Even if this one had just turned her panties inside out in the middle of a crowded bar.
She bit her lower lip, grounding herself in the sting. She’d given him the update on his sister’s case, he’d apologized, she’d accepted. So what if somewhere in the midst of that, Isabella had impulsively considered dragging him back to her place to fuck him senseless? She could go home and get herself off later—hell, she could even scream his name when she came all over her hand. But what she couldn’t do was let a few steamy thoughts of Kellan Walker get in the way of doing her job.
“Fine,” Isabella said, snuffing out the heat threatening to bloom back to life between her thighs. “But we can’t just go tearing out of here together. If you go with me, we’re playing by my rules.”
Walker dropped his chin but not his eye contact. “I’m listening.”
“Well that works out nicely, because I’m only saying this once.” She tilted her head toward the outskirts of the dance floor, continuing when they’d made their way past the people moving to the new, faster song beginning to pulse from the jukebox.
“You’re going with me strictly to look out for trouble. No talking to my CI—in fact, no talking to anybody who isn’t me—and if I ask you to do something, you need to do it, no questions asked. There are reasons for this that don’t involve me being bitchy,” she added before he could open his trap to push back. “But they do have everything to do with protocol. I’m already breaking about sixty rules by letting you tag along. I’d like to at least keep you safe.”
One nearly black brow arched. “You’re going to keep me safe?”
Although she hadn’t really pegged Walker as the type to swing his dick around, Isabella was all too happy to set the record straight. “Unless that actually is a gun in your pocket and you’re not just happy to see me, then yeah. I’m lead, you’re backup, and you need to do what I tell you to. Copy?”
Walker surprised her with a slow nod. “Copy. But if anything goes south, all bets for me being a bystander are off.”
“I know how to do my job. Nothing’s going to go south.” Unless Carmen lost her shit at the whole let’s-chat/hot-firefighter-listening double whammy, but Isabella would cross that bridge when she got to it. Speaking of which… “So here’s the plan. We’re each going to go back to our tables. I’ve already told Hollister, Maxwell, and Hale that I’m starting to get a headache, so I should be able to jump in about ten minutes. Give me a twenty minute lead, then park your Camaro a couple blocks over and double back to meet me by the diner a half a block up on Delancey.”
“That’s a lot of cloak and dagger for a meet-up that’s supposed to be no big deal, you know.”
She had to hand it to him. He wasn’t stupid by any stretch. “It’s more caution than cloak and dagger. Your car is conspicuous as hell, and your sister’s even smarter. If she thinks you left but still sees your car in the parking lot, she’s going to grill you into next week about it.”
Understanding flickered over his face, followed quickly by a smirk that made her pulse jump without her consent. “I could always tell Kylie I left with you. After all, it’d be true.”
“Don’t get cocky, Walker, or I’ll leave you here.” The threat was a bluff, to be sure, but hell if she’d let him rock the composure she’d damn well need to tug any information out of Carmen.
Thankfully, Walker didn’t call her bluff. “Fine,” he said. “I’ll move my car in thirty and meet you on Delancey.”
“Excellent.” Before Isabella could talk herself out of the move, she pressed up to her toes, brushing her lips right over the line where the scratchy-soft stubble of his goatee met the smooth skin of his cheek.
Kellan froze, his eyes betraying his shock. “What was that for?”
To lower your guard so you don’t wreck mine. “The dance. Just don’t make me sorry I agreed to the rest of our night.”
She sauntered off the dance floor, sights set on the table where her fellow detectives sat by the front door. Although the bold, brash part of her that had pushed to kiss him in the first place wanted nothing more than to turn around to see the look on his face, she refrained. Even with the slam-dunk cases, working a suspect required a dump truck’s worth of finesse, from the truths you chose to tell versus the ones you picked to sidestep, or even cover up outright.
Working your partners without them realizing what you were up to? Yeah, quantum physics was a day at the beach in comparison. But as much as Isabella hated the task in front of her, she didn’t have a choice.
If she wanted to get off square one with this case, she was going to have to keep her plans to find more intel hidden from her unit.