His dark gaze zoomed in on her. “Jo?”
And oh, that voice. Warm chocolate. “Yes?” she croaked.
“Are you gonna take this bottle or what?”
“Oh. I’m sorry.”
He leaned forward. Shark Gabe. “More early onset menopause?”
If her free hand weren’t shattered, she’d have walloped him. “Listen, Sergeant, cut the crap.”
“What crap?”
She poured two glasses of wine. “You know what crap. I dare say you’re flirting with me.”
“Impossible.”
But the jerk was smiling at her, those perfect full lips tilting up in a way that made her think about all the places she’d like them to be. She set the bottle aside and stepped back. At this point, the counter between them wasn’t nearly enough space.
Something’s changed.
Being a tall, somewhat attractive blonde, she’d had her share of good looking men chase her. She’d even dated some. At least until her aggressiveness scared the bejesus out of them and they ran like hunted animals. As an alpha woman, she’d yet to find someone comfortable enough with himself to handle her.
Most of the men she’d frightened off thought she wanted to wear the pants in the relationship. To be the one in charge. Maybe she did. She wasn’t sure. What she knew, without hesitation, was that she didn’t want to wear the pants one-hundred-percent of the time. What she needed was a man to stand beside her, to not be intimidated by her strength. A man who would give her some leeway when she got pushy, but wasn’t afraid to call her out when she went too far.
Like Gabe had today.
She supposed, when it came down to it, every once in a while she wanted to be a woman taken care of by her man.
The feminists would stone her.
Her phone beeped. An email coming in. With her eyes still on the sexy sergeant, she scooped it up and stole a glance at the screen. Her assistant. Nothing important. She dropped the phone.
Gabe rapped his knuckles on the counter. “Maybe I’m flirting a little.”
“And maybe I’m not in early onset menopause.”
“Good to know.”
Still, he kept his focus on her and she inched backward. Somehow the space closed in and the damned heat incinerating her from inside wouldn’t quit. All the jokes she and Bev had shared about Gabe being Mr. August—the hottest month on a man-candy calendar—zipped through her mind. Were they objectifying him? Probably. They both knew he was so much more than man candy though. Not that it made it right, but women had their fantasies too.
The stainless steel cabinet handle bumped her ass. Nowhere to go. She had to be smart here. She wanted the task force to lead to her dream of a nationwide initiative. The mayor of New York, arguably one of the most powerful men in the nation, saw her as a professional, someone determined to shut down vendors selling illegal products.
Somehow, becoming the world’s biggest cliché by having a one night rodeo with a hot ESU sergeant didn’t seem like a good career move.
Oh, to try it.
“It would be a huge mistake,” Gabe said.
A burst of air exploded from her mouth. “I’m so glad you said that.”
He nodded. “I actually hate that I said it. Right now, I could give you a pretty good go and we’d both walk away smiling.”
“Shut up.” Since her broken hand was out of commission, Jo threw her forearms over her ears. “I’m ready to leap over this counter and attack you, and you say that? I mean, what the hell is wrong with you?”
Then something beyond crazy happened. He smiled. Not the shark smile. The honest-to-God, Gabe-being-Gabe smile that she’d rarely seen and—pow!
I’m in big trouble.
She tore around the breakfast bar and he swiveled on the stool to face her. One of them should stop this.
One of them.
Not her.
Too late. His feet were hooked into the side legs of the stool, leaving plenty of room for her to fit between his thighs. He extended his arm and she nearly dove into him, slamming herself against him and kissing him. The kiss—as they say—left nothing on the table. Except maybe her flaming desire to be on the table. Lips clashed, tongues explored and—yowzer—this was beyond better than she’d imagined. Suddenly, every inch of her body expanded. That damned simmering heat spread and her skin felt too tight, too hot, too confining. Like a zipper needing to burst.
Such a mistake.
Bev would have a heart attack.
Jo jumped back and her chest hitched. “Hang on, sailor.”
Gabe threw his arms up. “Not my fault.”
