Free All Kinds of Tied Down by Mary Calmes Page B

wake up, I know,” I agreed, taking the Glock he passed me. “I carry a 20 loaded with 40 caliber, but this 34 is sweet.”
    “The GTL 22 attachment is nice, right?”
    I nodded, lifting it, testing the weight. “I should get a light for mine too.”
    “You have to get a special holster, though.”
    “True,” I said, a little unsteady as I stood up. “If my partner wants in….”
    “I’ll buzz him up.”
    “Thanks. What’s the number?”
    “I’m in 801.”
    Eighth-floor apartment. God, I really didn’t need my boss to get even a whiff of this. I could only imagine the comments from the others, from White and Sharpe—Sanchez’s replacement—Dorsey or Kowalski—all of them lived to give me crap. But worst of all would be the explanation: why, yessir, I did jump off a balcony . The idea was about as appealing as a tooth extraction.
    “Jones!”
    The yell came from the alley below.
    Leaning over, I looked down at Deputy US Marshal Ian Doyle and waved.
    “You fuck!”
    I shushed him.
    His shoulders fell and his head tipped as he glared up at me.
    “801,” I called. “Come help me.”
    He ran, tearing down the alley, and disappeared around the side of the building. I took a seat on the bench beside me and then checked on Morris to make sure he was still breathing. Minutes later, still shivering in the night air, I heard the one-man wrecking crew at the window.
    “Hey,” I greeted my partner as he climbed out onto the fire escape.
    “Ten fuckin’ years off my life,” he growled, squatting down in front of me, taking my face in his firm, callused hands.
    “Not dead,” I confirmed.
    He checked me over roughly, huffing out a breath as he turned my head right and left, finally lifting it before sliding his hands over my throat, chest, down my sides, and across my abdomen. “Anything hurt?”
    “Everything,” I admitted, hoping my confession would hide the hiss of pleasure over being manhandled.
    “Are you sure you’re okay?” He was clearly scared and the emotion deepened his voice, his gaze concerned as it held mine. “You’re all flushed.”
    I cleared my throat, easing free of his clutching hands. “Yeah, I’m good.”
    “What can I—”
    “After we book this guy, can we eat?”
    Ian’s smile, the way his eyes warmed and his gaze lingered, sent my stomach into a familiar tumble. The look of blatant ownership never failed to send blood rushing straight to my cock. And the man had no clue.
    I had thought when it was new, us as partners, I was reading too much into the way I would glance up and fall into his smile, catch him glancing my way, or feel the weight of his stare on my back. No other man who didn’t want to fuck me had ever reacted that way, would look right back at me, unwavering, before softening—happy, it seemed, to simply be in my space. But he did. Ian did. And it was a constant source of both unease and pride.
     
     
    I T TOOK a couple of hours, the paperwork. We sat at Bridger’s desk and he typed into the computer as Ian wrote out what he saw and I recorded what I had witnessed. Other people at the party were still being questioned, and as Bridger made more notes, I turned so I could scrutinize my partner.
    “What?”
    “Do you have a plan to make up with Emma?”
    The glare was another of my favorites, used when the glower or squint wasn’t enough. “Make up with her why?”
    “You busted her brother.”
    He glanced at Bridger, who nodded, before returning his attention to me. “I’m not the one who invited a drug dealer to my house.”
    “Yeah, but you could have given her, and the others, fair warning about what you were doing. You could have gotten them out before they got swarmed by policemen.”
    “Yeah,” Bridger agreed. “Man, you better make with the groveling.”
    “I was doing my job,” he defended himself.
    I shook my head.
    “Is he kidding?”
    “Sadly, no,” I told the detective.
    Bridger whistled low and went back to typing.
    “What