His Holiday Crush - Cari Z. Page 0,57
the crate, where the dog was happily licking at his fingers. “You’re a good girl, aren’t you? Who’s my baby, huh? Who’s my sweet baby?”
“You’re such a sap,” Max said with a smile on his face. “Were you this ridiculous when your daughters were little? I don’t remember this level of small talk when you came to visit and Steph was still nursing.”
“He was worse,” I said. “He wore Marnie around in a sling for, like, three months straight. Ariel had to pry her out of there with a crowbar just to feed her.”
“It wasn’t that bad.”
“I came home on leave and I got to hold her all of, like, twice,” I told Max.
“He lightened up by the time Steph came around, right?”
“You try juggling two kids instead of one and see how much uninterrupted snuggling you have time for,” Hal retorted, but he was grinning, too. “You feed her?”
“Yes, and watered her and let her out to do her business, and everything you could ever need for her is in that bag, which you know because you gave it to us last night,” Max told him. “Now get your ass to work before the girls get curious and come outside.”
Hal nodded, transferred everything into his truck, and drove off, leaving me and Max alone on the snowy driveway.
“So…will we see you at the festive fusion play tonight?” Max asked, taking a step closer to me. “I know the girls don’t have parts in it, but they’ll have more fun if you’re there.”
“I’ll try,” I said, completely sincerely. “Lauren is taking off an hour early to get her family there, which makes sense since one of her kids is actually in the play, so I volunteered to make the time up for her. I should get there before the end. Send pictures in the meantime, okay?”
“I’ll do that.” Max stepped in close enough that the frost of his breath poured over my face, obscuring me to everything except the warmth of his presence. “Have a good day, okay? Be safe.”
“I will. You, too.”
He smiled. “I won’t even get my car back until the day after Christmas, so as long as there’s no risk of me trying to maneuver my BMW around these streets, I think I’ll be okay.” He leaned in, tilted his head just so, and—
I kissed him before he could close the distance. I wanted to, wanted it badly enough I almost screamed with it. This morning had been…incredible, amazing, like everything I wanted and nothing I’d thought I could have. Max was too good for me, but a big part of me—a growing part of me—wanted to keep him regardless. It made me think all sorts of crazy thoughts, and stealing his kiss before he could give it to me was the least of it.
Max put a hand on the back of my neck to hold me still—God, I loved that—and took control, sliding our tongues together like a dance or sex. I was going to be thinking of sex all day, at this rate. “You’ve got to go,” he said, a little breathless when he finally pulled back. “I know you’ve got to go, but I wish you could stay.”
Fuck. “Me, too.” I stepped back and turned toward my car before I could do something dumb like call in sick and make Lauren cover for me, which would probably end with her committing justifiable homicide.
…
I ended up being only a little late to work, which Lauren did give me some grief over, but not nearly as much as I’d expected. “You’re happy,” she said with a shrug when I asked her why as we headed out on patrol. “It’s nice to see you that way. I’m not going to haze you over it, that’s for damn sure.”
There was a reason I liked Lauren the best.
It was a fairly slow day, all things considered—the worst thing we had to deal with all morning was two shoppers getting into a fistfight outside Build-A-Bear after one of them allegedly swiped the last, highly collectible Superman bear out of the other’s hands. We were also called to the scene of an elderly woman who slipped on the ice outside her daughter’s home and fell on the sidewalk, breaking a hip. We were closer than the ambulance, so we stayed with her and made her comfortable while her daughter fussed up a storm.
“Isn’t it the city’s job to clear these sidewalks?” she almost shouted at us. “I should sue!”
“Actually, ma’am, the