Forbidden With Me - Leigh Lennon Page 0,36

when I stand to do the dishes, he takes them from my hands. “Let me clean up. I want you to get back to the dorm before it gets too late.”

I don’t let him take the plates from me, and I make my way to the sink to rinse them off. “What? Are you kicking me out?”

I begin to chuckle, and as I turn to grab the ketchup he insisted he had to have with his fried potatoes, his lips turn down, and he can’t meet my gaze.

“Oh,” I reply, “I was kidding, but I guess there’s truth in it.”

I drop the ketchup and turn around to the chair I’d laid my purse and keys on earlier when I’d gotten here.

He blocks my way to the door. “No, Mal, let me explain,” he pleads.

“I think it’s pretty self-explanatory.” I try to sidestep him, but it’s no use as his imposing body blocks the entire door.

“Fuck, I don’t want you to go, you have to know this, but I can’t have you here. It’s too tempting,” he begins.

“You’re tempted by me?” I ask.

He closes his eyes, leaning his head back as it gently hits the door. “You know this. But it’s not right.”

“What’s not right? The fact you saved me, the age gap, or you working my family's case?” I try to clarify.

“All of it. It’s too much.”

I push onto my tippy toes and get as close to him as I can get with the great height difference between us. “You know what’s too much? Having your family taken from you. So when I find someone who feels the same about me as I do him, and he wants to use legalistic shit on me, that’s what fucking pisses me off, and that’s too fucking much?!”

I won’t wait for him to move. There’s a door to the backyard off the side of his kitchen, and I exit through it since he won’t let me go through the one he’d been blocking. I walk through the fence door, separating the backyard from the front.

He’s made his way through the door he had blocked, standing on his front steps. He calls for me to stop as I cross through the lawn to get to my car. I don’t answer him as I open the door and climb in, starting the engine and burning rubber on his street. I hold back the tears until I’m at the university because he’s just broken my heart.

Chapter 13

Wells

I text her all night long and am going out of my ever-loving mind when I try one last time.

Me: If you don’t let me know you at least got back to school, I’m coming to find you, and I don’t think you want that because I’ll force you to talk.

Maybe I should have stopped her by standing in front of her car. However, as mad as she was with me, she very well may have run me over. I have my keys in my hand when a return text has me stopping in my tracks.

Mal: I’m back and safe in my dorm. I don’t want to see you.

Me: Tough shit. Meet me for lunch tomorrow at Ivar’s.

Mal: I’m not sure that’s a good idea. Just let me be, Wells.

Me: If you aren’t there tomorrow at one p.m., I’ll come to get you.

She responds with the middle finger emoji, but I’ve made my point.

My thoughts of Malia lull me to sleep, and I drift off on the couch. I hadn’t realized I’d slept as long as I had when something interrupts my dreams.

What is that noise, and why can’t I stop it, stop it from waking me up? My eyes flicker, and the lights are still on in the living room where I crashed a couple of hours ago. I’d been snoozing so deep, I thought my cell phone was something in my dream. But I can’t remember, and not that this matters, when I groan, picking up the phone to the one person I don’t like on a normal day, let alone waking me up from a deep slumber.

“Shanahan.” It’s business, a case. It’s the only reason she’d be calling me. “Fuck, Detective. Where have you been? Higgins has been calling you for the past hour. We caught a case, and believe me when I say, you have to see it to believe it. Check your phone for the address.” There’s a click on the other end, and Vanessa is done. I sit up, and at this hour, I