Page 58 of Protecting Love

“You know my age, why can’t I know yours?”

“Is it important?”

“Nope. Not in the least. But I’m curious.”

“You know that saying about curiosity,” he shot back, then took a large bite of his burger.

He might have been damn close to moaning over the first bite the same as she did her sandwich.

Almost.

That dinner he’d had tonight was nothing more than a sampling of food too fancy for him.

“I could use a cat right about now, don’t you think?” she said.

“Poor joke,” he said.

She let out a dramatic sigh and picked up a fry with her fingers before she dunked it into the mound of ketchup on her plate. “Guess that means you aren’t going to share your age.”

“Forty-five.” She hummed in her throat, continuing to eat. “Too old for you.”

“Not really. If you were old enough to be my father, that would be different. Instead, you’re like aged bourbon.”

“Huh?”

“London and I were talking about it. I knew you were older. They say women are like fine wine. Not men. Bourbon.” She dropped her head, closer to his this time, her voice lowering. “Hot and heavy on the tongue with that first sip. But making you want to go back for more.”

His dick shouldn’t be stirring in his pants, but it was. He thought he had more control than that.

“You didn’t slip another glass of wine without me looking, did you?”

“Please,” she said. “I can handle two glasses of wine. I’m far from drunk. Just being honest. And in light of that. Tell me more about yourself.”

“Why?”

“Well, if you’re going to be my shadow outside of my office and we want people to think we are a couple, then I should know those things, don’t you think?”

“I’m not going to be your shadow.”

“It feels it to me. So... Ian, you said. Does he live around here?”

“With me,” he said. “He didn’t want to move with his mother when she remarried last year and since I’ve caused him to move around enough with my job, there was no way I was saying no.”

“That’s sweet.”

“Yeah, that’s me. Sweet as apple pie.”

She laughed and put her head on his shoulder. He turned and looked down at her.

For a brief second it actually felt as if they were on a date.

A real date.

One where that action would cause him to drop his lips to hers.

The way her eyes were sparkling with humor, it was as if she knew she was baiting him for some kind of reaction.

“You’re funny when you want to be. Maybe it’s just this yummy food that is loosening up our tongues. Tell me more. I know you retired from the FBI. So you had to have had twenty years in there? Been with West for a year, so close to out of college.”