Priceless

nodded, then took off like a shot into the overgrown and junk-filled alley that ran alongside Giselle’s home, much to the dismay of the officers around us. Even though we were at odds, she would look out for Alex, would maybe even come to pull my ass out of this fire. Maybe.
    “Oops,” I said. “Fingers slipped.” The officer glared at me, his face darkening to a shade that, in the light of the sirens, looked a distressing shade of purple.
    Unable to help myself, I asked, “Do you have high blood pressure? You look like a plum that’s about to explode.”
    Without further ado, I was spun, frisked and handcuffed with my hands behind my back, then shoved inside the same police cruiser as O’Shea. Or Liam, I suppose.
    My hip bumped against his; he glanced over at me, but said nothing. All that spark and humour I’d seen earlier was gone, wiped out. Back were the cold, distant dark eyes I’d grown used to seeing glare at me out of his sharp angled face. There were no handles inside, nothing to even rattle in an attempt to get out. But I wasn’t panicking, at least not yet.
    Leaning back into the pleather seats I stared up at the battered ceiling of the cruiser. It looked as though more than one set of feet had been smashed into it. “You never told me your name was Liam.”
    He said nothing, so I kept talking. “It suits you.” I shifted down a little further and put my feet on the ceiling, setting them inside the prints of the previous passenger. “He had big feet. At least a size fourteen or fifteen. Maybe he was a Big Foot.” That got his attention.
    “They aren’t real.” No one was in the cruiser with us yet, so I leaned toward him and put my lips to his ear.
    “You sure about that?”
    He shivered and a flash from a camera went off behind us. A picture of me snuggling up to the agent who’d shot his partner while hunting me. Oh, that was not going to help us any.
    An officer got in the car, flipped the lights off, and stared at us through the metal bars that kept us from climbing out. “Was she worth it?”
    O’Shea glanced over at me, and I smiled up at him and gave him a wink. “Go ahead, tell him the truth.” Something in me wanted O’Shea—Liam—to smile again.
    There it was; a flicker of devilry in those dark eyes. “I don’t know. Yet.”
    Heat, intense, searing heat flared between us. I couldn’t look away—the promise of that one, single, simple word was all it took to spin my mind back to a very tight cramped bathroom and the feel of his chest under my fingertips. The taste of his lips and tongue against mine. I swallowed hard, my heart pounding, blood rushing to places I’d ignored for a long time.
    “You’re a disgrace, piece of shit cop killer,” the officer said, breaking the spell between us.
    I looked out my window, feeling the distance between O’Shea and I seemingly shrink. His side pressed up against mine, and I knew my mind hadn’t been playing tricks on me.
    His hand stole around my back, hampered by his handcuffs, but undeterred. Even if I’d wanted to pull away from him, I couldn’t, there was nowhere for me to go. Fingers linking with mine, he leaned into me harder. I stared at his mouth, only inches away from my face, and tried to form a cohesive thought other than how good he tasted.
    Then he jabbed his key into my hands. Key? Blinking, I flicked my eyes up to his, which were almost laughing at me. My fingers curled around the key and I slid it into the handcuffs. A small ‘snick’ of metal unlatching and I was free. In a manner of speaking.
    “Now what?” Still crushed up against him, my voice was whisper soft.
    “We give them a show, one that’ll make them pull over and try to separate us.”
    “You just want another chance at my lips.” My whisper was just a tad too breathy. Damn I sounded eager. Maybe I shouldn’t have employed Milly’s tactics. They were certainly landing me in a whole different pot of hot water.
    His lips quirked up, putting a slight dimple in his cheek. How had I not noticed that before?
    He pushed his face even closer to mine, a mere shiver away from touching. “You don’t?”
    I couldn’t think of anything to say that wouldn’t damn me all to hell and back, and my own reaction to him did that well enough.
    The same officer who’d interrupted us before did so again. Thank the gods.
    “You two, chill out.” His babyish features pegged him for the rookie he obviously was. That, and the way his hand never