Free An Affair of Deceit by Jamie Michele Page A

It’s for the pushin’, you know.”
    “Don’t be an ass. She’s pissed off enough as it is. What in the hell are you doing here, anyway? I’m trying to work a case for you,” he spat through clenched teeth.
    “This dojo is iconic. Been meaning to check it out.” Greene’s bright smile was a blinding contrast against his clear brown skin.
    “And you just happened to pick a night when Abigail likes to train.”
    “No, that wasn’t a coincidence—I planned it.” Greene laughed. “Why? You trying to keep her to yourself?”
    “I’m trying to manage a series of interrogations. Delicately. Hard to do when my team leader shows up and tries to throw her to the mat.”
    “I needed to see her. She doesn’t need to know who I am.”
    “She’s not stupid.” How many times would he tell people that? “She saw us talking together. If she was willing to work with me before, she sure as hell isn’t going to now.”
    Greene ran a towel over his shaved head. “I thought we were running an investigation here, not a dating service.”
    “Damn it, you’re frustrating. Nobody’s dating anybody.”
    “Sounds like a challenge.”
    “Well, it’s not.”
    “All you have to do is say the word and I’ll back off,” Greene said, opening his arms wide.
    “Quit screwing around. She’s part of the investigation.” Riley looked in the direction of the locker room, where Abigail hadgone with the others when class had ended. “Besides, she’s not exactly on the market.”
    “They’re all on the market. You just have to find their price.”
    “You’re disgusting.” They’d been best friends since the day they met, but Greene’s one-dimensional view of women differed vastly from Riley’s.
    “Come on! She’s just a woman,” Greene insisted.
    “‘Just a woman’? You’re an animal. Were you raised by wolves?”
    Greene’s face froze in a bitter smile. “More like a black widow.”
    “Lila isn’t that bad,” Riley said, regretting calling Greene’s mother a wolf. “At least she didn’t eat your dad after she mated with him.”
    Greene wrinkled his face in exaggerated revulsion. “Now that’s disgusting,” he said, but then he appeared to consider it. “You know, I don’t think poor ol’ Dad gave Lila the chance. He hightailed it the hell away from her as soon as he pulled out.”
    “That’s more information than I ever needed to know about your conception.”
    “Hey, you brought it up.” Greene’s laugh was deep and real, and the moment of darkness was gone.
    “I didn’t say ‘sex,’ I said ‘mating.’ Mating and sex are two different things.”
    “Mating and sex are
exactly
the same thing, genius.” Greene’s mouth opened in mock surprise. “Oh, I’m sorry. You probably have trouble remembering what it’s like to get laid. It’s been what, five years since that waitress?”
    “Four and a half, her name was Gina, and I didn’t sleep with her.”
    Greene began stuffing his sparring pads into a black gym bag at his feet. “Are you kidding me? I practically bought her for you.”
    “That’s true, and it didn’t add to the magic.”
    “What about Christie? That cute little thing you seduced on the job?”
    “Christie was over long before Gina.” Riley ran his tongue over his teeth, irritated by the memories of these women for whom he no longer had an ounce of feeling.
    “We have got to get you laid, my friend!”
    “No, ‘we’ do not.”
    “We?” Greene looked puzzled, and then he grimaced. “Oh man. That reminds me. Did I tell you about what happened with that stewardess from Alitalia?”
    “I don’t want to know.”
    “Trust me, you do. I think she taped it, but I can’t find it on YouTube.”
    “Don’t lose hope. I’m sure there are dirty videos of you on the Internet somewhere.”
    Greene patted his heart and looked up in silent prayer. “We all have dreams. You want to introduce the Chinese ice princess to your dick. I want to appear in Italian amateur