Ford hadn’t kissed Gina because of that, though.
He’d done it because he couldn’t stand the truth that whatever was building between the two of them couldn’t happen because the real reason why he was in her house and in her life was always there, lurking in the background. The revelation had him swiping his thumb over his phone’s touchscreen with more force than necessary to answer the call.
“Give me a second,” he said as he stepped out on the porch and did a quick visual sweep to confirm he was alone out there. “I’m not at the best place where I can talk.”
“Good, because you only need to listen,” the captain retorted. “Your clock is just about up. The ME’s report came in. No obvious signs of trauma from what was left of Big Nose Tommy Luca. The ME says without that, and considering the factors surrounding where the body was discovered, he probably starved to death after getting stuck in the wall.”
Of all the awful ways Gina’s grandfather probably had imagined going, a slow death by starvation probably hadn’t been what he’d pictured.
“A cleaned-up version of the report needs to be shared with the family,” the captain went on. “That means your time is up. I sure as hell hope you found out some intel.”
Oh he had. He knew Gina’s favorite color (pink), her irrational hatred of action movies (that really needed to be changed), and that when he looked at her, something happened to the air around him, making it hard to breathe. But about her brothers or the Esposito crime family? “Not yet.”
“Too bad. Getting information about the Espositos was the kind of thing that could make a detective’s career.”
Bile coated the back of his tongue with chalky guilt. “Understood, sir.”
“Well, you’ve got one last night. Make the most of it.” The captain hung up without saying goodbye.
Ford didn’t let out the frustrated growl tickling the back of his throat. He swallowed it. This was the nature of the life he’d chosen. He did the hard thing because it was right and the rule of law mattered. The Espositos hurt people and needed to get taken down. If that heroin hit the streets, no telling how many lives could be ruined. He’d gone into this knowing he was lying for the right reasons.
Just as important, he was the only detective on the task force who was right for this case working with Gina. Exactly why that was the reality of the situation wasn’t something he wanted to examine. He was just doing his job, and now his time was just about up.
Determined to make the best of what time he had left, he went back inside the house, focused on his job almost as much as the woman in the pink dress who smiled every time she looked his way.
A few seriously unproductive hours trying to pump the Luca family and friends for information later, and he was standing with Gina in her kitchen, which was lit only by the dim light above the sink. She’d just gotten done telling him about how her grandma had tried to give her the talk about how to hold onto a man during their girl talk session. Her eyes were bright with laughter. And she was smiling. He fucking loved that smile.
“I never thought I’d hear my grandma say the word blow job,” she said, shaking her head. “That wasn’t completely awkward at all, but she sent me home with homemade cannoli, guaranteeing it would make everything work out in the end.”
And there it was, the swift kick to the balls delivered via ricotta and pastry shell. “And she’s not wrong,” he said with a forced cheerfulness the he wasn’t feeling at all. “I’m gonna be out of your hair after tonight.”
Gina handed him one of the mini-cannolis, but her gaze didn’t meet his. “You heard back from the medical examiner?”
He took a bite of the cannoli but didn’t taste a damn thing. “They believe it was natural causes.”
Gina didn’t visibly react so much as he felt her emotion as she processed the news she’d been expecting—probably since her grandfather disappeared years ago. It hadn’t been totally unexpected, he knew, no matter what cock-and-bull story he’d fed her about the possibility of someone coming to clean up after her grandfather’s death, but that didn’t change the facts.
“So,” she said with a melodramatic sigh, recovering herself, because the woman was nothing if not incredibly resilient. “I’m losing another handyman.”
He nodded, more than willing to play along if that’s how she wanted to frame their goodbye. “Afraid so.”
“I’ll kinda miss my fake boyfriend,” she said with an exaggerated pout.
Unable to stop himself, he leaned in, needing to be closer to her. “You’re fake breaking up with me?”
“Yep.” She gave him a sassy grin. “If I don’t get to use of your hammer, you’re no good to me.”
…
Gina couldn’t believe the words that had just come out of her mouth. It must have been the sugar talking. It was totally the sugar talking, plus the two glasses of wine she’d drunk at the party and the confirmation of what she’d already known in her gut about her grandfather.
But she wasn’t the kind of woman who could get away with a double entendre like that. He was just so damn close that her pheromones kind of took over her brain, which was probably not scientifically possible, but it’s all she had for an explanation right now.
She looked up at him through her lashes, anticipation making the air electric around them. “We never got to finish what we started in the hotel that night.”
What was coming out of her mouth? This wasn’t her. This was some other woman who thought she had a shot with a guy like Ford.
“We shouldn’t do this.” But he plucked the half-eaten cannoli out of her hand and dropped it into the box where he’d just put his.
“Am I still in possible danger?” she asked, her hands going to the buttons of his shirt, slipping the top one free.
He shook his head as he looked at her fingers working on button number two. “No.”
“Are you still on the clock?” Her hands were shaking with nerves, but the button slipped free.
She slid her fingers down to the third button, wondering if she was sex-drunk and possessed by a woman with ten times the confidence she had.
All she knew was that she didn’t want this man to leave her house for the last time without letting the tension that had been simmering between them boil over. Some could argue that made her desperate. Others might say it made her assertive. She didn’t give a flying fuck. This was her last chance with Ford, and she wasn’t going to waste it.
Her fingertips brushed over the third button of his shirt, but his hand covered hers, stopping her. Her breath caught.
“No, I’m not on the clock.” His words came out with the rough edge of a growl, hard and wanting, that thrilled something inside her.
He brought her hands down to her sides, his strong fingers encircling her wrists, but he didn’t let go and he didn’t walk away. Instead, he stood there looking down at her, desire and need making his green eyes turn even darker.
Heart hammering against her ribs, she gave into the pheromones and the sugar and the wine and the lust that kept her up at night. “So why shouldn’t we finish what we started? Afterward, we go back to our normal lives. No commitment. No tomorrow. Just one night to do what we didn’t in the hotel, then you leave at dawn and that’s that.”
“Because this can’t ever be more than that,” he said.
Didn’t she know that all too well. “Exactly.”
He looked for a second like he was going to argue with her, but in the next breath his hands were on her hips, pulling her close, and his mouth was on hers in a kiss that should have set every flammable can of paint lined up against the kitchen wall ablaze. It was hot and demanding and so achingly desperate. It was as if they couldn’t get enough of each other and they both knew tonight was it.