Breathless

by Nancy Warren

  “John’s up there now.” His fingertips began tapping on the top of the cast, outlined clearly beneath the gray sweat-pants he was wearing again. “What do you think? Could you get somebody in undercover?”

  He was going to need a wardrobe full of baggy pants for a few weeks, she thought idly as she considered the logistics of bringing in an undercover police officer. “Without the approval of the executive committee?”

  “We don’t know who was on the other end of the call you overheard. It could have been anyone from the CEO to the janitor. Until we know the thief’s identity and what he was up to, this stays top secret.”

  “I’d be putting my job in jeopardy, you know.”

  “You already did that yesterday, when you came to us. In fact, you seemed pretty fired up about your civic duty when I first…ah…met you.” He glanced significantly at his cast.

  She blushed, knowing he was right. If there was foul play going on at her bank she wanted to help stop it. Besides, there was an unspoken trade-off. He hadn’t so much as hinted at it so maybe it was only in her mind. But she couldn’t help thinking she owed Detective Barker a break on a case.

  A break that didn’t involve his bones.

  She nodded and rose to leave. “All right, Detective, you have a few days before I do anything about hiring a replacement for Phil.”

  His voice stopped her. “Hey.”

  She turned back to him, brows raised in enquiry.

  He glanced around the lobby, where a uniformed officer watched the door and a couple of apartment residents gossiped by the mailboxes. He grabbed the crutches and got to his feet, then made his way to where she stood halfway to the door.

  Maybe he wanted to give her something else to think about, for he swung his body closer, so close his cast touched her knee and she could feel his body heat. “I’ll call you.”

  She stared at him in surprise and was almost scorched when their gazes collided. She swallowed. “Will it be a business or a personal call?”

  “Very personal. I’ll be calling to find out what you plan to do about us.” He spoke in a low voice that sent entirely pleasant shivers racing down her arms.

  She pretended to think about it, tilting her head to one side to study him. “I plan to stay out of cars if you’re in them,” she said.

  He was so close she could see flecks of black in his irises, make out the specks of stubble he’d missed when he shaved this morning. “I think you want me.”

  Her brows rose, but it was tough not to fall for his charm when he bothered to turn it on. She had to stifle the urge to touch him, run her fingers through his hair or even just send him that certain smile she kept for special occasions. Her come-and-get-it smile.

  But he didn’t deserve it. Not yet. Every time they’d seen each other, she’d been the one to initiate it, albeit unintentionally. If the dishy detective wanted to see her on a personal level—as his passionate kiss and flirting words suggested—he’d better start making an effort.

  “I want a lot of things that are bad for me. Dark chocolate, waffles piled with whipping cream, French fries loaded with ketchup to name a few.” Now she did touch him, tapping the tip of her manicured forefinger against the end of his arrogant nose. “But I can resist. I have willpower.”

  She patted his cheek and turned away, heading once more for the door. The ball, she decided, was firmly in his court.

  She drove back to the bank feeling more than a little unnerved. An employee she’d hired had turned out to be a blackmailer and a drug addict, and a cop had made a pass at her, and it wasn’t even—she glanced at the dashboard clock on her rental—ten o’clock. It was shaping up to be quite a day.

  7

  SOPHIE OPENED THE DOOR almost as soon as he knocked, as though she’d been standing there, waiting for him to drop by. He grinned to himself, wishing that were true. “Hi.”

  “Detective?” Her eyes widened in surprise. She stared at his newly cut hair, then her gaze took in the rest of him. Sports jacket over the widest khakis he’d been able to find. “I’d never believe you were the same man.”

  “This is my usual look.”

  “How did you get my apartment number, Detective?” Her husky sweet voice made him think of an after-dinner liqueur. Sweet to the initial taste but with a wicked kick to it. He licked his lips, thinking how often she reminded him of sweet things to eat. And that naturally led him to imagine how sweet she’d be to eat. Every delectable inch of her.

