Every Little Kiss
Read the Excerpt
“You feeling better this morning?” he asked. “Sorry I didn’t split before you got up. I was waiting to make sure you were, um…finished,” he said, gesturing vaguely towards the bathroom, “before I left. Guess I dozed off.”
His voice was low, with just a hint of roughness that buzzed along her ragged nerve endings. She fought off a shiver, irritated that she was having any kind of a reaction at all to this guy. He didn’t belong here. He shouldn’t still be here. The need to have him gone was so strong that she would have scooped him up and carried him over the threshold, reverse bridegroom style, and then run back inside to lock the door if she could have managed it. He looked pretty solid, though. And he’d probably struggle.
Please let him not try to make small talk. Please.
Emma crossed her arms over her chest and tried to give him her best intimidating glare. The cop just looked back at her, his dark eyes far more serious than his words had been. The quiet intensity she saw in them messed with her resolve, threw her off balance.
Well, maybe it was the hangover that was doing all that. But still.
“You brought me home last night,” she said, her voice sounding like something dredged up from one of the deeper pits of Hell.
“Yes, I did.”
She held herself a little more tightly as several more details surfaced in the morass of last night’s memories. “You held my hair. When I was sick.” And rubbed her back while she’d cried about what an idiot she was in between. She would tell him never to speak of it, except that she had no intention of acknowledging it had ever happened in the first place.
The cop licked his lips, a distracting little flick of his tongue as he finally looked away for a second. Knowing this was a little embarrassing for him too made Emma feel a tiny bit better. Not much, but it was something. Of course, it hadn’t made him get off her couch yet.
“I did that too, yeah.”
Emma shook her head, staring at this odd and handsome creature who apparently offered full service rescue for blindingly drunk women. “Why?” she asked. “Why would you do that?”
His dark brows rose a little. “Because you were in rough shape when I got you back here and I didn’t want to leave you alone? Plus, you asked me to stay.” He moved his shoulders restlessly. “I just didn’t feel right leaving you like that. Bad things can happen. You’d be surprised.”
“Oh.” She couldn’t argue with that. He’d probably seen plenty of those bad things firsthand, given his job. It wasn’t an explanation she could argue with-she hoped she would have done the same, in his position. Of course, she would have been gone like a thief in the night before things got all weird and embarrassing.
This guy didn’t seem to have any qualms about it.
“Does Aaron know that—”
“He knows,” the cop interrupted smoothly. “I was under strict orders to keep him posted.”
“You’re…friends, then,” Emma said, frowning as she tried to remember the connection. Mostly she just remembered lying in front of Aaron’s house. The fact that there was a connection at all, though, eased her mind a little. It was better if this was a friend of Aaron’s and not just some random cop who’d been driving by and taken pity on her.
“He and I are neighbors,” the cop said. “Though after this, I think ‘friends’ works too. He did say he owes me dinner.” He angled his head down, tilting it to one side. “You sure you’re okay? You’re still pale, and you were pretty sick. Want me to grab you some juice or something before I take off?”
“No,” Emma said, a quick denial that was forceful enough to make him blink. “No,” she said again, trying to soften the sound of it. “I…appreciate it. And everything. I just need to, ah, recover. I guess.” She closed her eyes and gave a short, rusty laugh. “I feel like something somebody scraped off the bottom of a shoe.”
His grin revealed perfect, very white teeth. “Yeah, you mentioned you don’t get out much.”
She managed a rueful half smile. “Not like that, anyway.”
The cop’s serious eyes softened, and some small, stupid part of her wished, just for a moment, that he were here because she’d brought him, not because she’d needed a babysitter. It was a stupid wish, and she banished it as quickly as she could. Guys like him were not for women like her. That was a decision she’d made a long time ago.
No jerks. No loose cannons. And definitely no heroes.
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