Page 7 of The Maddest Obsession (Made 2)

He sat in the driver’s seat and shut the door, and I ignored the way his presence threatened to swallow me whole.

We left the precinct in silence—a tense yet almost comfortable silence.

Digging in my purse, I found a piece of bubblegum. The crinkle of the wrapper filled the car. His eyes remained on the road, but he gave his head the most subtle shake, conveying just how ridiculous he thought I was.

He was late to the party.

I popped the gum in my mouth and swept a gaze over the car’s immaculate interior. Not a single receipt. Beverage. Speck of dust. Either he’d just killed a man and was trying to cover his tracks, or the fed had some OCD tendencies.

I always was a bit too curious.

I crushed the wrapper in my hand and moved to drop it in his cup holder. The gaze he shot me was deadly.

Looked like it was the latter.

I dropped the wrapper in the recesses of my purse.

Crossing my legs, I blew a bubble.

Popped it.

The silence grew so deafening I reached for the radio, but, once again, the look he gave me changed my mind. I sighed and sat back in my seat.

“Tell me how long you’ve been married.”

My eyes narrowed on the windshield in front of me. This man didn’t even ask questions—he just told you to tell him what he wanted to know. However, the quiet gave too much room for thought, and I responded, “A year.”

“Young age to get married.”

I glanced at my cuticles. “Yeah, I suppose.”

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“You’re a native of New York, then.”

“I wish,” I muttered.

“Don’t like home?”

“What I don’t like is you trying to small talk to coax things out of me. I don’t have anything to say to you, so you might as well take me back to jail.”

His arm brushed mine from where it rested on the center console, and I shifted away from the touch, crossing my legs the other way. Was his car small, or was it just me? The heater ran on low, but my skin was burning up. I slipped my coat off and tossed it onto the back seat.

He side-eyed me. “Nervous?”

“Feds don’t make me nervous, Allister. They give me a rash.”

I ignored the touch of his stare as it swept from the loose curls in my hair, down the red lace over my stomach that revealed a diamond navel piercing, to my bare feet.

“If you dressed a little less like a hooker, the cop who pulled you over might not have searched you.”

I pulled the bubblegum off my finger with my teeth and gave him a smile. “If you looked a little less like an anal-retentive asshole, you might get laid every once in a while.”

The corner of his lips tipped up. “Glad to hear there’s some hope for me.”

I rolled my eyes and turned my head to look out the window.

“It must have been a special occasion tonight,” he drawled.