  “Sophie, I’ve had my tongue in your mouth. Don’t you think we could move to a first-name basis?”

  “That would depend on the nature of your call,” she said, as sassy as a fresh bottle of soda.

  “My call is of a personal nature,” he told her, which was partly true. In his line of work he was accustomed to making truth fit his immediate requirements. Right now he needed her to cooperate with his investigation. But he also wanted to investigate her personally. Naturally, she’d need to be naked for him to do his best work.

  “How did you find me? My name’s not on the door.”

  “I know lots of things about you. I’m a detective, remember.” He recalled the DMV printout. “I know your birth date, for instance.”

  “Hmm.” She sounded most unimpressed. “I knew yours first.”

  True. He could tell her her driver’s license photo didn’t do her justice, but that wouldn’t be news, either. He went with a piece of information that had kept him awake part of the night while his leg had decided to remind him he’d overdone it all day. “I know that you wear lacy bras with practical cotton panties.”

  She drew in a breath. Had he offended her or intrigued her? Hard to tell. She had an appealing freshness to her, but also a certain attitude and way of looking at him that suggested she knew her way around men. And then there was the way she kissed…

  She was wearing workout gear, and her face was still lightly flushed from exertion. She appeared relaxed, makeup free and her hair was in a stumpy ponytail. Her eyes were wary, though, and she didn’t rush to open the door wider. “Does this personal call of yours have any other purpose than to pass judgment on my underwear?”

  “Now, you’re not being fair. I’m not judging you. Merely pointing out one way in which you intrigue me.”

  “Well, I hope you took a good look because that’s as close as you’ll ever get to seeing my underwear again.”

  He chuckled softly, enjoying her faux indignation as much as her breathy sexiness. “That sounded like a challenge.”

  “Don’t flatter yourself.”

  “Why don’t I come in and we can talk about it.” In the three days since he’d seen her, he was convinced she’d grown sexier. Or maybe she flaunted her sexuality under his nose merely for the pleasure of torturing him. He wondered if she had any idea how effectively it was working.

  “You want to come in and…talk.” Her voice registered patent disbelief while her tongue slipped out to touch her upper lip as though it were the cherry on top of a sundae.

  He grinned, promising himself he was going to have her on her back very soon. He remembered his cast—damn, he’d have to let her get him on his back. He thought he could live with the change of plans. “We’ll start with talk and see where it leads.”

  Still, she didn’t invite him in, but sent him a glance full of satin sheets and quiet moans. “Might this talk lead to kissing?”

  “I’d say that’s a definite possibility.”

  “Then I’ll have to decline your flattering offer.” She started to shut the door.

  There was one benefit to having a broken leg that he quickly discovered. When he forced the cast into the narrowing doorway, it made a nice wide opening. “Why?” He couldn’t believe she’d tried to shut the door in his face. “You seemed to like kissing me four days ago.”

  “Oh, I really liked kissing you. That’s the problem.”

  “I don’t follow.”

  “Kissing leads to sex.” The way her voice had dropped to a husky whispe
r had his hands itching to reach for her.

  His own voice sounded like that of a three-pack-a-day smoker when he answered. “I like the way you think.”

  “I think sex would complicate an already complicated relationship.”

  She was right, of course, but he didn’t care. A woman who appreciated the direct and preferably speedy connection between kissing and sex was his kind of woman. “What’s complicated about it?”

  “We don’t even like each other.”

  “Like has nothing to do with it. What’s going on between us is pure, high-octane lust. I want you, Sophie. I can’t sleep at night for thinking about it.”

  A few strands of hair had fallen from her mini-ponytail to trail her cheekbones. In an absent gesture she lifted both arms and tucked the strands behind her ears. She wore pearl studs in her lobes, he noted, similar in size and shape to the nipples that beaded beneath her black workout shirt and caught his attention as she lifted her arms.

  She might talk tough and disinterested, but her body was as hungry for him as his was for her.

