Skin Deep (Station Seventeen #1)(25)

Christ, she was a piece of work. “Don’t you think that’s a little dangerous?”

“Don’t you think that’s a little sexist?” she volleyed. “I’ve been a cop for over a decade, Walker. I’m pretty sure I can handle myself.”

Nope. He wasn’t backing down. Not even in the face of her obvious irritation. “It doesn’t have anything to do with you being a woman. It has to do with the fact that your ass isn’t bulletproof, and you have a table full of partners right here in this bar, any of whom would almost certainly go with you. Working a case without backup is stupid, Moreno.”

Judging by her expression, she’d taken that ‘stupid’ comment to heart. “I’m not asking for your blessing,” she said.

“Good, because you’re not going to get it. I want to go with you.”

“No.” Isabella’s spine went rigid. “A CI’s identity is strictly confidential. Hence the ‘C’.”

“Your friend at the pizza place is a CI?” he asked, and wasn’t that all the more reason for her not to fly without a wingman. “Look”—Kellan squeezed her waist, just enough to snare her attention so he could say his piece—“I don’t want anyone’s resume, and I’m not trying to mess with your case. But come on. You’re completely off the books, here. You saw those pictures. Digging into this without backup is asking for trouble.”

Moreno paused. “And you’re going to back me up?”

“You’re not willing to trust your partner or your boss. You got a better idea?”

“I trust Hollister and Sinclair just fine. I wouldn’t work with them if I didn’t,” Moreno said. “This is just a chat with one of my CIs. Detectives do them solo all the time.”

“Not this time,” Kellan said, and Moreno pursed her lips, showing off her disdain.

“My CI’s not going to like it. She might not even talk to me with you around.”

Oh, look. Still no. “Don’t worry. I’ll charm her.”

“Seriously?”

Kellan met Moreno’s look of severe doubt with the best smile he could throw together. “What? You don’t think I can be charming?”

The song ended, and Isabella slid her hands down his shoulders, pulling back to cross her arms over the front of her T-shirt. “I think you’re a pain in the ass.”

But Kellan just kept his smile firmly in place as he leaned in toward her, not stopping until their mouths were only a few inches apart.

“Yeah, well like it or not, I’m the pain in the ass who’s going with you to that pizza place. Now are you driving, or am I?”





6





Isabella stared down the ridiculously sexy firefighter in front of her, and damn it, she was going to regret this. But the glint in Kellan’s stormy blue stare told her not only was he not backing down, but he had half a mind to blab her plans to Hollister if she refused to take backup for her meet-and-greet with Carmen, and at this point, she had to pick the lesser of two evils.

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.”