Page 89 of Code Name: Harbor

Marcus peels off toward her. “Josie… that chicken has my stomach speaking to me in ways I’ve never heard before.”

“I’ll offer it again… there’s a plate with your name on it if you want to stay.”

“I would marry you for it,” he quips, “but I think the boss might object.”

“The boss objects,” I say. I’d ordinarily invite both my mates to share the meal with me, but I want to be alone with Josie. I find myself craving that time more than anything these days.

Marcus grins, gives Josie’s arm a squeeze, the easy warm one he gives people he’s decided are his. “’Night, Josie. Thanks for letting us crash your kitchen.”

I like how he says your kitchen, and I like even more that Josie doesn’t try to correct him.

“Anytime, Marcus.”

Connie walks straight past her and offers no words. No goodbye. No glance. She crosses the great room on a line like Josie’s a piece of furniture she’s decided to avoid so she doesn’t stub her toe.

That’s odd given she made an effort to be genial when she arrived.

“’Night, Connie,” Josie says to her back.

“’Night,” Connie replies, but it’s a rote farewell, no true meaning in it.

And then they’re gone, out into the dark.

I tell myself the Connie thing is nothing. She’s tired. She’s got a run tomorrow. She and Josie don’t have to be friends. I tell myself the meeting went exactly the way a meeting should go—tight, professional, no loose threads, everybody clear on their role. The figurine’s a milk run and Connie seemed locked in the entire time.

Everything should go off without a hitch.

I lock the door, set the alarm and head back into the kitchen. My chest does a thing when it sees Josie and the meal she has spread out on the counter. There’s a whole chicken, golden and flecked with rosemary, resting in its pot on the stovetop. There’s a dish of roasted potatoes crisped at the edges and a bowl of green beans with slivers of toasted almonds. She’s set two places at the island with an open bottle of wine that looks one glass light already.

She made all of this knowing who I am and what I do. She understands I’ve spent my entire working life acquiring things so I would never again be the kid who slept in a stairwell and stole bread from a market because his stomach hurt. I have a mansion, two boats, and a successful, thriving art business. I’ve spent more money on single bottles of wine than my mother made in a month working three jobs to keep food on the table.

And not one thing I’ve ever bought or accomplished has done to me what the sight of this woman’s roast chicken on my stove is doing to me right now.

“How’d it go?” she asks and then immediately blushes. “Wait… don’t answer that. I was just being polite and I don’t really want to know.”

I chuckle, deciding that might be the most adorable thing I’ve ever seen, watching her try to reconcile her feelings and genuine interest in me with her career in putting criminals behind bars.

But I know she carries concern for me as well so I say, “We’re as ready as we can be.”

She smiles gratefully for the reassurance, and I cross the floor to her. Josie watches me come, her eyes going a little wide as her tongue darts out over her bottom lip. It’s sexy as fuck and I bet she has no clue she even did it. I take the dish towel off her shoulder and drop it on the counter, putting my hands to her cheeks to tilt her face up to mine.

“Finn—”

I kiss her before she can mar my intentions with more words. I want her. I want the one thing between us that doesn’t have a wall down the middle of it.

Josie makes a small sound against my mouth, surprised, and then she’s kissing me back. Her hands come up to fist in my shirt, and the kiss goes from a thing I started to a thing she’s fully involved in. She tastes like wine and passion, and I’ve kissed her enough times now that the taste of her has its own slot in my brain, filed under things I don’t ever want to live without.

When I break it, I keep my forehead against hers. We’re both breathing harder than a kiss in the kitchen should account for.

“I’m going to pick you up, carry you up those stairs, and I can do one of two things,” I whisper in her ear.

She shudders. “What would those choices be?”

“Make love to you or fuck you hard. Got a preference?”

Josie moans, tilting her head and pressing her mouth to my throat. “You and I seem to have a problem with actually eating meals when they’re ready because we want to have sex.”

“That’s a problem?”