Page 108 of The Friends and Rivals Collection

PERRI

The next morning, I find a note on the chalkboard.

What about air kisses? That’s a category for sure. We could own that one.

I laugh, grab a piece of chalk, and write under it.

No doubt you’ll find a way to practice them.

I snatch a peach and head to the backyard. After taking a bite of the fruit, I fill a pitcher from the spigot and water the plants on my deck, musing on air kisses as I feed the thirsty fern, the grateful tomato plant, and the ravenous blueberry bush.

“All better now?” I say to the plants.

They sigh contentedly, I imagine. I sigh happily too, chewing a bite of the peach as I wonder how exactly we’d own the air kiss category. We’d ace it... that’s the trouble.

I head inside, toss the peach pit in the compost bin, erase my first note, and write a new one.

After all, we’re in the midst of a new competition. A who-can-hold-out one. With a pastel blue piece of chalk, I write a new response in curlicue letters.

I can absolutely resist your air kisses. Just try me.

Dusting off my hands, I snag a spoon and grab a yogurt from the fridge.

I dive in, feeling a little zip from my snappier retort.

I pop in my earbuds as I eat at the counter—standing up, thank you very much—and I toggle over to the morning news, catching up on the latest in local politics, then check on press releases from nearby agencies before I switch to the scanner to see if there’s anything going down that I need to know about.

I catch myself tensing, as I often do when I switch, braced for bad news.

That’s, well, the reality of my job. But it’s relatively quiet, so I relax my shoulders with a sigh of relief.

I finish my breakfast, then brush my teeth, dress in my uniform, and head to my car.

As I hit the unlock button on the key fob, I hear the heavy thump of shoes.

I spin around. Derek’s mere feet away from me, in his blue work pants and a T-shirt with the number of his EMS unit on it, looking like he’s ready to perform CPR or bandage a wound. Because he is.

He mimes tipping his hat to me. “Morning, officer.”

“Morning, troublemaker.”

“You think I’m a troublemaker?” He scrubs a hand across the scruff on his face. That scruff. That lucky scruff.

I’m scruff-resistant though. I lift my chin and cross my arms. “I know you’re a troublemaker.”

His dark eyes twinkle with mischief, and his grin hints at exactly the kind of trouble he likes to make.

“Is that so?” He comes closer, then closer still, until he’s inches away.

His chest is dangerously near my arms. His lips are in my zone.

My breath catches, and my senses do the salsa because he smells clean and freshly showered, and I sure do love that scent.

I don’t think he wears cologne—it wouldn’t make sense for his job.

But his unadorned scent works for my libido, because I love the natural soapy smell. I love it so much, I think I’m humming.

“Mmm.”

He gives a devilish grin. The most devilish grin. Then he quirks an eyebrow and leans in, dusting a kiss a centimeter, no, a millimeter, wait—a fraction of a millimeter from my cheek.

My hum turns into a traitorous moan.

He pulls back, his dark eyes full of naughty deeds.

I lean against the metal of the car and swallow, catching my breath.

He brushes the backs of his fingers along my jaw, and against my will, against my better judgment, I lean into the stroke of his hand, like a cat.

“You’re right,” he whispers. “You are excellent at resisting air kissing. Need to up my game.”

He winks and turns around.

One, two, three.

I recover speech. “You were toying with me?”

He glances back. “Of course, kitten. You threw down the gauntlet last night. And you should have expected nothing less.”

He strides out of the garage, heads to his bike in the driveway, and mounts it. Tugging the helmet on, he gives me one last knowing look, then peels away.

I’m still standing at my car, stupidly turned on from an air kiss on a Friday morning.

At work, Elias shows me his smoldering gaze.

Then he displays his bump and grind.

After that, he says he wants to demo what he calls the hippity-hop.

I raise my hand like I’m in school. “What on earth is a hippity-hop?”

“Picture me riding a pogo stick.”

“Do I have to?”

