Tipsy (16 page)

I smiled. “I would have really stolen
something.”

We ordered our food and drove to the
location I told Watson. While we waited, we ate. Watson was true to
his word and about an hour later, someone pulled up in a tow truck
with a four-door sedan loaded on the back. The man driving parked
it and then got out and jogged to the idling car waiting behind
him.

The men drove off in the direction they
came from, leaving Slater and me alone with the truck.

“
I’ll drive it back to
Dom’s. You drive this.”

I made a move to get out of the car
when Slater stopped me. “I hate to rain on your parade here, but I
got to warn you.”

“
About what?”

“
The last time anyone saw
Milo was when he was doing a run for Dom.”

“
You saying Dom’s gonna kill
me after I deliver the supply?” Julie’s face flashed before my eyes
and my insides turned to ice.

“
I’m saying having a guy
disappear after a job is an awfully convenient way to get rid of
them and not have to pay them their cut.”

It was obvious Dom didn’t like me. He
didn’t trust me. He thought I would fail today. He certainly wasn’t
expecting me to show up barely two hours after he issued me a
challenge.

I started to doubt the way I handled
this. Should I have acted like this job of proving myself was
harder? Should I have acted like I wasn’t quite as good at
this?

The burger I just ate sat in my stomach
like a boulder. It was too late now. I had the tow truck, the
junker to keep the supplies in, and a plan. Slater would keep his
mouth shut about how I got the car, and I would get the job of
delivering the supplies.

I wasn’t going to worry about what
would happen to me after the job was done because I planned to set
up a sting and bust these assholes before any of them had the
chance to try and kill me.

I felt better after thinking about it.
The burger I ate went back to digesting, and I gave Slater a level
stare. “I appreciate you telling me that.”

“
I don’t want to see you
die. Sometimes I wonder why the hell the good guys even try
anymore.”

Being undercover for so long had turned
Slater bitter. I needed to end this case, not just for me, but for
him too. I had a bad feeling that if this case didn’t wrap, he was
going to end up shifting alliances.

“
We’re gonna get him, man,”
I said confidently.

Slater nodded.

“
See you at
Dom’s.”

“
Be careful,” Slater said
before I shut the door and jogged away.

15

Julie

I was wearing purple sweatpants.
Oversized purple sweatpants. My butt probably looked like a swollen
raisin.

Check out the swollen ass on
that chick
, said NO man ever.

“
Is everything okay?” I
asked as I backed up toward the sofa, refusing to turn around and
give him the worst view of his life. Suddenly my favorite
sweatpants seemed like the top contender for the next time I made a
donation to the Salvation Army.

But even my careful way of walking
didn’t stop him from roving his eyes over my entire body. Beneath
my T-shirt, I felt my nipples pull taut with need. Well, damn. I
wasn’t wearing a bra. I resisted the urge to cross my arms over my
chest and dove onto the couch, yanking the blanket over my purple
lower half and holding it against my chest.

“
You weren’t in bed?” he
asked, stepping around the sofa into my line of sight.

I shook my head. “I was watching a
movie.”

He glanced at the blue screen on the
flat screen. “Looks entertaining.”

“
I fell asleep,” I said,
sheepish.

“
Your hair is messy.” He
pointed out, lazily unzipping his leather jacket.

My pulse started pounding. I told
myself it was because he insulted me and I was mad. I was about to
snap some really good comeback, but words failed me when the jacket
slid off his arms and he tossed it onto a chair nearby. Then he
yanked the gray cap from his head and tossed it beside his
jacket.

My hands tightened around the blanket I
was using to shield myself. I almost laughed out loud because there
wasn’t a shield in this entire universe that would protect me from
the freaking sexiness he exuded.

Ripped jeans dipped low on his abdomen,
so low that I knew just the slightest lift of his arms would reveal
to me his flat, hard stomach and the waistband of his boxers. The
long-sleeved T-shirt he was wearing molded to his body, almost like
it suffered from static cling.

But I knew better.

If I were that shirt I would caress
every last inch of his skin I could.

The silver ring in his lower lip
taunted me, and if it weren’t for his amazing body, I wouldn’t be
able to take my eyes off the piercing.

I had no idea I was such a lustful ho.
Until I met Blue.

“
Your eyes are still a
little fuzzy from sleep.” He observed, stepping closer to the
couch. His voice turned husky, like he knew my eyes weren’t fuzzy
from sleep—like he knew it was desire he provoked within
me.

When I didn’t say anything, he stopped,
his legs coming up against the couch. “You got room over there for
me?”

My stomach quivered with nervous
excitement, and I involuntarily squeezed my thighs together with
anticipation. Slowly, I lifted up the blanket, inviting him close,
peaking up at him from beneath my lashes.

Even though the couch was sizable, he
sat so close that his entire side and hip brushed up against me. I
imagined it was a lot like the feeling of sticking your finger in a
light socket. My entire body was zapped with energy and it rippled
all the way down to my bare toes.

“
I like your pants,” he
said, a grin curving his lips.

I felt my cheeks heat with
embarrassment. “I wasn’t expecting anyone.”

“
I’ve wondered,” he
murmured, turning his head so he could look at me fully.

“
About what?”

“
About what you did when no
one was looking.” He tucked a stand of blond hair behind my ear.
“How you dressed.” He reached between us and grabbed a wayward
piece of popcorn. “What you eat, what you do…”

I swallowed thickly. That
implied he thought about me.
A
lot.

“
It’s not very
exciting.”

