Carnal.
That last one was a reach courtesy of my overactive libido and still mostly asleep brain. I knew it when he raised his gaze to meet mine, and there was nothing but teasing amusement.
A look that matched his tone when he said, “Cute pajamas.”
I mean, he wasn’t wrong. The blue bow print on the soft pajamas was cute, but they didn’t exactly portray the kind of somber command of a detective.
I faked it anyway. “Thanks. It complements my gun.”
His low chuckle made me almost as proud as his speechlessness.
I need to get myself together.
Ohhhh shit.
After the world’s speediest shower, I’d gotten ready and come out to find Rhys sitting on the coffee table. In his words, it was a fuck-ton more comfortable than my shitty couch.
He wasn’t wrong.
We’d made the drive to Rye mostly in silence, each lost in our own thoughts. I knew that was the case for me, at least. My brain had shuffled through a plethora of possibilities about what awaited us. And as we pulled into the employee lot, the answer was clear.
Bikers.
Bikers awaited us.
The usual work van the MayCo guys had been using was there but also double the motorcycles as the day before.
“Shit,” Rhys muttered, echoing my thoughts rather than easing my worries.
I went even more alert. “As in, there’s someone here who annoys you? Or more like it’s a good thing that my gun also coordinates with this outfit because I might need it? What kind ofshitare we talking about?”
“That it’s not a good sign they called in the whole club.” He tilted his head out the window. “All the brothers you’re about to meet are the nicest fuckin’ people in the world.”
That seemed to be a thing with his friends.
It made me a little envious.
Okay, a lot envious.
It was shocking since I never really cared about my lack of a social life.
Most little kids said they wanted to be a police officer at some point. Usually, that changed on a whim to a baseball player, a construction worker, a firefighter, a vet, and whatever other career they viewed with the same awe as a superhero.
I didn’t waver.
Not when I was a kid.
Not when I was a teenager going through my dramatic phase—which I was still kind of in, but whatever.
Not when I did my two years of college because my dad had promised my mother on her literal death bed that us kids would travel or go to school before joining the academy in case we discovered a hidden passion.
Being a cop was my passion.
No.
Being agoodcop. The same kind as my dad had been. That my brothers, uncles, and cousins—minus one shady cousin, but we didn’t talk about him—were. I wanted to be who those little kids thought cops were.
A superhero.