“Oh, c’mon. My viral video is going to be big.”

I’m at my desk tackling paperwork before I hit the streets. I wasn’t planning to be a dance judge.

But I sigh. “Fine. Do it.”

He jumps up and down as Jansen strolls by. “Nicholson, I hope you never defile my eyes again with that move.”

Elias’s face sinks. “Seriously, Chief? You don’t think I have game?”

“I’ll think you’ll have game when you do this.” Chief stops, shimmies his hips, then adds in a snap of his finger.

Holy smokes. My boss can dance. “Chief, you need to be in the video with Nicholson.”

Jansen smiles and winks. “If you’re doing a viral video, you need to have the right moves.”

I laugh, look at Elias, and point to the boss. “Evidently, he knows what they are.”

Jansen claps Elias on the shoulder and shows him a few dance moves, and I smile at first, but then a new emotion digs into me.

Worry. Is Elias a better contender for the job?

Is this dance video going to seal the deal for him?

More importantly, am I a fool for thinking a kissing contest has any bearing on a promotion?

I answer the question for myself. The contest is simply a fun thing to do, a bet with friends, and a chance to raise money for rescue workers.

I’m not going to win the promotion with a kiss. Puh-lease.

I’m a cop, not a performer.

I’m going to win it with work. Good old-fashioned, nose-to-the-grindstone work. I reroute my focus to the daily grind, making sure all my reports are spit-shined and polished, then spend a few extra minutes reviewing the jewelry store case.

Something nags at my brain, a potential suspect we didn’t consider seriously, and I mention it to the chief later in the day.

He scrubs a hand across his jaw. “That’s a possibility, Keating. That’s a damn fine thought. Keep looking into it.”

“I will, sir.”

I ignore the fact that he’s humming Elias’s hip-hop tune as I leave his office.

“And that’s how you have happy abs!” The declaration comes from the Pilates instructor, who’s vicious and cruel the next afternoon. In a nutshell, she’s everything I want a Pilates instructor to be.

“Thanks, Millie,” Vanessa says, and I add my thanks too.

My core barks at me, spewing invectives as I head out of the studio. “Nothing like Saturday traffic duty followed by Pilates,” I say.

“Sounds like a perfect day. Did you nab any speeders?”

“Lots of them over on Hollowstone. Just like the chief wanted me to do.”

“Such a good girl. I’m dying to hear all about how fast they went above the speed limit, but why don’t you tell me first, since you’ve been so damn busy all week .

. . how’s your fabulous new housemate working out?

” Vanessa inquires as we reach the sidewalk.

She stares at me with wide eyes as if to say spill the beans .

I smile. “He’s a multi-purpose roomie. He made me dinner the other night.”

She wiggles her eyebrows. “So he knows the way to your heart?”

“Ha. It’s merely the way to my stomach, and my stomach is grateful.”

“Aside from his culinary skills, do you like having temptation right under your nose?”

I furrow my brow. “What makes you think I’m tempted?”

Vanessa chuckles, clutching her belly. “Oh, that’s cute. That’s super adorable the way you said that. Especially with that line between your eyebrows as if you hadn’t a clue what I meant.” She taps my forehead for emphasis.

I toss her a look. “How did I say it?”

“Like you actually believed it.”

“I do believe it.”

“Perri, you can’t fool me. I know you’re tempted. Just be honest. How hard is it?”

I smirk, thinking of precisely how hard Derek is. I toss her a knowing glance. “As hard as it needs to be.”

Her jaw drops, and she smacks my elbow. “Tell me everything, you minx.”

The memory of the other night washes over me. The way I straddled him on the couch. The filthy things he said. The hard, hot length of him. “There’s not much to tell. We made out, but we stopped. Because I have damn good resistance.”

“That doesn’t entirely sound like the definition of good resistance. That sounds like the start of something deliciously dirty.”

“Hello? Hot man in my face, and I’m mere minutes away from a mind-blowing O and I stopped ? That’s hella awesome. I’ve always had good resistance. And I will keep having it with him.”

