by Lori Foster
Reese paused. “We don’t have much on her. Some small black-and-whites, that’s all.”
“I know.” And if there was any way Logan could do this himself, he would. The last thing he wanted was another man scrutinizing Pepper’s body. But it’d be too dangerous for him to have the photos around, so he’d have to rely on Reese. “Look at what we have, see if we have any body shots.”
“Body shots?”
Forging on, Logan said, “Try to get a read on her…body.”
“Come again?”
At least now Reese sounded more interested. “She’s hiding something, something physical I mean.”
“And you know this…how?”
No way in hell would he give Reese the nitty-gritty. Pepper Yates was a pawn in the big scheme of things, but for whatever reason, Logan didn’t want to betray her.
So fucking stupid.
“Look to see if there are any shots showing her in a blouse, or hell, even a T-shirt. Anything that’ll show…” The words dropped off. What could he say?
“The size of her rack?” Reese finished for him.
Logan rubbed his face with his uninjured hand. “Yeah. But more than that, too. Body type. Like is she shapely all over, or athletic, or maybe extra slim—”
“Damn it, Logan, what the hell are you doing now?”
“Nothing.” Nothing that he’d share anyway. “I just need to know what I’m dealing with.”
“Because you’re dealing with her boobs?” Reese grunted. “Never mind. Forget I asked. At least I know you haven’t had sex with her, or you’d know the answer to that one yourself.”
No, he wouldn’t. But again, not Reese’s business. “Can you try to find some pics or not?”
“Yeah. Give me till tomorrow morning.”
Logan looked at the bruising on his hand, flexed his fingers and winced. Being done with the topic of Pepper’s body—for now—he asked, “So did you name the dog?”
“Cash.”
“Nice name.”
“It was either that or Debt.” Reese made a sound of frustration. “He’s been expensive. And speaking of that, I need to go. He’s eating one of my shoes.”
Logan heard Reese call out to the dog, then drop the phone, and with a laugh, he ended the call. Next time he and Reese got together, he’d find out more about the animal. But for right now, he had other, more important issues on his mind.
Like how he’d get Pepper Yates naked.
No time like the present to start working on that.
CHAPTER FIVE
WEARING JEANS AND A T-SHIRT, Logan stepped out of the apartment, locked the door, turned—and found Pepper standing there.
By the looks of it, she’d just left her apartment, as well.
“Sue. Hey. I was just coming over to see you.”
How she could look so shy after last night, he didn’t know. The woman had used him up, and they’d both loved every second of it.
She licked her lips—which now, to his curious libido, appeared soft and lush—and nodded at him. “Hi.” Clutching a big purse to her chest, she turned toward the stairway to the apartment building entrance. “I was just on my way out.”
“Hold up.” Logan fell into step beside her. Bright sunshine poured through the glass entry doors, gilding her long, dark eyelashes, highlighting her lack of makeup. He hadn’t noticed it before, but she had amazing skin.
And when the hell had he ever noticed a woman’s skin, unless it was on an interesting place on her body? “Where are you off to?”
“Shopping.”
“I could give you a lift.”
“No. Thank you.” She trotted down the steps. “That’s okay.”
“What’s the rush?” He tried a laugh that, even to him, sounded fake as hell. But damn it, she was running from him. Still.
First the hurried sex in the dark with her clothes on. Then the abrupt goodbye. And now she didn’t want to take a single second to talk with him.
“Sorry,” she said again. “I have a lot to get done today.”
“I could help,” he offered, but she was already shaking her head. “Why?” he demanded. “What’s different today?”
But he knew. Intimacy, mixed with sunshine. She wanted to keep her damned secrets.
He wouldn’t let her.
Eyes wide, she stared at him. “Nothing has changed. Why would you think it has?”
Now, that pissed him off. He leaned toward her. “I was inside you last night.”
As her face went hot, she dropped her gaze to his shoulders, then lower to his crotch. “Yes,” she breathed, and she touched his chest. “You were deep inside me.”
