Page 55 of Criminally Yours

She smiled bashfully as her gaze dropped to his mouth. She sucked on her lower lip, and he resisted the temptation totrace the action with his finger, instead lacing her fingers with his.

“I’m glad you’re wearing my wristband,” he said, glancing at her wrist before touching his forehead, now covered with the plaster. “Thank you for your great work, Sunset.”

He pressed a soft kiss to her knuckles. Her skin flushed pink.

Cam called out, “Next stop, safe zone. We’ll be there in ten minutes.”

Millie’s throat bobbed as she stared at Strike.

CHAPTER 24

Millie

“You brought me here?” Millie’s words caught in her throat, barely reaching the breeze that carried the scent of oranges and teenage memories she’d avoided for years.

Strike worked silently with a side-eyeing Cam to erect the tent under the headlights. The chill of dusk settled around her, seeping into her bones, as the men raced to beat the darkness.

The water lapping at the lake took her back to the last time she was here—two weeks before Strike deserted her, when they’d decided to be secret boyfriend and girlfriend.

Millie held her fingers to her lips as she remembered the moment he’d told her he’d been crushing on her for a couple of years. And as the sun set, he kissed her. It was her first kiss, and it still made her tingle.

She closed her eyes, recalling the second all her dreams came true. He was barely a man then, nearly nineteen, and she was days away from eighteen.

“Millie,” Strike whispered. His heat was against her. “You’re shivering. Your jumper’s in the car.”

She opened her eyes. His voice carried the same intonations as the man from her memories, but Strike, with the creases around his eyes and the twitching fingers he held out to her, had experienced pain that had changed him.

Her mouth quivered. Under the car’s headlights, it was like she was standing in front of the ghost of her first love.

The light highlighted his stern jaw and hunched shoulders, but it also revealed his soft lips and the beauty spot near his ear.

“Can I help with anything?” she asked keenly.

“We’ve got the first tent up, but you can help Cam with the second while I touch base with Bear and explain the plan,” Strike replied.

“Will you tell me the plan?”

“Of course. We’re staying here for one night, and tomorrow morning, we’ll drive to Cornwall to Stal’s secret holiday home.”

She forced a yawn to hide the way her pulse sped at his authority. “Why aren’t we going now?”

“I want to arrive in the daylight so I can assess risk better. This place is safe because I… we know it. We can hide here until we’re safe to travel.”

She glanced at the blue tent as Cam pulled a green one from its bag. “You two are sleeping in there? It’s snug for two giant men who resemble Vikings conquering new worlds.”

Strike’s lips quirked. “Are you reading spicy Viking books this month, Doc?”

“This month?” She shook her head. “I’m just tired.”

“It’s been a day.” Strike pointed at the blue tent. “That’s for me. Cam’s taking this vehicle and swapping it with another one from our fleet. He’ll drop it off in the morning once he’s slept. The sooner your tent’s up, the sooner he can head off.”

“It will just be us two tonight?”

“Yes. A normal bodyguard and client situation in a safeplace,” Strike grunted, but his fingers danced against his thighs.

Millie stared at the silver-stranded wristband slipping down his wrist, highlighted by the car’s headlights. It was a twin of the one she wore. Strike shoved it under the cuffs of his fitted black jumper.

“We have a problem,” Cam shouted from where he knelt on the ground beside the green tent awning.