Stare Him Down (Stare Down Book 3) by Riley Murphy

Author:Riley Murphy [Murphy, Riley]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Renegade Publishing
Published: 2016-05-30T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fifteen

Once James got over his shock, he realized he was glad she’d brought up the topic like this. It might not have been the way he would have liked her to attack the situation, but they were still learning about each other, weren’t they? This made him feel better to a certain extent because the truth was, the woman was complicated. She had a lot of layers that he was prepared to peel from her one by one if he had to.

But there was only so much he was willing to let her get away with here. Manhandling didn’t make the cut.

“All right.” He took hold of her hand and spoke calmly. “Please let go of my shirt. You may stay on my lap, but keep your hands to yourself.” She studied him so he added, “Once you do what I’ve asked, we’ll talk.”

He didn’t appreciate her ass wiggling as she got comfortable, but then she sighed and settled in. “I’m ready.”

“Did you take the money?”

“What money?”

That answered that.

“Did you take the files?”

She didn’t answer and looked away.

That answered that.

He took hold of her chin and forced her to look at him. “Was Logan the one you were speaking to on the Bat phone earlier?”

She scrunched up her nose. “Why do you—?”

“Answer the question please.”

“No. No, he was not.”

Not a perfect score, but better than he’d hoped. Oddly enough. Considering what mattered most to him at the moment.

“Thank you. That makes me happy. Now I’m going to ask you one question before we begin.” He felt her stiffen and it prompted him to say, “You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to.”

Interesting. She relaxed.

“Shoot.”

“Why don’t you cry?”

“Who said that?” He caught hold of her so she didn’t fall off his lap. Without his help, the way she half-turned, half-jumped to face him, she might have. “I cry. I cried when my mom died.”

He studied her for a long moment. She didn’t seem uncomfortable. If anything, she appeared ready to defend her position. “But not when your dad died.”

And there it was. A flicker… of what? Remorse or something else?

She looked away. “I did. You just didn’t see me. Wait.” She turned back. Was her chin up a notch? “You mean at the funeral. I don’t cry in front of people. It’s messy.”

He continued to study her. “I’m not people.”

She studied him now. “You want me to cry in front of you?”

“Yes.”

“When?”

He could not believe they were having this conversation. “I’m not going to put it on my Dom calendar or anything. You cry when you need to cry.”

“Wow.” She splayed a hand on his chest and began exploring. She was copping an uninvited feel for herself. “Do you like to make women cry?”

Hm. Now that he was forced to think about? “Yes.”

She stopped feeling her way around his pec and tilted her head. “Why? It can’t be to make yourself feel manlier, because you’re the manliest guy I know.”

That was a nice compliment, made even better as she didn’t seem to know she’d handed it to him.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.