Free One Kiss More by Mandy Baxter Page B

escapade last night. Maybe that’s why he’d kissed her back, thinking to buy her cooperation with a few sweet—okay, hot—kisses. Well, toe-curlingly good or not, those lips of his weren’t going to buy her cooperation now or ever.
    “You are going to talk to me, Emma. Right now. You’re running out of time and this attitude of yours isn’t getting you anywhere.” He raked his fingers through the short thatch of his blond hair giving it a way too sexy, bed-head look and sighed. “Damn it, if you’re in trouble, I can help you. Why are you being so stubborn?”
    “I don’t know what you mean, McCabe. I’ve cooperated with your office.”
    Again, when she said his name, his eyes seemed to grow cold, and it only served to further pique her curiosity. “Do you want me to jerk your spoiled ass out of that chair and arrest you like some sort of criminal? Lay you out on the table and read you your rights in front of everyone here? Because I’ll do it and I won’t even think twice about the phones poised and ready to record the video.”
    Emma felt the sting of tears at her eyes, but she bit them back. McCabe’s detached cruelty was a far cry from the heat she’d felt from him last night. Then again, after his rebuff, maybe this was his way of setting the record straight and letting her know that what happened was a mistake. He might as well cuff her right here and now. Kick her while she was already down. He seemed to enjoy it well enough. “Just leave me alone, okay?” Emma simply couldn’t muster the energy to snap at him. She checked the time on the bottom of her laptop screen. McCabe needed to get the hell out of there before Cesar called. “I haven’t done anything wrong, and technically this is harassment.” And how deranged was it that what she was the most upset about was the fact that he wasn’t harassing her with his mouth right now. Totally sick. “I’ll call my lawyer if you want.”
    “No, you won’t.” McCabe leaned back in his chair. “You would have lawyered up the second you heard Javier escaped custody, and since you didn’t bring counsel with you to your interview, I’m going to go ahead and assume that you’re hiding something that you wouldn’t even trust a lawyer with.”
    “I know how you guys operate, McCabe.” Now that she sensed it riled him up, she couldn’t wait to use his last name often and with inflection. Like it was a curse word. Ha! “Intimidation gets the job done, right? You pretend like you know all of my dirty secrets in the hopes that I’ll fold like a house of cards and fess up. But see, there’s a problem with that, McCabe . I don’t have any secrets to spill. Sorry, dude, but you’re barking up the wrong tree.”
    His gaze burned with a heat that simmered in every pore of Emma’s body. A corner of his mouth lifted, hinting at a smile, and he said, “Am I?”
    She flushed with warmth, aware of the turn the conversation had taken and the innuendo in his tone. But Emma wasn’t about to play into it. Not after he’d pushed her away and treated their kiss as something as casual as a handshake. A snappy comeback sat at the tip of her tongue, but when she opened her mouth to speak, the display of her phone lit up, vibrating loudly on the table’s surface.
    Shit.
    Shit, shit, shit! Of all the crappy timing. Her stomach rocketed up into her throat and her heart beat so fast she was afraid it was going to break a rib. The unlisted number on the caller ID could only mean her late caller had finally gotten his act together. How could she do what Cesar wanted her to do while McCabe was sitting right next to her, remotely connected to God knew who else with the Marshals Service? Should she let it go to voice mail? Answer and pretend nothing was wrong? Warn Cesar somehow? Black spots swam in her vision and her head pounded as her anxiety increased tenfold. Emma’s vision darkened at the periphery as a hundred scenarios played out in her mind. Shit, she was