everything behind as I head straight for the department door. I don’t know where I’m going, but I know I can’t stay here.

  Thankfully, Nicki doesn’t follow.

  I end up behind the station, sitting on the ground and not caring that my clothes will be a mess. How will I look at her again after losing control like that? How will I look at her dad, knowing I want his daughter more than anything in the world?

  I sigh and scrub a hand through my hair. When did life get so complicated?

  3

  Nicki

  I sink down on my Dad’s couch, holding a beer in my hand. He’s sitting on the opposite side, watching me with his calm eyes. Growing up with a single father, I landed more on the tomboy side of things, but it’s never bothered me. There was no one I wanted to look nice for.

  Until Mason.

  I groan just thinking about him, letting my forehead fall onto the arm of the couch. It’s dramatic, but sometimes it’s warranted.

  “Long day?” Dad asks, leaning back to turn in my direction.

  “Long week,” I mutter. “I didn’t get the promotion.” Anger trickles down my spine, and all I can think about is if Dad was in on it, too. “Did you stop my promotion?”

  He frowns, and it seems genuine. “Why would I do that? It’s dangerous, yes, but it’s what you want, right?”

  “Mason stopped it.” I scowl just thinking about it. About him.

  “What?” Dad sounds surprised. “Mason did?”

  “Yeah.”

  “How do you know that?”

  I tell him about confronting Mason, about what happened. I stop before mentioning the kiss, not sure whether to go that far. Dad’s not dumb. He caught me mooning over Mason once or twice when I was a teenager. I’m less certain whether he knows I still moon over him.

  Hell, I’m not sure he wants to know anything about my love life—or lack thereof—at all.

  Dad’s quiet when I’m done, and I take a sip of the beer because I’m not sure what in the hell to say. He’s always been my best friend and confidante, but telling him I’m ridiculously head-over-heels in love with his best friend—who is far too old for me—is probably pushing a boundary somewhere.

  “You can’t control who you love,” he says, and he’s holding my gaze. “I should have ended things with your mother a long time ago and I didn’t.”

  This time he does look away, and I look down. We don’t talk about my childhood, because it’s over now. But it wasn’t great. Mom went in and out of rehab constantly, and beyond my Dad and Mason, there wasn’t much stability in my life. I thrived anyway.

  “I’m not blind,” Dad drawls after a moment. “If you two actually looked at each other at the same time, you’d see what I do.”

  I scowl at him. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Dad arches an eyebrow.

  My scowl deepens, but it’s tempered with embarrassment and nerves. “He’s too old for me.”

  Dad shrugs. “Does he make you happy?”

  What a complicated question. “When he’s not being an asshole.”

  I haven’t seen my Dad laugh that hard in a long time. By the time the laughter eases up, he’s still chuckling and shaking his head. “I take it he’s been worse at work?”

  “He won’t even talk to me,” I admit, even though I don’t want to.

  “Want me to talk to him?” Dad offers.

  I look horrified. “No. God, no.” I shudder for theatric effect, but my insides squirm. “No. If anything’s going to get figured out, I need to do it.”

  “You don’t need to look at me like I’m about to share your baby pictures at work,” he says, but he’s grinning.

  “Not those.” I let my head sink into my hands with a sigh. Dad photographed everything when I was little, an attempt to hold onto the happy memories we had when things weren’t always so good. As a consequence, he has a ton of photos of small me doing stupid things.

  So many. And he has no qualms about showing them to everyone he knows.

  “Seriously.” Dad reaches out and takes my hand, squeezes it. “I’m serious, Nicki.”

  I lift my head and look at him. “Do you regret marrying Mom?” I’m not sure where the question comes from, but I feel like I have to know the answer.

  He sighs. “I don’t,” he says slowly, like the answer surprises him. “Even when everything went downhill, I loved her. I loved her when she was addicted and dying.” His eyes are distant. “I don’t regret loving her. I don’t regret marrying her, or having you. I just wish things could have been different.”

  The quiet stretches out between us.

  “I don’t want you to have regrets, either,” he says quietly. He reaches over and squeezes my shoulder before getting up. “I’m going to go to bed. Lock the door behind you when you go home.”

  He leaves me sitting on the couch with a lot to think about.

  Mason

  I’m sitting at work staring at a case file when my phone rings. I answer it and tuck it to my ear, glad for the distraction. “Hey, Aaron.” I shut the file and lean back in my seat.

  “We need to talk,” Aaron says.

  My blood runs cold. Oh, fuck. Did Nicki tell him about what happened? She probably did. Fuck. Not only am I going to lose her, I’ll lose my best friend, too. “Aaron, I—”

  “Do you like her?”

  I freeze. “Of course I do,” I say cautiously. “She’s your daughter.”

  Aaron sighs. “Don’t be stupid, Mason.”

  My lips thin. “Why are we having this conversation?”

  “Because I don’t want her to come home and cry on my shoulder again.” He speaks so matter-of-factly that it’s hard not to believe him.

  “What happened?” I ask, alarmed. Whoever made Nicki cry needs to be taught a lesson.