She took three more steps back. One, two, three. She exhaled, a humongous, deep release, and then smacked her good hand over her chest. “That, Sergeant, was completely insane.”
He smiled the Gabe smile. “You’re right. Let’s do it again.”
Shaking her fist at him, she drooped against the wall. “You’re killing me.”
She slid down the wall until her butt hit the floor. Flipping nightmare. She finally understood the Beyoncé song about beautiful nightmares.
The heat clicked on, literally. The furnace rumbled—just what she needed—and she fanned herself. Had to be early onset menopause. Had to be. Only explanation for these hot flashes. She brought her gaze back to Gabe, who remained on the stool, dressed in his tactical uniform, looking like the hero he was. The disgusting, paralyzing, maddening truth hit her.
“I’m not a one-night rodeo girl.”
Crap on a cracker. Gabe wrapped his fingers around his forehead and squeezed. Was he out of his fucking mind? For months this woman had driven him to the brink of insanity. On several levels. No matter what it was, she pushed and pushed and pushed. Sometimes she got her way. Sometimes not. She lived with it. Chalked it up to another day and moved on.
That moving on might be the only thing that had kept him from killing her. She knew when to cut her losses. Above all, she was a sharp, demanding woman who believed in righting the wrongs of the world.
And he wanted her. What that want entailed had eluded him, but at some point in the past few months, he’d decided he wanted to get a whole lot closer to Jo Pomeroy. In many ways.
He brought his hand down, reached for a glass of the untouched wine and slammed half. From the spot on the floor, Jo laughed and, in an otherwise quiet apartment, the sound brought relief to his confused mind.
He set the glass down. “Two things,” he said. “One, I know you’re not a one-night rodeo girl. I never thought that. Two, we’ve gotta be smart about this. We could screw each other stupid tonight and not say a word to anyone. Our secret, right? But that’s crap. When people hook up, things change and others notice. Pretty soon, the guys in my unit are breaking my balls and hounding me. The more I keep quiet, the more they suspect I’m banging the leggy blonde attorney and—trust me on this—that makes me a hero. There’s not a guy in my unit that hasn’t thought about it. They’ll have a goddamned field day.”
Her eyes went big and round and she shook her head. Violently. At least she was hearing the message.
“Then,” he continued, “the mayor gets word that two key people on his pet project are doing the nasty. You may have figured out by now that our mayor is good at his job, but he’s a monster asshole. He’d have no problem launching us both if we embarrass him.”
She sighed. “I know. I’d go from respected attorney to a woman who can’t keep her legs closed for a guy in uniform. I see the way some of the guys look at me. They’re pigs.”
“Exactly.”
“So what do we do? Business as usual?”
He shrugged. “It’ll be painful, but yeah. Business as usual.” Then he grinned. Shark Gabe. “At least until we figure something else out.”
Chapter Four
Jo sat patiently on a metal frame chair while Gabe’s friend Rich—Dr. Bowles—assembled his masterpiece of a red cast. The “casting room” as Rich had called it, was the size of a small conference room with whitewas
hed walls and an examining table dead center. She had opted for the chair rather than the table. Along the one wall was a roughed-up counter with cabinets. On top were shiny metal instruments and a couple of electric saws with circular blades.
In the far corner stood Gabe, wearing low-slung jeans, a plain black sweater and the confidence of someone who knew how to control a room. Here was a man who, on his day off, insisted on taking her to the doctor.
When it came to men, women, and the sudden exploration of their sexual attraction, mornings after were always tough. This one was tough for all the wrong reasons. Gabe rarely got a full day off and he’d offered to drive her to the doctor when he could have been sleeping or doing whatever it was he did on his downtime.
For that reason alone she should have boffed his brains out. Therefore, she could only surmise that her morning after discomfort had nothing to do with a one-night stand. Her regret came from a non-one-night stand.
Tragic. Jo focused on the doctor layering strips of wet cloth on her wrist. Dark blue scrubs hung on his rail-thin body. When she’d been standing, she’d been an inch taller than him. Somehow, she’d pictured someone bigger. As if Gabe wouldn’t have short friends.