God, the way she looked at him made him feel it all over again. His cock twitched, his heart started popping against his ribs. He covered her hand with his own. “You liked it.”
“I did.” She looked into his eyes and pulled her hand away. “But that doesn’t change anything. I still can’t…” She gestured from him to herself and back again. “Can’t. But if you want, we can still do dinner tonight.”
Only dinner? Like hell. He’d squelch that idea at the first opportunity. “My place or yours?” he said as a challenge, then wanted to smack himself when she jumped on the offer.
“Yours.”
Figuring her out could take a lifetime. But he’d already spent considerable time getting to this point. He wouldn’t waste a minute more. “Okay, sure.”
Maybe after he had her brother, he’d be able to nail Andrews and ultimately get justice for his best friend’s murder.
And then he could work on unraveling the mystery of Pepper Yates.
He looked her over in the faded jumper that she wore over a blouse with elbow-length sleeves. “What do you feel like?” God Almighty, she had horrid taste in clothes. “Besides me, I mean.”
Her eyes narrowed the tiniest bit, making them look darker and somehow more mysterious. “Besides you—I don’t care.”
Damn. So sex was still on the table with no effort on his part at all?
He’d never known a woman to be all timid one minute, then so verbally ballsy the next.
The contradictions left him singed.
“I’ll be over at seven.” Tentatively, she reached out and touched his chest again in a vague, barely-there goodbye gesture. “See you then.”
Logan rubbed the spot where she’d just stroked him.
What was it about her? She may as well have stroked his junk for the way it affected him.
She hadn’t asked about his hand, or why he wasn’t at work, but then, he’d already told her he didn’t work every day. And really, with her attention on his body, who cared if she noticed a stupid injury or not?
He didn’t.
Before she got too far down the walkway, Logan stuck his head out the doors. “I’m cooking barbecue.”
Her head down, her shoulders forward, she gave a negligent wave of her hand and kept going in a brisk walk.
Almost like the hounds of hell dogged her heels.
Logan watched her until she was out of sight. Damn it. He hadn’t even realized he was staring after her until he couldn’t see her anymore.
He had to get it together.
Preferably by getting her under him. Without clothes. Lights on. And with enough time for him to explore every inch of her.
Once he had her, all of her, then he’d be better able to focus.
But for now…what to do?
He looked up the steps, considered breaking into her apartment to snoop around, but if Rowdy had any booby traps set, he could end up blowing his cover.
Best not to push it.
Tromping back up to his own apartment, he got his shoes and a shirt, and headed out to the grocery. His culinary skills were limited. He knew only how to cook what he liked best, which meant meat and potatoes. He’d pick up the barbecue, and maybe grab a cake or something from the bakery.
He made a point of driving around the block so that Pepper wouldn’t think he followed her. They cou
ld still run into each other, but it wouldn’t be on purpose—not on his part, anyway. Along the way he thought about Morton Andrews. So far, Andrews had gotten away with a lot, including murder. So many times, in so many ways, the trail led to him.
Unfortunately, Andrews had connections everywhere, which meant he always had an alias.
Logan needed Rowdy Yates’s eyewitness account to nail the bastard for good. The facts bolstered his belief that he’d eventually be successful.
Yates had worked at Andrews’s club, Checkers, a few years ago. For all Logan knew, Yates had been legitimate muscle for the club, but either way, he’d been in the right place at the right time to have the inside scoop.
A reporter had claimed to have a breaking story about Jack’s murder—thanks to confidential info from Yates.
That story had died with the reporter, but Yates was still around, and soon, Logan would be able to question him.
He could hardly wait.
Thoughts of Morton Andrews continued to plague him even as he parked and did his shopping. He could still see the smug prick: fifty years old, tall, trim, and as dirty as they came. Women seemed to find him handsome with his dyed white-blond hair, near-black eyes and slick wardrobe.
