What tactics did he use while interrogating? Waterboarding? Electrocution? Was that even a thing?
Apprehension twisted in my stomach.
Badge, after badge, after badge blurred in glints of gold and silver before my eyes, and it was making me feel a little sick.
I walked further into the room and stopped beside the fed.
“Why am I not handcuffed?” I asked, watching two officers escort a shackled prisoner out the front doors.
He tapped a finger on the counter in a rhythm of three—tap, tap, tap—and side-eyed me, his stare filling with a trace of dry amusement. “Did you want to be?” His words were laced with deep insinuation and intimacy, and I suddenly knew two things: He was an asshole, and he had handcuffed a woman in bed.
My heart rate quickened from his unexpected response, and, to hide it, I feigned a bored expression. “Thanks for the offer, but I’m married.”
“So I can see, with that rock on your finger.”
I glanced at my ring mechanically, and, for some silly reason, felt miffed that he held no concern his prisoner wasn’t restrained. I could totally be a threat to him and the public.
“I could run, you know,” I said, planning to do no such thing.
“Try it.”
It was a dare and a warning.
A cold shiver erupted at the base of my spine. “Would you feel good about yourself? Catching a girl half your size?”
“Yes.”
There wasn’t an ounce of doubt in his reply.
“See, that is the problem with you feds. You love to throw your authority around.”
“Weight,” he corrected dryly.
“What?”
“The saying is to throw your weight around.”
I crossed my arms and took in the busy lobby. My eyes narrowed. I swore every woman in the vicinity had slowed their movements to watch him. A middle-aged officer old enough to be his mother stared while she pushed a clipboard toward him from the other side of the counter.
He signed the papers and then handed them back to the non-blinking officer. I bet women did wonders for his ego every day.
A wave of unease pressed down on my chest as someone set my faux-fur coat and purse on the counter.
Electrocution can’t be a thing.
“Put your coat on,” he ordered.
I paused to grit my teeth because I already had one arm in the sleeve.
He grabbed my sequin crossbody handbag from the counter and eyed the faux peacock feathers like they might carry malaria. I’d made the purse myself, and it was beautiful. I snatched it from his grasp, slipped it on, and headed to the front door.
Stopping abruptly, I turned and waltzed back up to the counter, taking my heels off as I went. “Can you make sure my cellmate—goes by Cherry—gets these?”
The officer watched me with a blank expression.
I returned it.
She peeked over the counter, at my bare feet and white-painted toes, and then straightened, her starched uniform rustling. “It’s been snowing for the last hour.”
I blinked.
“You want to give an opioid-addicted prostitute”—she tilted the shoe to look inside—“Jimmy Choos?”
I brightened. “Yes, please.”
She rolled her eyes. “Sure thing.”
“Great,” I exclaimed. “Thank you!”
Turning around, my gaze met a cold one, which I was sure could frost a lesser woman. He nodded curtly toward the exit.
I sighed. “Okay, Officer, but only because you asked nicely.”
“Agent,” he corrected.
“Agent what?” I pushed the door open. Snow dusted the parking lot, glittering beneath the four-globe lamp posts. The December air grabbed my bare legs with bitter fingers, the cold fighting to pull me into its embrace.
He observed the scene over my head, eyes narrowing as he looked at my bare feet. “Allister.”
“Which car is yours, Agent Allister?”
“Silver Mercedes on the curb.”
I braced myself, and said, “Do you think you could unlock it?”
Before he could respond, I was running to his car, the cold biting into my feet and his dry stare burning a hole into my back.
He didn’t unlock it.
I hopped from one foot to the other, pulling on the passenger door handle while he walked toward me, not the least bit in a hurry.
“Unlock the door,” I said, my breath misting in the air.
“Stop pulling on the handle.”
Whoops.
The door unlocked, and I slid into the seat, rubbing my feet on the carpet for warmth.
His car smelled like leather and him. I was sure he wore custom-made cologne to match the suit, but it was worth the money. It was a nice smell, and even made my mind a little hazy until I blinked the feeling away.
He sat in the driver’s seat and shut the door, and I ignored the way his presence threatened to swallow me whole.
We left the precinct in silence—a tense yet almost comfortable silence.
Digging in my purse, I found a piece of bubblegum. The crinkle of the wrapper filled the car. His eyes remained on the road, but he gave his head the most subtle shake, conveying just how ridiculous he thought I was.
He was late to the party.
I popped the gum in my mouth and swept a gaze over the car’s immaculate interior. Not a single receipt. Beverage. Speck of dust. Either he’d just killed a man and was trying to cover his tracks, or the fed had some OCD tendencies.
I always was a bit too curious.
I crushed the wrapper in my hand and moved to drop it in his cup holder. The gaze he shot me was deadly.
Looked like it was the latter.
I dropped the wrapper in the recesses of my purse.
Crossing my legs, I blew a bubble.
Popped it.
The silence grew so deafening I reached for the radio, but, once again, the look he gave me changed my mind. I sighed and sat back in my seat.
“Tell me how long you’ve been married.”
My eyes narrowed on the windshield in front of me. This man didn’t even ask questions—he just told you to tell him what he wanted to know. However, the quiet gave too much room for thought, and I responded, “A year.”
“Young age to get married.”
I glanced at my cuticles. “Yeah, I suppose.”
“You’re a native of New York, then.”
“I wish,” I muttered.
“Don’t like home?”
“What I don’t like is you trying to small talk to coax things out of me. I don’t have anything to say to you, so you might as well take me back to jail.”
His arm brushed mine from where it rested on the center console, and I shifted away from the touch, crossing my legs the other way. Was his car small, or was it just me? The heater ran on low, but my skin was burning up. I slipped my coat off and tossed it onto the back seat.
He side-eyed me. “Nervous?”
“Feds don’t make me nervous, Allister. They give me a rash.”
I ignored the touch of his stare as it swept from the loose curls in my hair, down the red lace over my stomach that revealed a diamond navel piercing, to my bare feet.
“If you dressed a little less like a hooker, the cop who pulled you over might not have searched you.”
I pulled the bubblegum off my finger with my teeth and gave him a smile. “If you looked a little less like an anal-retentive asshole, you might get laid every once in a while.”
The corner of his lips tipped up. “Glad to hear there’s some hope for me.”
I rolled my eyes and turned my head to look out the window.
“It must have been a special occasion tonight,” he drawled.
“No.”