She tilted her head and Rich added another layer. Such a perfectionist. “Don’t you have someone who does this for you?”
“I do.”
“And yet, you’re here with me. Should I be flattered?”
“Jo,” Gabe said from his spot in the corner. “Leave him alone.”
She gawked. “Yeesh. I’m just asking a question.”
“You never just ask a question. Every one of your questions is packed with dynamite.”
Another layer of cloth was added. “I think he’s tired today,” Jo whispered to Rich.
“I heard that.”
Using her free hand, she flipped Gabe off. The good doctor burst out laughing, one of those hardy, addictive laughs.
“Now that’s an awesome laugh,” she said. “I still want to know why you’re doing this instead of handing me off. I promise I won’t sue you if your assistant screws it up.”
Rich glanced at Gabe. “She’s something else, this one.”
Gabe sighed. He knew all too well.
“I’m in here,” Rich said, “because Gabe has referred a lot of people to me.”
Gabe cleared his throat loud enough to shake the room. What on earth was his problem? “He said you two have been friends a long time.”
Another exquisitely placed layer went on the cast. “Yes. And in all the times he’s referred patients to me, he’s never, not once, come along.”
A whooshing noise filled Jo’s head and that crazy explosion of heat from the night before happened again.
He’s never come along.
She so should have slept with him.
“Oh, Christ,” Gabe muttered.
She didn’t dare look at him. Nope. Not going there. Instead, she’d park that information in the part of her brain that housed nonthreatening items. “He’s guilt ridden because his rookie screwed up and now my hand is broken.”
Rich’s head snapped up.
“I do feel bad,” Gabe said. “But that doesn’t come close to my feelings about a certain loudmouthed attorney who doesn’t listen when she’s told to stay put.”
She swung her head in his direction. Shark Gabe. “Well, maybe if a certain bullheaded sergeant—”
“Ho-kay, folks,” Rich said. “Let’s not fight in front of the children.”
“And to think,” Jo muttered, “he’s never been married.”
Gabe laughed. “Uh, Counselor, neither have you. What does that say about us?”
“What it says about me is that I’m particular.”
“No. It says that we’re both pains in the asses who want everything our way and no one could put up with us.”
Rich cleared his throat. “So, anyway, to answer your question. Yes, I usually have someone do this for me, but since my friend Gabe is here, I figured you must be someone I’d like to meet.”
Such a charmer. Who’d have guessed? She waggled her finger at Gabe. “That’s how it’s done, big boy. I hope you’re taking notes.”
Her cell phone chirped. Sherry’s ringtone. “Ooh, I have to get that.” Trying not to move the arm being casted, she bent sideways to retrieve her phone from her purse and hit the button before it went to voice mail. “Hi. Sorry. I’m getting an exceptional cast put on my hand by a charming doctor. It sucks to be me.” Rich smiled at her. “What’s up?”
“I’ve been to three vendors already. None of them have that new Konklin watch, but they all said there’s a shipment coming in on Friday. Friday.”
Jo looked at Gabe. He sensed her excitement and stood tall. “What?”
“They all said that?” she asked Sherry.
“Every one of them.”
“What is it?” he asked, getting louder.
“It’s Sherry. She’s on the prowl for a Konklin. Three vendors told her there’s a shipment coming in on Friday.”
He snatched the phone. “Sherry? Gabe Townsend.”
“Hey,” Jo yelled. “Give that back.”
She held her hand up, but Gabe grabbed it and squeezed. Not hard. Just enough to keep her from the phone. Or to distract her with how incredibly warm and good and cozy it felt to hold his hand.
Bastard.
“Okay,” he said, entwining his fingers with hers. “Type that up and email it to me. Right…thanks.” After finishing up with Sherry, he clicked off, slipped his hand free—damned shame, that—and dropped the phone back in Jo’s purse.
“What’d she say?”
“One big shipment coming in on Friday for multiple vendors.”