As one of the wealthier club owners in the state, he always had a babe on his arm. The women either didn’t know, or didn’t care, that Andrews dealt drugs and was suspected of forced labor trade and everything from theft to murder.
What would Pepper think if she knew of her brother’s association with Morton Andrews? Did she even know her brother had worked at Checkers?
As Logan grabbed the few things he needed off the shelves, he could have sworn he felt someone watching him. Not casual curiosity but intense observation. He paid for his groceries and walked out to the parking lot.
The sense of being watched sharpened. After slipping on mirrored sunglasses, he looked around, nonchalantly checking parked cars, customers and shadows.
Though he saw no one in particular, he’d been on the job long enough to know he hadn’t imagined it. Only Reese and the lieutenant knew he was currently undercover, but Andrews was always a threat. For that reason, Logan remained cautious. But he was damn good at his job, and he doubted Andrews could have had him followed, not without Logan knowing it before now.
So who then? Possibly Rowdy Yates?
He stowed the groceries in the rear of his pickup and opened the driver’s door. The fine hairs on the nape of his neck prickled; would he end up with a bullet in his back? Anyone with a rifle could pick him off with ease. Was Rowdy corrupt enough for cold-blooded murder?
“What are you doing here?”
Logan jerked around and found Pepper standing there, a hand shading her eyes from the sun, a soft breeze playing with a few loose tendrils of her dark blond hair.
When he pulled off his sunglasses to greet her, he noted her look of unease.
Logan knew her damn brother was the most likely threat to him…but was he also a threat to her? “I had to get stuff for dinner.” To make it more difficult for anyone with a rifle scope, he maneuvered her between his body and the grocery store entrance. He had his own truck at his back. “What are you doing here?”
“I needed some groceries myself.” Looking beyond him, expression wary and anxious, she scrunched her face against the glare off the blacktop parking lot. “I could have gotten your stuff for you, but since you’re here anyway—” she took his arm and began hauling him back toward the store “—you may as well give me a ride home when I’m finished.”
That attitude was so different from what she’d expressed back at the apartment that his suspicions darkened. Was she hoping to protect him from Rowdy?
He said only, “Glad to.” And he freed his wrist from her grip so that he could put a hand to the small of her back.
The rain from the night before had ramped up the humidity, but it also left behind that stirring breeze that plastered her skirt to her legs. The skirt kicked up with each hurried step she took.
“Stop staring,” she said. “You’re embarrassing me.”
He’d been about to ask her why she was rushing him, but she effectively sidetracked him. “I find it hard not to watch you.”
“Why?” she asked.
Before, he’d studied her to make her aware of him, not out of any real intimate interest of his own.
Now…her every move enthralled him. He needed to see her body, to touch her all over. At every moment, some part of his brain churned over the body hidden from him. In a very short time, he’d become obsessed.
“You have long legs,” he mused aloud.
She missed a step, then moved ahead of him, out of his reach.
Knowing he had her on the run, Logan smiled. “Slim hips, too.”
She charged forward, grabbed a cart and shoved her way down an aisle. Hanging back a little, aware of the concentrated way she resisted any sway to her walk, Logan watched her.
Suddenly she stopped and turned to glare at him.
And it was a glare of pure fire, taking him by surprise.
“Stop it,” she ordered him, “or leave.”
Mesmerizing, that small sign of her temper. “You asked me to give you a ride home.”
“Yes, but if you can’t behave in a civilized way, I’d rather walk. In fact, I like walking. It’s good exercise and—”
“Forget it, honey.” Logan put his arm around her and started her forward again. “I’ll pretend you’re not hiding a sweet body, okay?”
Her mouth opened, but nothing came out. She clung to the cart, almost using it for support as he urged her down the bread aisle.
As she shopped, Logan stayed attuned to their surroundings, but he no longer felt the scrutiny of prying eyes.
Come out, you bastard, Logan thought to himself. Come out so I can get to you.
