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Second, because it made things more dangerous for her in the long run.
She'd had too many run-ins already, too many marks on her body from deals that didn't go the way they should have gone.
I didn't want to be the cause of any more of those. Even if I wasn't someone who bragged about the women I slept with. Rumors had a way of spreading regardless.
So we could keep it professional.
Until the guns were found.
Then, well, then all bets were off.
I didn't know what the plan was after we met with the contact, if we were hanging back for the night, or heading back to the city.
What I did know was that if I spent another night in bed with her, and she ended up all over me again, yeah, I didn't know if I would be able to keep the promise I'd made to myself.
She'd wanted it as much as I had too, that was maybe the worst part. Knowing we wouldn't have stopped if my damn arm didn't get in the way.
Speaking of that, getting her to nurse me, yeah, that had been a moment.
A moment.
The kind that made a man think.
About things he didn't normally think about.
Like futures, like how nice it would be to always have someone to rely on to patch you up whenever you got hurt. How nice it would be to have that soft body draped over you every night. And how unpredictably comfortable all of it had been.
Maybe my mother wasn't so far off.
With all the pestering, all the assertions that I was the right age finally, that I would appreciate a good woman after so many one-night-stands.
Was it possible I had gotten my fill? Of all the meaningless sport sex? All the changing faces? All the bullshit small talk?
Maybe I wanted big talk.
Talk like Liv and I had in the car on the way down, talk about pasts, scars, fears, all the shit that made you who you were.
"I was bringing you something up," I told her when she appeared in the doorway of the dining room a few minutes later, her hair pulled back, dressed in jeans and a shapeless sweater. I wondered if it was an attempt to make herself less sexy for work. If that was the case, in my humble opinion at least, she failed royally.
"I'm not hungry," she declared, taking the coffee from me. "I'd rather get moving. I'll drive so you can eat."
She was in a mood.
Whether it was because she was in work-mode or because she was mad at me, I wasn't sure.
But I kept my thoughts to myself and attempted to eat while she drove, thankful that I had chosen egg and cheese on a hard roll instead of something that required a fork or knife.
"All this money," she mused as we pulled into the neighborhood half an hour later, the first words she had spoken since we'd left the hotel. "And all they have to do with it is buy stupid guns."
"Those stupid guns keep us in business," I reminded her.
"It's wasteful to own guns to keep them in a safe. It is even more wasteful to pay tens of thousands for anything when you could use that same money to give to a women's shelter or a soup kitchen or a group that helps runaways. It's ridiculous to me that anyone would spend so much money on something so useless."
"So, I am guessing your feelings on designer clothes..." I started, watching as she shot me an eye roll. "Gotcha."
"It was impossible for me to get off the streets if not for Eman. And I had to put up with a lot I never should have had to just to have a roof and food. Astrid, too, was on the streets. Might never have gotten off them if I hadn't happened upon her. It's the ultimate of frivolity to throw huge chunks of money that could help people at something just so you can brag about your red bottoms or the art on your wall."
"Or the guns in your safe."
"Exactly. Besides, this guy is single," she added, rolling her eyes as she parked the SUV out front of one of the many sprawling mini-mansions on the street. "This place has eight bedrooms. Eight. For one person. I will never understand why most of the wealth in the world is in the hands of the selfish few."
"Maybe that is how they got so much of it. By not giving a fuck about anyone else," I suggested, shrugging it off.
"I know it's nothing new. The upper crust has always just ignored the hands of begging, starving children. But I think this kinda shit is proof that we haven't made the great strides as a society that we think we have."
"At least he might have the gun we need," I suggested, wanting to help shake the bad mood she was wearing before we went in there to talk to the owner of the oversized house. We didn't need her snarling at gold-plated light switches and crystal chandeliers.