“That’s my guy. Has to be. We need to figure out who he is and how he’s getting these huge shipments into the city.”
“And we will. My guess is the load is coming in on a container ship. I’ll get with someone at the Port Authority. If we’re lucky, we’ll find the ship.” Gabe pointed at the doctor. “Rich, hit the gas. We have work to do.”
—:—
So much for his day off. Gabe dropped Jo at her office then hauled ass to the Port Authority to alert Customs about a possible shipment of counterfeit goods.
Next he put the word out with the undercover guys. With all the informants those guys had, someone on the street would know where this shipment would be coming from.
By three-thirty he was heading home to take his mother grocery shopping. His phone rang and he checked the screen. Calhoun. One of the vice guys.
“I just talked to one of my CIs,” Calhoun said. “Check out a warehouse in Brooklyn.”
Brooklyn. Could be the same place they’d been watching? Jo would have a coronary. “What’s up with this warehouse?”
“The CI knows a guy who hijacks trucks. They bring the hot load to this Brooklyn location and get paid for the goods. He said it’s a huge fuckin’ place.”
“Address?”
The detective rattled off an address on First Street. Yep. Their warehouse. Prickling energy shot up Gabe’s arms. “Who pays them?”
“He doesn’t know. All he knows is what the guy told him. This was a few months back though.”
Well, shit. A few months back? Might as well have been years.
“You got a name for anybody at the warehouse?”
“All my guy knows is a street name. Kiki.”
Easy to remember.
Gabe swung a U-turn in the intersection and headed back to the Queensboro Bridge. He’d have to get with Bev on this, which meant returning to the city and blowing off grocery shopping with his mother. She’d been waiting on him all day and he hated disappointing her, but this might be months of work finally paying off. “Good enough. I’ll check it out. Thanks.”
The CI’s information, combined with all the surveillance they’d done on the place, might be enough to get them a warrant.
He called his mom to break the news and then reached out to Bev. He got her voice
mail and called Jo.
“Good afternoon, Sergeant,” she said. “What can I do for you?”
“I got a lead on a warehouse in Brooklyn.”
A pause. “My warehouse?”
“Looks like.”
“No!”
He grinned. Crazy-assed woman. “Yes. An informant gave it to one of our undercover guys. The intel is old though. Few months at least. We’re looking for a guy named Kiki.”
“Is he our guy?”
“Don’t know, but we might have enough for a warrant. Heading back to see Bev now.” He hit a little construction traffic on the bridge. “Damn.”
“What?”
“Nothing. Traffic. I was heading home. I promised my mother I’d take her shopping.”
“I’m sorry, Gabe.”
“Not your fault.” A cabbie cut him off and nearly clipped his front bumper. “Hey, asshole! Watch where you’re going.”
Of course, it was November and he didn’t have the windows open, but maybe the guy read lips.
“But it’s your day off.”
“Yeah, well. You of all people know how that goes. Are you taking the ferry home tonight?”
“Yep. And now I have my new cast that can double as a weapon if I get mugged.”
“Not funny, Jo.”
“I thought it was.”
He snorted. Maybe it was a little funny. “Okay. I’ll call your cell if I find out anything. Do me a favor and see if you can track down Bev. I left her a voice mail. You might have better luck. I’m gonna send someone over to Brooklyn to grab a few bags of garbage from the warehouse Dumpster. See if we find anything with the name Kiki.”
“Perfect. I’ll come by and help you.”
“Jo, it’s garbage. Forget it. Go home and I’ll let you know what we find.”
“No, I want to help. It’ll go faster with another set of hands. Besides, I’m excited.”
Of course she was. She lived for this. “Your call. Let me go. I’ll let you know when the garbage arrives.”
He tossed the phone on the passenger seat and focused on the traffic ahead. Without getting too ahead of himself, he tried to remain cautiously optimistic about a warrant. He’d been doing this job long enough to not make any assumptions, but something told him they’d be hitting this warehouse in the next twenty-four hours.
The Chase Page 4
