“I’m not mad at you,” I manage eventually, swallowing hard and wrapping my arms around my stomach. “I want to be. I thought I was. But I’m not. I’m mad I didn’t know anything about your past. I’m pissed I never asked, but that’s my fault, not yours. I never wanted to know, so I didn’t. And she blindsided me. I didn’t run out because I was angry. I ran out because I didn’t want to be angry. I didn’t want to fight anymore, but then I get forced to dinner tonight, and unsurprisingly, Nonna tells me that, if I don’t fight, I don’t care, and God, I’m so confused about everything. You’re so open—well, except for about Jessica—and I’m not that. I didn’t even know that I did care until today.”
I take a deep breath and look away.
“I don’t even know what I’m saying. How stupid is that? How fucking ridiculous is it that I have to be surprised by you once loving someone so much that you almost married them before I realize I actually really do want to try at this? At us?” I cover my face and press on the inside corners of my eyes. “How damn dumb is it that I don’t even know what I’m saying right now although I can’t stop fucking talking and want to punch myself in the face?”
“I didn’t almost marry her.” Drake runs his hand through his hair, his eyes never leaving mine. “Fiancée is such a loose term. I met her while I was training. She worked at this coffee place we used to go to, and we didn’t even get together properly for the best part of a year. It fell apart when I graduated from the academy and she realized I wasn’t stayin’ in Austin, but comin’ home.”
“But Austin is an hour away. It’s not like you were moving across the country. Or even to Dallas or something.”
“She didn’t care. She didn’t get it. She wanted me to be there with her all the time, but when she realized I wanted to be more than a beat cop—that I wanted to be head of homicide and command a whole, albeit small, team, she freaked the fuck out. I thought I loved her, so I proposed. I was young. I don’t think I knew what I was doing.” He rubs his hand across his face, shrugs, and finds my eyes again. “I think she thought I’d be back for her every night. That I’d commute into town every day from Austin. I didn’t, and then I started workin’ longer and longer hours to show the sheriff I was serious and wanted to be someone in his force. Simply, she couldn’t hack it, and on nights when I worked late and didn’t go to her place after my shift was done, she was with someone else.”
Oh, shit. “Drake,” I whisper before running my teeth across my bottom lip.
“I didn’t care at that point. I was betrayed, but not upset. Honestly? I was glad she did it. It gave me a reason to end that pathetic excuse for a relationship.” He shrugs. “I’ve seen her a handful of times since then, but I’ve never stopped to talk to her except for once. She obviously found out that I’ve gotten where I wanted to be, and she’s interested again.”
“Are you?” I swallow before my voice cracks. “In her?”
“I’d rather drink a smoothie full of my own sperm than look at her that way again.”
“Well, then.”
He laughs and waves me over to him. We end up meeting in the middle of his living room, and he frames my face with his hands.
“No,” he says firmly, clearly, completely honestly. “I have absolutely no interest in her. And this is everything I was going to tell you before you ran out on me.”
“I didn’t run out,” I protest. “Okay, kind of, but I was mad. I thought I might shoot her,” I admit. “In hindsight, I would have shot her.”
“You need to get that trigger finger under control.”
“I don’t think so. I think she… I… Well, um.” Now, how to tell him that essentially the beginning of a female pissing contest has begun. What’s that called? An ovulating contest or something?
He takes two steps back, dropping his hands. His voice is flat when he asks, “What did you do?”
“Nothing! Maybe a little something.” I pinch my finger and thumb together in front of my face, a small gap between the tips. “Well, she shouldn’t have come into my office all fucking righteous and bitchy, should she?”
“You threatened her, didn’t you?”
“I quote Detective Trent Bond when I say it was offering to help her leave the building.”
“I don’t know if I should laugh or not.”
“It was pretty funny. It’s actually on camera if you want to laugh.” I chew the inside of my cheek. “And she might have told me it isn’t over.”
“You shot her then, didn’t you? Jesus.”
“No! I didn’t shoot her! Yet.”
“Noelle…”
“Like I said. She shouldn’t have come in with her bitch face on. My bitch face outweighs hers any day of the week.” I sniff and glance away for a second. “She doesn’t know who she’s messing with.”
“Now that I agree with.” He shakes his head, his eyes reflecting the amusement curving his lips. “What the fuck am I gonna do with you, huh?”
“Just don’t…” I hesitate, my stomach coiling nervously. God, I’m hot all over. Why is it so hard to stop it?
“Just don’t what?”
You’re a Bond, Noelle. Your mama didn’t raise a weak girl, and your nonna didn’t influence a pathetic one.
I take a step toward him and curl my fingers around the loose openings of his shirt. He rests his hands on my waist, his thumbs brushing across my skin, and I look up at him.
“Us,” I whisper. “Please don’t let her come between us.”
“You admitting there’s an us?” he murmurs, his lips ghosting across mine in a kiss that’s barely featherlight.
“Yes.” My hands creep up to his neck, where my arms wrap around it, and his easily slip around my body. “I want there to be. Even if we fight every day. If it isn’t easy, it isn’t worth it.”
“It won’t be easy,” he warns, his voice low. “She won’t let it be. She’ll make your life hell.”
“Then that’s real unfortunate for her, because I’m the woman the devil is scared of.”
“You mean you aren’t Satan incarnate?”
“Shush. I think he’s secretly my father. Don’t tell Nonna.”
Drake’s hand cups the back of my head, and he smiles, our foreheads resting together. “The day I tell her that is the day I sign my death warrant,” he laughs softly. “But honestly, Noelle. It was ten years ago and I still remember how nightmarish she made my life. She’ll be here long after the closing of this case.”
I slowly brush my lips across his, taking strength from the warmth of the kiss.
It’s the first time I’ve ever kissed him.
This now—this moment. I know, in that fleeting touch, everything changes.
“I’m not scared of her,” I whisper to him. “You? I’m fucking terrified of you. You and me is the scariest thing I’ve ever encountered, but if I can finally pull my head from my ass and face us, then I can sure as hell take your shitty little bitch of a ex.”
“You really do want to shoot her, huh?”
“What gave it away?” I pull back and meet his eyes. My smile dies.
The intensity in his gaze quite frankly takes my breath away. It’s hope and resolve and desire and steadfast determination mixed with the kind of protective warmth I know I’ll never see again.
It’s the way you’re only ever looked at once in a lifetime.
“I want to be yours.” My words are so quiet, and I stroke my thumb down the side of his neck. “I want it so badly.”
“Then be mine,” he murmurs. “It’s that simple, bella.”
“Make me,” I murmur back. “Make me yours.”
He creeps his hand down to the hem of the light dress I threw on before dinner as he pushes me backward, finally lowering his mouth to mine and taking it in a kiss that makes me as breathless as always. I feel his kiss and his touch everywhere as he hikes my dress above my ass and it bumps into the edge of a table.