by Avery Flynn
“Enter,” came the captain’s gruff response.
Ford walked in and closed the door behind him. The captain didn’t look up from the report he was reading. It wasn’t an unusual move. The man liked to make people cool their heels, wondering what kind of hell was about to get rained down on them. It had never worked on Ford, but he’d grown up with Kate Hartigan bringing down the heat, so it would take a whole lot to make him sweat in his shoes.
Hands clasped behind his back, he stared straight ahead. “You wanted to see me, sir?”
“You’ve been seen with Gina Luca,” he said, eyes still on the report. “Do I need to remind you that your operation was terminated and that it is a serious violation to go rogue?”
He gritted his teeth. Cops were some gossipy assholes sometimes. “No sir.”
The captain still wasn’t looking at him. Instead he took out a red pen from his top drawer, uncapped it, and started to circle and cross out various words on the report. “Are you sure? I can’t have a detective going wild on me—especially when the whole thing looks as suspicious as this does.”
“I’m not tracking, sir.”
“You aren’t known for picking the runt of the litter to date, Hartigan.” The captain capped his red pen, set it down next to the now-bloody report, and gave Ford a hard look. “Gina Luca is so far off your usual radar that you’d need the Hubble Telescope to find her.”
For a second, all Ford could hear was white noise. Was this what it was like for Gina? Being judged every day, before she’d even opened her mouth, about what kind of person she was based on how she looked? An angry burn ignited in his stomach at the absolute unfairness of it all and at himself for never really grasping it before. She’d tried to tell him, and he’d just played it off, telling her she wasn’t ugly, as if that declaration was enough. She wasn’t. Not to him. But others? How she looked was all they saw.
“There are no regulations against a detective having a personal life,” Ford bit out.
“Yet there are against fraternization with undesirables.”
“Gina is a small business owner and respected member of the community.”
“And…” The captain paused dramatically. “A Luca.”
If he hadn’t made the same argument to himself not a week ago, he would have been more pissed. As it was, he had to go with the facts. “There is nothing in regulation three hundred forty point six that forbids a personal relationship with a citizen in good standing, no matter their last name.”
“True, but if she crosses even one tiny line, that’s going to reflect poorly on you, which will reflect poorly on the task force, which will reflect poorly on me, and then you and I are going to have a real problem. Do I make myself clear, detective?”
“Crystal,” Ford said, feeling as if he was eating a few shards of it. This whole meeting was bullshit. He was a good detective. He’d never let personal feelings interfere with a case. Ever.
“Good, because the only thing keeping me from busting you back down to the street is the fact that you’re a good detective who always follows the rules. Don’t make me regret my generosity.” The captain turned his attention back to the report and uncapped his red pen. “Now get out of here until Monday. I suggest you spend the time between now and then figuring out how to show Rodriguez that you’re not a hotheaded Hartigan like your brothers.”
“Rodriguez?”
The captain let out a put-upon sigh. “Evelyn Rodriguez is coming in from the one-four to take over the task force in preparation for the Espositos’ heroin shipment this Friday.”
Now that was the first bit of good news he’d heard since he walked into the squad room. Rodriguez had a reputation as someone who got results the right way.
“Gallo and Ruggiero?” he asked.
“Moving to white collar.” The captain started circling and crossing out again. “Now get out of here.”
Ford did, driving not to his house but back to Gina’s. He parked in the driveway of her Victorian and looked up at the behemoth. Most of the inside work that needed to be done was near completion, and now Juan’s crew was erecting the scaffolding that would be used to repair and paint the outside. The fact that he even knew that should weird him out. This wasn’t his house. He didn’t live here.
No, Hartigan, you just spend almost every night here and act as a handyman for free.
The voice in the back of his head wasn’t wrong. He hadn’t been back to his house for a week now. He had clothes hanging in the closet and a shaving kit under the sink. He wasn’t sure how that happened. There hadn’t been a plan. There hadn’t been a talk. There hadn’t been a list of house rules written and agreed to. He’d just accidentally moved in. What in the hell was he doing?
“Hey,” Gina called out from an open window in the front room. “You coming in or what?”
Yeah, he realized. He was. And he was staying.
…
Gina shouldn’t have let Lucy do her hair. It looked great—the woman had magic defrizzing fingers—but it was pulled back and twisted into a deceptively casual knot that left her face totally exposed.
Sure, it wasn’t that Ford didn’t know what she looked like, but having her hair back was like giving up a security blanket that she could sort of hide her big honking nose behind.
“We could stay in,” Ford said from his spot by their open bedroom door.
Her hands flew up to her hair. “It looks that bad?”
“No, you look that hot. I don’t think anyone but me should see you in that dress.”
A smile—one of those goofy ones that made her look like a fool falling in love—spread across Gina’s face. She couldn’t help it. Ford may tell everyone that he wasn’t the charming Hartigan, but he was full of shit. The man managed to charm his way into her heart—and panties—every single day. She needed to be careful, she knew that, but she didn’t want to. For once in her life, she was going to take her friends’ advice and believe that she’d get to live the fairy tale she’d never expected—at least for a little while longer.
