Now that she was responding more like she normally would, I was ninety-nine percent sure that she hadn’t had too much to drink. But if tonight was going to play out how I hoped it would, I had to be one hundred percent sure.
“This is the last time I’m going to ask you, Princess.” Mainly because I was holding on by a very thin thread, normally I had the patience of Mother Theresa. “How much have you had to drink?”
Her eyebrows rose slightly as a sly smile appeared on her ruby red lips. Slowly, she lifted her right hand, holding one finger in the air. Her middle finger.
“I’ve had one drink.” She repeated the gesture lifting her left hand, flipping me the double bird. “Of one glass.”
I wasn’t sure what I was happier about, the fact that she wasn’t toasted or the fact that we seemed to have fallen back into our verbal sparring pattern. Over the past few weeks, things had been so different between us. Strained. Off. I hadn’t even realized how much I missed this, missed us, until now.
“Good. We need to talk.” With that declaration I went into the front room and sat on the couch.
“By all means, make yourself at home.” Sarcasm dripped from each word as she followed me and took a seat on the opposite side of the couch.
Grabbing the remote, I switched off the movie that was playing.
“Excuse me, I was watching that,” she protested.
“You told me to make myself at home,” I countered, for which I was rewarded with a killer look, meaning if looks could kill I’d be dead.
“Why are you here, Hud?” Her expression grew more irritated as her brows furrowed. “Aren’t you supposed to be working?”
“I took a personal day.”
“Wow, Superman takes personal days?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s your birthday.” I set the bag I was carrying on the coffee table. Romeo laid his head beside it and pushed his nose against the side of the paper bag. I pulled out the paperwork that was sticking out of the top. “And I wanted to give you this.”
Harmony took the documents as carefully as if I was handing her a bomb. And hell, maybe I was. This could definitely blow up in my face and it had a really good chance of destroying me.
I remained silent as she read the order.
“Wait…” Her eyes scanned the papers again. “This says that I’ve completed my community service and it has Judge Patterson’s signature on it.”
“Yeah, and that wasn’t easy to get on a Saturday. I had to play two rounds of golf and I hate golf.”
“But I’m not done yet. I still have a week left.” I could hear the panic rising in her voice.
Shit. I’d figured this would be the part she’d be the happiest about. “When you factor in the drive to and from Emerald Cove and the fact that you’ve never taken a full lunch, not to mention the nights you’ve stayed well past five o’clock, then you’ve completed your hours.”
“Oh.” Her shoulders slumped before she took in a deep breath, straightened her back and pushed off the couch, standing with a forced smile on her face. “Well, thanks for dropping these off. Looks like you’re finally rid of me. I would say I’ll see you Monday, but I guess—”
“Is that what you think? That I wanted to get rid of you?”
“All evidence does point in that direction.” She said with too much cheeriness as she held the papers up. “See: exhibit A.”
I stood. “Harmon—”
“Can we talk about this later?” Her false smile grew even bigger. “I have a glass of wine with my name on it.”
When she started to turn, I grabbed her wrist. “The reason I pushed the paperwork through was because these past few weeks have been torture.”
“Yeah, I got that.” She huffed and tried to pull out of my grasp, but I tightened my fingers around her delicate wrist. Her pulse increased in rhythm beneath my fingertips and her eyes shot to mine.
“They’ve been torture because I couldn’t tell you how beautiful you are. Or how fucking crazy you make me when you lick your lips. Or how your smile is the only thing that keeps me going some nights. How it’s my beacon back to goodness, to light, when the darkness in the job tries to swallow me whole.” I cleared my throat, trying to unblock the emotion clogging it as I thought about all the times just picturing her face had saved me from the pits of depravity that I’d witnessed.
“Hud…” Dropping the paperwork to the ground, she reached up and touched my face with the hand I wasn’t holding, empathy and compassion filling her gaze.
I leaned into her touch as I continued, “I had Patterson sign off because I couldn’t do it anymore. It was torture. I couldn’t be so close to you and not be able to touch you, to kiss you, to strip you down as naked as the day I came home and found you in my apartment. I wanted to memorize every inch of your body before burying myself in you. And getting you cleared was the only way I could act on those desires.”