I squinted at him. “I can’t imagine you were ever like that with your patients, though. You talked with them more than anything else, and you’re naturally a warm person, so how did that work with you in shrink mode?”
“Can we please stop calling it shrink mode?”
“Robot mode?” I offered.
He groaned. “Like most people, I warmed up session after session, just like they did. Some of my patients never let down their guard because they wanted, sometimes needed, that distance. Many people do. When you invite familiarity, the doctor-patient relationship falters.”
“And you wanted that, but some of your patients didn’t,” I said, studying him, the way his pupils dilated as I stroked my thumb across his knuckles, and his breath caught, and how he swallowed and licked his lips. He was sitting there utterly mesmerized by me, and to have that effect on another person was heady stuff.
“I—what?”
I grinned at him. “I like that you’re having trouble focusing.”
“I’m not having—your eyes are really the most beautiful color green I’ve ever seen.”
“I’m glad you can’t be like that with me,” I told him. “I never want to be on the receiving end of your emotional disconnect.”
“It’s not even possible,” he whispered.
“I’m the same way,” I said, reaching out to slip my hand around the side of his neck. “Normally people, clients, don’t like me much,” I told him, rubbing my thumb over his smooth jawline. “They’re always ready for me to leave, even before the job is done.”
Nothing, just him staring at me.
“Benji?”
“Hmm?”
I chuckled. “If you start feeling like you want me gone, warn me, all right?”
“I thought you didn’t play games,” he said under his breath before he started moving, climbing over the center console to get into my lap.
“I don’t,” I said, making sure he didn’t tumble forward and crack his head on my window. The man was not at all coordinated, but his desire was the important part, so when he hit my chest, nearly kneed me in the balls, steadied, and then lunged at me, taking my mouth, nothing mattered but that. Nothing mattered but how much he wanted me.
The kiss was hot and wet, and his tongue pushed against mine, dragged and tangled as he feasted before I took hold of the back of his neck and his firm ass and clutched him to me.
He moaned into my mouth and tried to wriggle even closer, rubbing his now hardened cock over my abdomen.
The knock on the window was jolting.
Breaking the kiss, both of us panting hard, we found ourselves staring at a scowling Deputy Chief Ramirez. Benji lowered the window as she stood there in the drizzling rain.
“Hi,” he croaked out.
“Do you not have a house you can do that in?”
“Yes, I…yes,” he answered her, “but we have a lead.”
She crossed her arms and waited. Her timing was terrible.
“I think we should come back inside and tell you and the chief about the conversation we just had with Suzie Belmont.”
“I might need a minute,” I told Ramirez.
The judgmental head shaking was to be expected.
11
Brasher and Ramirez were, of course, interested to hear about the connection between Caleb and Suzie, and Suzie and Pete, and Pete and Chuck and Stewart. It took longer than I wanted, and it was after five by the time we headed to the only grocery store in Rune.
It was bigger than I thought it would be, with automatic doors and everything. As we walked through the produce section, I was horrified at the number of vegetables he placed into the cart and had to comment accordingly.
“I don’t eat that,” I assured him, pointing at the kale.
“You will if it’s covered in fake bacon crumbles and slathered in nonfat ranch dressing.”
I shivered.
“We need to speed this up,” he ordered. “I want to go home.”
“I know what you want to do,” I teased him and realized that I had never done so before, ever, with anyone else. He wasn’t even my lover, at least not yet, but I was confident, certain he wanted me, in a way that wasn’t familiar.
“And?” he goaded me. “Don’t you want to go home too?”
“I do,” I assured him, bending to kiss him as he lifted to meet me halfway. My phone ringing nipped that in the bud. “Shit,” I grumbled when I saw it was Owen.
He had called me on FaceTime, which wasn’t his usual, and my boss was standing behind him. All I could see in the frame was a torso and crossed arms, since Owen was seated, but I knew it was Jared Colter because I was familiar with the stance and the bulging biceps.
“Hi,” I greeted a very pained-looking Owen Moss. “What’s going on?”
“Is that one of your brothers?” Benji asked, smiling into the phone.
“No,” I told him, and Owen scowled, which prompted me to say, “what? You should be so lucky as to be related to me. My family is amazing.”