One look at him and I couldn’t think. Everything in me either went dead still, or was vibrating so fast it felt like stillness.
And there was Cooper. Right in front of me, brown eyes burning. He was everything I wanted. Everything I desired.
What?That couldn’t be right. I didn’t want Cooper.
I couldn’t get those words out. I couldn’t move, talk, or do anything more than stare at him in hyper-stillness. Something was wrong. Something was very wrong.
“Hey.” His voice dropped low and husky. He was standing in front of me.
Had he moved? Had I blinked? When had he moved?
“Hey, gorgeous.” He wrapped his arm around my waist and dragged the other hand down my back, pulling at my shirt.
I was on fire, buzzing, but I couldn’t feel my heartbeat, didn’t know if I was breathing. Was this a dream? A hallucination?
“Delaney,” he breathed.
I watched my hand lift and brush across the back of his neck even though I couldn’t feel it.Creepy.I watched my hand draw his face down to mine.
Weird, weird, weird, weird.
His breath hitched. He kissed me. Full, hot.
That, I felt.
Everything in me sang—a chorus of emotions avalanched through me. I was lost to it, buried under it, fighting to surface through a tumble of sensations so sharp and clear they blended into pain.
I think I groaned. Not in pleasure.
A hand clamped my shoulder and another gripped my arm, squeezed, and jerked.
The world stuttered. Time snapped and skittered into its normal flow. Things I didn’t realize I’d been missing: color, sound, smells, notched into overdrive, and I stumbled backward, reeling. My knees felt like overstretched rubber bands, and I think I would have crumpled to the floor if Jean hadn’t wrapped her arm around my ribs and held me tight.
Someone was in front of me. Shorter than me. Dark hair cut in a swing. Police uniform.
My brain tried to put two and two together. Finally got it on the fourth or fifth try.
Myra stood in front of me. Between me and Cooper.
And suddenly, I could think again.
Holy shit. Cooper had kissed me. In the middle of the police station. In front of my sisters and Roy.
“Problem?” a male voice asked.
The prickly hot sweat of fear and embarrassment washed over me. I turned my gaze woodenly to the door.
Ryder Bailey stood there holding a takeout bag in one hand and a drink carrier with five drinks in the other.
Cooper had kissed me. In the middle of the police station. In front of my sisters and Roy andRyder.
There had been times in my life when I’d wished I was a more religious person. But since gods spend their sand-and-sunburn days in my backyard complaining about things like cell reception and plugged storm drains, I decided at a young age that they were too busy to answer my prayers.
Still, if I thought there was a chance someone up there could hear me, I’d pray that the ring-of-fire volcanoes might choose this moment to blow so the resulting earthquake would swallow me whole.
“Uh…” I said, but it came out a little high and panicky.
Myra waded into the verbal fray. “Cooper, I’d like you to step outside. Ryder, you can put the food next to the coffee there.” She pointed with one hand while she started toward Cooper, ready to corral him toward the door.
