Frisk Me(26)

She’d lifted her hand to dab something under his eyes but he grabbed her wrist. “No flattery, Sims.”

Kimmy had tried flattery too.

Oh my gosh, you’re turning into such a strong handsome boy. You know what would make you look even better…

Please. He saw right through that shit.

Ava’s eyes went big and limpid as she met his gaze, and her voice went low and imploring. “I know it sucks, but it’s just for a few minutes, and then we’ll get you out of here.”

Yup. Kimmy had tried pleading too.

Hadn’t worked then, wouldn’t work now.

“Will I get an ice cream cone?” he asked, his voice full of fake excitement.

Ava frowned in confusion. “Well sure, if you want—”

His fingers tightened meaningfully on her wrist. “No makeup, Sims. That’s final.”

She huffed, throwing her hands in the air with such exasperation he was forced to release her wrist. Ava shoved the makeup back at Carly before turning to scowl at him.

She was wearing a dress today, a knee-length blue number that seemed to somehow wrap around her, belting at her waist. The shoes were matching, and almost lethal in their height.

Even as he kept one eye on Carly and her evil makeup weapons, the other was on Ava. Things had been easier between them since that day at the diner, friendly even, when she wasn’t getting in his way.

But that didn’t mean he didn’t have some very pesky thoughts about how to undo that wrap-dress…

“All right, Carly, let’s back off,” she said, stepping back and folding her arms across her chest. “Guess we’ll have to go with haggard cop for the photos.”

“I thought you said I was gorgeous,” he said, shifting his weight on the stool.

“Oh, she says that to everyone,” Carly said, moving toward her black box of doom and putting the makeup away.

Luc caught himself before he could frown, but it annoyed him, just a little, that Ava didn’t seem to find him as attractive as he found her.

Sometimes, when their eyes caught, it was like fireworks.

But other times—most times—she seemed to prefer Lopez to him. Hell, she seemed to like everyone better.

And Ava actually touched Lopez. A teasing brush of the shoulder there, a slap on the arm here.

She never touched Luc. Not if she could help it.

But then, as though reading his thoughts, Ava proved him wrong. She moved before Luc could react, stepping forward so she was directly in front of him, her fingers lifting upward to rustle through his hair.

He let out a growl of protest, but she leaped back before he could grab her and darted across the room behind the photographer.

“It looks better mussed,” she called to Luc before gesturing at the photographer to do his thing.

That was not what he’d had in mind when he’d thought about Ava Sims’s hands on him.

Luc started to lift a hand to smooth his now tousled hair, but then the photographer was all up in his face, clicking an enormous camera as he turned it this way and that, and Luc could do little more than sit there and silently bemoan that this was what his life had become.

Up until this point, most of CBC’s interference in his life had come in the form of Ava following him around, and when it was NYPD sanctioned, having her cameraman tag along as well. He’d almost gotten used to them. Almost.

But this short bald man wasn’t Mihail, and Luc was really not enjoying the way the guy looked at him like he was a bowl of fruit in a still life.

The photographer—Bob? Ben? Bill?—paused his rapid-fire clicking so that he and Ava could have a quick pow-wow in the corner, talking in hushed tones as they reviewed the pictures they had so far.

Ava chewed on her bottom lip.

Not a good sign.

Whatever was in those pictures, she didn’t like.

Well tough shit. Luc was a cop, not a model, and he wasn’t about to preen.

“Officer, can I be blunt?” Ava asked, moving toward him.

He put a hand over his heart. “What I wouldn’t give to go back in time and have you ask that three years ago when you were chewing my balls out for that parking ticket.”

She ignored this. He liked that about her; she was damned good at not getting sucked into conversations and situations she didn’t want to be.

Ava was always in control, and the more he watched her boss her way through life, the more he wanted to find her trigger of self-control.

He wanted to unravel Ava Sims, just like he wanted to unwind that curve-hugging dress.

“Moretti, are you listening to me?”

“Not really.”

She sighed. “The pictures are fine, but quite honestly, you look pissed. Like you don’t want to be here.”

“What?” He faked a scandalized look. “I’ve been dreaming about this moment for years!”

She pressed her lips together as though she wanted to smile but couldn’t bear to give him the satisfaction.

Instead, she went to her purse and came back with her phone, poking around the touch screen until she found what she wanted, and turned the screen to him.

It was a picture of the Moretti males on Luc’s graduation from the police academy.

There’d been a minor story about them in the paper that week.

Something about New York’s “police royalty” completing their reign, or some shit like that.