“What about them?” I said.
“They’re staring at you.”
Probably because I was in a wedding dress in a police station, but either way, I shrugged. “They must like what they see, if they keep looking.”
Kelly smiled and then laughed.
Like the ring on my left finger, I’d never truly paid attention to it until it seemed to steal my breath. His smile? One front tooth came out slightly more than the other one, and the imperfection made him even sexier. His laugh? It was deep and melodic, like the sound of his voice.
“Good bones,” he said, and I had no clue what he was talking about.
“See you next time, Cash,” a short policewoman said from her spot at the front desk.
What was it about this guy that made people either love or hate him? There was no in-between. The little woman behind the desk seemed to love him. Her eyes went soft when he walked past her.
“She thinks you’resocharming,” I said. “La de daaaa!” I twirled my pointer finger in the air.
“I am,” he said.
“Not on your best day. Not to me.”
“You have a tongue made from sin, darlin’. If only I was fooled by the lies.”
“Are we really going to fight on our wedding day?” I mocked being upset, throwing a hand over my heart.
“Considering I was locked up for part of it?” He shrugged. “I’d say an argument was—”
“Just grand,” I said, copying his Irish accent. “Justgrand.”
After a few steps, he said, “No one is indifferent to me.”
“No speaking in riddles,” I said, demanding to understand this time.
“Love and hate are both driven by feelings. I do something to make another man hate me—” he shrugged “—more than likely, I stood up for my beliefs, challenging his. A beautiful woman falls in love with me—” he grinned “—it means I used my persuasive charms to claim what’s mine, even if she had to fall through hate first.”
He opened the door to the police station for me and I stepped out first, waiting while he held the door for another woman before meeting me again. We started toward Harrison’s car.
“Claim?” I stopped walking. “Or steal?”
He studied me for a minute. “Hearts are stolen every second, every minute, every hour, of every day, darlin’. I doubt anyone would give such a sacred thing over willingly.”
“Me,” I said. “I was prepared to give it.”
“To Stone.”
I shrugged. “Whoever.”
“Give me the difference between giving and stealing when it comes to a heart.”
“Giving means handing over less power. I’m giving it, so some control is still mine. Stealing it—that’s consuming. If…whoevercan steal my heart,whoevercan steal everything that means something to me. I’m not down with that.”
“Ah.” The lights from the buildings lit up the mischief in his green eyes. “The safe path. A relationship that’s built on something other than animalistic attraction. Or maybe you’d call it passion.”
“Sex is sex,” I said. “It’s good or it’s not. Feelings? Those should build over time, because if they run too hot, too fast, they burn everything down around them.”
“Sex is sex,” he repeated. The look on his face echoed the look he’d given me at church, when I’d dared him with my expression to kiss me. It was a subtle physical change, but it didn’t seem to matter. I could feel the changes in him rather than see them.
I shook my head, confused about all of this, and turned to walk away from him. I made it a couple of steps before someone called my name. I sighed, turning around.
