When she looks my way and catches me watching her, she stiffens before her face goes carefully blank.
She’s surveying the barn the same way I did on my first morning. She’s planning something. I can feel it.
Something bumps my leg, and I look down at Grayson. “In the mood for a stakeout tonight?” I ask.
At least I’ll have something to do beside lay in that bed at the hotel and think about how far Grayson could throw those sweatpants if he ripped them off.
Which doesn’t make me feel as good as it should.
CHAPTER 13
We’re ten minutes into our stakeout when I realize I’ve made a terrible mistake.
This is worse than sharing a bed. Much, much worse.
I wanted to find a place where we could easily observe the entrance to the show barn, assuming that if The Witch is going to plant some kind of magical device ahead of time, she’d sneak back into the barn under the cover of darkness. But I don’t want her to see us before she sees us, so Grayson and I are hiding under the table near the front of the barn, a long white tablecloth hiding us from view of anyone who walks in.
It had seemed like the perfect hiding place. The problem is, it’s a very narrow table. Which means we’re sprawled on our stomachs, eyes fixed on the door, shoulders and hips pressed together in a way they haven’t been since I woke up yesterday all snuggled up against him.
Worse, Grayson smells good. Like way better than a man who spent the day in a pig pen and refused a good hose-down should smell.
Like bourbon and musk, but the expensive kind of musk they sell in a bottle and not, you know, animal musk.
Okay, a little bit like animal musk. But the sexy kind.
He doesn’t smell like a pig. That’s what I’m trying to say here.
I try to study him in my peripheral vision. His hair falls over his forehead in a way that makes me think of a beach lifeguard, which makes no sense but I suppose his very nearness has muddled my brain. He has a nose that looks like it’s been broken once or twice, and that does make sense because I certainly wanted to punch him when I first met him. Now, unfortunately, I’m less interested in rebreaking his nose and far more interested in finding out just how firm those perfectly shaped lips are…
Jensen! What are you doing?
Not focusing on the job at hand, that’s for sure. The Witch could be creeping up to the building as we speak, and here I am wondering if Grayson is the kind of guy who cups the back of your head when he kisses you.
Grayson shifts slightly, his knee brushing mine as he settles into a slightly less uncomfortable position. Is he thinking about what I’m thinking about? Is it crazy to think he might be? I mean, we’re practically laying on top of each other here, both of us silent except for our soft breathing. Would it be so insane for him to be thinking about how close we are, how easy it would be to move just a bit closer, our lips meeting in that small, cramped, hot space, our hands tugging at each other’s clothes, our bodies on fire with need.
He turns his head in my direction, and my heart just about stops. This is it. This is where he?—
“Did you bring any snacks?” he whispers.
Oh.
I push down the disappointment. I mean, not disappointment. Thereliefthat we’re on the same page. This is a stakeout. We’re professionals.
I just need to keep Sally’s stupid crush where it belongs—locked safely away in her fantasies. Certainly not here, under a table in a show barn filled with pigs and one very attractive medical examiner.
“We just ate dinner,” I hiss back.
“I know. But I’ll probably get a little snackish later.”
I’ve got a snack for you.
Obviously, Sally has slipped in where Cressida’s voice normally is.
“Stakeouts generally aren’t about snacks,” I say, a little louder than I should so as drown out that pesky internal voice.
I feel the rise of his shoulders as he shrugs. “The only thing I know about stakeouts is what I see on TV, and someone brings good snacks in every TV stakeout I’ve ever seen.”
“You’ve never been on a stakeout?”
