“If I don’t, then what?”
“I could scream. I do have neighbors, you know. Maybe one of them would call the TSP.” It was a slim hope, but…maybe? She could only imagine the damage that would do to both of them. “Murdoch could arrest you.”
The Major Crimes baboons wouldn’t let either of them live it down. Next thing she knew they’d be throwing a mock wedding right down the hallway to the lab or something. Murdoch would try to give Dom away. Jake would probably officiate.
Once…they were all recovered and back where they belonged, anyway.
“So…what will it be? My place or yours?”
He said it in that deep rumbling voice that gave women the shivers.
Madison did what she almost always did where he was concerned. She gave in.
Gave the jerk exactly what he wanted. She ignored the smirk that drove her crazy. The man…grrr. What was she going to do with him now?
Dom in her apartment for one night—she could survive that. Not being able to escape him for who knew how long—no. She would go insane.
Or they’d end up doing something completely stupid.
That was becoming more of a possibility than she wanted to think about.
She was so tired offighting.Of fighting the evil in this world. In fighting to pretend she was okay, that what had happened to her hadn’t changed her. Made her even more afraid.
She was so tired of being alone, too. Of fighting him. Why had she fought what he did to her for over five years now? At the time she’d first realized there was fire there she’d had a good reason to avoid him. She thought.
It had been so long ago she couldn’t remember.
They had been arguing the first time she’d realized…and he’d touched her. That was what it was—the first time he’dtouchedher. It had been a few months after they’d met for the first time, she thought.
Right there in the cafeteria at the old TSP building. Right in front of the counter. They’d been bickering about a case she didn’t even remember now. And she’d turned. The floor had been freshly mopped.
She’d slipped.
His arms had been there to catch her. So cliched, she was so, so cliched.
The man had the strongest arms of any man she had ever seen. Except possibly the muscle-bound Miguel. Dom was almost as big and strong—Miguel was almost six-eight or something. Dom was around six-four. But just as muscled. Just as strong.
And he had caught her. She did feel rathercaughthere and everything.
Just like that, her senses had gotten scrambled.
Something had almost sizzled between them. Sherememberedthat part.
Talk about terrifying. She’d really been too inexperienced back then to fully recognize what it had been. He’d stiffened. And given her such a hot look…then he had backed away.
And turned even more snarly after that. He’d just keptsnarlingat her from that point on.
He’d snarl, she’d react. Then she was the one snarling andhe’dreact.
Until…they had ended up where they were now. That whole parents-getting-together snafu had just complicated things completely. After that had happened, Madison hadn’t been able toavoidhim at all.
Something had changed between them after the choir hall shooting, too. He’d gotten more…intense.
When he watched her.
It was the way he watched her. And it wasn’t just her that noticed it, either. She’d had several men ask her out over the last few years. But nothing had ever come out of it. One moron had even accused her of being involved with Dom and just hiding it. Said it was obvious there was something between them.
Madison stared at her Major Crimes major pain for a long moment. Wondered.
