I clear my throat looking over her head in the direction of the music, I answer, “Yes. Alone. I’m working.”
“Oh.” She snaps her gum, looking me up and down and reaching out to run a finger over my badge. “You have time for a drink?”
Of course I don’t have time for a drink. I’m working, I said. And you shouldn’t be drinking either if you’re going to get on your motorcycle and drive home…God, people are stupid.
“No,” I answer, flat and cold. “Just checking on some petty thefts that have been reported.”
She nods, tilting her head and running her tongue over her teeth, which have obscenely bright pink lipstick stuck to the front of them.
“Ahh. Yeah, I heard someone got their wallet lifted yesterday. I come every day.”
I look at my watch, then back toward the music.
“Be careful. Get a ride home if you’re drinking.”
I sidestep and move forward as she runs a hand through her burgundy hair, watching me go.
“See you around,” she calls, and I raise a hand over my head to wave, never breaking my stride.
These sort of fairs have never been my thing.
I’m not much for any sort of fun, it seems. Not for a long time. I always had an odd discomfort with human touch, outside of hugging my parents.
My dad once told me I was too old for my age, and I didn’t bother to remind him it was a man-to-man talk from him that started that for me. I don’t resent it, God knows they had their own issues to deal with when my mom lost the baby a few weeks later, but it was that talk that had me growing up fast.
You’re going to have a little brother or sister, son. Exciting, huh? But you know, older brothers have a lot more responsibility. You think you can handle that?
Grown up responsibilities have become a thick wall I’ve built around myself, and I don’t ever see that changing. Relationships just feel exhausting to me, and besides my parents, I get all the companionship I think I’ll ever need from Rosy and Eleanor, my two pit-mix mutts I adopted five years ago after a call on a dog fight where over fifteen animals were seized.
As I move toward the music, I shake my head at the irony that one second I can be turning ass-over-impossible to save a bunch of abused dogs, but in my personal life I barely let anyone in.
The pondering doesn’t last long. As I come to where the crowd is gathered and I see her, the world changes right before my eyes.
There’s a fucking radiance glowing around her. My heart drops to my toes then shoots up and practically out of the top of my head.
I reach up and touch the brim of my hat to be sure it’s still there.
I’m not sure what she’s doing here. She doesn’t look like she belongs on the dirt patch where she’s spinning and twirling. She belongs in heaven.
Or in my bed.
Her warm, caramel and vanilla hair is hanging loose, besides a couple strands pulled back from the front and secured in a green ribbon at the back of her head. I’ve never seen anything so fucking beautiful in my life.
Her blouse is fucking far too low on her chest though. Her tits nearly billowing out from the fabric. It makes me instantly hard and instantly enraged.
Because there’s a crowd of men looking at her, practically drooling like she’s the next turkey leg they are going to eat.
Over my dead body.
I wind through the crowd. I need to be closer to her. A growl catches in my throat as I pass by male onlookers, and the civilized part of me knows I can’t remove all of their eyes or render them unconscious, but the beast part of me disagrees.
Her neck is long and graceful as she pivots and sways to the music, smiling at the crowd with wide, shocking eyes like I’ve never seen, lips ruby red and full against her white teeth.
There’s a rush of heat through me, my pulse speeding into a pounding in my temples, and for some reason my hand goes straight to the leather snap where my gun is holstered at my hip.
Ready.
Because if anyone touches her, I think I’ll kill them.
