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“Yes, I mean I figured. But uhm... dammit. This is harder than I thought it would be.” Alisha grabbed the sugar and started pouring some into her coffee, purely for something to do with her hands. When the sugar-to-coffee ratio tipped a bit too far, Rueben’s hands closed around hers.
“I think that’s enough of that, don’t you? Now why don’t you take a deep breath for me?”
Instinctively, Alisha followed his order, realizing she’d been holding her breath when the sudden influx of oxygen flushed her system and cleared her head a bit.
“I’m exceptionally needy. I want a lot of attention. I’ve had quite a few boyfriends tell me I’m too high-maintenance for them.”
Rueben growled at that statement, pulling her eyes up to him again. His frown was fierce enough to carve grooves into his forehead that made Alisha want to lean across and smooth away the wrinkles.
“Were they Daddies, sweetness?”
Alisha shrugged in response. “It’s hard to find a real Daddy, especially in our line of work. I can’t really risk being found out, because it’s hard enough to earn respect as a female officer.”
“So that’s a no.”
“It’s more a... they thought they were Daddies until they found me?” Alisha had no other way of describing it without sounding completely self-deprecating. It was one of her biggest flaws and she was actively working on it. She was well aware that her failed relationships weren’t solely on her shoulders. The men she dated came into it thinking they wanted one thing and they had it completely wrong. But she couldn’t help but feel like if she’d been just a little less needy, then things would have gone in another direction. Alisha took a sip of her coffee, forgetting that she’d poisoned it with buckets of sugar. Her face pulled into a grimace and she gingerly placed the cup back in its saucer.
“Okay, fine. I’ll let that go for now,” Rueben said, pulling her coffee cup away from her and signalling the waitress back. “We had an accident with the sugar, would you mind getting my partner a fresh cup?”
The waitress smiled at them before grabbing Alisha’s cup. Within a few minutes, she returned with a fresh one just as quickly and quietly disappeared back behind the counter.
“So you really had no idea I liked you, huh?” Rueben asked once they were alone again.
Alisha shook her head and felt her cheeks grow red. “Honestly, Rueben, I’m so focused on work and making sure no one notices anythingspecialabout me, that you could probably have asked me out on a date and I wouldn’t have realized it.”
“I did.”
She was so shocked at his response she just stared at him again.
“Yeah. A few times actually. You always made excuses. I thought you weren’t interested, and then I thought I was making you uncomfortable so I stopped trying altogether.” Rueben rubbed his hand over his face, shaking his head as he sat back in the booth. “You know how to damage a guy’s ego, Alisha. Damn.”
That drew a giggle from Alisha, and the smile Rueben rewarded her with was so dazzling she felt like an idiot for missing all the clues. Thinking back on their interactions the past few months, she realized he really had been quite obvious with his interest. She probably needed to stop living with her head in the sand.
“I’m sorry, Rueben. Seriously. It’s not you. There’s also the fact that we’re partners.”
Rueben shrugged at this before leaning over to grab his own coffee. “I don’t mind transferring out.”
This shocked her. Rueben was an alpha male. Very dominant. She’d had to push all her instincts down to not submit to him from the start. Having him be willing to transfer to a different department for her wasn’t only surprising, it was a big deal.
“Seriously? Aren’t you working your way to detective?” Alisha asked, knowing that too many transfers would look bad on his record if he was working his way to a promotion.
“Yeah, Alisha. But so are you. And as much as I want that shiny badge, I want to be happy with my life outside of the job too. And there’s just something about you that makes me think you could be that happiness for me.”
“Well, fudge.”
Rueben grinned at her response. “Tell me, sweetness, are you a good girl?”
This drew a fearsome blush from Alisha. Her face was on fire and she had the overwhelming urge to climb under the table to hide from Rueben.
“I can just tell you are. That brings me to something else we need to discuss.” His fingers tapped on the table in front of him, the hypnotic beat of his big strong hands keeping her eyes glued to them. “Adam.”
Alisha’s heart fluttered at that.
She’d been attracted to all sorts. You didn’t reach twenty-nine years without having some doozies in there. But somehow, she’d always found herself into the more dominant men. Which made sense.
But Adam? He was one hundred percent submissive. He was a brat, no doubt, and he would probably be a handful to any Daddy or Mommy who took him on. But from the moment Alisha set eyes on the man, she couldn’t stop thinking about him.
And her feelings were not of the friendly, I-want-to-play-with-you kind. Well, not that kind of play anyway.