Her stomach growled. And dinner. She’d also get dinner.
“You promised to feed me, so no staying home tonight,” she said as she crossed over to him and hooked her arm through his.
“And cannoli for dessert.”
“The actual pastry this time.” Last time, there’d been, well, a different kind of cannoli. Oh God, she’d never look at her favorite dessert the same way again.
“I have an order already waiting for us at Vacilli’s. We can pick it up on our way home from the restaurant.”
Home. She couldn’t get over the thrill hearing him call the Victorian that gave her, even though part of her knew it would just make everything hurt more later when he left for good. She’d deal with that when it happened. Not tonight.
…
Crossing the bridge over into Harbor City at night after dinner out meant being surrounded by sparkling lights, people everywhere, and the big-city excitement that always sped up her heart rate. Gina had no interest in ever living on this side of the harbor—even the idea of what rents were gave her a heart attack—but visiting sure was fun.
“So where are we going?” she asked Ford after they’d parked his car in the garage and turned right on 85th Street.
“It’s a surprise,” he said, taking her hand and intertwining his fingers with hers.
“I hate surprises.” She knew she could trust him, but still the anxiousness of not knowing what was going to happen next had her feeling twitchy. “I’ve had too many bad ones.”
“Well, not tonight.” He stopped. “We’re here.”
She looked up at the building and gasped. The original Vacilli’s. The bakery in Waterbury was one of the franchises, but this was the real one. The windows were dark and the closed sign hung in the door, but she could still see the displays of pastries that made her mouth water. Everyone had a weakness, and hers was most definitely this. Even if she couldn’t go inside, this was pretty amazing.
“Like you wouldn’t believe,” she said, pushing back the familiar angry embarrassment of someone’s first reaction to seeing her because she refused to let that ruin whatever Ford had planned.
“Good,” the man said. “I’d hate to share the recipe with someone who didn’t love them.”
Recipe? Share? The only message her brain sent back was that the man’s words did not compute. “What?”
The man laughed, and a real warmth filled his gaze as he looked at her. “Yes, you’re here for a very special couple’s baking lesson. Didn’t the detective tell you?”
She turned to Ford the sneak and waggled her finger at him. “No, he’s very good at keeping a secret.”
“Well then, surprise,” the man said. “I’m Conrad Vacilli. Come inside so we can get you set up with espressos, and I can show you how to make the most famous cannoli in Harbor City.”
Gina couldn’t believe it. All the times she’d talked about how much she’d loved the Vacilli’s cannoli, he’d been listening, really listening—so much so that he’d made this happen. Warmth spread through her chest, expanding outward until she couldn’t believe she didn’t have light shooting out of her fingertips.
She leaned forward and brushed her lips across his. “Thank you.”
Ford winked at her and gave her that smile that made her stomach do the flippity-flop thing, and they walked inside the bakery together to learn the secret to making the best cannoli in the tri-state area.
Chapter Fourteen
Gina had flour on the tip of her nose, and Ford wasn’t about to tell her. She’d had a perma-smile on her face for the entire drive back to Waterbury and had chattered excitedly the entire ride to her house about this detail and that detail for making cannoli.
As the street lights lit up the inside of the car as he drove down her street, he couldn’t help but sneak peeks at her smile, her eyes, the joy that lit her up from the inside out. He had no idea how so many people missed it when they saw her, but Gina Luca was beautiful.
Once at her house, he followed her inside, carrying the results of their baking lesson in a white Vacilli’s box, while she continued to rave about techniques and ingredients. He walked behind her so he could watch her ass sway from side to side in that yellow dress she’d put on that clung to her curves. He’d spilled a bag of flour at Vacilli’s watching her move around the kitchen in that dress. It had not been his smoothest moment, but those seemed to be few and far between when he was with Gina—and that was saying something.
The woman just did things to him. She shook things up. And he liked it. A lot. Probably too much.
He should probably be worried about that. He wasn’t. He was too busy wondering how, when they’d first met, he’d missed how her eyes twinkled when she smiled, how the curve of her high cheekbones perfectly highlighted her dark eyes, and how the nose she hated so much gave her a unique look that was so much her own that she redefined what beautiful could be.
“And the mixer,” she said as she closed the front door after he’d walked through and flipped the deadbolt. “I cannot believe how big it was.” She paused for a breath as she leaned back against the door, and her eyes went wide when she looked at him. “What’s wrong?”
Not a damn thing. Everything. That he wasn’t touching her. The fact that she still had clothes on.
“Ford?”
His name on her lips snapped something in him. The Vacilli’s box hit the hardwood floor with a thump. His determined footsteps echoed in the foyer as he crossed over to her. She let out a soft mewl when he pressed his body against hers. He cupped her face in his hands and took her mouth like a man who had just discovered the meaning of life, because that’s what he’d just realized. Gina. She was his meaning.
He couldn’t get enough of her because there was no such thing. The curve of her breast. The dip of her waist. The roundness of her ass. God, she was so sweet everywhere.
