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When he lay in his own bed, alone and wanting her soft body in his arms, he ached.
Pulling up his personal email on his phone, he scrolled through them and paused on one from his old buddy from the Marines, Clay Lexis. Quaide knew what that email contained—the step forward he needed to keep himself from being another Harv, working forty years for the FBI. The email contained his official paperwork to join the Sentry team.
It was ironic that Quaide spearheaded the task force in Colorado and recruited Lexis in the first place. As soon as he signed that contract, he would be taking orders from his friend.
The career shift also got him out of the FBI office and into the field, where he could set his own schedule…andhe would no longer be Dove’s boss.
He shot another look at her desk. No long blonde hair swishing over her back. No glasses stem in the grip of her sharp, little white teeth…
Holding back a growl, he tried to keep his mind off the sting in his shoulders that bore her bite marks from the previous night.
A noisy sigh ground past his lips. He’d hoped to tell her about Sentry before now, but he wanted to work out all the details before laying out a different plan for her.
She wouldn’t like that word—plan. He’d call it an opportunity. Dove might take orders in the officeandin the bedroom, but she disliked it when he tried inserting himself in her personal life.Thatright there was his reason for wanting to make the switch to Sentry.
He wanted to insert himself in her days, her nights and everything in between. Once he was situated on the new task force, he would take her with him and make her his in all ways.
If she ever got to work, he could tell her all this.
He turned to his computer and the morning work emails inevitably waiting for him.
His gaze hit one, and he froze.
Subject: Dove Priester—Resignation
His heart rocketed into his throat, but his stomach bottomed out. His gaze ran over the subject line five more times, and even on the sixth try, his mind refused to accept the words.
Then he skimmed the body of an email sent to the HR department and that he was copied on.
Like he was an afterthought.
She resigned. She fucking quit.
And she didn’t even have enough respect to send him a direct email, let alone explain in person. What the hell? They’d literally parted ways two hours earlier.
“Goddammit!” He peered closer at the timestamp on the email. She’d sent itbeforetheir night together.
He shoved both hands into his hair.Something is wrong.
He knew Dove. She would never do this. Even though she claimed that he was so regimented that he drove her crazy at work, she could always talk to him. She had no problem telling him when she thought his actions or choices needed reassessing.
Looking back now, he had to question if those trailing touches across his skin were the very last.
If some of her kisses were kisses goodbye.
ChapterOne
Quaide removed his coffee mug from the circa 1980s microwave and took a sip of the lukewarm brew. The appliance was on its last legs and one of the major items on his list of things to replace in the house.
Inheriting the big old two-story home from his grandparents was great, but it would take a lot of work—and capital—to make updates.
Leaning against the chipped countertop, he sipped his coffee and tried not to dream of the heavenly pots of rich brew that Dove had made them back in the office. Pots they made any excuse to meet at, just to steal a few lingering stares or whispers. And they especially needed all the caffeine they could get after their late nights together.
Now he was standing in his kitchen alone drinking leftover coffee reheated in the microwave, and Dove was gone.
Since their final night together six weeks before, he hadn’t heard a peep from the woman. Her resignation email was the final correspondence. He couldn’t even get a text through to her phone.
He was certain she blocked him. And yeah, he could pull strings and find out her home address, but she obviously was avoiding him for her own reasons, reasons that he needed to respect.
