One Night With You: A Fatal Series Prequel Novella (The Fatal Series) (4 page)

“It’s nice that she cares.”

“I wish she cared just a tiny bit less than she does. What about you? Any siblings?”

“Nope, just me.”

“You’re so lucky.”

He replied with a small smile, but there was something else to it.
 

No, not going there. It’s not like I’m ever going to see him again
. She decided to keep the conversation focused on safer topics. “So what do you do?”

“I work for Congressman Delehanty of Kentucky.”

“Oh, that’s cool. I guess.”

He let loose with a deep, rich laugh that made some of her most important parts stand up and take notice of what was going on.
 

Welcome to the party, girls
.

“What you’re saying is it sounds frightfully boring, right?”

“I never said that. I never even
thought
that.”
No, I was too busy thinking about my nipples to be bored.
Sam wished she could find the off switch for the running commentary in her brain.

“Believe it or not, it’s actually kind of fun. Most days. We solve a lot of problems for people who don’t have anywhere else to turn. I like that part of it. But I’m sure it’s nowhere near as exciting as being a cop.”

“Is anything as exciting as being a cop?” she asked with a cheeky grin.

“You did mention something about three hours in the sun…”

She waved that off. “That doesn’t count. It was a detail.”

“What does that entail, exactly?”

“Extra duty directing traffic at a construction site. We do it for the money. In my case, to pay off beastly student loans that are going to hang over my head forever at this rate.”

“Ah yes, the burden of the twentysomethings.”

“You, too, huh?”

“Um, well, not really. I had a scholarship, but it didn’t pay for everything, so there’s some debt. Not a ton like some people have, though. I’m lucky that way.”

“Yes, you are.” She nudged him with her shoulder. “Egghead scholarship or jock scholarship?”

“Ohhh, what a
loaded
question!”

“So which is it?”

“The school I attended doesn’t do athletic scholarships.”

“Egghead! I knew it! You’ve got that whole buttoned-down smart thing going on over there. And what kind of college doesn’t do athletic scholarships?”

“Um, how to say this…”

Sam stopped short and turned to him. “The kind with ivy on the walls. Am I right?”

“Perhaps.”

She tipped her head to study him more closely. “Which one?”

“There’s more than one?”

Tossing her head back to laugh, she said, “Oh my God. Say it isn’t so.”

“It is so. Is this a deal-breaker?”

“We had a deal?”

Nick put his arm around her. “We definitely had a deal. What do you feel like doing?”

Sam was afraid if she told him, he’d think her a total slut. “Truthfully? Or should I go for socially correct?”

“By all means, give me the truth.”

She looked him dead in those incredible hazel eyes. “Your place or mine?”

His eyes widened for a fraction of an instant before he recovered. “Roommates?”

“Two. And a squatter brother. You?”

“None.”

“You win.”

A smile stretched across his gorgeous face. “I was a winner the second I saw that guy dump beer all over you.”

“There needs to be food at some point.”

“I can do that.”

“And protection. I don’t do anything unprotected.”

“No, I don’t imagine you do.”

“Is that a problem?”

“I don’t have a problem in the world, but I do need to make a stop on the way home.”

“That’s fine. So was it Harvard or Yale?”

Laughing, he said, “Harvard.” He kept his arm around her on the way to the car he’d parked several blocks away.
 

“I can live with that.”

The car was a silver Acura with black leather seats. It was so clean, you could eat off the carpet, a thought that nearly gave Sam the giggles in light of what they were about to do.
 

“I don’t do this.” The words escaped from her lips before she took a second to think them all the way through.

“Do what?”

“Pick up guys at parties and go home with them.”

“Oh. Well… Good. I don’t either.”

“You don’t pick up guys at parties?”

His laugh was as sexy as the rest of him. “You know what I mean, smart aleck.”

“So you’re not out at yuppie parties every weekend? Different week, different girl?”

Rolling his eyes, he said, “Hardly. I’ve been off the meat-market circuit since I graduated from college eight years ago.”

That made him about thirty, which was what she would’ve guessed. Two years older than she was. A full-grown adult, or so he seemed. Looks, she knew after years of dating, could be deceiving.
 

“You should have a little wife and two-point-five kids by now.”

“Says who?”

“The yuppie timetable. It’s well documented.”

“You’re funny, Sam Holland. Has anyone ever told you that?”

“Sure, I’m a good time had by all. What can I say?”

“I thought you just said you weren’t a good time had by all?”

And he was smart and quick, too. When mixed with insane hotness, it was all a little too good to be true. “So what’s wrong with you then? Thirty years old, still single, presumably no girlfriend if you’re taking me home with you…”

“You’re just full of charm, aren’t you?” he asked, laughing again. “For your information,
Detective
, there’s
nothing
wrong with me. And no girlfriend, or I wouldn’t be taking you home with me.”

“Guys like you who are still single always come with baggage.”

“Is that so? And where have you conducted your research on this matter?”

