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“There’s that too.”
“Thanks, Jim. You’ve been a big help.” Hawke disconnected the call and considered all he learned. On the day Stephanie had her accident, with nothing better to do, he had looked into the circumstances of the wreck. The other driver, killed in the crash, had scarcely had enough alcohol in his system to swerve the way Stephanie claimed he had. He wondered if it had anything to do with Stephanie, but it seemed unlikely. Nothing happened since that incident, and he would know, since he kept watch over her. Maybe they were cowards at heart and lost their nerve after her severe injury. Having another thought, he sent off a text message to Jim and waited for the response to his question.
“No, the other driver had no connection to her dead husband or his family’s corporation,” Jim replied.
Hawke swore. No, this was a good thing. If the in-laws weren’t serious about getting Meechi’s money enough to kill Stephanie, then she would not be further hurt by them. Still, something was going on, and he intended to get to the bottom of it.
When his cell phone rang, Hawke glanced at the display and warmed at the sight of her name. He stabbed the connect button, not caring to let it ring more than once. “Hello.”
“Hi, Hawke.” The breathless quality to her voice stirred his desire, and his cock grew hard. He imagined kissing her full lips and sliding his hands over her lovely body. “Hey, are you there?”
He cleared his throat and brought his thoughts back to the moment. “Yes, sorry. You’re not calling to cancel, are you?”
“No, of course not. I wanted to see if you could come a bit early and take me to pick up Meechi from daycare.”
“Sure, what time do you need me there?”
“Is four okay? I don’t know if you can get off work sooner.”
“No problem.”
They hung up, and Hawke stood from his desk. The small office he rented was one he used upon occasion when not chasing down a lead for a case. Private investigations alleviated the boredom his life would be since he had no other obligations. As he took the elevator to the parking garage beneath the building, he wondered how great it would be to have a family of his own. Thoughts like that led him to think about Toron. A year and a half had passed since they last spoke. Did his friend have any more children? He knew Toron and Sienna had married because she’d sent him an invitation to the post office box he kept. Hawke hadn’t attended, nor had he contacted her, as much as it hurt. He respected Toron’s wish not to see him, and he couldn’t forgive himself for ever trying to take Sienna for himself when anyone could see she belonged to his friend.
After he showered and dressed, Hawke brought an extra set of clothes to his car. He slipped behind the wheel and started out toward Stephanie’s apartment. He arrived an hour early in his eagerness and had to sit outside. When the time came for him to go inside, he stepped from his vehicle, smoothed his shirtfront, and started up. Stephanie answered on the second ring, and he took in her beauty. She wore a teal dress that hugged her figure and stopped half way down her thighs, which were bare. Her full breasts were accentuated behind the thin material with a low cut at the neckline. They didn’t allow him to linger anywhere else, but he forced his gaze back to her face.
“You look beautiful,” he murmured and moved past her when she backed up to let him in.
“Are you sure? I usually get Meechi to help me, so I chose this dress because I know I can’t mismatch anything with it.”
Hawke didn’t know what came over him. She rambled because she was nervous and unsure of what he thought of her. All he could do was demonstrate the impression she made by sweeping her into his arms. He crushed her close to his chest and raised her chin. Pausing an instant to hear her surprised cry, he covered her mouth and forced her sweet lips apart.
He wanted to take the kiss deeper, but he waited to gauge whether he disgusted or frightened her. When he ran a hand up her side, and the soft curve of her breast invited his palm, he gave into it. His thumb impacted with her taut nipple, and
she arched into his touch on a soft moan. He dragged her tighter to him, up onto her toes and lowered a hand to her ass. So round and soft, it demanded that he squeeze and stroke it, but as soon as he did, Stephanie wiggled in his arms. With reluctance, he let her go, disappointed that he’d been so caught up in touching her he didn’t have the chance to push his tongue into her delicious mouth.
“I-I-We need to get Meechi,” she stuttered, fixing her hair.
He turned away. “I apologize. I shouldn’t have attacked you like that. We should go.” While she grabbed her purse, he adjusted his cock, which had gone hard in his pants. The woman couldn’t know how badly he wanted her or how long it had been since his last lover. Stephanie deserved more than a quick roll in the hay.
He escorted her to his car and pulled out. Stephanie sat with her head bowed somewhat, not looking out the window. When he had asked about it previously, she’d told him it gave her a headache to see so many colors zipping by because she had a tendency to squint. He didn’t tell her the many times she crinkled her nose squinting at him. He thought she was cute.
“So you’re okay with me meeting her?” he asked.
“Well, I’m a little nervous about it. I don’t bring men home, and we’ve been out only a few times, but I didn’t have much choice today. My neighbor runs me to get Meechi, and sometimes she babysits her like on the night we first met, but her son broke his leg snowboarding or whatever in Vermont. She had to pick him up from the airport.”
“Vermont, huh?”
She turned her head toward him, but he kept his eyes on the road. “Yeah, have you been there?”
“Once or twice.”
A half hour later, they pulled into the parking lot before a building that looked like it had lost a fight with a few buckets of brightly colored paint. Not that the building appeared disordered. Just that someone thought the more color, the better for kids. With what little he knew of Meechi, he imagined she’d view the place as being for babies. Stephanie had told him her daughter wanted to stay home after school, to which Stephanie had said no. He didn’t blame her.
Hawke hopped out of the car and went around to help Stephanie. She placed her hand in the crook of his arm, and then walked up to the door. As he allowed her to go ahead of him, he remembered what it felt like to touch her, so he held himself as far back as possible. This was not the place to have a rise in his pants because Stephanie turned him on.
“Ms. Martin, what are you doing here?” A thirty-something woman smiled as she rose from behind a desk and walked into the hall.
Stephanie went still. “What do you mean? I’m here to pick up Meechi.”
