pretty big. There are multiple SACs in an office that size, so it’d still be a move out—er, up.”
And out. “You’re from L.A., aren’t you? Your family’s there?”
“Just my dad, and he’s getting on. I’m the only kid around to help, since my brother lives in Europe and is a complete waste of a human.”
She snorted softly. “Nice.”
“Maybe not, but it’s true.”
He guided her toward the snack shack. “Tell me about the L.A. job.”
“No, thanks. I try to avoid your ridicule whenever possible.”
“I won’t ridicule you.” He walked up to the window. “Want a Coke?”
“Cherry slurpy.”
He rolled his eyes. “And you make fun of me.”
“See? Ridicule because I want a slurpy.”
“Vivi, you’re thirty-one years old.”
“Right. So make it a vodka slurpy and meet me at that table.” She walked to an empty round table with matching cement benches and sat down. There, she positioned herself to watch Lang buy their drinks.
And think about him moving to Los Angeles.
Lang leaving was a good thing, she told herself, but she couldn’t deny the pressure on her heart. She would be able to work with another ASAC, someone who didn’t wreck her balance and make her freaking heart stutter every time his ID showed up on her phone. Like the man said, she was thirty-one years old and way past the time of teenage crushes.
But look at him. Even his doofus Izod shirt looked… hot. And as much as she loathed a pair of khaki Dockers, his covered a world-class backside and had just enough of a bulge in the front to send her imagination into overdrive and make her little vibrator seem inadequate.
Sunlight pouring over him, he was all goodness and strength. The gold flecks in his eyes and hair looked like God had dipped him in bronze when he was born. The sun highlighted the sharp angle of his cheekbone and jaw and the fullness of a mouth that rarely smiled, but when it did, stupid things happened in her lower half.
She blew out a shaky breath. So, yeah. L.A. Good move for everyone.
He strolled over with the drinks, his eyes locking on her as if he knew what she was thinking. Thank God that was impossible, because Lord knows if he had even an inkling of the direction her thoughts took when she looked at him he’d laugh himself silly. She was a colleague, a consultant, a friend at best. Nothing more to him. Nothing would be more humiliating than him knowing just how many times she’d fantasized about tearing off that golf shirt. With her teeth.
“Interesting hairstyle,” he said, placing the drinks on the table. “Even for you.”
Yeah. They were most definitely not on the same wavelength.
“Is this your way of sweet-talking information about my new client out of me? So effective.” She took the slurpy and tore the paper off the top of the straw, turning it around to blow the wrapper in his face.
He snapped it midair with one lightning-fast hand. “You know you want to tell me.” He leaned over the table. “Just give in to it, Vivi.”
Her nether regions took another thrill ride.
“Give me one good reason why I should tell you anything.”
“Because,” he said, lowering his voice to that I-call-the-shots tone she found maddening and sexy and, every once in a while, a little scary, “I want to know.”
And just like that, she capitulated. No man had ever had that effect on her. Ever.
When Vivi Angelino closed her mouth over a wide straw and sucked hard enough to hollow her delicate cheeks, Colton Lang almost got a boner.
Almost.
The state of damn-near-hard was status quo around this woman, so in the few months he’d been sending consulting jobs to her firm, Colt had learned a couple of tricks to ensure that “almost” didn’t become “obvious.”
Like focusing on her outlandish black hair, made even more so today by the helmet and what appeared to be yesterday’s hair gel. Or he’d let his gaze settle on the diamond dot in the side of her nose, concentrating on how much that puncture had to hurt instead of how it would feel to run his tongue over the stone.
Or he’d simply remind himself that this skateboard-riding, sneaker-wearing, guitar-playing tomboy happened to have some of the best investigative instincts around, and if he wanted to keep the Guardian Angelinos in his back pocket for certain jobs, acting on a mindless surge of blood to his dick would be not only unprofessional, but also foolish.