Keeping one of my hands securely on his cuffed wrists, I place the other one in the center of his back and bend down so I’m closer to the side of his face, ignoring the fact that he smells like cedar and fresh air and not like soup and onions, which is what I assume all crazy dudes who lost their otters and are off their meds smell like.
“I’ll take the goddamn fucking cuffs off you when you stop acting like a dipshit,” I inform him, his body suddenly going completely still between my thighs that are still straddling his waist.
“You have got to be shitting me right now,” he mutters, the hair-covered side of his face disappearing as he turns his profile away from me, drops his head down, and smacks his forehead into the dirt not once but three times in a row.
That stupid voice again. It still makes me want to pull my fist back and slam it into his jaw and then kiss the pain away. What the hell is happening right now? Did Davidson slip weed into my coffee earlier? Am I high?
This guy makes everyone think he locks his kids in cages and calls 9-1-1 from an animal sanctuary, where he’s been practically holding people hostage with his ranting and yelling all morning, and I’m thinking about kissing him.
I need to get a grip. Or get laid.
“Josh, you need to call dispatch and have someone come pick this guy up. They’ll need a transport cage in their vehicle to get him to the station,” I tell the rookie cop, who is still standing a foot away with his hands in the air, his wide eyes staring down at me.
“Fucking hell, Harley, I don’t need to be arrested. I’m not the criminal here,” the guy between my legs says in a muffled voice with his face still in the dirt.
My heart starts pounding in my chest when he says my name, and not because he’s some strange, crazy guy who knows it when I haven’t even said it yet. It’s the way he says it. Like he’s annoyed with me, but he also kind of wants to make out with me.
There it is again! The urge to punch and hump something at the same time!
Grabbing a handful of the dark hair on the back of his head, which is surprisingly soft and silky, I lift his head up and force his face to the side until his hair falls out of the way, and one gorgeous hazel eye looks back at me in annoyance.
No. There is no fucking way.
“It’s okay, Harley. He really does work here. This is how he is all the time. Angry and insufferable,” Nanci, one of the elderly volunteers, states as she moves away from the group to stand next to Davidson, who is still recording everything.
“Christ,” the man growls in irritation.
The one eye—which is more green than brown, with little flecks of gold in it—glances back at me, and my hand that still has a firm grasp on the hair attached to his head starts to shake. My heart is thundering so hard in my chest right now I’m pretty sure people are going to think The Backyard suddenly has elephants that are all stampeding this way.
There is only one man in the entire universe whose voice could make me want to punch and screw something at the same time who has the same gorgeous-colored eyes. But he doesn’t work at an animal sanctuary. He would never do something so selfless.
Nope. No. Fucking. Way.
He sighs and then speaks again. “Yeah, it’s me.”
Clearly, the shock and confusion is written all over my face, because I still don’t believe what is happening right now.
“Say something else,” I order, my voice coming out all whispery and nervous instead of like a badass bitch who just took down a guy a head taller and a hundred pounds heavier.
“How’s that half-dash of cinnamon been working out for you, sweetheart?” The words are said in a dull, monotone voice instead of one filled with sarcasm and flirtation, but it does the trick.
“Son of a bitch!” I instantly shout, jerking my hand out of his hair like it’s on fire, scrambling off his back, and jumping up and as far away from him as possible.
He easily flips to his side with his hands still cuffed, gets his legs under him, and stands up to face me.
Gone is the lean, pretty boy with slicked-back hair, a clean-shaven, weekly-facialed face, and designer three-piece suits, who always had a smirk and a sparkle to his eyes that made you want to kick him in the nuts. Now, he looks like someone introduced Grizzly Adams to a pair of trimmers and turned him into an Olympic swimmer-slash-lumberjack sexual piece of alpha male, who looks like he hasn’t smirked in years and wouldn’t even know what to do with his facial muscles to achieve any show of amusement. And forget the sparkle. His eyes look like they’ve seen some shit, and I even notice some tattoos peeking up out of the collar of his cotton shirt and trailing up his neck.
I must be in The Twilight Zone or an alternate reality. All he ever talked about at work was how his stupid body was a temple and all that crap.
“Dax fucking Trevino,” I whisper, still in shock as I shake my head.
“No shit?” Davidson suddenly laughs. “The crying, girly man is Dax Trevino? Detective Douchebag?”
“Shut up,” I mutter, not sure if I’m trying to quiet my brother so he doesn’t annoy Dax any more than he already seems to be, or if it’s because I’m afraid of what might come out of Davidson’s mouth next.
“I can’t believe this is the guy you crushed on when you were a rookie detective! Classic.” Davidson snorts.
Yep, definitely the latter.
I think I see a hint of one of Dax’s smirking dimples behind that facial hair, but it disappears faster than it takes me to jab my elbow into my brother’s side, so I’m assuming I imagined it. My slacker of a brother never hears a word I say that’s important, but leave it to him to hear and remember shit I bitched about years ago, when I thought he wasn’t paying attention during one of his many consecutive hours in a row of playing Modern Warfare.
“Can you take the cuffs off now?” Dax asks in a low, still-annoyed voice. “I really do work here. And this really is a fucking emergency no one gives a shit about.”
I quickly and clumsily pull the handcuff keys out of the front pocket of my jeans and walk over to Dax, ignoring the fact that just moments ago I had been ogling the ass of a man I vowed to hate forever and ever. He turns around for me so I can uncuff him while the employees who were standing around quickly scatter in all different directions, including Josh, who still looks like he might pee his pants at any moment as he jogs back in the direction of the parking lot. Nanci seems to be the only one brave enough to stick around, stepping up next to my brother, as Dax looks back over his shoulder at me while I fumble, trying to get the key in the damn tiny hole on the cuffs.
“Nice hair,” Dax mutters quietly. “Looks good on you.”
My fingers pause right when I get the key in the lock, and I slowly move my eyes up to his, still surprised to see him looking at me so seriously. Without any twinkle, and without any lame come-on to go with the compliment.
As soon as I quit the force a year ago, I chopped off twelve inches of my long brown hair, keeping it chin-length since then and letting it hang wavy, natural, and low maintenance. Two months ago, I decided to go nuts and dyed it white-blonde. It took my dad and brother six months to even notice I cut all my hair off. They still haven’t noticed I’m now blonde.
It’s doing absolutely nothing to me that Dax Trevino noticed… and likes it.