Rock Chick Redemption (Rock Chick #3)(21)

“This is Detective Hank Nightingale. Who’s cal ing?” he said in a voice that rang with so much authority, if it was me on the other side, I would have answered in a flash.

Bil y was going to have a shit hemorrhage: a man answering my phone, a man with a deep, sexy, authoritative, no-nonsense voice and a police title.

authoritative, no-nonsense voice and a police title.

“Identify yourself,” Hank demanded.

He waited. I waited.

Hank was looking pissed off. I was holding my breath.

He pul ed the phone from his ear, flipped it shut one-handed and looked at me.

“No answer?” I asked.

He nodded.

I closed my eyes.

His arm tightened.

I opened them.

“Your trouble catching up with you?” he asked.

I bit my lip. Then I let it go.

“Maybe.”

“You ready to tel me about it?”

I answered immediately. “No.”

This made him look more pissed off.

It might make me a freak but Hank, normal y, was seriously handsome. Hank pissed off was off-the-charts handsome.

“You’re even better looking when you’re angry.” Now, why did I say that?

He stared at me and, luckily, ignored my comment.

Then he said, “I dated a girl al through high school. She was pretty, but when she walked in a room, only I noticed her, not every f**kin’ guy in the room. She wore normal clothes, not shit that looks like it comes from the pages of a fashion magazine. She never threw attitude at anyone. She never got drunk, never listened to music too loud, never stayed out after curfew, wouldn’t know trouble if it bit her in the ass and wouldn’t even know how to keep a secret.” My heart clenched, definite pre-heart-attack for sure. I should have asked for CPR.

“You should have married her,” I said, sounding uppity.

He let me go, closed his eyes, wiped his hand on his forehead and agreed with me. “I should have married her.” Wel !

“If you’l remember, I didn’t want to have dinner with you,” I reminded him.

He dropped his hand and his eyes locked on mine,

“Sunshine, you want to have dinner with me, you want me to kiss you and, later, you’re gonna beg me to do other things to you too.”

I put my hands to my h*ps even as the blood rushed to very specific parts of my body. “I don’t think so, Hank Nightingale. This has official y become the shortest date in history. You want to find your high school girlfriend? Start looking now.”

Quick as a flash, he grabbed my waist and hauled me up against his body.

“You want to pretend you don’t feel what’s between us, be my guest,” he said, his face close to mine. “You’l admit it soon enough.”

“There’s nothing to feel.”

His brows drew together. “Honestly?” he asked.

I scowled at him because even I couldn’t utter that lie again.

“You shouldn’t have answered my phone,” I said.

“I thought it’d be Indy, bein’ a pain in the ass, as usual. I didn’t know the evil wind was gonna blow through just yet. I was hoping, at least, for a little time to knock down that guard you got up. Seems I’m gonna have to speed things up a bit.”

Speed things up a bit?

We were going Mach Five and I wasn’t even certain Mach Five existed.

“Who was on the phone?” he asked.

I kept up the scowl and didn’t answer.

“Tel me one thing, are you in danger?”

I lost my scowl and felt my body begin to melt.

Shit.

He was worried about me.

Bil y had taken a sledgehammer to the door and he’d put his arm to my throat, once. Even after years of me running away and more than a year of no sex, he’d never raised a hand to me after the arm incident. He was intense, that was for certain, but every time I pretended to escape, he brought me back by talking me into it (or, at least, I let him think that).

I didn’t think I was in danger. I was just trapped.

“I’m not in danger, I just have… a situation. I’m fixing it,” I told Hank.

“Now isn’t the time to lie.” Hank told me in his authoritative tone.

“I’m not lying.”

At least, I didn’t think so, or, at least, I hoped not.

He watched me for a while. Then he let me go but grabbed my hand, tossed the phone on the bed and pul ed me toward the door.

“Good, let’s get some food.”

Simple as that.

He trusted me.

Good God.

I yanked hard on his hand and tugged him back into the room. He al owed this until my fingers closed around my Fendi bag, then, we were off.

Chapter Six

Hank Speeds Things Up

Holding my hand the whole time, he took me to his black Toyota 4Runner, helped me in, swung in the driver’s side and off we went. He drove one-handed and natural, like he was one with the 4Runner. I was beginning to think I was seriously a freak because, for some reason, the way he drove turned me on.

Okay, maybe it was everything about Hank that turned me on.

“Are you a vegetarian?” he asked, thankful y breaking me out of my thoughts of him turning me on.

“I ate three pounds of meat for lunch at Jerusalem’s,” I answered.