  He didn’t need further invitation, but entered her apartment and closed the door behind him. Kathleen Battle’s soprano soared from another room. This was good. A woman who listened to passionate opera when alone might be eased into passionate sex.

  He stepped closer to her, and she tipped her head back, her eyes full of challenge. “Damn it, I want you.” He pulled her to him and kissed her, not lazily exploring this time, but letting her feel his urgency and the need she’d ignited in him.

  Her lips trembled beneath his, a mere hint of her taste trickling into him like water into a dehydrated man. Even as her body clung to his, she broke the kiss and pulled her head back. “You’re arrogant, high-handed and aggressive,” she said, the last word purring beneath his lips as he ran them down her throat.

  “Uh-huh,” he said, his voice vibrating against her sensitive skin and making her shiver while she clutched his shoulders.

  “And those are your good points.”

  He nipped her lightly, just at the junction of neck and shoulder, where a hint of cologne remained. He was right about the recent exercise. He smelled the clean sweat of a workout, felt the warmth and relaxation in her muscles.

  “You’re impulsive, irrational, and…”

  He drew back, eyes narrowing.

  Insult and desire warred in her expression but desire was clearly winning. “And what?”

  “And so sexy I can’t keep my hands off you.” To prove his point, he ran his hands over her breasts, enjoying the breathy gasp as his fingers closed over the soft mounds, barely restrained in a sports bra.

  “And that’s a bad thing?” She sounded as if she were torn between amusement and insult.

  “The worst. You distract me.”

  She kissed his lips softly, almost as though she couldn’t help herself, made a sound that was three parts sigh, one part moan. “You distract me, too.” She gasped as his fingers closed gently on the firm points of her nipples, squeezing and pulling. He enjoyed her soft moans as her head fell back.

  Her breasts swelled over the sports top, offering him irresistible temptation. He was almost embarrassed by how much time he’d spent in the last few days thinking about Sophie and his plans for that mouth, and that body.

  He leaned down, putting most of his weight on his good leg, and ran his tongue along the edge of her black top.

  Response quivered through her and he felt her hands on his scalp, pulling him closer. When he got to the crease where her breasts met he licked between them and she emitted a strangled cry.

  “I should shower,” she said.

  “Don’t waste the water,” he mumbled against her warm, creamy flesh. “I’ll wash you with my tongue.”

  Her rising excitement and rapid breathing were very close to putting her sports bra out of a job. Those glorious, hard peaks were barely covered. He closed his lips over them, breathing warm, moist breath through her clothing.

  “Oh, that feels so good,” she cried and her shoulders rolled. He grinned against the rough, stretchy fabric knowing she was trying to free her breasts, as anxious to have his mouth on her naked flesh as he was to put it there.

  He teased them both for a little longer until he could stand it no longer, then using his teeth, grabbed the edge of the exercise top and the bra together and tugged.

  She cried even louder as the air hit her newly naked breasts. He would have cried out, too, except he’d lost his voice.

  Not even his fantasies had prepared him for the sight of perfect, peach-tipped breasts thrusting forward proudly.

  For a long moment he simply stared, then, as her clutching fingers became more urgent, he traced the puckered flesh around her nipple before sucking it into his mouth.

  He thought she was going to go over the edge right there and then. Her hands were digging into his hair, then moving to his shoulders, clawing at his back. He held the nipple against the roof of his mouth, squeezing it with his tongue and she liked that so much she tried to thrust her hips against his pelvis.

  Since his crutches were leaning against the wall, there was nothing to hold him up when she knocked him off balance, and, for the second time in a week, he found himself crashing to the floor, with Sophie sprawled on top of him.

  Only this time he laughed and pulled her to him for a kiss.

  But one look at her face told him she wasn’t finding the situation at all humorous. She appeared shaken and angry.

  “What are we doing?” she asked, rolling off him and struggling to her feet.