“It’s a project my girlfriends and I have been working on for years now. The evidence is irrefutable. Thirty and reasonably good-looking, decent job yet still unmarried and unattached… You’re either still living with your mother or you’ve got a weird and disgusting habit like collecting all the belly button lint from your whole life into a baggie or something.” Sam glanced over to find him staring at her, incredulous, as they waited for the light to turn green. “How close am I?”

“You’re off your rocker. One, I most definitely do
not
live with my mother, and two, belly button lint is gross.”

Sam crossed her arms. “It’s something else then.”

“Are you trying to talk me out of taking you home with me?” Despite the question, his pretty eyes were still full of amusement and what might’ve been desire.

“Not at all. I thought we were just making conversation.”

“Is that what we’re doing?”

“What would you call it?”

“An interrogation?”

“Nah, this isn’t even close to that. You ought to see me when I really get going with a perp.”

“I think I’d like to see that.”

“Maybe I’ll let you sometime.”

“Maybe I’ll take you up on that.”

How was it possible they were already talking about more than a one-night stand? Sam was suddenly desperate to get things back on the sex-only track. “So where are we going anyway?”

“Looking for a store that has what we need.”

“Oh.”
 

A few minutes later, he pulled into the parking lot of a convenience store. “Need anything?”

“Nothing other than the obvious.”

He flashed a grin at her. “Be right back.”

While she waited for him, a flutter of nerves attacked her sensitive stomach.
What am I doing? This isn’t me. I don’t do this shit. Not anymore
… It occurred to her that she could get out of the car and be gone before he returned. There was still time to call it off, but then again, she could call it off at any point with him. She already knew he wasn’t the kind of guy who wouldn’t take no for an answer.
 

But there was something about him that compelled her to stay, to refrain from bolting even when the inclination to run had her reaching for the door handle. Then he came out of the store, seeming frustrated—and empty-handed.

“They didn’t have them?” she asked when he was back in the car.

“They didn’t have the right ones. I know somewhere else that has them.”

There were right ones and wrong ones? Since when? “Um, okay.”

After he struck out at two more stores, Sam began to wonder if this was a ploy of some sort. “Look, if you’re really not into this—”

The sentence was forgotten when he reached across the center console and dragged her into his arms for the single most potent kiss she’d ever received in her life. There was no slow buildup, no teasing strokes or hints of passion to come. No, this was all fire and heat and crazy need wrapped up in a kiss she’d never forget.

“Any more questions about my level of interest?” he asked many minutes later when the beep of a nearby car horn thrust them out of the sensual haze they’d slipped into.

She was a cop, for Christ’s sake, making out like a horny teenager in a convenience store parking lot. Rubbing her fingers over her tingling lips, she shook her head. “No, no more questions.”

“Good. If the next place doesn’t have what I want, I’ll settle for something else.”

“Okay.” He’d kissed the sass right out of her. With every brain cell in her body now focused on the throb between her legs, Sam had nothing else to say.
 

At the next store, he apparently struck condom pay dirt, emerging with a bag in hand and a big smile on his face. He got in the car and tossed the bag to her. “That, my friend, is the Cadillac of condoms, the grand pooh-bah, the top banana.”

Snorting, Sam said, “Top banana? Is that a metaphor?”

“You know what I mean.”

To her, they looked like regular old condoms, except for the extra-large size noted on the box. Sam swallowed hard as the tingling between her legs intensified. “How far to your place?”

“Ten minutes. Fifteen if the traffic is bad. How do you feel about fast food?”

“In general or as a quick solution to our pressing need for fuel?”

“The latter.”

“I’m all for it.”

“Excellent.” They hit a McDonald’s drive-thru and chowed down on burgers and fries while he drove. “I haven’t had fast food in ten years.”

“Seriously?” she asked.

“Uh-huh. Desperate times…”

She loved, absolutely
loved
, that he was feeling desperate enough to get her home to his place that he broke a ten-year ban on fast food. Sam was surprised when they headed out of the city, crossing the 14
^th
Street Bridge. “Whoa, where are you taking me?”

“To an outpost known as Northern Virginia,” he said between mouthfuls of french fries.

“You don’t live in the District?”

“You say that like something is wrong with me for not living in the city.”

“We’ve already determined something has to be wrong with you. This could be the sign I was looking for.”

“You’re too much, Sam,” he said, laughing again. “Do you go on many second dates?”

That made her laugh, too. “A few. Here and there.”

“That’s shocking to me. Truly.”

God, I like this guy
. He was the full package,
and
he seemed to get her sense of humor. That made him a rare man, indeed. The fact that he made her panties melt every time he looked at her or flashed that irresistible grin only made him that much more appealing.
Keep looking for the flaw. Thirty and unattached. There’s got to be something…

As they headed into the guts of Arlington, Sam glanced over her shoulder. “I feel like I should’ve left bread crumbs or something. I’ll never find my way home.”

“I’ll take you home whenever you want to go.”