Crash Lights and Sirens, Book 1 by Unknown Read Free Book Online Page A

breathing and the blush that’s crept down her chest. But fine. If she wants to be a pain in the ass, then she can be a pain in the ass. “You want me to drive you home, or what?” he asks.
    Taryn’s pale eyebrows lift. “In a minute.” Nick’s dropping his hand from the wall when she grabs it, lacing her fingers through his. “I told you,” she says, when he looks at her curiously. “I did it twice.”
    She did it— Christ, Nick’s pretty much had enough of fucking around here.
    Maybe Falvey has too, because she kisses him right back this time, letting him lick his way into her mouth and press her up against the wall. Nick can feel her everywhere at once. When she nips along the edges of his tongue, he lets out a growl before he knows he’s going to do it, hips pressing hers back into the plaster. Taryn gasps.
    “Good?” he asks, then doesn’t wait for an answer. Instead he tucks one hand against the nape of her neck underneath that waterfall of hair, back where the skin is so hot and so soft it’s all he can do not to turn her around and set to sucking, not to haul her into the bathroom and pull those tight jeans down around her thighs. Taryn grins a cheeky grin against his mouth.
    “Knew you had it in you,” she murmurs.
    Nick catches her bottom lip between his teeth and tugs. “You’re a brat, you know that?” One thigh slides between hers to investigate, pressing up. She’s warm there too, all these secret pockets of body heat.
    Taryn keeps smiling. “You have no idea.”
    They kiss like that for another full minute until probability says there’s no way they’re not about to get caught. Nick’s thirty-three years old, for fuck’s sake; the last thing he wants is Lynette or somebody coming around the corner and getting a show. He tells himself to stop, and doesn’t. It feels like he physically can’t, Jesus, like they lit a long fuse on the night of the fire and it’s been sparking along up until now, the flame getting closer and closer until—
    “Come on,” Taryn gasps, pulling away with such violence he’s surprised she doesn’t crack her skull on the plaster. Her lips are swollen and spit-shiny. “You’re driving.”
    Nick exhales carefully. He’s half-hard already, heavy inside his jeans. “And where am I driving to?” he asks, watching her face.
    Falvey gives him a look like he’s been lobotomized. “Somewhere private,” she whispers, loud enough to echo down the hall. Nick raises his eyebrows and watches her turn a dull red, the blush spreading like someone’s coloring between her freckles with a crayon. “Oh, like you don’t want to just as bad.”
    She’s not wrong. Nick tips her bossy head back and kisses her roughly, sealing the deal.
     
     
    Taryn spends the walk to Kanelos’s truck trying to figure out her game plan.
    She had a strategy to get them to the parking lot, sure—separating by the pay phone, her circling around to say goodbye to Emily while Nick headed straight for the Ortizes and his coat—but that was pretty much where her forethought ended. Now that they’re actually here, in the cold and not talking, Taryn is a lot less sure of herself.
    “Over here,” Nick’s telling her now, holding open the door that leads to the second level of the garage. It’s the first time they’ve spoken since the bar and it’s weird, charged and serious like Taryn’s never been with a guy. If it were Pete, they’d be bumping shoulders and joking.
    “Hurry up,” she mumbles, ducking in close under the exit sign for a kiss that’s more chin than lips. “M’cold.” The fluorescent lights turn Nick’s crooked grin orange.
    Part of the problem is that Taryn isn’t sure where they’re going to go. Her place is right out, obviously, and she knows enough about the history with Kanelos’s wife to feel strange about inviting herself over to his. Lynette told her the full story last fall, how they bought the house and then not three months later she died,