“He jumped the gun and Emme’s Mick’s, Deck. You don’t know Mick well but he considers every citizen of Gnaw Bone his personal responsibility. You weren’t here when Douglas got back from talkin’ to Emme, but Mick was not real pleased because Douglas didn’t even tell Mick he was makin’ that ride. Mick also understood you had a connection and he’s the kind of man who would have told you he was rollin’ out in a cruiser so you’d have a heads-up. So, what I’m sayin’ is, this isn’t lost on us.”

They held each other’s gazes for a moment before Deck murmured, “I gotta find my girl.”

“You want my help?” Chace offered.

“You feel like cruisin’ a few streets before goin’ home to Faye, yeah.”

Deck knew the answer before Chace gave it to him.

“I can do that.”

Deck nodded. They moved out and Deck avoided Douglas as he did so.

No one stopped him. His file was thorough. Officers went out to pick up suspects after three pages were read. They were busy following leads Deck gave them and corroborating evidence he supplied.

But Deck’s job was done.

So it was time to find Emme.

* * *

Four and a half hours later…

As Deck’s truck moved down the street to his house, he knew why neither he, nor any of his boys, nor Chace, nor anyone he’d put a feeler out to could find Emme.

Because she was at his house.

He did not know if that was good or bad.

But he reckoned it was bad.

He hit his garage door opener, drove by her Bronco in his drive and parked in the garage.

Snow was being forecast for the night. He’d move her truck in after they had the conversation he figured they were going to have.

He found her in his great room, no jacket, no scarf, no purse. She’d lit out so pissed she likely hadn’t grabbed anything but her keys.

She was sitting on one of his denim-covered sofas, Buford sitting on the floor by her side, his head on her knee, her hand scratching behind his ears. His dog didn’t move anything except his eyes to Deck when he walked in, that was how much he liked exactly where he was. Hell, Deck reckoned this could have been their positions for the last seven hours, Buford liked to have his ears scratched that much.

He stopped moving, they locked eyes and before he could say a word, she started.

“You knew me for five years, didn’t even mildly flirt. You,” she lifted her hands and did air quotation marks, “run into me three days ago when I’m with Dane, after nine years of nothing, you’ve got all the time in the world for me.”

“Em—”

She interrupted him, saying, “Don’t even start. Whatever you’ve got to say will be full of shit.” He took two steps toward her but she halted his progress by hissing, “Don’t bother. I’m leaving.”

She gave Buford one last stroke and rose from the couch as he spoke. “Emme, listen to me.”

“No f**king way,” she told the floor, eyes to her feet, feet moving fast.

Deck moved faster.

He cut her off and she tried rounding him so he shifted and cut her off again.

She took two steps back and squared off, eyes slicing back to his.

“Let me pass, Jacob,” she demanded.

“Baby, you gotta—”

He didn’t get that out. For some reason, his words tripped something in her and she advanced, fast. Shoving a palm into his chest, she pushed hard. He rocked back and caught her wrist in his hand.

“Emme—”

“I missed you.”

Fuck.

“Em—”

She leaned into him and her hand. “You played me.”

His hand tightened around her wrist and he growled, “I f**kin’ did not.”

“Bullshit,” she snapped.

“Listen to me.”

“Fuck that,” she bit out. “This is for the birds. Next time I’m puking my guts out and so goddamned tired, I want to cry because I have to pull myself out of bed to get a 7Up to settle my stomach but I’m too f**king tired to even cry, I won’t lie there and think how f**ked-up shitty it is to be so goddamned alone and so f**king lonely. Scared I’ll die, no one will care. No man. No kids. Fuck that. I’ll lie there knowing all I had and all I ever had to depend on is me and that’ll get me through.”

Fuck!

“Emme, shut it and f**kin’ listen to me,” he ordered.

“No f**king way,” she hissed. “Let go of my hand.”

“Listen to me.”

