Big Easy Temptation (The Perfect Gentlemen #3)(30)
“Stuff?”
She felt herself blush. She really shouldn’t have to tell him what she could potentially have on her computer that a tabloid might pay tons of money to own.
His lips curled up into a broad, male grin. “You think someone hoped that you had a sex tape of us?”
“I’ve heard that there’s a bounty out on any of the president’s friends. Well, except for Mad. He practically has a YouTube channel devoted to his sex life. If we’ve already hit the tabloid pages, it makes sense that some asshole reporter would try to get a scoop. He did have a camera bag on his bike.”
“Stupid bicycles should have license plates. I didn’t get that great a look at the asshole once we turned down that alley. It was too dark and he was wearing that douchebag helmet. I don’t like that someone is already stalking us. Holland, I should go.”
“Leave?” She blinked at him and resisted the urge to pull him close.
“I think I should,” he said grimly. “Maybe you should stop investigating and we shouldn’t see each other anymore. It’s too soon after the giant shit storm of my father’s scandal. Whoever wanted him dead doesn’t want the truth uncovered. I can’t risk you.”
Yesterday, she would have started singing hallelujah at the thought of Dax not dangling his tempting self in front of her anymore. Now she couldn’t stand the thought of not seeing him every day. She’d been a coward where he was concerned for nearly ten years, always running from this amazing man because she wanted him too much and she’d long feared he would leave her broken. Yes, he came with baggage. Granted, some phenomenally wretched baggage, but she couldn’t stop thinking about the loneliness on his face when he’d admitted that no woman he dated had cared about him enough to know his favorite foods. She knew far more about him and they’d barely flirted with anything beyond friendship.
But now Holland had found something she was more afraid of losing than her heart. She feared losing Dax Spencer forever.
“You’re not risking me. I agreed to help you. And you can’t let a random street thief derail you from getting the answers you deserve. I’m fine. Let me do my job. And don’t worry about the press, either. The truth is you’re a lesser Gentleman,” she joked. “You and Connor are the boring ones. You have a good job and you’re excellent at it. You don’t dance drunk in Italian fountains.”
“In Mad’s defense, it’s not just Italian fountains. He’ll swim naked in any public body of water.”
She laughed. His friends were crazy, but they were loyal to the bone. Would Dax be as loyal to the woman who snared his heart? Would he stand by her the way he did his friends? Would he forgive her even if she couldn’t give him the answers he wanted most in the world? “Dax, I don’t want you to go.”
“I don’t want to, either, but it might be for the best. I moved too fast earlier. I meant what I said. I’m not going to push you again. Our relationship—in whatever form it comes—is too important to me to lose. I’ll take you any way I can get you.”
Had he been this sweet all those years ago? Maybe he had been and she hadn’t wanted to hear it. Her younger self had been afraid of being another notch in his bedpost, but she couldn’t find the will to turn him away now.
She wanted more than a kiss. She wanted more than to have her body hum just being near him. Now she wanted to follow him down the hall and to find where that hum led, to finally know what it meant to be Dax Spencer’s lover.
The trouble was she’d convinced him that she didn’t. She might regret this tomorrow . . . but tonight had underscored the fact that life could be cut short in an instant. She’d rather regret what she did do, not what she hadn’t.
“Our friendship is important to me, too. That’s one of the reasons I walked away at the wedding.”
“I thought that was all about your career and my fast-lane life.”
“It was in part.” She’d held the truth in all these years. She hadn’t told anyone, not even Joy. She’d joked about flirting with Dax and made the easy excuse of not wanting to be in the spotlight, but there had been more behind her decision. “I knew I wanted to go into law enforcement. I’ve known since I was a kid. Other girls were playing princess and I was taking down the bad guys. Maybe I looked up to my uncle too much.” She shrugged. “Eventually, I realized that I wanted to venture more into the investigative part of the job. I like the mental challenge of solving crime. But it’s a tough role for a woman.”
He winced a bit as he sat up, but his gaze remained steady on her. “I can imagine. Especially down here. It’s still a good old boys’ network in the South.”
“Yes. Oddly, my last name buys me some goodwill. It’s one reason I wanted to come to New Orleans. Well, and because it feels like home. When you approached me at Joy and Zack’s wedding, I worried that being your girlfriend would negatively impact my coworkers’ perceptions of me. After all, if I was dating a playboy, how serious could I be?” She sighed, reluctant to carry on, but she owed him. “At worst, being in a relationship with you would have softened me. You always got me right here.” She laid a hand over her heart. “That vulnerability would have been a chink in my mental toughness. It was another hurdle I wasn’t prepared to jump.”