  Aaron doesn’t speak, not at first. Then there’s another sigh. “You did, you idiot.”

  I pull the phone away from my ear to double-check it’s Aaron’s number, that the date and time are right and I haven’t been pulled into some other dimension where my best friend is talking about me dating his daughter. Because that’s where this has to be going.

  “Mason?” Aaron sounds skeptical, like he thinks I’ve hung up.

  “Is this a prank call?” I ask suspiciously. “Am I being ‘punked’?”

  I didn’t know a human could sigh for so long. “You’re such an idiot. Aren’t you supposed to be too old for this?”

  I scowl at the wall like it has an answer. “I’m going to pretend this conversation never happened,” I say finally. “I’m too old for all of it.”

  “Mason—“

  I hang up before he can lecture me some more. It takes about three seconds before my phone starts ringing again, and I stare at his name on my phone. It’s a lot better to think about than the case file that’s haunting me, even if neither are pleasant.

  As a homicide detective, we don’t just solve murders, but we get called to all suspicious deaths and all infant or child deaths. I try to compartmentalize, but I’m human, and some cases stay with me a long time. Especially the ones like this that I can’t solve.

  At the same time, I can’t let myself fall apart, because I have to be strong for the victim and their family.

  I lock things up, stick my hands in my pockets, and leave the homicide department behind me. I have 2
4/7 access so I can finish my reports later, but for now, I need to think. I need to think without the shadows of my past hovering over me. What would I do if it was even five years ago? Ten? But it’s not, and I’m not sure if it’s a flight of fancy to think about it or not.

  By the time I’m done walking and back in my cubicle, I still don’t know what to do.

  4

  Nicki

  My palms sweat as I sit in the small holding room. While most cases don’t go to trial, this is the first one I’ll have to testify at because I was the responding officer. I’ve done mock cases before, but this is different. This is real.

  The outcome of the case depends, at least partially, on what I say and how. I rehearse the testimony in my head, what I saw, when. The details and facts mentioned in my case report. It’s difficult when my mind keeps straying. I haven’t seen or heard from Mason since the day he kissed me, despite repeated attempts.

  Even if I drop by homicide, it’s been a week of ‘oh, he was just here’ or ‘you just missed him’. The sympathy on Michelle’s face makes me cringe. I don’t want anyone to know what’s going on. I should have been more discreet, but what’s done is done.

  I let out a long sigh.

  “Nicki?” One of the court bailiffs pokes his head in the door. “You’re up.”

  I nod to him, standing and giving my uniform one last look-over. I follow him to the stand, swear in, sit down. I make myself take a deep breath, letting my eyes scan the crowd as a distraction, until I see him. He’s sitting near the back, close to the door, and he’s wearing civilian clothes, but Mason’s there watching me.

  It’s small, but he smiles at me, the barest hint of his lips curving up. It’s the most genuine expression I’ve seen from him in a long time, and it’s all for me. When I face the lawyer and start answering questions, things go smoothly. I feel Mason’s eyes on me the entire time. I don’t know why he’s here, or who told him I was testifying, but I’m grateful for his support.

  By the time I’m cleared to leave the stand, I look at him one last time before I walk out through the back room I was held in. I’m just in time to see him disappear out the front doors. Breaking into a run, I try and catch up to him, but by the time I get outside, he’s gone.

  I want to kick something, but I’m aware of the fact I’m in uniform.

  “Shit,” I mutter to the ground. Anger and worry and fear burn through me like a match. Why did he come? Why did he smile at me, support me, if he wasn’t going to stay around?

  The mixed signals he’s giving are driving me crazy. And I’ll be honest, even at twenty-four, I don’t have a ton of experience with men. None of them compared to Mason, and I wasn’t going to give myself to someone just to say I did. I didn’t care about peer pressure in high school and I’m not about to start now.

  I’m distracted by the end of my shift and sit in my car for a long moment, trying to figure out what to do. I look down at the gear shift like it has answers, then throw it in reverse and back out onto the road. I know where Mason lives, and I’m not going to let him get away with avoiding me this time.

  He’s driving me crazy, and one way or another, I have to know what he wants. What he’s doing. I have to make him talk about it.

  No matter how it ends, I have to know I tried.

  Mason

  I’m sitting on the couch when there’s a sharp knock on my door. Cautious as ever, I take my gun with me as I move silently. Then I look through the peephole, and I kind of wish it was a criminal coming to kill me.

  Instead it’s Nicki, standing there with her arms crossed over her chest, not ready to take no for an answer. I recognize that expression. There’s not really any escaping her, either. She knows my car is there. She knows I’m home.

  I have a feeling if I tried to ignore her, she’d just break in anyway.

  I slowly turn the deadbolt and unlock the door before opening it a crack. “Yes?”

  Nicki’s eyebrows are arched up to her hairline, and her face is entirely unimpressed. “We need to talk.”

  “We can talk here.” Uneasiness rolls through my middle. How does she do this to me? I’m usually so confident, so forward. But she turns me into the awkward teenager I haven’t been in years.

