Embracing Midnight by Devyn Quinn Read Free Book Online

snitch leaning against the frame.
    “Jesus Christ, you little punk. How the hell did you get in here?”
    Short and boxy, with shoulder-length dirty blond hair and an even scragglier beard, Paul Norton’s smile stretched across his face in an obscene grin. “Duh. I picked your lock.”
    She eyed him. “What for, you little creep.”
    Norton snuffled and wiped his nose with one grimy sleeve of a jacket most likely dug from a Dumpster. Dressed in baggy cargo pants at least two sizes too big and a shirt that had more holes than intact material, he looked every bit like a shabby junkie on crack. “I’m a thief. It’s what thieves do.”
    In reality Paul Norton was her partner of two years and the closest friend she had, a fellow agent working the Drake investigation. Where Callie’s job was to identify Drake’s associates for agents, Norton’s was to photograph and run down their identities. A whiz with a knack for breaking and entering, he could breach any lock on earth.
    Sighing at the imposition, Callie peered around for her robe. Of course it hung on the peg behind the door. She pointed. “Could you hand me that?”
    Norton retrieved the robe. “You want this?” A shit-eating grin of pornographic mischief crossed his face.
    She held out her hand. “Please. If you don’t mind.”
    He waggled it like a tempting morsel. “Why don’t you come and get it?”
    Callie rolled her eyes. “I’m naked, asshole.” Despite his best attempts to get her into bed, Norton had failed. He seemed to enjoy paying her back for the many times she’d brushed off his sexual advances. He’d wanted to be more than friends for years.
    He made an exasperated gesture with his hands. “I know.” He chuckled in a most unappealing manner. “And from what I saw, it’s glorious.”
    Callie’s eyebrows came together in an ugly scowl. “Stop it, Paul. You’re giving me a headache.”
    Grin set like concrete, Norton shook his head. “Didn’t look like you had a headache a few minutes ago. God, you looked so hot getting yourself off. I hope you were thinking of me.”
    She eyed his short, chunky frame. She barely imagined their bodies entwined in a naked clinch, his lips brushing hers. It just didn’t compute. The physical attraction wasn’t there and wouldn’t be even if they were stranded on a desert island and were the only male and only female. Her partner was single and probably the safer choice. But Callie never took the safer path when it came to men. “Christ, Paul. You’re a nice guy, but—”
    He interrupted her. “I know.” He pushed crooked wire-rim glasses up on his beaky nose, which gave him the look of a be-mused owl. “You want tall, dark bastards. Short, blond, and dumpy just doesn’t turn you on. Hell, it doesn’t turn me on either.”
    She made a derisive sound. “That’s not it at all.”
    He grimaced, giving a self-deprecating smile. “Sure it is. But, please, don’t penalize me for worshipping beauty. I’m a man. We can’t help being attracted to naked goddesses.”
    Callie rolled her eyes. “Don’t start. I don’t need a lecture on what men want, or what I want in a man.” She held out her hand for the robe. “You think you could hand that over?”
    His perky grin returned. “Nah.” He began to breathe heavily, imitating an obscene caller. “I still want to see you naked.”
    “Fuck you.”
    He grinned. “Please do.”
    “You’re a maggot, Paulie. A horny little maggot.”
    Norton spread his arms in his defense. “What do you expect? I walk in on a gorgeous undressed woman doing things to her body I can only dream about and you expect me to just turn around and walk out.”
    “That would have been decent of you,” she muttered under her breath.
    He eyed her, sitting in a crumpled mass of patchwork quilt and nothing else. “How can you expect me not to get a woody the size of Texas when you’re so damn close and so damn naked?”
    Callie pulled her cover tighter to her body,