by Anne Calhoun
“Ketel One and cranberry,” a brunette said.
Matt snapped back to the present, then did a double take. His partner stood in front of him, wearing skin-tight jeans, a tight white top, and a sleek wig that rendered her nearly unrecognizable. She rested an elbow on the bar as she waited, which meant she wore platform heels that added five inches to her height. He mixed the drink, took her money, and stuffed the change in the tip jar when she sashayed away with a wink.
Eve emerged from her office around seven, iPhone in hand, and once she started working the room the vibe punched up several notches. Watching her smile and talk to the customers triggered something he couldn’t put his finger on.
During a brief lull, he turned to Tom, the steroid-buffed player working the station next to his. “She looks familiar.”
Tom hit the button on the blender to mix a raspberry daiquiri. “She won the newspaper’s sexiest female bartender contest two years running before she switched over to events management at the Met.” “Fucking moron” was implied at the end of that sentence.
A niggling memory surfaced of the newspaper’s Arts and Culture section getting passed around before the shift briefing a couple of years ago, right before he made the leap to detective and started working long-term undercover assignments. The article’s text meandered alongside a full-length picture of Eve, hair tumbled into her face, hands braced on the bar behind her, wearing a white blouse unbuttoned deep in her cleavage, a tight, short black skirt, black stockings, and heels. Her slim legs were crossed at the ankle, and the angle of the shot made them seem endless. He should have been focused on the briefing, but he’d given the photo a good thorough look before handing it to his partner, who’d looked even longer.
The provocative shot actually masked what won Eve the contest. In person she radiated vitality, a sheer visceral force that drew light, glances, attention. Even more surprising was the way she didn’t hoard the energy but rather turned it back on whomever she was talking to. Like that person was the only person in the room. Like she heard what they were saying, and maybe even what they weren’t saying.
Life flowed into this woman. She amplified it and sent it back out into the world, and he couldn’t stop watching her.
She checked in with her bouncer, the size of the Hulk, with gang ink disappearing into the sleeves of his T-shirt.
“That’s not an off-duty cop,” he said.
“Friend of the family,” Tom replied over the music. “Someone her dad knew.”
“Bars this busy usually hire the pros,” Matt said as he pulled out a fresh rack of glasses.
“You know what those assholes charge? They’re fucking expensive,” Tom said as he handed the drink across the bar. “And they’re nosy. Hot Stuff doesn’t like strangers in her business.”
Matt would bet his Jeep that Eve wouldn’t like being called Hot Stuff, but if Tom hadn’t figured that out, Matt wasn’t about to enlighten him. He watched as she cleared a couple of abandoned glasses off the bar in front of him and handed them to a passing busboy, then came around the corner of the bar, trailing her fingers along the polished wood. He handed the drink to a customer and gave her his full attention.
“How are you doing?” she asked, scanning his station.
“You tell me,” he replied, and if he got a little closer than necessary to hear what she was saying over the thumping dance music, well, he was just doing his job. Given the heat in the bar, he expected perfume, something musky and sexy. Instead the faintest scent of mint and rosemary drifted into the air between them when she tucked her hair behind her ears.
“I’m satisfied,” she said, not backing away. “The job’s yours if you want it.”
She was less than a breath away from him. A shift of his weight and a deep inhale, and they’d be breathing together like they were naked and horizontal. The heat sizzled and popped between them and it didn’t take training in body language to read the signals. Eve Webber wanted him.
Chad Henderson. She wanted Chad Henderson. Not him.
No matter who he was today, neither he nor Chad could have her. He was supposed to keep her safe, make sure she didn’t change her mind about working with the department, monitor any appearances Murphy made in Eye Candy.
He wanted her.
“I want the job,” he said, not bothering to hide what he really meant. She looked at him through the layered, sweeping fall of hair he wanted to brush back so he could see her eyes, her mouth. “Hang around after close. I’ll give you the paperwork to fill out and bring back with you tomorrow.”
He leaned in, as if he needed to speak with her, employee to employer, but didn’t want to shout over the music. “See you later, boss,” he rasped.
She turned to look at him, her lips millimeters from his, and for one head-spinning moment Matt thought she was going to kiss him right there in front of the throngs crowding up to the bar. Something about the crush of humanity brought her to her senses. She spun on her heel and disappeared into the crowd.
At the other end of the bar Sorenson held his gaze for a second, just long enough to let him know she’d seen the whole interaction. Matt turned back to the crush of women waiting expectantly in front of his station. Mistake number three. Except he hadn’t kissed her. Or let her kiss him. Or done anything except take the job he had to get in order to do his real job. But the look in her eyes cracked something inside him, exposing structural flaws in walls that used to be thick, seamless steel.
He was going to have to pretend to feel something in order to keep her safe, and at the same time he was going to have to keep it all under control.
CHAPTER THREE
Cesar bolted the door behind the last batch of laughing customers; seconds later the DJ pulled the plug on the sound system mid-song. Tom’s lurid description of his pick for best in show rang out in the silence, then dropped to an undertone directed at Mario. Ignoring Tom entirely, Eve collected the night’s take from the registers and climbed the stairs to her office. She locked the door, toed off her boots, and settled behind her desk to count cash, change, and credit card receipts, and fill out the deposit form. The faint sounds of chairs upended on tables and the joking and laughter filtered in.
