Total pages in book: 68
Estimated words: 69772 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 349(@200wpm)___ 279(@250wpm)___ 233(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69772 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 349(@200wpm)___ 279(@250wpm)___ 233(@300wpm)
The only thing covering me was a sheet he’d pulled up from the floor.
And not a single pillow remained on the bed after the sex-a-thon we’d had that day.
But just because my body was exhausted, didn’t mean my mind was.
“I want to hear her side of the story,” I admitted. “I want to know why. What she thinks happened.”
“I can pull that up on my phone,” he considered. “Perks of having my dad as the assistant chief of police. Give me two seconds.”
He reached for his phone on the side table, exposing the bare curve of his ass as he did.
I reached forward and ran a finger down the length of his butt, causing him to grumble. “None of that now, or we won’t get out of this bed all day.”
I snorted. “You’re acting like that’s a deterrent.”
His eyes were flaming with heat when he said, “Okay, well how about this? We need to figure this out. Because when I’m done with you today, I want you on the same page as me. I want you wearing my ring. I want you happy with the status of being the future Mrs. Quinn Carter. And when we wake up in the morning, I want you feeling no regrets. I want you to be mine. Unequivocally, irrevocably, mine.”
“We are on the same page,” I promised.
“Then you’ll wear my ring?” he asked.
“You haven’t given me one to wear, or I’d prove it,” I pointed out.
He got off the bed, uncaring of his nudity, and walked to the dresser.
He came back moments later with a ring box covered in dust.
Seconds later, he was kneeling beside the bed and flipping it open.
“I think I’ve told you everything I could today,” he said softly, his eyes intense and solely focused on mine. “There aren’t enough words in the English language to describe how I feel about you. But I will spend the rest of my life trying to give you them, again and again, so you never doubt my feelings for you.”
The tears that I’d thought were gone started to flow again as I said, “Put the ring on my finger, Quinn James Carter.”
He did.
It was a perfect fit.
As expected.
The moment it slid into place, I launched myself at him, finding a second wind.
But other than a few long, sweet kisses, he didn’t take me up on my obvious offer.
He pulled me back onto the bed and hugged me for so long that I started to get sleepy.
“Let’s talk about what happened,” he said, sitting up until he was propped against the headboard, pulling me with him.
Again, a headboard that I’d talked about wanting so we could watch movies in bed all day long and not get uncomfortable.
“Okay,” I stated. “I’m ready.”
He pulled his phone from the bed where it’d been discarded earlier in our haste and queued up the video.
“This was her the night she assaulted you for the second time.” he said as he turned the phone so I could see.
On the phone was DPD’s interrogation room, where Elliette was on one side, and a man I didn’t know was on the other.
“I had to excuse myself from this,” he explains. “That’s Detective Cecil Zimmerman. He’s a veteran with the DPD. I think you’ll like his style.”
“Okay, Officer Garrison,” Detective Zimmerman started, his hands steepling in front of him. “Tell me exactly what happened today, in your own words, once you knocked on the door of Costas’s house.”
Elliette stiffened. “I didn’t knock.”
Zimmerman drew a deep breath before saying, “Okay, well start from when you exited the car.”
Elliette’s brows went up. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, tell me what happened during the no knock warrant today,” he ordered. “Tell me from start to finish.”
She was stalling, and it was obvious.
“Okay, so I got out of the car.” Elliette smirked.
Zimmerman didn’t reply, and I could tell that his calm façade was getting to Elliette.
He wasn’t bothered by her slow process, and obvious attempt to stall.
“And so I’m heading up the walk, and I see the suspect trying to flee with a bag,” Elliette babbled. “So after the battering ram was used, I immediately made my move to intercept her escape attempt.”
The lying sack of shit.
I wasn’t trying to escape anyone.
“I was leaving with a bag,” I said to Quinn. “But I’d just told my brother that I wasn’t coming back. I was going to stay at a hotel until I could find something more permanent.”
He grunted, tensing with each word that came out of Elliette’s mouth on the screen.
“So you admit that you saw her before the door was rammed in, and didn’t alert the entry team of this?” he asked. “You realize, correct, that is against department protocol?”
Elliette gave a careless shrug. “I didn’t realize it was against protocol.”
“That’s a lie, too,” Quinn murmured. “We went over everything before they even left the office. Everything. I mean, down to the T. What to do if you were in the house. What to do if you were in the yard leaving. What to do if Costas didn’t give himself up. What to do if he ran. What to do if there were other people in the house.” He shook his head as he reached forward and pressed pause on the phone before reaching both of his arms up to rest the heels of his hands against his eyes. “The number one rule in serving warrants like this is no collateral damage. And you, baby, were collateral damage. She knew that wasn’t allowed.”