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This entire time, for years, I’d hated the Everetts for fucking up Tolya’s life. And, by proxy, mine. So when Clara fell into my lap—a bit too literally—I immediately viewed her as The Enemy and kept her under my thumb to make sure she couldn’t cause any more damage to me or my family.
It never occurred to me howusefulshe could actually be in the investigation. Like, how being the daughter of a cop would actually give her intel we wouldn’t otherwise have.
Just add that to the growing list of things I’ve apparently been wrong about.
If I don’t keep this under wraps, Bambi is going to type up every mistake and make me sign it just so she can frame it in my office as a reminder.No king is infallible.
“What else do you see?”
“Nothing that jogs my memory.” She runs a frustrated hand through her hair. “I don’t understand it. Any of it. Uncle Mike was like a second father to me. And he was actuallygood. So why can’t I remember…? I just…” Her voice crackles until she breaks into a hiccupped sob.
I slide off the desk and move behind her. My hands rest on her shoulders and I knead my thumbs in slow circles at the base of her neck. “It’s okay. We’ll figure this out. You’ve already found something worth looking into. Take the win.”
Clara freezes at first, but then I feel her relax into my hands. And soon, a small moan bubbles in her throat when my fingers start to work the tension knots from her collarbone.
I need to distract myself. Quickly.
“Do you remember asking your father about Michael Little? Since you two were so close. And you saw his dead body.”
“I don’t know. I mean, maybe? I kind of remember asking why…” She raises a hand to touch her cheek. It’s a subconscious gesture, one that tells me all I need to know.It was a question that earned her a blow.“But I don’t think they asked me how I knew him. At the trial, I mean.”
A heavy silence passes between us. My hands are still on her shoulders, but I’m not doing much more than just touching her. Because fuck it all, I’m addicted to the way her soft skin feels.
“I’m sorry, Dem.” Clara barely mutters the words, but I hear them all the same. “I’m trying and I keep… I keep getting it wrong…”
“Hey.” I reach around to cup her face in my hand so she’ll look up at me. Tears well in her lashes, and before I can stop myself…
I press a soft kiss to one eye. Then the other. Tasting her tears while brushing them away.
“It’ll come back to you. And we’ll make this right.”
“Dem…”
Blame the bourbon, blame insanity, blame the ache in my pants that refuses to go away. But whatever’s at fault, it nudges me closer to Clara until my lips rub across hers.
And when she lets out the softest little whimper of surprise, I sink into the kiss like a starving man.
She tastes so fucking delicious. She tastes likemine. Salty tears mixed with sugary lips and a naughty tongue I want to feel over every inch of my body. I slide my hands down along her curves to pluck her up out of the chair and set her sexy ass on the desk exactly where I want her.
Clara doesn’t protest. I expected her to at least scold me for not paying attention to the work we’re doing, but instead, she wraps her arms around my neck, threads her fingers in my hair, cups my face, smooths her palms over my chest…
She’s everywhere at once and kissing me just as hungrily as I am her.
It’s when she slides her hands under my shirt and palms my bare skin that I’m brought back to reality. Not that I don’t want her touching every fucking part of me, but the sharp need it suddenly spikes deep in my core is almost shocking.
I don’t have to press a hand between her legs to know she’s hot and wet for me. And I’m sure if I just continued, if I pressed her back on the desk’s surface and spread her like the fucking feast her body is to me, she wouldn’t utter a single protest. No, she’d beg me for more.
But when I hesitate, something shutters in her eyes. She slowly pulls away, quickly looks away, and just like that, it’s over.
The spell is broken.
“I, um…” Clara tucks a strand of hair behind her ear, still pointedly looking at anything but me. “I should go.”
The words are barely whispered, but they scream loud in my ears. She slides off the desk, then ducks out of the office before either of us has a chance to say another word.
The fuck just happened?
How the hell did I just let her walk away?