A knock came at the door as she rubber-banded the bills into neat stacks. “It’s me, sweets,” Natalie called.
Eve zipped the bundled cash into a rubber-sided pouch, then unlocked the door. “Good night?” Nat asked, nodding at the deposit bag on Eve’s desk.
“We’re hanging in there,” Eve said. She’d meet payroll this month, plus pay all the bills, a huge achievement for a brand-new business. Eating anything other than noodles and boxed mac and cheese was optional.
Natalie tucked her iPod into an inside pocket and clipped the earbuds to the strap of her bag. “Pauli and Cesar are working out okay.”
Eve nodded. Both employees were placements from the Second Chance Center, her father’s East Side nonprofit that offered after-school and job-training programs. Pauli hustled dirty glasses through the dishwasher and stocked the bartenders’ stations with clean ones, and did his homework during lulls. Cesar knew most of the local troublemakers by sight and kept them out of the bar. “Cesar’s mother needs the help, with three kids still at home. Dad said he’s missed a couple of his GED classes, though. I need to check in with him on that.”
“What’s your verdict on Chad? He was slow off the mark, but he hung in there. You could do worse.”
Memories flashed through Eve’s mind, of her body so close to his she could feel the heat pouring off him, of hearing not the music or the clink of glasses or laughter but only the low rumble of his voice in her ear.
See you later, boss …
Ever the voice of temptation, Natalie added, “And he’s got yummy abs…”
Eve ignored that. “He took the job. Send him up when you leave. I need to get him the paperwork.”
A few moments later a knock sounded at the open door. Even with her back turned as she put the deposit in th
e safe and spun the dial to lock it, Eve knew it was Chad because the firm rap of knuckles against wood made her heart speed up. “Just a second and I’ll get you an application and a W-4,” she said.
Seconds passed, then all the little hairs on the nape of her neck rose in unison. She peeked over her shoulder to find him staring at her. When she caught him looking, his gaze flicked around her office, pausing momentarily on the door leading to her apartment.
Then he looked back at her. A strange silence, thrumming with anticipation, stretched taut between them. In the wee hours of the morning the city was shrouded in a quiet that rang in her ears. Inside the brick bar, inside the cocoon of an office with no windows or doors to the outside world, she had a sudden, off-kilter sense they were the only two people awake, maybe even alive, in the world.
“Your paperwork,” she said as she held out the W-4 and the job application. “Welcome to Eye Candy.”
He closed the distance between them, took the paperwork and folded it lengthwise, slid it into his back pocket, and turned to go.
“Wait,” she said, flattening her hand in the middle of a broad expanse of chest covered in soft, skin-hot cotton. “Don’t forget your shirt.”
He stopped moving, but not because she was holding him in place, or because she’d startled him into a reaction. His reserve and discipline went deep inside, a dark well of restraint that, in the vibrating, late-night silence of her office, she wondered if she could ever fathom. Her breath halted in her lungs when his fingers wrapped around her wrist.
“I’m officially your employee now?” he asked, doing nothing more than encircling her wrist with his fingers. When she nodded, he added, “Not worried about a sexual harassment lawsuit?”
A hint of seriousness lingered under the teasing, testing note in his voice, so she left her hand where it was, smack in the middle of his broad, hard chest. “First, I’m dead broke, so suing me will get you nothing. Second, like I said, tell me you’re not interested and we’re done. Third, you’re harassing me. You ought to be illegal.”
A startled smile flashed across his face, then disappeared when she pressed her fingertips against the firmly muscled wall of his chest. His heart thumped steadily through muscle, bone, and skin. The temperature around them shot up ten degrees, and he brushed his thumb over her pulse, then removed her hand from his chest, turning it palm up in his firm grip. Cool air licked against flesh warmed by his body heat.
“I won’t lie,” he said, quiet and firm. “I’m interested. But that doesn’t mean we have to act on it immediately.”
“We’ll have to work on your up-selling techniques,” she said.
Another smile quirked the corners of his mouth while he circled two fingers in the hollow of her palm. Nerves fired and came alive under his slow, steady touch, somehow both soothing and tantalizing. Her eyes slid closed as she exhaled the breath she’d been holding since the first touch of his fingers on her skin then drew in fresh oxygen.
When she opened her eyes, she saw he was studying her, his gaze intent, his mouth soft with arousal. “You get a lot of fast and furious.”
“Comes with the territory,” she said.
“Twenty minutes of conversation, then your place or mine.”
He was still thinking? “Twenty’s on the high side,” she said, her voice breathy from the steady touch of his fingers.
“Let’s try something different. Let’s try slow.”
“Slow,” she repeated, as if he were speaking a foreign language. Which he was. The language not of impulse but of seduction.
“Conversations. Meals.”
Eight years in bars and nightclubs left her jaded to all but the most inventive lines, but this one gave her pause. “I work five nights a week. You want a meal, it’s breakfast at one in the afternoon or dinner at three a.m.”
