“Kept that shit buried deep,” he murmured.
My eyes lifted to his and I screeched, “Let me go and get out! ”
His arm around my back tightened and his hand shifted so his fingers were still in my hair but his thumb swept over my cheekbone.
“I was the first you let in there, wasn’t I, baby?”
Oh God.
“Let me go and get out,” I whimpered.
“Tess,” he whispered.
I fell silent.
“You need to let that shit out,” he advised and my gaze slid to his earlobe. “Eyes,” he ordered and my gaze slid back.
I still didn’t speak.
He held my eyes.
Then he said softly, “I held back takin’ us there, Tess, I didn’t want us to go there until the shit with Heller was done and you were cleared and we were good to move on. But your goddamned glasses and that cute fuckin’ look you’d get on your face every time I kissed you that made you look like you just experienced a fuckin’ miracle, shit.” His hand tensed on my head. “Shit, baby, you got to me and I couldn’t hold back.” His thumb swept my cheekbone, his eyes went from warm to hot and his voice went deep when he told me something but he said it like he was talking to himself, “That look gets way fuckin’ better after you come.”
“Please let me go and get out,” I whispered.
He shook his head. “It’s the job and it’s a shit part of the job and I’ll tell you, Tess, I knew he violated you, no way I’d have played you. No way, Tess.” His voice got lower and his face got closer when he said, “You gotta believe that, babe. I wouldn’t have played you if I’d known.”
“But you did,” I said quietly.
His hand tensed on my head. “I didn’t know.”
“You still did it.” I leaned into the counter, pulling back my head. “I didn’t play you. I never played a single game with you. But you played me from start to finish.”
His hand tensed on my head again as his eyes started glittering. “That’s not true, Tess, and you fuckin’ know it.”
“You’re right, Brock. Earlier with what you said, you’re right. You’re the first person I let in there and when I did, I didn’t even know your fucking name.”
“That fuckin’ guy had to go down,” he growled.
“Yes, he did but it doesn’t warm my heart to think the first man I trusted with my time and attention after a very, very bad marriage was with me only to investigate my possible criminal relationship with my definite criminal ex-husband.”
“It started like that, yeah, it did and that lasted about a goddamned hour. You cannot stand there lookin’ in my eyes and tell me you don’t know the fuckin’ second it stopped bein’ that because, you do, you’re a goddamned liar.”
He was not wrong. I knew. I knew the exact second. I’d lain in bed at night thinking about that too.
Therefore, I didn’t respond.
He kept speaking. “I had a job to do and we wanted a clean sweep. I knew you weren’t gonna be swept up in that but I also knew they had to make certain so I had to make them certain before they hauled your ass in and you finished them off.”
“So you’re saying you did what you did to protect me?”
“No, I’m sayin’ I did my job, you weren’t dirty, no need to protect you. And I’m sayin’ for four fuckin’ months I liked my job a whole fuck of a lot.”
That took my breath away. So much so, I couldn’t speak.
Brock didn’t have the same problem. “You didn’t have my name, Tess, but all that time you had me and you know it.”
I looked back at his throat.
“Baby, eyes, ” he growled and my eyes lifted to his.
“Why are you here?” I asked quietly and he sighed.
Then he asked back impatiently, “Honest to God?”
“What do you want from this talk?” I pushed.
He shook his head but as he stared at me I saw his eyes light and felt the sharp flickering voltage of his mood shift out of the room as the sweet hum that came with his humor started pulsing through it.
“How many conversations do you think I have with women I corner against a counter, hold in my fuckin’ arms and do it with icing all over my favorite fuckin’ tee?” he asked.
Oh God.
I had to move this away from Brock being sexy and amused back to Brock being out of my life somehow so I did the best I could do.
“I don’t know. Turns out, I don’t know you very well.”
He held my eyes and replied, “Well, lettin’ you in a little more, the answer to that question is none. A bitch throws attitude at me, shouts in my face and gets icing on my Charlie Daniels tee, that bitch isn’t you, I walk out the door.”