Free Dead and Disorderly (Behind the Blue Line Series Book 2) by Alexis D. Craig Page A

splendor peeking out from behind the top of Regions Tower, the tallest structure in the city. It was flanked on either side by the other skyscrapers that rose like turrets on a keep, forming a solid demarcation between the physical and the celestial. The earth and the sky. The buildings were studded with lights from various offices with their employees still hard at work, a pale imitation of the stars that the city lights all but obliterated, but it would do in a pinch.
    “I come out here some nights,” he whispered, his lips barely brushing the shell of her ear, “when I need to be reminded that there is beauty in this world.” He then nuzzled the spot behind her ear, inhaling deeply before sighing happily and pressing the tiniest of kisses to the juncture of her neck and shoulder.
    Nahia didn’t bother to hide the effect his touch had on her that time. The skyline was incredible, but paled mightily in comparison to the man with her, kissing his way up her neck and rendering her speechless.
     

     
    She turned to face him, winding her arms around his neck as she pulled him down to kiss her. He touched her face, always amazed at how soft she was and wondering if she was that soft all over, tilting her chin up for a better angle as she offered him her lips.
    Nico wound his fingers in her hair as their tongues teased and tangled, loving both its silkiness and its possessiveness as the strands curled around his fingers attempting to keep him in place as Nahia pressed closer against him. The hand he’d kept at her waist slid up, easily bypassing the bottom of her flowy black shirt and he felt her whole body surge against him as he spread his hand over the unbearably supple skin of her lower back.
    His body reacted predictably, the feel of her against him sizzling through his nerves at lightning speed, and he did his damnedest to devour her with his kiss. When they parted, it was only for a moment of sweet oxygen before he sealed his mouth over hers again. Her taste robbed him of anything but a desire for more. More kisses, touches, and sighs, it was all he could do to keep them both upright and clothed since they were, in fact, in the middle of a public foot bridge in the middle of downtown.
    He pulled back, resting his forehead against hers, his lungs burning and he could not be moved to care.
    “I don’t suppose you live in one of those apartments,” she remarked around the tiny gasps that were making him nuts. She inclined her head toward the apartments behind her and beyond them on the other side of the bridge.
    He shook his head and brushed the hairs back from her face that had been picked up and blown by a sudden light breeze. The moon was now bright and full, though her light showed the silhouettes of the heavy clouds that would eventually overtake her. “Your place?”
    “10 th and New Jersey,” she answered instantly. Her eyes glittered in the moonlight and she shook her head to release her hair to the breeze with a contented smile on her face. 
    It was close, closer by several miles than his place, but before he started down that road, he had to know she was on the same page. “I don’t want you to think… It wasn’t my intention to…that is, I didn’t bring you out here to…” Every sentence he started was completely wrong, attesting to the blood and subsequent oxygen going other places in his body than his brain.
    “Seduce me?” Her grin blossomed into the one he’d seen at dinner, a cross between amusement and devilish glee. “Fine. I didn’t want to have to do this, but you leave me no choice.”
    Nahia pulled him down for a too brief kiss, her hand wandering from his neck down to his chest. He held his breath as her hand drifted lower and lower until it settled at his belt, hooking into the belt loop where his badge normally rode. She looked so serious as she followed the path of her hand’s caress with her eyes, until they, too, stopped at his belt. “Do what?” He was barely