Male pride sucked. He never imagined it raged so deeply inside him. One part of him wanted to beat his chest and yell, I’m the man. I take care of you. Another, no doubt wiser, part urged caution. Coming at Erica balls-out might find him without said balls. She’d put up with that kind of attitude from Keith—pushy, aggressive. Mike wasn’t about to do the same to her. It was hard, though. He wanted Erica to cling to him, to let him take care of everything, to be the man she’d want in her life forever. He’d waited so long to have her, loved her so much. Instead, she’d pushed him away, thrown up walls because she was scared and in shock. So he threw up his own walls and got pissy about it. “Did you tell her you were pulled off the case?” CJ asked. “No. She’s upset enough that Posner’s sniffing around us.” “It’s better to tell her before she finds out,” Bub said from the truck’s backseat. “No telling how she’ll react if she finds out you weren’t honest.”