But he didn’t see Rowdy Yates anywhere around, and he didn’t feel that burning gaze, either. His disappointment would have been more pronounced if he weren’t so fascinated with Pepper. The no-nonsense way she shopped, how she moved, even her junk food choices were a source of interest.
Add to all that her awareness of him, which he felt in spades.
Even in the middle of a grocery store, that damned sexual chemistry arced between them, live, hot and alarmingly real. Possibly the most real thing he’d felt in two long years.
*
“TURN IN HERE.”
Logan glanced at her. “What?”
“I need to go to the department store, too. Turn in here.” He’d been silent too long, and she didn’t know if it was because he’d sensed her brother’s nosiness, or his curiosity about her body that kept him brooding.
Neither possibility boded well for her peace of mind.
As he pulled into a parking spot, she opened her seat belt. Already preoccupied with thoughts of her brother and his domineering presence, she said, “You don’t need to wait. Thank you for the lift, but I’ll walk the rest of the way after I’ve finished.”
Before she moved an inch, he caught her arm in a gentle but unbreakable hold. Far too seriously, he said, “I don’t mind waiting.”
He had such big, strong hands, but she couldn’t imagine him ever hurting her. “What happened there?” She nodded at his left hand, braced on the steering wheel. The nail gun had left behind some grisly bruising.
As if he’d forgotten the injury, he looked at it. “I screwed up at work, that’s all.”
Pepper couldn’t resist reaching for his wrist, drawing his hand toward her. At the base of his thumb and halfway up his index finger, purple, blue and green colored his skin. At the fleshiest part of his thumb, where it webbed, she saw a puncture.
“What did you do?” she asked softly, pretending she didn’t already know.
“Drove a nail through it.” He curled his fingers around hers. “It’s fine.”
“Ouch,” she said in sympathy. The urge to kiss his hand nearly overwhelmed her. But she didn’t know for sure if Rowdy had follow
ed them, and she didn’t want to do anything to set off her brother’s temper. When it came to her, he had enough anger for ten men. “Did you go to the hospital?”
“No need. I already had a tetanus shot and I didn’t hit anything vital—just my pride.”
She smiled with him.
Almost as a suggestion, he said, “I’ll be off work for a few days.”
She waited…for what, she wasn’t sure.
“I was hoping we could spend more time together.”
And there it was, the reason for Rowdy’s suspicions. She tried to think of what to say, tried to muster up the conviction to turn him away.
He didn’t give her a chance.
“I have so many things to ask you.”
Alarm took her breath. “Like what?”
Teasing, he kissed the end of her nose, then her cheek and finally her mouth. He lingered, a soft press of lips, breath mingling, heartbeats accelerating. Finally he sat back. “How is it a woman as shy as you are has a rubber handy?”
Oh. Not a horrible question. “I, um…”
“Why don’t you run in the park instead of on a treadmill?”
She winced. She knew sooner or later he’d ask about that. “The thing is…”
He put a finger to her lips. “And why don’t you realize how pretty you could be.”
Could be. Out of all the people who’d looked past her, even through her, did Logan actually see her, not a disguise, not the bland facade, but a real woman? The tension left her shoulders. “Logan.”
“Not that you aren’t cute now.” He ran the backs of his fingers over her cheek. “It’s there, even though you don’t want it to be.”
“It?”
“Your physical appeal. I know you’d rather I didn’t notice, but I can’t seem to help it.”
No, she didn’t want him to see much of anything at all. “I’m not cute.” She really wasn’t. Not like this. “I have mirrors.”
Leaning in for another kiss, he murmured, “If you give me a chance, I can convince you.”
He was soooo tempting. “A chance…how?”
His mouth brushed the corner of hers. “Spend some time with me. We can do dinner out and a movie, or nothing at all. Your choice.”
“But you want to have sex again?” She could care less about the other stuff, but the physical intimacy—she craved a repeat performance.
