Brian stiffened the second I made contact. I could feel the warning bells going off in his head, but I still felt so exhilarated and happy from the heart-pounding adrenaline that I pressed on. I planted a second kiss on his stiff lips. His hands came up to my shoulders, but they didn't push me away. His lips softened up a little, but I could still feel how uncertain he was, so I backed off.

"Ready to head back so we can pay the meth head?" I asked brightly.

His blue eyes were wide in shock as he stared at me.

"What was that?" He asked cautiously. I sighed.

"It was a kiss," I said. "A simple kiss."

"We're partners, Anna." He sounded offended. "Work partners. We can't do this."

I scoffed at him.

"It doesn't have to mean anything, Brian."

"I'm not a no-feelings kind of guy." He replied, firmly. I raised an eyebrow at him.

Interesting. Especially since I knew he had a lot more with Mia Toretto than a quick peck on the lips in a parked car. I wondered if he had been like this before or after her.

He stared at me like he knew what I was thinking and he wanted me to stop. He probably did; he had tricked me into admitting that I had been skimming through his files. He always held people that knew a lot about him back then at an arm's length and regarded them a certain amount of suspicion.

"I'm-not." I finally answered to move the conversation along and end the awkward silence. "A kiss really is just a kiss for me."

I wasn't lying. I wasn't thinking about anything more with Brian, I had just gotten caught up in the moment. He clearly wanted it to go away, so as far as I was concerned, it would. I'd never bring this up again. Looking at face though, I knew he didn't believe it.

Without waiting for him to reply, I pulled off the curb and turned us back to the garage. We made the trip in absolute silence.

"Took you long enough." The man griped when we pulled back in.

"Sorry." I shot him a bright smile, too happy to care about his gruff manner now. I whipped out my cash out of my purse and waved it up under his nose. With the way his eyes settled on the cash, I knew I wasn't going to have any more problems out of him. "Now, I think it's time we signed some paperwork."

Z

"So we're good, right?" I asked Brian when I walked up to his desk in the bullpen. I'd been working on finishing out my paperwork all morning while Brian was sifting through files like a madman. I had made it until almost lunch when I had to talk to him.

I winced at the words I chose to start that conversation. There was no preamble or greeting, and there probably should have been. Come to think of it, I hadn't even told him thank you for helping me pick out my Maverick. Yeah, I probably should have started there.

We hadn't talked about the kiss since we left the garage.

I'd been elated at my new purchase, driving straight up the coast with the windows down until late into the night. Brian had taken the impounded car home back and that was the last time I saw him. I had meant to reach out to him the next day, but then it occurred to me that maybe some of the people selling the old muscle cars were street racers and he hadn't wanted to run into them shopping with me for the cars on my list. That led to me doing a lot of research on a lot of people. I pulled a bunch of criminal records and found out I was right; most of the guys in LA selling the restored muscle cars I had been looking at had some history of street racing, with several having charges from around the time Dominic Toretto ran the streets and Brian was infiltrating his gang. Brian was still trying to cover his secrets.

I had been about to report that to Penning when I started thinking. The more I started thinking, the guiltier I felt. I had crossed a whole lot of lines in my relationship with Brian, and kissing him and then tattling to Papa Penning just felt like a step too far. I knew I was wrong for doing it; I'd told Lisa as much as I could without giving away my assignment to stalk Brian and she'd said as much.

Brian cocked his head to the side, so I knew he heard me, but he didn't look away from the file he was reading.

I felt a hot flush of shame spread up my face.

I was a horrible person.

Brian was a good person; he'd helped me through the stress of my first uncomfortable undercover assignment, helped me get my dream car, and I'd cross all of his boundaries, made him uncomfortable and never even apologized. I was also being impulsive again, doing the first thing that popped into my head without a second thought about anything else.

Hadn't Penning accused me of being a loose cannon in one of our meetings?

My face was really turning red now.

"Are we good?" I repeated. "I'm sorry."

It sounded like an afterthought and that was probably because it was.

