“You can change your mind about us at any time,” he said softly. “If you realize the gravity of who you’re with.”
“You’re not that man anymore.”
His eyes opened and he held my gaze. “I’ll always be that man, Harper. I may not be doin’ the things I did, but I’m still him.”
And yet I wanted him anyway. What did that say about me?
I was too tired to reason it through.
I settled back into him and returned to what had sidetracked our conversation. “Why’d you keep the tape for ninety days? It must have taken up massive amounts of cloud storage.”
“Same reason the owner of the Velvet Room probably keeps his for at least thirty days. To cover my ass.”
I cocked my head. “You mean like turning in people committing crimes on your property, like the guy here?”
He chuckled, then grimaced. “More like to make sure I had an alibi when something happened that law enforcement wanted to pin on me.” When he saw my confusion, he said, “I ran my business out of the pool hall.”
“Oh.” That made sense, especially since he’d said Jed ran the strip club. “What other businesses did you have?”
“Those were the only two in my name. The rest are under aliases and LLCs to keep my name out of it.”
“Which is how you knew about corporations wanting anonymity filing in New Mexico when we worked the Hugo Burton case.”
His mouth ticked up in acknowledgement, but his eyes looked strained.
“You need to go to bed, James,” I said, patting his chest.
He stared into my eyes. “I don’t want to go to bed yet.”
“Then let me give you a neck and shoulder rub. Maybe it will help with your headache.”
A wicked glint filled his eyes. “Maybe I want you to rub me somewhere else.”
I cocked my head and said wryly, “I already did that twice today. I thought a man your age needed more time to recover.”
He burst out laughing, but just as quickly grimaced.
“If you’re not going to bed, then I’m giving you a massage.” I nudged the coffee table toward the chairs with my foot. “Sit on the rug.”
“I don’t let many people boss me around,” he grunted, but he was already sliding off the sofa and onto the floor.
“You’ve bossed me around plenty the past couple of months, so now it’s my turn.”
He rested his back against the sofa, and I crossed my legs in front of me, placing both hands on his shoulders. His muscles were tighter than I’d expected. I gingerly kneaded them, and he let out a soft groan.
A wave of heat washed through me, but I ignored it. “This will probably be better if you take off your shirt.”
“Tryin’ to get me naked,” he teased as he pulled his shirt over his head.
“Get your mind out of the gutter,” I teased back as he tossed the shirt to the floor. I pressed my fingertips to his bare skin, focusing on easing the tension from his muscles.
“That feels so damn good,” he said with another groan.
“I should have been doing this all week,” I said, guilt pricking me.
“You were doin’ more important things.”
“Not twenty-four seven.” And it hadn’t been all that productive anyway.