“What makes you think you have stellar resistance? I’m just curious.”

We turn the corner toward the town square. “For one, I never drank or did drugs in high school or college. I had no problem resisting that.”

“True, but isn’t Derek more tempting than drugs? You were never into drugs or alcohol.”

“Exactly. So I’ll be fine.”

“But you’ve always liked tall, dark, and inked men. Do I need to remind you of Nick?”

I hiss. “No, please don’t. He was the biggest ass of all the asses.”

“How about Cody? The guy you dated after college. He had bad idea written all over him.” Evidently, Vanessa is taking me on a tour of the ghosts of boyfriends past. Tonight’s edition stars the handyman who worked in one of the nearby vineyards when I was in my early twenties.

We fell into a fast and breathless relationship.

He’d come over late at night, keep me up after hours, and ask me to skip work and play.

“And I had discipline resisting his bad ideas. Remember? I broke up with him the second he asked me to start paying his bills.”

“You’re excellent at knowing when to get out of a bad relationship. But sometimes you’re drawn to them.”

“But Derek’s not a bad man,” I point out quickly.

Vanessa whips her head around, and we stop in front of the olive store. She stares at me like she’s caught me sampling an olive without using a toothpick. “So you do like him.”

Her eyes are like a magnifying glass seeing through me. I’m not entirely sure I’m ready to be seen, so I let the light shine on a portion of the truth. “Obviously I’m attracted to him. We’re doing the kissing contest.”

She tilts her head and gives me the look . “It’s more than attraction, Perri. You like him. And it’s not about the contest. If you truly wanted to, you could enter the friendly kiss category with a friend. Derek’s different. You like-like him.”

“Are you giving me the double-barrel ‘like’?”

She smirks. “I sure am. Guilty, officer?”

I take a deep breath, wanting to deny it, wishing I could.

But I do like him. He’s so much more interesting than I thought.

He’s so much more than a simple flirty, dirty biker.

He has layers I never expected, a good heart, a great soul, and a kindness that reaches deep down inside him.

He’s that rare breed of man who ticks every box on the checklist.

Except one.

He’s not interested in a relationship. He told me point-blank that day in the waffle truck.

Relationships aren’t my thing these days , he’d said.

That makes two of us , I’d replied.

He said it again when we established the rules of living together.

Relationships are not on the radar.

A strange heaviness settles over my heart, but I dismiss it quickly. Relationships aren’t on my radar either. That’s why it’s pointless to worry and to wonder—neither one of us is interested in entanglements.

“I do like him, but it doesn’t matter since I don’t want any entanglements, nor does he.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really. We’re both on the same page. We don’t want more.”

“That’s what we say until we do want more,” Vanessa says, softly and wisely. Too wisely perhaps.

“But right now, I don’t. Plus, I’ve got my eyes on the prize,” I say, waving my hand behind me at the station, thinking briefly of Elias and his efforts to land the promotion. For a second, I want to tell Vanessa how it makes me feel, but I’m also all feeling-ed out right now.

I point to the olive shop. “Now, olives—those I can’t resist.” I grab her arm and head into the shop. “It’s your turn. Have you picked a fabulous cause for your part of our bet?”

Vanessa nods excitedly. “Wine and bowling!”

“Is bowling better with wine?”

“Everything is better with wine. I’m teaming up with one of the vineyards for my bowling competition fundraiser. A little wine-tasting along with going for strikes. All the funds will be used to help local animal shelters with the fire rescue relief.”

“Damn. Now I want you to win.”

She smiles. “But really, we all win.”

“That might be the cheesiest thing you’ve ever said. But also the sweetest,” I say, then I buy some olives and head home, curious if Derek will be there when I arrive. I didn’t see him last night because our work schedules clashed, but perhaps tonight will be different.

But even if I don’t see him, I’ll be fine. I don’t want more.

I say it again to drive the point home.