“Let go!” she yelled, twisting her wrist to get away.

But he took a step back at the same time yanking her with him. Then he took a step forward so she collided with his frame. Her other hand came up to break her fall so when he let her wrist go and clamped both arms around her, she was stuck, her arms caught between them.

She struggled.

His arms got tighter.

She stopped struggling and her head jerked back. “Let me go.”

“I can’t talk about my work.”

“Yeah,” she tossed back. “Bet that’s even more so when it’s a mark you’re playing for your work asking about said work.”

“Emme, you weren’t a mark. Honest to God, I was as surprised as you when I met you on the street, and I didn’t know you were involved in the investigation they were contracting me for until ten minutes after we made plans for dinner.”

“Now I bet you were glad you made that date,” she shot back with extreme sarcasm.

“Yeah, I was, babe, because,” his arms grew tighter and his face dipped closer, “I missed you too.”

“Well, you know, seeing as you lived not far away for a while and you have awesome powers, I figure if you did miss me so damned much, you could have done something about it. That was a door you had to open, Jacob, and we both know it. But you didn’t. Not until I was dating a felon you were investigating. So forgive me if I find the coincidence too much to take. But I f**king,” she got up on her toes, narrowed those f**king beautiful eyes, her fire dancing in them, and she finished, “do.”

She wouldn’t shut up and listen?

He’d shut her up and communicate a different way.

So he did.

He slid one hand up to cup the back of her head, tilted it and crushed his mouth to hers.

She struggled, opening her mouth to protest and he slid his tongue inside.

Fuck, she smelled of strawberries and tasted like them too. Fresh, cool and sweet.

At the touch of his tongue, Emme went completely still.

Deck pressed his advantage and deepened the kiss, drinking from her mouth, taking all he could get.

Christ. Unbelievable.

It became more unbelievable.

Because two seconds in, she… went… wild.

Fingers fisting in his shirt, pulling him to her even when he had nowhere to go, she rolled further up on her toes, tilted her head more, tangled her tongue with his and pressed everything she had deep, her whimper filling his mouth.

Not unbelievable.

Phenomenal.

Without releasing her mouth, Deck shifted back an inch to give her her arms and she instantly tugged them out but only to curl her fingers in his jacket and yank it down his arms.

He let her go and shrugged it off. Mouths still connected, after his jacket dropped to the floor, he walked her backward.

Her hands went back to his shirt at the sides, wrenching it up, pulling it out of his jeans then they dove in, skin against skin, her touch warm, light, slightly tentative, definitely searching, discovering.

He steadied her with an arm around her waist, bowing his back to keep her mouth, and walked her down the three steps to his great room before he angled her to the couch.

She pulled one hand out of his shirt and slid it up his chest, it curled around the side of his neck then slid up in his hair and she held his mouth to hers.

He twisted them and fell back over the arm of the couch, taking her with him.

She landed on his body and he rolled instantly, trapping her underneath him, all the while he kept at her mouth.

She didn’t deny him, one hand roaming, losing the shyness, becoming confident, another little mew slid down his throat and her nails dragged down the skin over his spine.

He tore his mouth from hers to mutter, “Fuck, baby.”

Eyes closed, she lifted her head and pressed her lips against his, this time her tongue slid into his mouth.

He growled and pressed her deeper into the couch. His hands moving to her sweater, he yanked up.

Her arms flew up and she arched her back. He pulled it off and bent to her. Lips to her jaw, he touched his tongue to it, trailing down the salty skin, smelling her hair, tasting her neck, down to her chest, down, his path defined.

“You know what I want, Emme,” he said against her skin, and she did. He knew it when her fingers curled into the cup of her bra and pulled down.

Her breast was as gorgeous as the rest of her.

He closed his mouth over her nipple and drew in hard.

Her back arched, her soft h*ps grinding into his hard ones and she moaned a sexy-as-fuck moan he felt in his dick.

He drew her nipple in harder.