Beautiful Bounty(11)
The massive door opened into a large open space with plenty of activity. Many officers were walking around, detectives too, and she saw the room to the right where she was booked, fingerprinted, and photographed. She shook off that horrible memory and began to look around, wondering what to do next. The guard who escorted her here had vanished.
Then, she saw him. Nikko. He noticed her right away, but was playing it cool. He stood next to a police officer, nodded in her direction, but made no move towards her. Apparently, he expected her to come to him. At first she was disoriented for a moment, and made no move towards Nikko. He was apparently her ride home. Her gaze swept the room, but she remained where she was, rooted to the spot. She heard the front doors open, saw a glimpse of the outside, and the Florida heat entered with the sunshine as a cop came in escorting a man in handcuffs. He appeared to be a vagrant, perhaps one of the city’s many homeless. Nikko’s attention was focused on his companion, still apparently engrossed in his conversation with the officer.
She began to fume. He was her ride home, wasn’t he? He gave her another one of his smirks, and she smirked back. The ass, she thought. As soon as his eyes left hers, she made for the door. She wasn’t going to wait around for him to shoot the breeze all day. He had taken his sweet time in getting her out on bail, and now he still kept her waiting. Waiting was not something she was good at, and she definitely wouldn’t be waiting around for him. He had to know how anxious she was to get home, and yet he continued his conversation with the young officer. They were both laughing quite raucously and both glanced her way. The police officer gazed appreciatively at her, and Nikko laughed again. Her eyes narrowed. Nikko clasped the man on the shoulder and gave it one of those caveman type gestures. She’d had enough. He wasn’t even looking at her now, and in disgust she marched towards the exit.
Just as she reached the double doors, she heard him. “Whoa, Ronnie! Trying to escape already, are you?” His husky tone was right behind her, in her ear as she pulled on the heavy doors. His voice dropped to a whisper. “You are awfully good at running away.” She wasn’t a fool, and caught the double entendre. Referring to their last encounter, their almost night together, when she fled from him in the parking lot at Pier Sixty on Clearwater Beach just made her anger more intense.
“Running!” she whipped out, turning on her heel. “I want out of here now, and my idea of now is not having to wait around for you and your buddy to finish swapping stories about your latest conquests.” Two could play his game. Just because his brothers were now related to Monica, and they ran the bail bondsmen company that helped to arrange her release, didn’t mean she was indebted to him, and had to wait around for him. They had a past, and that past couldn’t be swept under the carpet because he had come to bail her out. He’d probably done it on purpose, offered to come, just to rub her nose in it.
His smirk softened. She thought she saw a glimpse of regret, maybe sympathy, in his narrowed blue eyes, before the disarming smile that was all charm was back in place. “Oh, Ronnie,” he shook his head. “You haven’t changed at all, still an ice princess one minute, then a scorching flame with a smart kissable mouth the next.” A smart mouth he remembered well. One that tempted him with full pink lips. He couldn’t resist putting her back in her place when she bit her bottom lip causing something inside of him to stir. “Well, except for the fact that you’re a hardened criminal.” He saw her nostrils flare, and her brown eyes flashed fire. But he couldn’t help it. It was who he was. He liked to tease, especially ice princesses like her.
“I’m innocent!” She hissed back at him, her foot stomping the cement of the threshold to the police station. His blue eyes sparkled, and she gave him her fiercest glare, shook her head, and began her grand exit out the doors, but before she could take even one step, his hand was on her elbow, and the explosion the contact created almost had her stumbling down the steps of the police station right onto Eighth Ave.
“Not so fast, Ronnie! My little runner.” He saw her expression and her fingers curling into a fist. He shook his head. “Come,” he indicated with his chin over his shoulder, “You little minx, my car is in back anyway,” he added when her gaze returned to him.
She turned on her heel, yanking her elbow out of his grasp, stormed around him, and made her way to the rear of the police station. She heard his laugh behind her, and inside she was fuming at the sheer frustration of the situation he seemed to find so humorous.