He broke the kiss, gliding his lips down the long column of her neck as his hands were busy with the hem of her dress, pulling it higher and higher, desperate to feel her soft skin.
Her hands were in his hair, holding him close as he kissed along the line of her exposed collarbone. He raised his hand and brushed the back of his knuckles down the long column of her neck to the collar of the thin material of her dress. Her answering moan tipped him over the edge.
He grabbed her hips and turned her around so she faced the door and made quick work of the zipper on the back of her dress. There was no slow teasing between them, not tonight.
“Take it off.” He barely recognized his own voice in the gruff command.
She turned around and reached for the light switch.
“Leave it on.”
She hesitated but left it alone. Then, she let the yellow dress slide off her body to pool at her feet, her eyes on him, a sexy come-hither upward curl on her full lips. “Like what you see?”
“‘Like’ isn’t the word I’d use.” He curled a hand around her wrists and pulled her arms up above her head, pinning them to the door with one hand. “‘Obsessed with’ seems about right.”
Eyes watching her face for her reaction, he brushed the back of his knuckles over her hard nipples, pressing against the pale pink of her sheer bra. “‘Can’t get enough’ comes to mind.”
Desire swirled in the dark depths of her hooded gaze, and he pinched her nipple through the material, and she let out a needy moan. “‘Want it all’ is definitely correct.”
He put his leg between hers, moving it so that his thigh rubbed against her panty-covered mound. “The question is, what do you like?”
He unsnapped the front clasp of her bra and sucked her nipple into his mouth, raking his teeth over the hard nub. “Do you like that?”
“Yes,” she said, her voice breaking.
Rolling her other nipple between his finger and thumb, he moved his leg away from touching her. She let out a frustrated groan that he felt down to his balls. He cupped her breast, rolling his thumb in circles around her nipple again and again before taking his hand lower, stopping only when he got to the top of her panties. She pushed her hips forward, silently begging for his touch. Poor Gina. She was as lost as he was. He kissed the spot where her shoulder met her throat, that pulse point that was always so sensitive to his tongue, his lips, his nipping teeth.
“Are you wet for me?” he asked against her flushed skin.
She let out a tortured moan. “Yes.”
He slipped his fingers beneath the elastic of her panties, brushing against the tight curls at her apex but not going any farther. “Do you want to fuck me?”
“Yes.” She bucked against his hand, undulating her hips in an obvious effort to get him to touch her where she needed him.
But he wasn’t going to do that. Not yet. He needed her to understand what this was about. They weren’t just fucking. Not anymore. This was more. “Do you want me to fill you up and make you mine?”
Lip caught between her teeth, she nodded. “Yes.”
“I want you to be mine.” It was a declaration, a promise, a prayer. He picked her up and headed for the stairs. “No one else’s.”
…
It was just talk, the kind of out-of-your-mind, turned-on-beyond-belief talk that didn’t stay true in the light of day, but Gina wasn’t going to think about that now. Not with Ford touching her like that and looking at her like he really meant it—like he’d fallen for her the way she had for him. And that’s what it was, and that’s what made this so good and so bad at the same time. She loved him. There wasn’t any two ways about it. Ford Hartigan didn’t have to make her his, she already was.
“Be careful of the wonky step,” she said as he carried
her up the stairs.
His grip tightened on her. “You don’t have to worry when you’re with me.”
He brought her into the bedroom and set her down near the foot of her bed. Then, he started to unbutton his shirt, and her jelly legs decided it would be better to watch the show from the bed. Her legs were smart.
Totally unconscious of the fact that she was in her underwear while he was doing a strip tease—even if he probably wasn’t thinking of it that way—Gina took in the moment, packing it away in her memory bank for a night probably not that long from now when Ford would be gone.
His shirt went first, followed by him reaching behind his head and yanking off his undershirt. That gave her an unobstructed view of his muscular chest and arm-porn-worthy biceps. She meant to stay on the bed, really she did, but her legs—smart legs, remember—had other ideas. While he flipped off his shoes, she was next to him, tracing her hands across the expanse of his shoulders, circling his flat nipples with her tongue, and lowering herself to her knees to better follow the happy trail leading from his belly button to the button of his jeans.
When he reached to unfasten it, she swept his hand aside and did it herself, watching the exquisite anticipation that made his nostrils flair and darkened his green eyes. She pushed his jeans down, then his boxers, and wrapped her hands around the base of his hard cock, stroking up and down.
“Gina,” he said, the rough edge of his voice sending a thrill through her.
She cupped his balls and took a slow lick of the swollen head. “Yes?”
“You’re not being nice.”
Up and down she stroked. “Really? I thought I was being very nice.”
The vein in his jaw ticked, visible proof of the tenuous hold he had on his control. “This is about you tonight.”
“And this isn’t?” she asked, twisting her grip as she moved her hand up and down his length.
He closed his eyes and said on a harsh exhale, “No.”
Silly men. “You don’t think I get turned on watching you fight off an orgasm?” She leaned forward and swirled her tongue around the head of his cock, relishing the salty pre-come at the tip. “Because I do.” She took him in deep before letting him go. “I do a lot.”