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“Still. There can’t be more than a few people in the system with two different-colored eyes,” Roman said.
She laughed, but it was all doubt. “Okay, but it’s not like I’d be able to ID his eyes in a lineup, right? I’d have to be able to positively identify the whole guy, and I highly doubt I can do that based on eyes and build alone.”
Roman paused before conceding, “Okay, yes. A full ID would obviously be more definitive. But an ID on his eyes alone might lead us to a person of interest who we can then link to the robbery in other ways.”
“We,” Camila repeated. “I thought you weren’t working the case.”
The look on his face was pure determination, and it shot heat all the way up her spine. “I’m not giving up.”
“You might not have a choice, you know.” If both Sergeant Sinclair and Roman’s boss were telling him to step back, that probably didn’t bode well unless he wanted to go totally rogue.
Funny, he wasn’t the least bit deterred. “I’m still not giving up. My boss is making me take a few days off, and that’s fine. I’ll do whatever it takes to show her my head is clear and that I’d be an asset, not a liability. And if the Intelligence Unit won’t let the FBI take the case entirely, I’ll work it with them. But I can take these guys down. Iwilltake these guys down.”
The heat she’d felt less than a moment ago became something even wilder. Thankfully, she was saved from having to respond—or, worse yet, letting that heat prompt her to do something insane, likeacton it—by the fact that they’d arrived at her apartment building. Rather than dropping her off in front, as Camila had expected him to, Roman pulled into one of the guest parking spots, then killed the engine. She opened her mouth to tell him she really felt fine—something about rehashing events where your life was in danger tended to sober a girl right up—but the look he gave her had the words stopping short.
“You’re about to remind me that you’re perfectly capable of getting to your apartment all by yourself, and you know what? I’m not going to argue that fact.”
She blinked. “You’re not?”
“No,” Roman said. “You are perfectly capable of doing that, and many, many other things.”
“But?” she asked, and his expression told her she had him dead to rights.
“Butyour ability has nothing to do with why I want to walk you all the way to your apartment.”
Roman broke off with a soft exhale. But rather than push like she would’ve even a handful of hours ago, she simply asked, “Why do you want to do it, then?”
“Well, it seems dumb to break our streak of solidarity now, and I, ah. Care about whether or not you get there alright.”
Camila’s breath caught, realization hitting her full-force. The way he’d left so abruptly that night at the Crooked Angel. His gruff response to her injury in the moment. The way he’d made sure she’d eaten, as Tess had prescribed.
Roman hadn’t done any of those things because he didn’t care about her.
He’d done them because hedid.
* * *
Roman wantedto go back in time and staple his mouth shut. A bit extreme, maybe, but having emotions, especially where Camila was concerned, was a shit idea of epic proportions. Airing them out, andto her, no less? Christ, jumping into a lake full of lava would probably get him less burned.
Yet here he was. Telling her all sorts of things he should be keeping under wraps.
Even worse? The way she was looking at him right now, so unguarded and beautiful, made him want to finish what they’d started that night last year.
“Thank you,” Camila whispered, wrecking him thoroughly with the two tiny syllables. In that moment, Roman became acutely aware of how little space separated them, and also how little he minded. Led by pure impulse, he closed it further, giving her just enough space to decide whether to meet him in the middle or turn away.
She didn’t even hesitate.
Camila’s mouth was on his in an instant. For a fraction of a second, neither of them moved, simply letting their lips touch in one warm, perfect spot. But then a sigh drifted up from her chest, and the sound sent a bolt of heat through him, so hot and so fucking greedy that he couldn’t go slow. Reaching across the center console, he pulled her closer, sliding his tongue over the seam of her lips. Camila wrapped one arm around his shoulder, the other moving between them to grip his shirt collar as she answered the kiss with a hungry stroke of her tongue. The move stoked something inside Roman’s gut that he couldn’t explain and didn’t want to. There wasn’t room for thinking, here. No worry over the consequences, no fear of the risk.
The only thing here was the two of them, and Roman just wanted tofeel.
Pressing his chest to hers, he crushed his mouth over Camila’s, searching, taking, then taking some more. She moaned, spurring him on, and he moved his hand to cup her face, to hold her steady and kiss her until he ran out of air—
Her cry of pain froze every cell in his body.
“Sorry,” Camila murmured, her fingers brushing the bandage at her temple that he’d inadvertently bumped. Christ, how could he have been so careless? Soreckless?
“No. I’m sorry,” he said, pulling back and scraping for a breath to slow his hammering pulse. “I shouldn’t have…”
