Page 34 of Warrant

It fluctuated daily. Not that I was going to tell her that. “I’m always on the side of right versus wrong.”

“That’s not helping. What do you do for Sentry Securities?”

I met her gaze. Shit. She wasn’t ready for the truth. It would just send her running from me. “I’d have to talk to Cypher before I can tell you that,” I said after a brief pause.

Her eyes narrowed. “I don’t like secrets.”

Well, fuck. I had more than a few.

“I don’t have the luxury of telling you those particular secrets until I speak to him,” I admitted. “A lot of the…shit…we do is classified.”

She tilted her head. “That means you work for the government?” She sounded surprised. She’d probably be shocked to know that it meant we worked for governments. Plural. A lot of them. As well as individual contractors. Cypher was careful about who he took jobs from, but that didn’t mean he didn’t have a lot of thumbs in a lot of fucking pies.

I kept my mouth closed and blinked at her.

She sighed. “What about the club?”

I stiffened. “Sorry, Ains, same answer. This thing between us is new. And as you pointed out, you’re a cop. I can’t just tell you everything.”

She studied my face. “Would you ever be able to tell me about it?”

“That depends.”

“On?”

“You,” I replied with a shrug and looked down, realizing the puppy had fallen asleep in my arms. She was on her back, eyes closed, legs up in the air as she softly snored.

“What does that mean?” she demanded. Her eyes flicked down to the dog and the way I was holding her and her features softened just slightly. Then she pasted a neutral look on her face.

“It means, I’ll tell you what you can handle.”

“I still don’t know-”

“Look,” I said, cutting her off. “I don’t want to fight with you. Not about this. Not right now. Why don’t we take this a step at a time and see where it goes?”

“Because I’m the one with everything to lose if I fall in love with a criminal,” she blurted out, then looked horrified that she’d said the ‘L’ word out loud, even in such an innocent way.

She was so damn easy to read. Probably not to others, but I was starting to figure out her expressions. I’d been studying her enough that it wasn’t surprising. Not that she knew that.

“Ainsley.”

“What,” she snapped.

“Stop overthinking this.” I went over and put the puppy in the little crate she’d bought for the dog and closed the door. Then I crossed the room and pulled her into my arms. “Just go with the fucking flow.”

“Just because that’s your approach to everything doesn’t mean it works for everyone else,” she told me, stepping back. “I don’t have the luxury of taking this kind of chance with you.”

Narrowing my eyes, I studied her face. “You breaking up with me?”

“We weren’t even together, Warrant,” she sputtered. “It was one night. Sex, for one night.”

“Morning,” I pointed.

“Semantics.” She waved her hand. “We can’t make a habit of this.”

“Who’s we?” I asked. “Because I sure as fuck want to make a habit of it.”

“I can’t,” she said with a sigh. “Look, it’s…it’s not fair. I shouldn’t have shown up at your place this morning. But it’s done and I can’t change it. But it can’t happen again.”