Covert Craving Read Online Free Page A

yet.”
    “Fine.” The crack of his partner’s gum sounded
through the speaker. “Call me in an hour.”
    “Yeah. Later.” He ended the call and tucked the phone
back into his pocket.
    What he wanted to do right now was find a reason
to hang around Chloe’s building and learn who else lived there and what kind of
things went down. Plus, she might leave and get herself into trouble.
    Speak of the devil.
    The woman in question marched down the opposite
sidewalk in a tight outfit more suited for yoga than traipsing around outside.
He grinned. Her breasts jiggled in the tank top with each step she took. The
eyeful in the subway was great until she covered up with the bulky trench coat.
    Greiff crossed the street behind her and followed
her to the corner store. She noticed his reflection in the glass and turned to
look at him in surprise, eyebrows raised and mouth open in shock.
    “Boo.”
    “Are you following me?”
    “Right now, yes.”
    She opened the door. “Why?”
    “I’m curious about you. Plus, you look great in
those pants.” He winked and smiled with a slow, wicked curl that turned his mouth
up at the corners.
    She blinked five or six times, shook her head, and
frowned. “You really think it’s okay to flirt with me when you’re on duty?”
    A blush accompanied her snarky comment. He liked
that, the way he could see the pretty reds in her cheeks.
    “Yes. I don’t think you’ll report me. Because then
I’d have to explain how I found you in the subway.” Flirting with a suspect was
unprofessional, but he couldn’t help himself. When he was around her, even his reservations
about her mental health flew out the window.
    The blush deepened, and she turned away to cross
the threshold of the store. He followed, studying the flesh exposed on her
lower back where the tank top ended an inch or two above her waistband.
    No panty lines. God, she was killing him.
    All the blood in his body made a determined
bee-line to his groin. For whatever reason, seeing her dressed was almost
sexier than seeing her naked. He reviewed several ways to peel the spandex from
her legs in the ten steps it took to arrive at the coolers on the far right
side of the store.
    “Since you’re insisting on following me, big guy,
you can help with the shopping.” Chloe pulled out two gallons of vitamin D and
passed them to him, then got two more. “I hope Frank’s here. He usually lets me
borrow a cart.”
    “What’s with all the milk? You drink all this?”
    “No. It’s for my neighbor. She’s getting the stain
out of my roommate’s jacket. A stain you’re responsible for, I might add. You
should be paying for this stuff.”
    “How is it my fault?” He reached out and took the
other two jugs from her, taking advantage of his long fingers to manage two
gallons in each hand.
    “Thanks.” She bent over to retrieve a bottle of
rum from the shelf opposite the cooler and he got an eyeful of the smooth skin
of her breasts and the hint of a nipple. She caught him looking and turned away
with a quick spin. “Perv.”
    “Hey, you’re the one who picked the outfit. So,
how is you having to buy four gallons of milk my fault?”
    “You chased me and then I ran into the hotdog guy.
If you hadn’t chased me, I wouldn’t have gotten crap all over the jacket and
risked the wrath of Daisy Mae. You don’t want to see her angry.”
    “Well, just tell me what you were doing at those
crime scenes, and I’ll stop following you.” He trailed her down the aisle and around
the corner to the right. The store was one of those catch-all sorts of places
that had odds and ends of almost anything. A canister of butane fluid joined
the bottle of rum. Down another row, she plucked a plastic bag full of zip ties
off a peg.
    “I was watching. Like all the other people.”
    “Right. Just hanging out barefoot and naked under
a borrowed trench coat. ‘Cause you just happened to be walking by after your
morning shift at the park flashing unwary