Maybe he turned to her first, maybe it was her tilting her face upward, but before the first gaffer’s name scrolled by, his mouth was only an inch from hers. Her full lips were parted, and her hand dropped from the popcorn bucket to his thigh.
All thoughts of the dangers of fraternization and his captain’s warnings scattered. He dipped his head and her eyes fluttered shut just as someone in the row behind them passed by, accidentally jostling them in the process and sending what was left of the popcorn flying.
Gina grabbed the bucket before it hit the floor and sat back in her seat, that open, needy look on her face disappearing. “Sorry, I guess I crowded you.”
She was giving him an out. He should take it, but he didn’t.
Instead, he cupped the back of her head, bringing her toward him, and kissed her.
Electricity shot through him the moment his lips touched hers. And when she opened underneath him, it was all he could do not to move his hands to her hips and pull her across the seat and onto his lap so he could rock her against his straining dick, deepen the kiss, and finally give in to the want that had been building since the night of the wedding.
Some sane part of him pushed its way to the forefront, though, and reminded him of where he was and who he was kissing. Breaking the kiss wasn’t something he wanted to do, but he had to anyway.
They sat there staring at each other for a second, and the sight of her kiss-swollen lips made him want to give back into the insanity of kissing her, but he held on to his fast-fraying control. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have.”
“It’s okay, it was just a kiss,” she said, avoiding looking at him as she stood up and brushed the stray popcorn kernels off of her. “Didn’t mean a thing, right?”
His gut clenched at the declaration as he stood up—because kissing Gina was starting to mean something to him, and there wasn’t a damn thing good about that.
Chapter Ten
Ford futzed with his tie the next morning, cursing whoever invented the damn things. He hated ties, but wearing them wasn’t optional for detectives on Waterbury’s force, so he’d gotten used to them. Now, after nearly five years of wearing one almost every day, he couldn’t get his fingers to work right to make a Windsor knot. Why the muscle memory amnesia? Probably the lack of sleep after that almost kiss yesterday at his parents’ house. Cockblocked by his own mom. That wasn’t right.
And as soon as they’d gotten back to Gina’s house after that kiss in the movies, she’d disappeared up the stairs, and he’d spent another night staring at the ceiling and wondering if tonight she was wearing the black lace panties.
“My grandma will think you’re up to something if you wear a tie.”
He turned and saw her standing in the open door to his makeshift room. She was wearing a retro-styled pink dress that was so sugary sweet all he wanted to do was dirty it up. Fuck. That was not where he needed his thoughts to go.
“It’s her birthday party, right? You’re dressed up.”
“Thank you.” She did a quick curtsy while giving him a teasing wink. “Still, a button-down shirt for you is fine. The tie makes you look like a cop.”
He checked out his reflection in the mirror above the cold fireplace. It was just a regular plain navy tie. It wasn’t like it was emblazoned with the department’s logo. “I am a cop.”
“Don’t remind me.” She snagged the tie from his hands and dropped it onto his freshly made couch bed.
“So, you’re saying you’re not going to introduce me to everyone as your boyfriend, Detective Hartigan?”
She looked at him like he’d just told her that she had ants crawling up her arm. “Oh God no, and don’t mention it to my grandma, she’s liable to curse you.”
Luckily for him, Grandma Luca did not do that. Instead, she grabbed him with surprisingly strong hands for an elderly woman and kissed him on both cheeks in greeting. Then she took Gina by the arm and led her into the kitchen for what the older woman called girl talk.
That left him alone to navigate Grandma Luca’s crowded living room. He recognized several of the people carrying around little plates of food, but most were new faces, which could be a good thing. Who knew what the Luca brothers had told these people in passing that might turn out to be valuable information? At this point, he didn’t have anything to lose.
He was about to approach a scrum of people near the TV when Rocco—who was wearing a tie—strolled up to him.
Rocco handed him a glass of what smelled like bourbon and delivered what probably looked like a friendly slap to Ford’s back that landed with enough force to leave a mark.
“I suppose you think you’re fooling people?” Rocco asked, the smile on his face not reaching the man’s eyes.
So that’s how this was gonna go, huh? Okay, he could play that game—especially if he could goad Rocco into revealing more than he wanted. After all, wasn’t that why he was here in the first place?
He gave Rocco his best you’re-full-of-shit-and-we-both-know-it smile. “I’d never expect to pull anything over on a guy like you.”
If the sarcasm landed, Rocco didn’t show it. “She’s too good for you.”
There was no need to ask who the she was because for once in his sorry, low-level-criminal life, Rocco was right about something. “I’m sure she is.”
“No, I mean it.” Rocco let the friendly veneer slide off his face. His eyes narrowed, his jaw squared, and an intense concern turned his already dark eyes to an almost black. “She’s got a good heart. People look at her and they make judgments. They always have. It’s not fair, but neither is life. That doesn’t mean I’m gonna let some pretty-boy organized crime detective just fuck with her head, though.”
And that accusation was way too close to the truth of how he’d ended up in her house to land without anything other than near-lethal force. Guilt burned like an iron poker pressed to his side. Ford’s cheeks hurt from holding the fake smile, and he had to consciously loosen his grip on the glass in his hand. Then, like an unexpected answer, he spotted Gina weaving her way through the crowd, a huge smile on her face that didn’t falter until she spotted him with her brother.
“Everything okay?” Gina asked when she got to them.
“It’s perfect, sis,” Rocco said. “Just having a little heart-to-heart with your boy.”
She didn’t look convinced, but she seemed to let it go. “You busy next Friday? It’s past time I kick your and Paul’s asses in bowling.”
Rocco’s gaze cut to Ford, the vein in his temple bulging. “Sorry, sis, we’re booked that night.” He kissed her cheek and started to walk away. “I’ve gotta go talk to Mikey. We’ll catch up soon.”
His trouble detector going crazy, Ford was ready to follow up with Rocco about what had him so busy that night when Ford’s phone started to vibrate in his jacket pocket. He pulled it out, took one look at the number, and knew there was no way to blow off this call to question a guy who would never give him a straight answer anyway.
“I gotta take this,” he said, hating all the reminders he got about who he was and who she was any time they walked out of her house.
Her smile faded just the tiniest bit, and she seemed to curl into herself, drawing an invisible protective shell around her shoulders. “Don’t worry about it.”
That wasn’t the way this was going to go. Dipping his head, he gave her a quick kiss on the lips. It was a simple thing, easy, really, and it hit him like a Mack truck because when he lifted his head there was no missing the restored brightness of her smile that just made him want to kiss her again and again and again until it was the only kind of smile she ever had.
Before he could do that, though, he forced himself to walk toward the relative quiet of the front porch under the suspicious watch of her brothers, who stood next to their grandmother in the living room. No doubt his captain on the other end of his ringing phone would approve of the kiss as a way to solidify his cover story with her family.