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“Mmm.”
“You did not just smell me,” Mike chortled, shaking his head.
Joelle lifted from her throat-hollow-heaven and stared up into his compelling, but slightly dazed chocolate brown eyes. “Seriously? I kiss you like a pro, and you want to talk about my inhalation habits?”
Mike laughed again. “Well… Come to think of it, I might need a second lip-lock to see if what I was feeling was a one and done, or not.” Mike’s eyes slowly uncrossed, and this time when his gaze dropped to her mouth, he scowled.
“Hey. You’re chin’s bleeding.”
Joe blinked. She was…? Oh spit. She’d forgotten all about her chin.
Mike glowered and hauled himself off her, rising to his feet. “Did I do that?”
Sighing, Joe immediately missed his weight, but… She could always wrap a foot around his ankle to bring him back down…
No. He’d asked her a question and was demanding a response if his drawn brows were any indication. Without another word, he held a hand purposefully down toward her. She sighed, took it, and was easily brought vertical.
“It’s nothing you did,” she assured him, amazed that at five foot ten, she still had to look up a good four inches to meet his gaze.
“Oh really? You were fighting someone else this morning?”
“A tree root. But that’s a boring story.”
Mike let her go, then leaned back against his truck, his arms crossed over his massive chest. “I have time for boring.”
Since Joe had previously decided to come semi-clean with any cops who might have shown up when she thought she was confronting Cameron, she decided to give Mike more info than just the earlier hiking travails she’d suffered. She could be equally as honest with Mike as she was going to be with the cops…without divulging her real name or who she worked for.
Joelle purposely cleared her throat. “Shall we start again, civilly?” she asked, sticking out her hand. “Hi. I’m…”
Dangblast-it. Her alias had gotten lost somewhere on her kiss-sated tongue. Joe grumbled to herself and began again. “Pleased to meet you. I’m Elle Picket.”
Mike’s eyes narrowed. “You’re going with that?”
“I am,” she told him succinctly, not making any pretense that the name wasn’t real.
“Fine. Elle,” he stressed her alias. “How about you answer a few other questions using a little more effort.”
“I’ll try to keep my creativity to a minimum,” she told him with as straight a face as she could manage.
“Right.” He also looked to be tamping back his amusement. “Here are my salient inquiries. For now.” He ticked them off on his fingers. “Who the hell are you? How do you know me? Have you been stalking me? And are you responsible for the tracker on my truck and/or the cut brakes I just discovered?”
His face soured as he asked the last.
“Is that it?” Joe asked sassily.
“For a start,” he clarified. “We’ll get to the cut and the kiss if you answer to my satisfaction.”
Joe couldn’t help it. Her eyes traveled down his flak-jacketed chest, to the front of his SWAT issued pants where a significant bulge was still evident. “I’d say you’re already pretty satisfied,” she answered cheekily.
Mike shifted his stance and grunted. “We’ll add my current condition to the second list if you behave. Right now, how about you throw me a few honest answers.”
Yup. The man was astute. And that just added to his hotness.
Joe sighed. It was time to break the happy little bubble that had formed around them. “If you must know, you’re in danger,” she said.
Mike shook his head as if disappointed. “You want to try again?”
“Nope,” Joelle was equally as stubborn as Mike was appearing to be, and decided he wasn’t going to get another word in edgewise until she’d spit out an answer to all his initial concerns.