But Colin Mills is no regular man obsessed. He’s obsessed withme, which I kind of love him for.
Most of the media moved on eventually, but some of them still stalked me through town. Took pictures of me in my most vulnerable state. Hounded me for a statement with their grimy recorders pushed in my direction.
Colin is the only one brave enough to crossrealboundaries. To put hands on me. To break his own moral code of righteousness. So blinded by what his gut was telling him he knew about me, that he was almost willing to give up his badge just to bring me down. To sacrifice his career in his passionate hunt for punishment.
Andmy God,did I want him to punish me.
I probably shouldn’t want to kiss the man who put my mother in prison, but I’m just dying to find out if that sweet blend of poison I see in his eyes lingers on his tongue, as well.
Fuck me, I bet it’s lovely and wicked in all the best ways.
Colin isn’t abadman. He’s simultaneously righteousandcorrupt—just like me.
I twist in my spot as Maeve makes it back to us. “Oh my God, did you see—” Her smile falters when she walks into the tense bubble surrounding me and Stella. Tense because Stella can read me like a fucking book, and right now I’d rather rip my pages out and set them aflame than admit what I heard today. “What’s wrong?”
“Something’s wrong with her,” Stella says, responding to Maeve like I’m not even in the room while her eyes remain glued to the side of my face.
“Nothing iswrongwith me,” I huff, reaching for my drink again. But Stella grabs it before I can, holding it in the air behind her.
“No more for you until you tell us.”
“It’s not Gavin, right? Are you, like, having second thoughts?”
“Ew,no.” My face scrunches in disgust. I would never have second thoughts about taking the life of someone who deserved it. And even if I were, it’s a bit too late for that.
I lean back into the leather couch, taking the edge of my lip between my teeth.
I’ve been thinking that maybe if I run into Colin first, I can set the tone for our ongoing relationship. I’ll tell him I’m sorry I gave him a flat tire thatone time, and he can tell me sorry for all the times he stood in the parking lot and watched me run like I was going to murder anyone who tried to join me. Andthenhe can apologize for the time he pushed me up against that brick wall that had been recently painted, totally ruining the new Lindsey LaRue dress I’d worn to visit my mom in jail.
You see? He has so much more to apologize for than I do.
Regardless, I am the bigger person. So, I will apologize, and then we can go our separate ways. And by go our separate ways, I mean maybe I can get on his good side long enough to get a taste of that twilight flavored toxin he hides in the depths of his mouth.
I mean—soul.
“Oh, fuck. It’s Mills,” Maeve says above me, and I’m instantly curious how she could have possibly come to that conclusion. I look up at her, but her gaze is focused across the room. When I turn to see what stole her attention, her statement plays on repeat in my head.
It’s Mills.
Well, shit. The clock is officially ticking on that whole running-into-him-first thing.
I haven’t seen him ina year. A whole year I’ve had to wonder why he left. Where he went. How he’s changed. If he was thinking about me like I thought about him.
He looks exactly the same as when I saw him last. That hair that’s perfectly tousled like he wakes up every day, styles it, and then fucks his girlfriend to make it look messy in the most perfect way. The ink on his body is still dangerously alluring, the mostly monochrome designs swirling up his forearms, inviting me to trace them with my tongue. That same scowl graces his features, his eyebrows drawn together in frustration, his soft-looking lips just a couple degrees off from a full on frown. He’s the ultimate brooding cop. The scowl and the frown don’t even begin to take away from the fact that those lips just look perpetually kissable to me.
I want to brush my thumb across his eyebrows and ease the crease between them.
I can already imagine his features morphing from pissed off to pleasure, the flex of his shoulders and biceps beneath his white button-up shifting as he holds me against his body, his inked arms snaking around my thighs, those full lips trailing up my neck.
He's the only person in this whole damn place who looks like he’s unhappy about being here, and I can’t help myself from thinking about what type of feelings will rush through him when he realizes I’m here, too.
I turn my back on the doors and reach out to drag Maeve down to sit. “Quit staring, Maeve.”
She jolts forward as I pull her down between me and Stella, and I push a breath out.
“Barry told me he was back,” I tell them, swiping my martini glass from Stella’s hand, still frozen mid-air.
“Damn. We’ve had a good year of slipping under the radar without him around.” Stella falls into the back of the couch with a huff of annoyance, as I’d expected.