  “Mason.” Her eyes narrow. “Let me in.”

  I’m going to hell. That’s all it is. With a sigh, I step back and open the door for her. She walks in, her gaze flickering from me to my surroundings. She’s been here before, but not often. When we meet up, it’s at Aaron’s house, not mine.

  My gaze follows hers and I wonder what she thinks. It’s not the fanciest home, a one-story I’ve had for a long time. It’s not even really decorated, not with how much I work. My eyes keep straying back to Nicki, to the way her thick body looks even sexier in casual clothes. She must have changed into the dark blue jeans and the light blue blouse before she left the station. I want to strip her bare and taste her but I can’t.

  Nicki clears her throat, and I realize she’s caught me staring at her. I jerk my head away, staring at the kitchen like it’s interesting. To give my hands something to do, I move around the small half-wall. “Do you want some water?” I ask.

  “Sure.” Nicki moves forward until she can see me over the counter blocking the kitchen from the rest of the living room.

  I open the fridge and pull out a pair of water bottles, handing one to her before retreating to the safety that the kitchen provides at the moment. There’s determination in her eyes and I know what she can do with it. This is just the first time it’s been turned in my direction.

  “Why did you run away?”

  I bite back the first and second answer that come to mind, since both involve me not being able to keep my hands off of her if I got close to her. There’s a reason I’m so far away. “I had to work.”

  “You were in civilian clothes.” Nicki moves until she’s in the entrance to the kitchen, blocking the main escape route. I glance at the counter, wondering if I can jump it, before smacking myself mentally.

  I’m a man and I need to fucking act like one. I need to stop running away.

  “Look.” I let out a long breath. “I’m too old for you.”

  Nicki snorts. “You’re not ancient.”

  I frown. “I’m sixteen years older than you. I’m friends with your father, for God’s sake.”

  Nicki’s eyes linger on me while she studies me in silence. The quiet draws out between us, almost uncomfortable in its intensity. I’m holding her gaze, hypnotized. She’s so close.

  “Please,” she says, her voice quiet.

  I swallow over the lump in my throat. My body aches with the desire to give in, to pull her close and take her so I never have to share her with anyone else. “I’m not good for you.”

  Nicki takes another step closer, her eyes fixed on my face. The intensity in her expression is dragging the need out of me, the desire to have her, keep her. Protect her from anyone who would ever harm her.

  She’s maybe three or four inches in front of me when she stops. Her eyes haven’t left mine. “Who are you trying to convince, Mason?”

  Maybe it’s her words. Maybe it’s that I can only control myself so much. Maybe it’s knowing she’s so close and offering herself to me. Whatever it is, I step into her space before claiming her mouth with mine. She’s surprised at first, but easily melts into the kiss, her body fitting perfectly against me.

  It’s like she was made for this. Made for me. Arousal is raging inside me, my shaft hard against her soft body as I kiss her. I can’t wait until she’s naked, until I can be inside her. I bet her pussy will fit me as well as the rest of her does.

  I lean down to kiss her neck, feeling her chest press against me as she pants, struggling to breathe. “Are you sure?” I ask, my voice low and husky. “If you say yes, you’re mine. For good.”

  Her laugh is shaky, thready with need, but when I catch sight of her, the smile is real. “I’m sure,” she says, reaching up to cup my cheek. “It’s al
ways been you.”

  Hesitation flashes across her face, which makes me stop. I pull back, studying her closely. “What were you thinking?”

  Her cheeks go scarlet and she looks away. “Nothing.”

  I use my finger to lift her chin and angle it in my direction. “Nicki.” My tone is stern.

  She sighs. “I haven’t done this before.”

  5

  Nicki

  “Done what?” Mason asks, looking puzzled.

  I try to look away from him, but a sharp shake of his head stops me. Instead, helplessly, I stare into his dark eyes. The pupils have dilated, his nostrils flare as he breathes, like he’s just trying to get as much of me as he can.

  “Any of this,” I admit.

  He blinks. “What?”

  I want to pull back, want to scowl, but he won’t let me. I don’t even want to, not really. It’s like my body is drawn to him, an electro-magnetic force pulling me to be as close to him as I can. “I’m a virgin.”

  His eyes widen a fraction and he’s just staring at me. Then heat pulses in his eyes, sending waves of arousal down to my lower belly before he leans in and gives me a quick, gentle kiss. “Good.”

  Warm feelings explode inside me, a comfortable glow that starts inside and works its way out. “You really don’t mind?”

  “Were you saving it for me?” Mason holds my eyes with his. I don’t even think of looking away, hypnotized by his gaze.

  I swallow thickly. “Yeah.”

  He groans, his head tilting back just a fraction, like it’s physically paining him to maintain eye contact. “You’re perfect,” he murmurs, leaning down to capture my lips again.

  It’s easy to get lost in the movement of my body against him, get distracted by the throbbing between my legs and how my nipples are so hard they’re almost painful. I’m craving his touch. Now that he’s kissing me, I don’t know how much longer I can survive without feeling his hands on me.