  Since her naked breasts were bouncing in his line of vision, glistening a deep cherry red from where his tongue had wet them, he assumed it was a rhetorical question and used his energy to haul himself to his feet and grab his crutches.

  She pushed her breasts back into her workout gear, where they seemed reluctant to go, and turned to him, looking flustered and aroused.

  “You’re investigating a case against my employer.”

  He kept his tone light, despite his own straining frustration. “At the moment, I’m investigating you. And I haven’t finished.”

  She glared at him. “I don’t get involved sexually with men I work with. We’re working together.”

  He wasn’t entirely happy with her logic. Especially as he had an inkling where this was going. “Theoretically,” he hedged.

  “It’s a personal rule I’ve never broken.”

  Damn, the woman was throwing out challenges like they were last year’s fashions. He could barely keep up.

  “Oh, come on. This so-called working relationship is tenuous at best.”

  She shot him a professional-woman-in-business look. “Don’t tell me you’d ever sleep with a colleague?”

  One day she’d find out that his former longterm girlfriend answered to “Sergeant” and it wasn’t a nickname. “I’m saying, that I want to sleep with you.”

  “Is that why you came here? To seduce me?”

  “No.” His leg was starting to throb. Probably, he should have had that prescription for superstrength painkillers filled, but he hated feeling groggy. He needed his wits sharp for this case. Especially now he had Sophie on the inside to worry about. “Could we sit down?”

  She must have seen the him-trying-to-get-her-in-bed part of the evening was over. No, not over. Merely on hiatus. He’d had his tongue on her breasts, heard her moans escalate along with her desire. Taking her to bed was only a question of time.

  “Of course.” She gazed about her entrance foyer, the black-and-white tiled floor, the art deco mirror reflecting soft gray walls, as though she’d forgotten they were there. “Come in.” She led him down a short hallway to a square living area. It looked almost as though she hadn’t been able to decide on a style so just bought whatever caught her fancy. An antique chaise in striped silk with a rolled mahogany edging was obviously her reading chair. There was a standard lamp with a beaded fringed lampshade about a century newer than the chaise, and besi
de it was an ultramodern small table in some kind of shiny black substance. A largish paperback—looked like one of those pseudo-literary novels book clubs loved so much—sat on the table.

  A more traditional sofa that was somehow French with yellow-and-blue flowered upholstery, and an ancient green velvet wing chair surrounded the gas fireplace. A chunk of thick glass on a stone pedestal completed the furnishings. She obviously had a green thumb. Houseplants bloomed everywhere.

  The opera, which now he recognized as The Magic Flute, spilled from a sleek but compact stereo with killer sound. As chaotic as the whole room seemed, it somehow worked. It suited Sophie. He swung himself toward the couch, passing a galley kitchen with modern appliances, granite counters and more of the black-and-white tile. “Nice place,” he said. “Stylish.”

  She chuckled, pushing her hands through her hair nervously as though waiting for him to turn back into the sex maniac who’d done his best to ravish her in the entrance hall. He’d like nothing better, but it was clear she wasn’t ready for that. Yet.

  “Can I get you something to drink?”

  “Nothing, thanks. Sit down.”

  She dropped the hostess role and came to sit opposite him on the wing chair, tucking her stocking feet under her.

  Even though his breathing hadn’t completely settled and he suspected it would be days before his Sophie-inspired erection completely subsided, he turned his mind to business. “The sergeant’s assigned a detective to your bank to take Phil Britten’s position. This person will work undercover and no one but you will know. Could you handle that?”

  She sighed, a crease forming between her brows as the flush slowly subsided from her face and upper chest. “I’ve thought a lot about this. I suppose it is the right decision even though I’ll hate doing something so underhanded. Tell me about the detective.” Her sexy teasing was gone, and he knew he had her full attention as she focused on his face.

  “He’s pretty good with computers, and he’s worked on some finance cases before, so he should be able to fake it for a couple of weeks.”