She looks so relieved when I’m fully dressed that I’m actually a little ashamed of myself for forcing her to look at me in just my boxers for this long. But that doesn’t mean I won’t stop trying to make her like that sight. Love, hopefully. Definitely desire.
“I’m ready to get to work,” I announce once I finish putting on my shoes. “What’s the plan for today?”
She balls up the empty bag of muffins and stands up. “Come with me to my room.”
I won’t stop trying to get her to say those words and mean them in a whole different way either. A stupid grin as I imagine that night arriving stretches across my face, but she luckily doesn’t notice that.
I’m good with taking it slow. I’m good with waiting. Because I know she’ll be worth the wait. And the reason I’m so sure of that is because I’ve never wanted a woman—or anything else for that matter—the way I want her. Can’t explain why. It’s just this pull I can’t fight. And I don’t want to.
17
Alice
We’ve been cooped up in my motel room all afternoon. Didn’t even go out for lunch, just ordered a couple of pizzas when Nico’s complaining he was hungry got too annoying. Thinking about meeting Gael face to face for the first time in almost fifteen years took all my appetite. The last thing I thought about was eating.
There’s still almost an entire pizza left and the room is starting to smell like cheese and tomato sauce. That’s also making me nauseous now, on top of everything else.
The good thing about being stuck in here all day is that I think Nico now understands my entire plan.
We’re going to install hidden cameras in all of Gael’s private spaces and all likely spaces in the church that could be used to molest children. I have enough high-tech surveillance equipment with me that I’m sure that won’t be a problem.
I’m also sure it won’t be a problem finding all those spaces. If we can’t do it tonight, during the event at the community center, then we’ll break in and do it at night.
Those parts of the plan don’t worry me at all.
But looking at the button up dress on my bed and the ballet flats I picked to go with it is.
Before yesterday, the last time I wore a dress was at my high school graduation. It’s been jeans, boots and leather jackets ever since.
“It’s a very nice dress,” Nico says, seeing me looking at it. “I can’t wait for you to put it on.”
That mixture of lust and interest in his voice gives me goosebumps, like always. The weird thing is, I don’t mind it. I wish I was the kind of woman who could just flirt back.
Seeing him in just his boxers this morning gave me ideas, made me wonder what it would feel like to run my hands down his taut, muscular chest, over that excellent tattoo of the lone wolf, made me wonder what it’d be like to do the same with my tongue. And I’ve never in my wildest dreams ever wanted to lick a man.
I shake my head to dispel all those weird thoughts. “What if he recognizes me?”
He walks over to the bed and picks up the wig I also purchased—brunette, cropped to about shoulder length in the style our resident hairdresser, Coco, calls the long bob, if I’m not mistaken.
“If you’re wearing this wig, I doubt there’s much chance of that,” he says. “But I don’t know how you’ll stuff all that gorgeous silver hair under this.”
I wish he’d stop complimenting me. And I wish I could just bask in all of his attention, which I feel much more intensely since we kissed.
And I wish we could just kiss some more.
What the hell am I thinking?
“Also, if he recognizes you, we can just go to Plan B,” he adds, tossing the wig back on the bed.
“What’s Plan B?”
He gives me one of those smiles he always gets right before he’s gonna say something I won’t like. It makes his eyes sparkle with a mischievous light that reminds of easier, funner times… not that I ever enjoyed many of those.
“You know, take him into the desert and put a bullet between his eyes,” he says.
I scoff. “And here I was thinking you understood and were on board with my plan.”
“I am, I am, but we could also just tie him up somewhere and make him confess.”
