So, clearly, I had to ask, “Did you just growl?”
The muscles on his jaw ticked as he righted himself and focused on the ceiling, muttering, “Jesus fucking Christ.”
That wasn’t an answer, so I pushed. “Did you seriously just growl at me?”
He groaned and lowered his gaze to mine, stating incredulously, “You’re at a police station for questioning. I offered you a lawyer. God forbid.”
My chair protested against the tile floor as I pushed away from the table and up to my feet. “I don’t want or need a lawyer. I haven’t done anything wrong.” I was moving toward him when I suddenly remembered that we were, in fact, in the middle of a police station with at least three other people looking on—maybe more if you counted whoever could be on the other side of the two-way mirror.
Shit.
Iced by my good manners, I sucked in a calming breath. “What I do want is to get whatever mess you created over with so I can go home.”
Roman barked a laugh. “Aaand…we’re back to this being my fault.”
Rorke took that moment to join our conversation. “Nobody needs a lawyer.”
All eyes swung to him.
“At least, not yet,” he finished. “Now, if you two will please just sit down and shut up, I’ll explain why I asked you to come down today.”
Elisabeth Keller.
Fucking Keller.
There were no words to convey how I’d felt when I’d seen her sitting in that hallway. Time had frozen with a single glance.
She appeared tired, too thin, and her hair was still damp on the ends, which caused it to frizz out in a way I knew she hated. But, even with all of that, she was still the most beautiful woman I’d ever laid eyes on. However, that probably had more to do with the fact that she was in my veins than it did her actual appearance. But I’d never, not once, seen Elisabeth with just my eyes. My heart was just as much a part of the way I viewed her as my retinas.
And still, after all this time, my body reacted to her the same way it always had—full alert.
Atlanta was a big city, but in the last two years, I’d never seen her once. And, in the beginning, I’d tried to accidentally-on-purpose run into her more times than I’d ever admit.
Of all the places to find her, a hallway at Atlanta PD was the one location I’d never considered.
Elisabeth Keller’s idea of trouble was pocketing extra packets of sugar at the coffee shop. And, even then, she would have felt guilty, tossed and turned all night, and then promptly returned them the next day.
But there she sat, all wide-eyed innocence staring at me as though she were the one seeing an oasis in the middle of the desert.
Though, as far as I was concerned, she was the mirage. A woman I needed more than water and yet couldn’t reach no matter how hard I tried—at least, not anymore.
Then she had to go and catch an attitude with me. It should have pissed me off. She had no right to come out of the gate swinging, blaming me for trouble that didn’t exist. But, the moment she let loose, it only made me nostalgic.
It was that same attitude that had made me fall in love with Elisabeth approximately one hour into our first date.
“They sound horrible, Lissy,” I said after a story about her parents. It was a joke, but her entire face lit.
And, with just one glance, it lit something inside me, too.
I’d wanted to strip her naked when she’d opened her front door, but it wasn’t until we were at dinner that I knew I’d face the wrath of a thousand gods just to make her smile.
And worse, I’d burn the world around us in order to keep it aimed at me.
I was lost in her eyes when the server asked if we were ready to order.
I quickly said yes.
She quickly said no.
She adorably narrowed her eyes.
I cocked my head and smirked.
Then I made the grave mistake of ordering for her.
My innocent angel disappeared, but the independent woman on the other side dug her hooks into me even deeper.
Using her menu to block her mouth from the waiter’s view, she whisper-yelled, “I’m not eating chicken parmesan!”
“You said it sounded good a minute ago,” I defended.
Her chin lifted, and she flashed her eyes around the restaurant. “It did at the time, but you have no idea how I eat it!” Again with the angry whispering.
I loved that she was standing her ground. But I especially loved that she was so obviously mortified that she was doing it in the middle of an Olive Garden, where people might possibly overhear her—including the waiter, who was watching our chat with subtle entertainment.
Mine wasn’t so subtle. Therefore, I smiled huge and asked, “There’s more than one way to eat chicken parmesan?”
“There is for me.” She nodded confidently then tucked her long, blond hair behind her ear.