“
Everything about you
excites me.”

“
Is this a booty call?” I
blurted out. I felt my own eyes widen after I heard the words that
just shoved their way out of my mouth.

He threw back his head and laughed. I
stared at the perfect rows of white teeth in his mouth. He had a
sexy laugh: throaty and deep. “Could this even be considered a
booty call if I’ve never had any of that purple booty?”

Oh, God. Did he get a glimpse of my
purple rear end when I wasn’t looking?

My face flamed with mortification. I
wanted to yank the blanket over my head and disappear. I sounded
completely arrogant just now, implying that I was so irresistible
that he would come here in the middle of the night just for some
action.

It reminded me that he never actually
told me why he was here.

“
You’re cute when you’re
flustered.” Blue teased.

“
Is everything okay?” I
asked, concern pushing back the embarrassment I
suffered.

“
Everything’s fine,” he
said, stretching his arm out along the back of the couch. I
resisted the urge to rest my head against it.

“
You’re sure?” I asked,
scrutinizing his face, looking for even a hint of doubt.

He nodded. “It’s been a long week. I
needed a break.”

The weariness I first sensed when I
opened the door reappeared. He did seem tired. Working undercover
had to be taxing. It was a twenty-four-hour job. He never got a
break.

I tilted my head to the side and
studied him. “Do the lines ever get blurry?” I asked
thoughtfully.

“
Blurry how?”

“
Between the good and the
bad. Between Blue and Gray. It seems like pretending to be someone
else all the time could be dangerous. It could make you forget who
you really are.”

“
I guess sometimes, yeah,”
he replied. “Sometimes people commit crimes for reasons they think
are honorable. It doesn’t make it right… but I understand
it.”

I nodded. “What about you?” I
whispered. “How do you keep track of who you are?”

Blue’s gaze was penetrating. The
unfathomable color of his stare was so intent and measuring that my
chest tightened. It was almost as if he were stripping me bare. Not
stripping away my clothes or thinking about me in that way… but
looking past the way I looked, past the sexual tension that hummed
around us like he was looking for something specific, something
that would determine his answer.

Based on the answer he gave, I would
wholly assume that he found whatever he was searching
for.

His voice practically became my oxygen.
I breathed him in. His voice. His presence. His words. “Sometimes
it does get hard. Like when I’m surrounded by people who have their
own specific code for life, one that I don’t understand. Or when
it’s really late and I’m really tired and it’s so dark in my room
the only thing I can do is think. Sometimes my thoughts blur… and I
can’t tell who is Blue and who is Gray.”

“
How do you figure it
out?”

“
I think about
you.”

Everything around me ceased. There was
nothing. Nothing but those four words.

“
I call up the memory of
your laugh. I think about your hair and how it always looks like
you just crawled out of bed. I pretend it was my bed and I’m the
one who made your hair look like that. I remember how you felt in
my arms that night we danced in the rain and how I thought I had
finally found someone I never wanted to let go of.”

My chest felt tight. Physically tight.
It was hard to breathe because so much emotion welled up inside
me.

“
Do you know why I picked
the name Gray, Julie?”

“
Because you were going with
a color theme?” I squeaked.

He flashed a quick smile and shook his
head. His arm stretched between us and the pad of his thumb stroked
along my cheekbone and curved beneath my eye, slightly tickling the
fringe of bottom lashes. “Because that night after our date… the
only thing I could think about were your eyes. The color of a
cloudy sky on a winter’s day.”

He named himself after my
eyes.

He named himself after my
eyes.

I pinched myself in the arm. Hard. When
I winced, Blue frowned. “What did you do that for?” he asked,
snatching up my arm and studying the red welt.

“
Because I sure as hell must
be dreaming.” Guys didn’t say things like this in real
life.

He threw back his head and laughed. He
looked back at me, a twinkle in his eye. “Did you wake
up?”

I shook my head. Butterflies were
swirling around inside me like a mini tornado, sweeping everything
around and causing my head to spin.

“
Maybe this will help,” he
said and swooped in.

The arm lying across the back of the
couch came forward and his hand gripped the back of my neck. He
leaned forward, crowding my personal space and bringing his face so
near that I could feel the warmth of his breath against my
lips.

Before I could adjust to the
overwhelming closeness, his lips claimed mine. The kiss was urgent
and demanding—like he’d been holding back for too long and just
couldn’t stand another second. I gripped his shirt in my palms and
yanked him closer, crushing my lips against his. He kissed with
fevered ferocity that lit fire to my blood and caused the inner
muscles deep inside me to clench so tightly they began to
quiver.

Moisture slicked my crotch, coating my
secret place with a lubricant that would welcome his body as part
of mine. I groaned, the feeling of my body readying itself for him
was almost too much.

His tongue swept between my lips,
sliding over my teeth and then delving deep into the confines of my
mouth. Our tongues circled lazily, the slightly rough textures of
them rubbing together, creating sparks of friction that ran along
my nerve endings and threatened to sizzle my brain.

I opened my knees and
scooted closer, he wound his arms around my back and yanked me
forward. I came up against him abruptly, but our kiss never broke.
The second I felt his body against mine, I started moving, my hips
grinding against his middle, searching—
no,
demanding—
everything he had to
give.

The throbbing erection between his legs
brushed against the pulsing lips of my vagina, and a sharp moan
bubbled up my throat.

Blue tore his mouth away and
looked at me. His lips were glistening with moisture and slightly
swollen from the intensity of our kiss. “This was
not
a booty call,” he
insisted.