Page 109 of Thick as Thieves

Her pants were made of stretchy denim that fit her like a second skin. Earlier he’d appreciated how the things molded to her incredible ass, but now he was frustrated by their tight fit. “How do I get into these?”

“Here, let me—”

The jangle of a cell phone froze them.

It rang a second time. “Mine’s on vibrate,” he said. “Must be yours.”

Appearing as frustrated as he, her head flopped back against the seat. “It’s in the outside pocket of my purse. Can you see who it is?”

He fumbled around on the floorboard until he located her purse, the outside pocket, her phone. He brought it up to where he could see it and, just as the phone stopped ringing, he read the caller’s name.

He eased himself back across the console and resumed his place in the driver’s seat. As she struggled to sit up straight, he extended the phone to her. “Somebody named Jacob.”

“Oh.” She held his gaze for several seconds, then reached for her phone and turned to face the windshield. “I’ll call him later.”

Seething, Ledge turned on the ignition and put the truck in gear.

“That sounds like Ledge’s truck.” Crystal picked up the TV remote and turned down the volume. “He must be returning Arden to her car.”

Marty left the sofa and went over to one of the front windows.

“Don’t spy on them,” Crystal said. “They’re not teenagers.”

“I’m not spying. Just taking a peek.” Marty raised one of the louvers of the blinds. “Yep, it’s his monster truck. She’s getting out on her own.” Looking over her shoulder at Crystal, she reported, “No good night kiss.”

“Hmm. I’m disappointed. I thought for sure there were banked fires smoldering.”

“In the half minute that I was with them, I got that impression, too. Maybe they kissed in the truck. Maybe they did more than kiss, and a kiss would be anticlimactic. So to speak.”

“But it’s not like Ledge to—”

Marty interrupted her. “What the…?”

“What?”

“Crystal?”

“What’s the matter?”

“Oh, my God.”

Responding to the sudden alarm in Marty’s tone, Crystal bounded off the sofa, and rushed to join her at the window. “What is it?”

“Are those dogs?”

They had covered the two blocks to Crystal’s house without Arden offering a word of explanation, from which Ledge inferred that Jacob couldn’t be identified with nonchalance, such as that he was the octogenarian who’d lived across the street from her in Houston, or her first cousin, or her best friend’s adolescent son hawking tickets for a fund-raising raffle.

By the time he pulled up behind her car, he was steaming. He put the truck in park but left it running, draped his wrists over the top of the steering wheel, and stared out the windshield, being a jerk and knowing it, but he was a guy with a three-day-old hard-on and he was fuck-all furious.

He said, “Jacob?”

“Is none of your concern.”

“No?” He turned his head to look at her. “My stiff dick would disagree. It wishes we’d stuck to fighting.”

She shot him a drop-dead look as she opened the door of the truck. She shut it with force and rounded the hood. The headlights spotlighted her as she dug into her purse, probably searching for her key fob.

Catching motion out the corner of his left eye, he turned his head. Two shadowy figures came streaking across the lawn across the street, a third not far behind.