“Any time,” he said, the words rumbling deep in his throat.
Chad had snared her attention, something curious flickering behind her newest bartender’s tall, dark, and mysterious surface. She let her hand slip free from his and put a couple of feet between them. “Good night, Chad.”
“Sleep well.” The words would have been friendly if not for the look in his heavy-lidded hazel eyes. Desire flashed through her like lightning, trapping her breath in the charged aftermath.
He stepped back and disappeared through the office door. Moments later she heard the front door open, then swing shut.
The office seemed bigger after he left. Eve turned back to her desk and gathered her laptop and a stack of invoices. Eye Candy straddled the line between red ink and black. Her family wanted to turn her into a corporate drone. Her new bartender turned what should have been an uncomplicated hookup into something she couldn’t define, and she wanted to buy a building she flat out couldn’t afford.
Oh, and she’d agreed to inform on Lyle Murphy for the cops. No pressure. None at all in what used to be a pretty typical small businesswoman’s life.
Her palm still tingled from Chad’s gentle, relentless touch. Stroking her finger over the same spot calmed her, anchored her. But sleep well?
Not likely.
* * *
When he woke up there was always a moment, never lasting more than a heartbeat or two, when he was no one, no alias or rank or even his name, just breath and heartbeat and usually an assortment of aches and pains. This morning the blank slate frame of mind ended when he saw the dog tags looped over the corner of the mirror over his dresser. He hadn’t worn them in years, but the sight always grounded him: Matt Dorchester, former Army, now LPD.
A filter of identity settled into his brain: Chad Henderson, bartender.
A third facet of his current world took up residence in his awareness: Eve Webber, bar owner, informant.
Woman.
The woman he’d used the high-voltage chemistry with to sweet talk into getting to know him in a manner she would interpret as “date” when he meant “protect her without her consent or knowledge.”
He shifted to his back, directly under the vent emitting a tepid flow of air. The AC unit was clunking away outside his bedroom window. He had to find the time to fix the air conditioner, maybe get the HVAC guy to add some coolant, try to postpone installing a new one until next summer, after he’d paid off the anesthesiologist.
Thinking about the state of the family finances didn’t temper the uneasy pitch in his stomach.
He rolled out of bed, started the coffee, then stood under the shower until all the pieces of who he was today merged and the odd weight in his chest subsided. He was due at the precinct before his shift at Eye Candy, so he dressed in jeans and a polo before pulling the Eye Candy T-shirt from the dryer.
The damned thing had shrunk in the wash. “Fuck me running,” he muttered.
He gulped down half the pot of coffee while arming himself, then poured the rest into a travel mug. Before leaving, he stopped at his brother’s room and knocked on the closed door.
“Luke,” he said softly.
“It’s open.”
Matt turned the doorknob and watched his brother wince as he put his full weight on his arms to push himself up against his headboard. Luke’s hair was even longer than Matt’s and tousled from sleep. Jeans and an Oxford shirt were draped over the wheelchair next to the bed, meaning Luke had gone out last night. Matt inhaled, searching for the acrid odor of cigarette smoke. Luke had picked up recreational smoking in college, a vice Matt felt his brother couldn’t afford physically or financially.
“I told you, I quit,” Luke said, and Matt consciously relaxed his stance. “You got in late last night. Three a.m.?”
“Work. Could last a while,” Matt answered. Noon, and neither of them were at work, very un-Dorchester. He scratched through his memory. Was this Luke’s first day off this week, or second? “How many hours did you get this week?”
“Twenty-four,” Luke said.
That meant three eight-hour days, and this was Luke’s second day off. “Anything new on the career websi
tes?”
“No,” Luke said, rubbing his shoulder with slow, deep strokes that meant sore tendons and ligaments close to the joint.
“You seeing the physical therapist today?”
“This afternoon.”
“No basketball.”
Luke shot him a narrow-eyed glare, and Matt tried to soften his tone. “Your shoulder won’t heal if you keep stressing it out on the court. I stopped on my way home last night and got a new bottle of ibuprofen. Ice, rest it, anti-inflammatories. Call if you need me.”
He was halfway to the front door before he heard Luke behind him. “Thanks, Matt. You didn’t have to do that.”
Matt paused. “No big deal. CVS is on the way home.”
“Thanks anyway. Hey, leave me the list of AC contractors and I’ll call around, get prices.”
“I’m going to do that before work today,” Matt said.
“You’re leaving for work right now.”
“Stop trying to duck out of PT. I’ve got it,” Matt said, and shut the door behind him. He climbed into his Jeep and drove on autopilot to the precinct, thinking about what he’d dreamed about all night: handling Eve Webber. He’d given her a simple choice in her office: back off the flirtatious little games or end up in bed with him. She went for option B with a delight that normally would have ended in the nearest decent hotel room, ASAP. Given that he was a cop charged with protecting her, her enthusiasm was a huge problem. He needed to find a new way to handle her.
Handle her.… Touch, however, softened her shoulders, made the corners of her wide, full mouth relax with pleasure.
His touch changed the quick wit into limpid desire.
