Jori was staring at him with pupils so wide he could drown in them. Her mouth was wet. Finished? He hadn’t even gotten started.
When she licked her upper lip his whole body jerked as if she had just slid that hot pink tongue up the underside of his cock. He glanced around, looking for a suitable surface. Desk. Floor. He wanted her now.
His gaze came back to her and his belly clenched. “You asked me what I want. What I want is you.”
The bluntness of his words left her blinking. Jori strained to think with her heart pumping double-time. “This is nuts. I don’t know you.”
“Wrong answer.” His fingers opened free like bolts blown by explosive charges. He took a step back, but it was only enough to leave breathing room. “You want me. I want you. We know enough.”
She gave her head a tight shake as her gaze slid from his.
He glanced at the clock. There’d be other planes. There wouldn’t be another time for this. He focused on the woman who had put a heartbeat in his dick. “Tell me three things.”
She gaped at him, caught between amusement and shock. “This is crazy.”
He leaned forward and covered her mouth again with his. When he broke contact, he was the one who sighed. “Three things.”
“I like being outside better than inside.”
“One.”
“I like to dance.”
He nodded. “Faster.”
Jori swallowed the hollowed-out feeling expanding in her chest as if she had stepped off a cliff into thin air. “I’m absolutely the last woman you should be with.”
His eyes widened. “Why?”
“Because you’re—were a cop.” Jori was too surprised by the words that had come from her mouth to notice his reaction.
Law went very still. The itch that had been driving him crazy remained, but with a very different vibe. Why should she care that he’d been a cop? No. She’d said because he was a cop. Cause and effect. Who didn’t like cops? People who’d been on the wrong side in an encounter with one.
Something clicked in his head. Something that had been staring him in the face all week yet hadn’t registered. He turned and walked out of the office. Samantha, ever on the job, trailed after him dragging her leash.
Jori let him go. She’d seen the light go on behind his eyes and suspected where he was going, and why. She had hoped he already knew. That maybe someone had told him.
As her breathing slowed she realized her clothes were a mess. When had he pulled up her tee and freed a breast from her bra? And how had her panties become wadded in her crotch? He hadn’t opened a snap or lowered a zipper but she was half undressed inside her clothes.
After a quick rearrangement, she followed him reluctantly into the main room.
She saw he had stopped before the Warriors Wolf Pack’s Wall of Heroes, scanning the faces of the vets who had become WWP family. He moved quickly past them. Farther along there were framed pictures of staff and volunteers. She knew the second he found what he was looking for in the final set of photos. All the air seemed to leave her lungs.
He leaned in, his finger touching the glass of the picture as if he needed to verify with a touch what his eyes were showing him.
Jori knew the photo all too well. It was taken at the women’s correctional center. The inmates, all in matching white jumpsuits, were part of the Warriors Wolf Pack rehabilitation program while serving their sentences. She was the third woman from the right, holding up her certificate as proof she had fulfilled the requirements to be a service dog trainer … once released.
She was an ex-con. Law hadn’t known about that until this second.
Jori sucked in a breath, trying to steady her pride and absorb the hurt coming at her like a major-league fastball. No way to dodge it.
When he levered away from the framed portraits he didn’t even glance her way. He walked straight across the room and out the main doors. Samantha hurried but the closing door halted her on the inside. Unhappy, she pawed the door and whimpered.
Jori glanced over at Maxine, who was gaping at her from behind the reception desk like a fish jerked out of water. She came rushing over. “What was that about?”
Jori thrust out her chin. “Nothing important.”
As she turned away the main doors flew open again, shoved by a powerful arm. Battise stood in the breach. He looked seriously pissed.
“I don’t give fuck about your past. Are you coming or not?”
Jori folded her arms, staring daggers at him. “What about Samantha?”
His gaze flicked to Sam, who still stood by the door. “Bring the damn doodle with you.”
She turned to Maxine. “I’ll be back. Lunch break.”
“Oh, somebody’s hungry all right,” she heard Maxine say as she picked up Samantha’s leash. “I just doubt curly fries are involved.”
CHAPTER FIVE