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A muscle flexed in his jaw as he set down his phone a bit too heavily on the counter He supposed he couldn’t expect a courtesy call frolected to do the sa up, not knowing how to say as on his s to a woer whose reactions he could never predict No, what he wanted to say would need to be said face-to-face

Derek hadn’t slept or eaten a decent ht and until just nohen he walked through the door, he hadn’t realized how ot home Work had been hell now that Alvarez’s infor between the two feuding gangs that was set to take place toet histhe location of thein

Those bastards were going down toht

For two days, when he wasn’t strategizing or running back and forth to police headquarters to brief the chief of police on their progress, he’d thought of Ginger nonstop Every time he earned a quietlike she had Sunday led into his pillows The ie was permanently seared into his brain and refused to fade He didn’t want it to

She’d been a virgin He still couldn’t wrap his e when most woman had accumulated a decent number of partners, the way she moved, smiled, breathed—it oozed sensuality He’d hated every eously sexy demeanor undeniably drew hier, who leftit to twenty-three without having been with a man

He’d been her first The first ashtened and shook around hi for hi hiet the way she’d h

The things he’d said to her, done to her when she’d been inexperienced intruded on his conscience If he’d known froin, would he have still spoken to her in that manner?

Yes, he realized If that made hi hier i him

When he told her she’d ruined hio back to the time before he knehat she tasted like, felt like, sounded like as he ht and she’d done the same to him

If she was trying to send hi out without a word, he didn’t like it Itabout the keys tossed so casually on the counter felt final And their association was far from over

Derek threw the entire bag of groceries in the refrigerator to deal with later and left the aparter’s door and knocked briskly

A ain when a throat cleared down the hall to his right He turned and saw Willa standing halfway up the staircase, looking down at him with her default what the fk expression “You knocked?”

He looked between her and the apart upstairs?”

She inspected her nails “We moved into an empty unit until they can fix ours”

What the fk? “Why?”

She shrugged in response

Clearly, he would get nowhere with Willa this century “Is your sister home?”

“Nope”

“Where the hell is she?”

“On a date”