Chapter One
Late.I, Police Officer Jean Reed, was late. I threw my controller onto the chair next to the couch and jogged to the bathroom. The alarm on my cell shouted the Venture Bros. theme song from somewhere in the pile of discarded clothes at the side of my bed. I hadn’t done laundry in a week because I hated doing it, so my room was a bit of a mess. I had three minutes to shower (made it in two), one minute to get into my uniform and boots (nailed it), and half a second to kiss the very sexy man lounging on mycouch.
Hogan mumbled against my lips and slid a little sideways, crookeding up our mouths as he simultaneously tried to look past me at the screen where he was a tiny rock with a knight’s helmet and sword on a quest to fight a paperdragon.
“Watch for the sand pit, boyfriend,” Isaid.
“Gotit.”
“Don’t stay up too late.” We were still kissing, our words tumbling between ourlips.
“Gotit.”
“Don’t go in the scissor forest withoutme.”
“Gotit.”
“Watch the hammer hail!” We both broke the kiss. I was still leaning over him, my knee between his spread legs, one arm braced on the back of the couch. His pliant body went tense and alert beneathme.
It was sexy ashell.
We both stared at the screen while he totally shielded up and threw his sword into the clouds. Sunlight broke through and melted the storm ofhammers.
I exhaled. “Nice.”
He paused the game. “Come here.” His hands slid over my hips and he tugged at me, drawing me down. He had that warm hungry look in his clear-blue eyes, his dark features softened to a dusky purple from the glow of thegame.
“No. No way.” I pushed up, loving the slow friction of his palms resisting as I tried to get him to release me. “I am late. You need to go home and go to bed so you can wake up early and make me spicy maple bars, bakerboy.”
“Pumpkin glazed cinnamon buns, actually. They canwait.”
It would be easy to stay, to wrap up in the mellow low tones of his words, to tease out of him the slight Jamaican accent he’d inherited from hismother.
But Iwaslate. And super responsible. And...Hogan lifted up to press a kiss at mycollarbone.
What was I saying? Oh, yeah. I was a police officer. Badge, duty, and justice for all, etc.,etc.
“I think,” I said, as I finally pushed onto my feet, “that you better lock the door behind you and remember to put your cup in the sink thistime.”
Hogan shifted until he was fully sitting. Such a fine-looking man, tall with nice wide muscular shoulders, a long torso that tapered to narrow hips. He had thighs that made me envy his jeans, and a butt I couldn’t keep my handsoff.
But more than his ample physical aspects that drew me to him, he also had this deep, quiet gentleness that had surprised me when we first started dating after meeting on a gaming forum. His steady eyes and heart never missed anything, but he didn’t feel the need to talk all the time. Didn’t feel the need to judge, to declare, toorder.
He was like tides, rolling in and out with an endless calm, with grace, withbeauty.
It was no wonder he ran a bakery like a boss in our little seaside town where gods vacationed and monsters worked and lived. Not only did he have an amazing talent of teasing out the best and most unexpected combinations in pastries, breads, cakes and cookies, he also had a way of teasing out the best in hiscustomers.
And inme.
That was a startling thing I still hadn’t come to gripswith.
We were just dating. This was a casual thing. Fun.Fleeting.
Andyet...
And yet Hogan had come over after his early shift ended and before my late shift began for five months now. Five months was almost half a year. I’d never dated anyone for solong.
I’d never wanted to until now. It scared the pants off ofme.
