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“Like you’re actually looking for something serious. Got it. Well, I will go with you.”
He shook his head and closed the distance between them. “No. Absolutely not. You’re not going anywherenearmy mother.”
She laughed and shrugged. “Well, if you don’t take one of your bootie calls and you don’t take me, what will you do?”
“Show up alone and thoroughly disappoint my mother.”
“And she’ll be okay with that?”
He chuckled. “No. She won’t be, but I’m used to her.”
“Why take her wrath when you can take me,” she paused. Ryland knew she was playing on the sexual tension that lingered between them after that kiss. “You can take me to dinner with your mother under one condition.”
He stilled. He knew exactly what she was going to say, but he really didn’t want her to actuallysayit.
“If you want me to go to dinner with your mother, you’ve got to let me help you. With the case, I mean. Tit for tat, Ryland.”
He threw his head back with a laugh. There was no way in hell he would ever agree to that, but now, he was stuck between a rock and a hard place.
Or, more to the point, he was stuck between his mother and his mate and the desperate need to keep the women away from each other.
ELEVEN
CAROLINE
Of all the things Caroline had ever been in her life, brazen wasn’t one of them.
Yet, there she stood in Ryland’s office … seconds after losing her mind and kissing him … basically coercing him into accepting her help. His mother’s call had come at just the right time. Caroline didn’t know if she would’ve stopped kissing Ryland or let things go further.
It was inexplicable.
There was something about Ryland that called to her. As much as she disliked the man for being such a hard ass, she couldn’t stop staring at the shape of his forearms on display since he rolled up the sleeves of his dress shirt. Even his ass was a bit of a marvel to her. The man clearly worked out.
She was a professional on the most important case of her whole career … of her whole life … and she was losing her head for a pair of nice eyes and full lips.
Thankfully, the phone call hadn’t just saved her from making a terrible mistake, but it had also given her a bargaining chip she hadn’t had before Ryland’s mother called. Now, she could wiggle her way deeper into his life and hope he kept her around.
“Well?” she asked. “What do you say? Do we have a deal or not? I go to your mother’s, and you let me help you.”
“No.”
“No?” she repeated.
“We don’t have a deal. You’ll stay here, and if I have questions, you’ll answer them, but under no circumstances are you meeting my mother tomorrow. You’ll stay right here in this apartment until I deem it safe for you to rejoin the world.”
Her jaw fell open. “What? Here? In your home?” Caroline didn’t like the idea of a safe house because it would be impossible to get the story from a secure location, but she wasn’t exactly thrilled with the notion that she would have to share Ryland’s place with him.
It put her in danger of kissing him again.
“I thought I had to go to a safe house?”
“You’re safer here,” he replied.
She seriously doubted it. Not because Ryland was an actual threat to her, but because she wasn’t sure what they would end up doing to each other if they spent any more time together. “What? Why? Why am I safer here?”
“Because.”
“That isn’t an answer,” she snapped, annoyed. Also a little turned on. Why did her anger beg for another Ryland kiss? Maybe she was losing her mind. Maybe the stress of the last year was finally catching up to her.
