Page 52 of Earning Her Trust

Naomi looked at Ghost, hoping he’d have a plan. He just stared back at Boone, the angles of his face dead calm except for the tic in his jaw.

Neither man blinked.

Another heartbeat of silence, then Boone stepped back and smacked the top of the cab twice. Not hard, but not gentle, either. And then he walked away, boots splashing through the puddles, like he’d decided he was done policing whatever mess they’d made.

The spell—the wild, desperate heat of the last five minutes—broke like a glass shattering.

Ghost swore under his breath and finally released her. She crawled over into the passenger seat and straightened her clothes.

She didn’t look at him. Not at first. She buttoned her jeans, yanked the hem of her shirt straight, and forced her hair back into something that sort of resembled a braid. Her hands wouldn’t stop shaking. She’d been through shootouts with less adrenaline than that kiss.

It was embarrassing, how close she’d come to falling apart on top of him. Boone Callahan’s stone-cold glare didn’t help, either. She could still feel the imprint of his scowl burned into her skin.

Ghost didn’t move. He sat there staring straight ahead, jaw locked, hands still clenched around the steering wheel. The rain hammered down and blurred out the world beyond the windshield. You could’ve shot a cannon through the cab, and neither of them would’ve flinched.

She snuck a glance at him. His eyes were flat, unreadable. It should’ve pissed her off, the way he clammed up after manhandling her like that, but all she felt was the echo of his hands on her body, the phantom press of his mouth. Her lips tingled, swollen and raw.

“Are you in trouble?” she asked, voice pitched as flat as his.

“For skipping morning chores to finger fuck you in a ranch truck on Main Street?” His laugh held no humor. “Yeah, I’m in trouble.”

“You want to talk about it?”

He didn’t even glance her way. “No.”

She rolled her eyes. “Shocker.”

He nodded toward Craig Foster’s office. “Light’s on. Someone’s there.” And like that, he was no longer Owen, but Ghost again. Strange how she was starting to separate the two halves of him in her mind. Owen was the reckless, hungry part that made her feel wanted down to the marrow. Ghost was the wall she kept slamming into any time she tried to ask for more.

She was still trying to find her own center of gravity when Ghost checked the rearview, jaw set. If he was rattled by nearly derailing her sanity in broad daylight, or by Boone’s judgment, it didn’t show. He pointed his chin at Foster’s glass-fronted office. “C’mon. We’re not gonna get a second shot. I want you behind me at all times, stay alert for anything off.”

She snorted but reached for the hoodie he’d given her, yanking it over her head. It smelled like him. Rain, cedar, the whisper of cigar smoke. Like she was wrapping herself in his shadow, as if that would keep her safe from the rest of the world. She caught her reflection in the side mirror. Her face was flushed, mouth swollen. She looked like she’d survived a natural disaster and wanted to go another round.

Ghost didn’t wait for her to compose herself. He was already out of the truck, striding across the street.

sixteen

He madethe curb before she’d gotten her door shut. Rain sheeted off the brim of his hat and crawled down the back of his collar, but he didn’t slow down or shake it off. Didn’t care. He had eyes on Foster’s office, and nothing else registered.

He couldn’t let anything else register, because if he did, he’d remember the feel of Naomi coming apart under his hands and?—

No.

Fuck.

Last thing he needed was to walk in and face Foster with a hard-on.

The office was located in one of those new-old buildings that the town had built to look like it had always been there. Brick veneer. Big glass windows. Dumbass sign with a gold-foil feather under Craig Foster’s name. All the lights were on inside. Ghost adjusted his stride so he’d hit the door first, body blocking the entry just in case Foster decided to pull something cute.

Naomi closed in behind him, hoodie up, still flushed from what had just happened in the cab. She looked good in his clothes. Something about her wearing his scent made his chest feel too tight.

He slammed the door open.

A woman at the reception desk jumped and nearly dropped her phone. Foster was already up, standing by his office door, a coffee mug in hand. He looked annoyed, but when he saw Ghost, the expression slid off his face like oil off wet glass.

“Can I help you?” the receptionist squeaked.

Ghost didn’t bother with her. Just fixed Foster with the stare that had made hardened operators fold in black site interrogation rooms.