Fool Me Once (Codie Snow #1): A Romantic Suspense Series by Jade C. Jamison Read Free Book Online Page A

rest of the way into his.
    But Pete paused, holding his face inches from hers, and she felt herself holding her breath, still involuntarily moving her lips closer to his.  In slow motion, almost like a movie, their lips finally connected and she closed her eyes, allowing herself to enjoy the sensation.  She still couldn’t catch her breath as his mouth touched hers softly, but he kissed her as if he had all the time in the world.  She felt explosions going off in her head as all thought vanished, replaced by pure emotion and need, and it all ended way too soon.  She could feel him pulling away before she forced her eyelids to lift.  His voice was soft when he said, “Need to get you all cleaned up before we get back on the road.”
    At last, she was able to pull air into her lungs.  “Yeah.”
    He pointed toward a hallway and said, “The bathroom’s down that way.  Towels are in the closet next to the door.”  For a second, it all felt surreal.  Codie wondered if they’d really just kissed or if she’d imagined it.  She took another deep breath and nodded, heading in the direction he’d indicated.  “I’m going to make something to eat.  I only have an hour for lunch.  A sandwich okay with you or would you rather have something else?”
    Codie paused in the hallway and turned, still feeling a little disoriented.  “I’m not really hungry, Pete.”  Doubt began flooding her brain.  “Maybe I should just go home since I don’t have anything to wear.”
    He chuckled.  “I told you I have stuff you can wear.  Don’t worry about it.  And if it doesn’t fit okay, we can swing by your place for a few minutes after we’re back on patrol.”
    “You sure?”
    “Yeah.  Go get cleaned up.”
    Codie grabbed a towel and washcloth from the hall closet before stepping into Pete’s bathroom.  She’d never been in his house before because, after they’d dated in high school, they’d maintained a casual friendship but nothing deep or intense.  Maybe that was about to change, because Pete wasn’t nearly the macho overbearing jock she thought she’d remembered from their school days.
    He seemed to have become a pretty nice guy.
    Oh, and hot.  Very hot.  How the hell had she forgotten that?
    Well, she knew.  Because they hadn’t spent a lot of time together in the past ten years, she hadn’t watched his transformation.  He had changed.  She was certain of that.  And while she knew a good many cops in her town were egotistical, power-hungry jerks, being a cop had done a lot of good for Pete.  He seemed humbler somehow…as if he’d taken the law enforcement mission to heart—that he was personally protecting everyone in their town.  And she’d already seen tonight that he could be formidable, downright scary to the people he was trying to protect the rest of the citizens from.  All that was wrapped in a package that was… lickable .  Yes, lickable .  Codie couldn’t get her mind off tasting more of Pete…but it looked like maybe that wasn’t going to be an option.  Not tonight anyway.
    After all, they were only halfway through his shift, which meant they were also only halfway through the ride-along.
    Codie made her way around his bathroom and began peeling off her clothing that had become sticky.  Yes, definitely Sprite or some other lemon-lime sugary soda.  She could smell it now in the enclosed space.  Her mind began racing through the earlier events of the evening. In a short time, Pete had saved her from a bar fight gone awry and handled a domestic violence issue where the woman appeared to be the perpetrator, while she’d seen a dead body and watched a meth lab blow up.  She’d witnessed more in a few hours that night than she’d experienced during a regular low-key year.  And Pete had just sort of sauntered through it all as if it was nothing but a thing.
    Yeah, he was a hell of a guy.  He was kind of (no, more than kind of ) overshadowing her hotshot lawyer