Page 82 of Floodgates

No, we had not. “Okay,” I said, leaning into him.

He tightened his arm, putting his hand in my hair. “I can’t seem to stop touching you.”

“I’m not complaining,” I sighed, savoring how demonstrative he was. “Why leave the force?”

“I’m not happy.”

“How so?”

“I have no balance in my life. I do the same thing day in and day out, and I don’t want to transfer to the DEA like Alex did, and—I’m just over the whole thing.”

“Why?” I asked, tipping my head back and giving him a quick kiss under his jaw.

His step faltered, and if I didn’t already know that he liked me, I would have from the sudden staggered step. That fast, I had him flustered.

“I want more,” he choked, clutching at my hair.

“Like what?”

“Like, since I’ll be an investigator and not a cop, I would be home at a decent hour.”

“And?”

“And so I could take you to dinner and stuff.”

“Oh.”

He coughed softly. “So, you think you’d wanna do that with me? Eat dinner?”

“I would.”

“We could even take a weekend trip somewhere, since I wouldn’t work those.”

“That sounds great.”

“The money’s way better, double my salary, and I have room to move up, and there’s incentives and amazing insurance.”

“It seems to me you have everything worked out,” I said, leading him around the back of one of the agent counters at an empty gate.

“What are you—”

“Will you miss being an inspector?” I asked, taking hold of the scarf he was wearing around his neck and easing him down to me.

“I—no,” he admitted. “I want to do a job but not have it be my whole life like Alex’s is. I want more.”

“What do you want?” I asked, my lips a hairsbreadth from his.

“I wanna see you,” he rasped.

“Who was it gonna be since you didn’t know I was even available.”

“I was getting things lined up so I could make my play.”

“For me?”

“Yes, idiot. It was always gonna be you.”

The deluge of honesty was staggering.