"Have you seen the new case?" He asked distractedly as he flicked the pages of the file in his hands.

His tanned forehead was screwed up in concentration. I sighed because I knew I'd never tear his focus away. Either it was water under the bridge or he was going to ignore it to focus on the case. I knew I couldn't let it go, but I could drop it for the moment.

"Braga Cartel?" I asked with a raised eyebrow.

"No. That one is in the very beginning stages; we have literally nothing on them at the moment." He murmured to himself as he flipped the page. I shifted my weight uncomfortably while I waited for him to look at me.

"Are we going to get this out of the way or-?" I blurted, unable to handle it.

Brian said as he looked up to make eye contact. He looked tired, but he didn't look angry. He looked like regular Brian, so maybe I was blowing this out of proportion. Or not, considering I hadn't even told him thank you yet.

"We need to go pick this guy up for questioning." He shook his file at me. From the look in his eyes, I knew he was locked into the hunt and I wasn't going to get a word out of him. "I'll explain in the car, but we need to go. I think they overlooked a lead."

He bounced out of his chair, headed for the door like I had tossed a ball for him. I exhaled as I followed him out to the car, taking my spot in the passenger seat. I knew I should be asking about the case, but I had to get this handled first.

"I crossed lines and I'm sorry. I'm also super grateful for your help picking out my car. I love it very much." I sounded stilted, like a kid being told to apologize by her mother.

His hand hovered over the keys in the ignition as he looked at me.

"So it wasn't mild blowing?" He asked with fake indignation.

"Brian!" I whined. "I am so bad at apologizing. I'm really trying."

He gave me a look that said try again.

"I am really sorry, Brian." He smiled thinly at me and I knew he was about to tell me that it was okay, but I shook my head to cut him off. "It's not even a little bit okay. I'm so type A and organized because my life was a fucking mess and that was the only thing I could do to get it under control; make lists and bury myself in whatever work I could find. It works great for a little while; I make plans and then I get things done, but I just get so restless! I get restless and impatient and then I just do things. Kissing boys is absolutely on the list of impulsive things, but it's so much worse than that: I've kicked in doors as a cop that I had no business entering, I've stolen that LAPD Charger and not called off chases I should have. That last one is the big one"

"Your life was a fucking mess?" He grinned and I knew he was teasing me. "What is it now?"

"I am trying to open up to you, asshole." I weakly smiled at him as the tears started to come to my eyes. I cursed being a crier any time I was upset.

"I know all of this about you. You're hot-headed, you have a temper, you go with your gut in the situation. You're brave, but you're also stupid." His baby blue eyes were boring into my brain. I had to look away because of the intensity. "I guess, what I'm trying to say, is you're a reactor. This can be a really good thing, but I'm very worried that it will get you in hot water."

"I'm not going to plant one on Penning next time I close out a case, if that's what you're worried about," I replied dryly.

He laughed, finally cranking the car. His eyes flicked to the rearview mirror for a split second before he reversed smoothly out of the parking spot with a vengeance.

"Look, I don't have feelings for you." He said as he threw the Taurus into drive and took off. I nodded at his statement. It didn't sting because I felt the same. "We can't do feelings right now, or probably ever, but definitely not now that I'm your superior."

"I get it and I feel the same way. It wasn't a 'feelings' kind of move for me; I just was so happy for the first time in a long time and I got carried away." I admitted. "So we're agreeing to pretend this never happened?"

"Oh, it happened. I went home with red lipstick all on my mouth." He teased, shooting me a winning smile.

"Red would so be your color. You want to just borrow the tube, so you can apply it without help next time?" I teased back. I felt like I was finally able to exhale some of the awkward tension I had been holding in. The rest of it melted with Brian's bright smile and loud laugh. It was like the sun coming out from behind the clouds.

"Fuck off." He finally answered.

"Fuck off?" I found myself laughing at him. "Is that the best you got?"

He raised one long, tan middle finger in my direction.

"Do you want to hear about this case or not?" He asked. I nodded and he put his finger down. "It's a cold case that found new DNA evidence. It's a murder."