Read Wakefield College 01 - Where It May Lead for Free Online

the
dichotomy. Tough cop who goes home and glazes a teapot.”
    He scowled. “This is why I don’t tell people.”
    “I think it’s wonderful,” she said honestly. “It makes me like
you even better than I already did.”
    After a minute, one corner of his mouth lifted. “Then I’m good
with having told you.”
    “Did I mention that I don’t have a single artistic bone in my
body?”
    His chuckle was a bass rumble. “No, you didn’t. What do you do
for fun? Or to reduce stress?”
    “A lot of days I swim half a mile before I go home. I listen to
music—I love jazz. I can’t carry a tune, though.” She loved his smile. “I cook,
although only when I’m in the mood.”
    “I hope you get in the mood one of these nights soon.”
    “Once this weekend is over,” she promised. “I should warn you I
don’t eat much meat.”
    Troy glanced at his plate. The burger was gone, but he was
still working on the fries. “I’m not exclusively a meat and potatoes guy. It
just sounded good tonight.”
    “I wasn’t trying to make you feel guilty.”
    “Wouldn’t have worked if you were. But I’m happy with a
vegetarian meal, too.”
    “Good,” she said, pleased.
    Eventually the waiter took away their plates. Troy ordered
blueberry cobbler à la mode and asked for a second fork. They split it and kept
talking. It seemed as if there was never a lull in conversation. Madison found
she wanted to know everything about him, and the feeling seemed to be mutual.
She was getting way more tingles than were justified, given that he hadn’t
touched her since laying a hand on her back to steer her to the table. It had to
be anticipation. Every so often she lost track of what he was saying because she
was watching his mouth instead. Or his hands. He had great hands—big, strong,
with long, blunt-tipped fingers. They weren’t hairy like some men’s. She tried
to imagine them shaping clay into a delicate piece like the spout of a teapot,
and then envisioned one wrapping the butt of his gun.
    Or touching her. She kept imagining that, too.
    Every so often his eyes would narrow or she’d see a flicker of
heat in them. Either he could tell what she was thinking, or he was doing some
imagining of his own. She had the giddy thought that the night felt like
magic.
    She couldn’t possibly fall in love this fast, but it felt an
awful lot like a beginning. Or at least it didn’t feel like anything that had
ever happened to her before.
    She flushed with the realization that she had no idea what
they’d been talking about and that Troy was watching her with amusement and
something more electric.
    “Where’d you just go?” he asked.
    “Oh, I...” She could say her mind had wandered and leave it at
that. But she felt unaccustomedly reckless. “I was thinking about you,” she
heard herself say. “How glad I am you were assigned to work with me. We might
never have met otherwise.”
    “Unless I pulled you over for speeding.” His voice was a little
gritty. He reached across the table and took her hand. “I’m glad, too.” He
looked around. “I think they’d be glad if we left.”
    Madison was shocked to see that the tables around them were
empty. She hadn’t even noticed other people leaving. At the moment, they were
completely alone, although she could still hear voices downstairs. “Oh, no!
We’re lucky they didn’t whisk the tablecloth off while we were still sitting
here.”
    Troy laughed, stood up and tugged her to her feet. He kept
pulling until she bumped into him. “I’ve been wanting to kiss you all evening,
Madison Laclaire.”
    “I have no objection,” she managed to say.
    “Good,” he murmured, and bent his head.
    She rose on tiptoe to meet him, gripping his shoulders for
balance. Their mouths connected, and it wasn’t the tentative brush of lips she’d
expected. The kind that asked, do you like this? and
that she’d answer with a nibble that said, oh, yes. This was a full-out, hungry demand.