“Oh, that’s bullshit!” Harlow chimed in, downing the last of her drink before slamming the glass back down. Only she missed the table top by several inches, basically throwing the glass to the floor with a loud shatter that had the majority of the bar patrons glaring in our direction. She stared down at the broken glass with a surprised look on her face. “Whoops.”

“I’m gonna have to ask you ladies to leave,” the burly bouncer spoke up as he stopped at our table. His big, meaty arms were crossed over his chest in an intimidating stance that would have had me running scared had it not been for the fact that I was already fuming at the male population as a whole. And at that moment, the asshole with a Mr. Clean head was standing between me and my next gin and tonic. Eff that!

“Back off, cue ball,” I spit nastily, standing from my chair so we were chest to chest—well, chest to hips, actually, seeing as he towered over me by about a foot and a half. But I wasn’t backing down. I was pretty sure I could take him. “You don’t wanna piss me off. I’m two seconds away from getting a stepladder so I can kick your ass,” I said as I drilled my finger into his barrel chest.

“That’s it,” he grumbled, grabbing me by the arm and hauling me toward the door. “You’re outta here.”

I heard my friends shout in protest approximately three seconds before the shit hit the fan.

She was avoiding me again. And what pissed me off the most was I had no one to blame but myself. I’d lost count of the number of times I called her after nearly shoving that pushy photographer out the door. Each and every call went unanswered.

Finally, deciding to put my inability to sleep to good use, I sat behind my desk and attempted to write. Unfortunately, the story I was contracted to write wasn’t coming to me as easily as I’d hoped. The heroine was supposed to be broken and scarred, scared of her own shadow. But every time I sat down to write, a fire came out in her personality that wasn’t supposed to be there. A fire very similar to the one I saw in Navie’s denim colored eyes each time I looked at her.

Leaning back in frustration, I raked my hands through my hair, trying my damnedest to get into the headspace I needed to be in to write. Just as my fingers landed on the keys, my cell vibrated on the desk next to me, the shrill ring echoing through the room like a siren. Not giving two shits how desperate I sounded, I snatched up the phone up without so much as looking at the screen.

“Navie?”

Griffin’s rumble of laughter came through the line, sending a bolt of agitation through me. “No such luck, lover boy.”

I didn’t bother to hide my irritation. “What the fuck do you want? It’s after midnight.”

“I need you to come down to the station. I have something you want.” Typically, hearing he needed me to come to the police station in the middle of the night would have worried me, but there was humor lacing his words together.

“Got news for you, cuz. There’s nothing you got that could make me drag my ass down there right now.”

“That so?” He chuckled.

“Yep.”

“Have a good night then.” Just as he was about to hang up, I heard a familiar voice yelling, “Hey, asshole! Let me outta here!”

A red haze of jealousy clouded my vision. “What the fuck? What’s Navie doing with you?”

“Told you I had something you’d want. See you in a few.” And with that, he hung up.

I was pretty sure I broke the land speed record getting my ass down to Griffin’s station, which was damn near impossible to do when driving in New York, but never discount a determined man. Pulling up in front of the building, I slammed my car into park before coming to a complete stop, not caring in the slightest about fucking up the transmission on my Mercedes S550. The damn thing cost a mint, but at that very moment, I couldn’t care less. It only took a few minutes to clear the front desk and make my way back to Griffin’s. Being related to one of the detectives in the precinct had its advantages.

“What the hell’s going on?” I asked, not bothering with a friendly hello. Griffin was leaning back in his chair, his feet propped casually on his desk as he, Dex, and some of the other guys laughed. I hadn’t paid attention to where their eyes were trained until I heard the voice that made my blood run hot.

“You called my boss? God, you’re such a dick!”

Spinning around, I saw Navie with Pepper and her friend, Harlow. The sight of the bars surrounding them had me stunned silent for all of two seconds. “You threw them in the drunk tank, Griff? Seriously?”

His hands came up in surrender as he dropped his feet to the floor and stood up. “Hey, man, I’m not the asshole here. Dex threw his own sister in there.”

“And I’m telling Mom as soon as I get out of here, limp dick! Just wait until she finds out you locked up her baby girl. She and Wendy are gonna string you up by your balls!” Pepper hollered. Dex’s face paled as the guys standing around them burst into laughter.

“Someone wanna tell me what the hell is going on here?” I asked, looking back at Griff for answers.

He pointed at a young guy in full uniform. “O’Neill got a call for a drunk and disorderly. When he got to the bar, your girl and her friends were three sheets to the wind, trying to take on the bouncer for kicking them out. Gotta hand it to you, man, you got a little firecracker on your hands. They said Navie was clinging to the poor guy’s back like a goddamned spider monkey when they pulled up.”

The retelling of the story sent the guys into another round of hysterics. But for the life of me, I couldn’t imagine Navie getting into a bar fight. Let alone with another dude. “You’ve got to be shitting me. They press charges?”

“Nah, it’s all good. O’Neill recognized Pepper’s last name and called Dex. We saw an opportunity and took it. The night was pretty slow, so we have to get our shits and giggles from whatever’s available. They’ve been in there for about an hour and already made best friends with the prostitutes.”

“Jesus Christ,” I grumbled, running a hand down my face as I turned to look at the three of them in the drunk tank. Sure enough, they were huddled around a few hookers, one of them obviously a tall black man in drag. Fuck me. “I’m taking Navie with me. You getting the other two home?”

“Yeah, I’ll take care of it. Let’s go get your girl before she starts taking makeup tips from LaWanda there,” he said with a wiggle of his eyebrows.

Griff pulled a set of keys out of the pocket of his slacks and unlocked the metal door. “All right, you three. Let’s go.” Pepper shoved past first, shoulder-checking Griff as hard as she could before making her way to her brother and smacking him in the back of the head. Harlow trailed behind her in a fit of giggles, still clearly drunk. My little blonde spit-fire pulled up the rear.

Holy fuck. When the hell did I start thinking of Navie as mine?

I tried my hardest to push those thoughts and the accompanying anxiety to the back of my mind as she turned and called over her shoulder. “Bye, girls! Good luck with your surgery, LaWanda!” I so didn’t want to know what surgery she was talking about.

“Thanks, girl,” he/she answered in a scarily deep voice. “You take that luscious man home and treat him right, you hear?”

There was no fighting back the shiver that ran down my back. Even if the thought of Navie treating me right was appealing, hearing those words from a person who looked big enough to snap me like a twig, all while eyeing me like a juicy steak, was enough to deflate any man’s dick.

Wrapping my fingers around her elbow, I pulled her close to my side as I began guiding her from the room. “Let’s go.”