As he spoke he saw her eyes had grown wide, her lips had parted and she was staring up at him with that appealing wonder she’d stared at him with yesterday morning.
And alone in a small interrogation room while discussing an abused child it was far more appealing.
Then she whispered her cute, “Oh.”
At this point he was seeing his error at giving them privacy. Top to toe, she was an itch he’d wanted to scratch for a long time. Faye Goodknight talking and reacting two feet away, her voice coming at him, her face expressive, her scent filling the room, she wasn’t an itch.
She was a craving.
Chace buried it and asked, “He keeps coming around?”
She blinked and asked back, “What?”
“This kid, you said you’ve tried to approach, the times you didn’t chase him down the street, he kept coming back?”
He saw her bubblegum lips twitch but she nodded and added her, “Yeah.”
“Right,” he muttered, reaching into his jacket pocket to pull out his phone. “He comes back, you don’t approach. You call me.”
“Call you?”
“Yeah,” he bent his head to his phone and activated it, saying, “I wanna get a look at him. See if I know him or who his kin might be. Maybe find a way to make my own approach.”
“He doesn’t look familiar.”
Chace lifted his head and looked at her. “You lived here your whole life, Faye, but still, it’s likely I’ve met more folk around here than you have.”
“This is true,” she said softly.
Christ.
Cute.
“Give me your number,” he ordered.
She blinked.
Then she whispered, “What?”
“Your phone number. Give it to me. I’ll call you, you’ll have mine you can store in your cell.”
“Can’t you just give me yours and I’ll program it in my cell?” she suggested.
“I could. But, darlin’, things the way they’ve been…” he trailed off, shook his head and let that speak for itself. She might live in her books but the shit that’s gone down, he knew from the limited conversations they’d had, had not escaped her notice. “I’m not big on surprises. You need to call me, when my phone rings, I like to know what I’m dealin’ with before I answer it. I got your number, it’ll come up on caller ID.”
She nodded and pressed her lips together before she said quietly, “That makes sense.”
Then she stood there staring at him.
“Faye, your number?” he prompted and her body gave a slight start.
“Oh,” she whispered. “Right.” Then she gave him her number.
Chace punched it in and hit go. Her purse rang and he heard her making the moves to pull her phone out but he disconnected the call before she answered it. Then he hit buttons and programmed her into his phone while he heard her hitting buttons programming him in hers.
This meant access to Faye Goodknight’s voice whenever he wanted it.
Fuck.