The Watson Brothers. Lori Foster
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Ariel looked down her nose at him. “And if I don’t tell you?”
A challenge. Sam almost rubbed his hands together. “If you don’t,” he said with a lot of glee, “I’ll run your skinny little ass in.”
Her mouth fell open and she sputtered. “For what, exactly?”
“Indecent exposure?” He dropped his gaze to her partially displayed breast so she wouldn’t misunderstand.
She snatched the material higher. “Pig.”
“Yeah, yeah. Real original insult for a cop. I’ve never heard that one before.”
She turned away, came back, glared at him. “For your information, nosey, I was making sure.”
His brows rose. “Making sure about what?”
As if awaiting the rest of her statement, Fuller looked at her. “Go on, Miss.”
She huffed. “I was making sure there wasn’t someone else who appealed to me.”
Confused, Sam asked, “Someone other than Pete?”
Exasperation shown on her face. “Pete and I were never more than friends.”
Sam’s jaw locked. “That wasn’t how Pete felt.”
“And I’m responsible for that? I told him from the first day we met that I only wanted to be friends, and he agreed. When he finally admitted to me how he really felt, that he expected more, that’s when I quit seeing him at all.”
“And broke his damn fool heart in the process.”
She swallowed. “I never meant to hurt him. He knows that. Besides, he’s dating someone else now.”
That was news to Sam. “He is?”
Nodding, Ariel explained, “That’s why I was here. I waited until Pete found a girlfriend before…”
“Before?”
Her eyes narrowed. “Before making sure.”
Sam threw up his hands. The woman just refused to make sense.
Fuller tilted his head. “I’m fascinated, really.”
Sam turned to Fuller with a growl. “Officer, haven’t you got enough there?”
“You never let me have any fun.”
“Your idea of fun must be a toothache.”
Ariel looked ready to spit. “If I’m such a pain—”
“You are that.”
“Then I’ll be on my way.” Shoulders squared, her chin lifted in regal disdain, she started around Fuller.
Sam crossed his arms. “Just where the hell do you think you’re going now?”
“Back into the bar.”
“Like that?” He nodded at her torn dress.
“Oh.” She stared down in dismay at the long rip. “Well, I suppose that might not be a good idea.”
“But jumping into the middle of a brawl is?”
Her neck stiffened. “Brawl?” One slim brow arched high. “All I saw was you getting your butt kicked.”
Insulted, Sam snorted, but not with much conviction this time. Surely, she didn’t believe such an asinine thing. He’d been undercover, damn it, unable to fight back without messing up his cover.
But she looked serious, so he said, “You believed that act? Hey, I must be pretty good.”
“Why wouldn’t I believe it? I thought you were drunk.”
She was serious. It was Sam’s turn to shoot to his feet. Leaning forward in an aggressive stance, he poked a thumb into his chest. “Even drunk, I could take that guy. With one arm broken, I could flatten him. He was nothing.”
She looked at her nails. “Uh-huh.”
At the boiling point, Sam started to reach for her, and Isaac hurried over to them. “Are we putting on a damn show? There’s enough melodrama over here to blow the whole damn thing.”
Ariel again turned away. “I’ll get on my way then.”
Through his teeth, Sam said, “Grab her,” and Isaac automatically obeyed, catching her arm and swinging her back around.
She almost toppled off her high sandals and retaliated by clouting Isaac with that lethal purse.
“There’s another offense,” Sam drawled while Isaac ducked. “Assaulting an officer.”
Very slowly, she lifted her head to fry him with a seething glare, and if looks could kill, he’d have been writhing on the ground at her feet.
Sam grinned. From the first day he’d met her he knew she had a temper beneath all that good-girl, innocent blond pretense. “Before you hurt yourself or someone else, you can give me a ride home.”
Like a doe caught in the headlights, she went utterly still. “Why me?”
Sam sent a telling look at Isaac’s hand still wrapped around her arm. “You can let her go now.”
“Oops. Sorry.” He grinned, unrepentant. “I think I’ll take our thug on in.”
“Yeah,” Fuller said, “as long as you have a ride, I’ll take off, too. I’ve got everything I need.” He winked at Sam.
“Hey,” Sam said, “I don’t suppose you guys would—”
Fuller raised a hand. “Consider it done. But you owe us, buddy boy.”
“Yeah, I assumed as much.” He watched the two men saunter away, Fuller speaking into his radio, Isaac assuring the remaining people that the fanfare was over.
The second they were in their cars, Sam again leaned on the brick wall. He realized his shoulder hurt, turned, and found out his shoulder blades were tender too. And his head…He didn’t even want to know about his damn head. Ariel’s attack had put him down hard. His brains were probably scrambled.
Truth was, he felt like he’d been run over by a Mack truck and standing on his own steam wasn’t all that comfortable.
Ariel looked him over, forcing him to suck it up. “What are they going to do for you that you’ll owe them?”
“Paperwork.” Then, just to taunt her because he felt physically miserable and she looked as bubbly as ever, he added, “That, and they figure I might get laid if they leave me alone with you. If I did, I’ll really owe them.”
Rather than look offended, she blinked twice. “Laid by who?”
“You, sweets. They’re assuming all your furious bluster has to do with sexual sparks, rather than honest dislike.”
After a long, thoughtful moment empty of protests, Ariel nodded. “My car is this way. Should I pretend to help you or is the coast clear?”
After having her fanny on his face, he didn’t want her hands anywhere near him. He had enough fodder for three wet dreams as it was. “I’ll stumble my way there under my own steam, thank you very much.”
Weaving this way and that, Sam trailed behind her, suspicious over her docile agreement to drive him home, and her lack of anger over his friend’s crude assumptions. He was also aware of the sway in her hips and that delectable bottom he’d already manhandled.
Hell, half the things he wanted to do to that bottom were probably illegal in some states.
He forced himself to look away. He had to stop drooling over her, for crying out loud. The woman was a complete and total pain the ass, only a year or two older than a teenybopper, and his baby brother’s ex-girlfriend. He had to remember all that.
Sam