Within seconds, he joined her. His astute gaze scanned the buildings. “How long have you lived here?”
“Four months.”
“I think I’ve visited this complex before. Building C.”
Lacey gulped. Alicia had once lived in Building C. Alicia had inherited Spazz upon the death of her great-aunt, necessitating a move to Building B—the only one of the three that accepted pets.
“Oh, you know how it is. The complexes in this neighborhood look identical. It’s easy to mix them up.” Lacey picked a thumbnail. “Did you bring your badge?” She should have asked at the station, but she’d been in dimwit mode.
Nodding, Derek patted the waistband of his jeans. Kind of close to his zipper.
His very interesting zipper, which bumped out attractively where—
Ahem.
She looked up.
“Excellent,” she replied as if her heart weren’t beating ten million times per second. Her friend Janie, who was her scavenger hunt partner in addition to being Derek’s twin, could vouch for him. Obviously, so would his gun holster and the handcuffs hooked over his belt. However, if Janie hadn’t yet returned from collecting the other items on their list, Lacey wouldn’t put it past Alicia to demand proof of Derek’s cop status.
An official Rosewood Police Department badge would pass that test—and then some.
Derek smiled. What a smile it was. All luminescent and pearly. Too bad he probably wouldn’t stick around once he realized Lacey had deceived him.
“You dropped something.” Gaze flicking to the pavement, he retrieved the siren-red thong.
Lacey’s face burned. “Thank you.”
She reached for the thong, and their hands brushed. Derek’s gaze lingered on her face. A thrill scooted up her spine and heat pooled in her belly.
Wowzer.
Turning toward her building, Lacey drew in a shaky breath.
Too, too bad he wouldn’t be sticking around.
~*~
Derek couldn’t stop staring at Lacey’s saucy behind as he trailed her along the fourth-floor hallway. Her tale about Pietro Spazzitori was pumped full of holes big enough to stuff the building in, but the wiggle in that red dress sure made up for it. He supposed it wasn’t so bad he’d grabbed a break from inputting his report to investigate her story.
“We’re nearly there.” She cast a smile over her shoulder that begged his hormones to take a joyride. His sister Janie was always hounding him to get a life outside of police work. Not two hours ago, while he’d chowed down a burger and sloshed back a coffee at his desk, she’d texted him flak about spending another Friday evening at the station.
Swallowing a grunt, Derek conceded that Janie might be on to something. He hadn’t dated in far too long.
No earth-shattering reason. The women he’d met lately just hadn’t spiked his pulse.
Other than…
Lengthening his stride, he reached Lacey. She zapped him another heart-stopping glance.
Under different circumstances, Lacey DeMarco was exactly the sort of woman he could imagine getting a life with—provided she wasn’t insane. They could have some humdinger times, he and Miss DeMarco.
However, it wasn’t only her infectious smile and remarkable dress that intrigued him. Lacey was an original. That much had been evident from the moment they’d met. After all, no other woman had ever strewn underwear over his desk.
Yep, Derek had the distinct impression that life with Lacey DeMarco would never be dull.
A ruckus boomed from one apartment. An instant later, Lacey stopped at the same door.
“You left music playing?” Derek cocked an ear. The noise sounded an awful lot like...stripper songs?
“Uh...” She passed the shopping bag from hand to hand.
“It’s a little loud,” Derek advised her. No matter how pretty the complainant, he needed to do his job. “Do your neighbors object to the noise?”
Her nervous laugh tinkled beneath the raunchy music. “Not this neighbor.”
“Huh?”
She averted her gaze. “Derek.” She spoke his name as if she were licking an ice cream cone—or something else. “You might be in for a surprise.”
So far, everything about her had come as a surprise. He hesitated. “What kind of surprise?”
She sucked in a breath. “You’ll see.”
She opened the unlocked door, and Derek followed her into the small living room.
What the hell?
Bright pink and yellow streamers swooped from the ceiling while balloons of assorted shapes and sizes bounced on the striped sofa and off the walls. A dozen female bodies danced and clapped to the booming music. In the middle of the cheering throng, a half-dressed male stripper in an approximation of a boys-in-blue uniform gyrated to the erotic wail of a saxophone belting from a music dock.
The stripper ripped off his cop pants, revealing an indecently bulging leather G-string—and a badge where no badge should ever reside.
The women whooped and hollered like a pack of starving hyenas.
Lacey’s eyes popped.
Derek stared at her. “This is your studio?”
“No,” she shouted above the din. “This isn’t even my apartment! I live across the hall!”
“Across the hall?” How could she not know her own studio? Was she a nutcase? “Miss DeMarco, we need to talk.” Somewhere quiet where he could get to the bottom of her shenanigans. He gave the party one last look. “Let’s go.”
“We can’t!” Lacey insisted.
“Why not?”
“Because of...” The music drowned her words. “...and Pietro Spazzitori.”
“He’s here?”
She didn’t answer. Just shoved the shopping bag into Derek’s arms and headed for a short redhead who wore a strange hat constructed of a paper plate and several gift-wrap bows.
Swearing, Derek hustled after her.
She tugged the redhead’s arm, and the woman stumbled away from the stripper.
“Tanya, who brought that guy?” Lacey shouted above the music.
“Claire rented him for me,” the woman yelled back. A balloon lobbed against her arm. She knocked it away. “Isn’t he to die for? Forget marrying Trey. I want Ridge! He can frisk me whenever he wants!”
A frown marred Lacey’s forehead. “Did Claire already win the scavenger hunt?”
“The what?”
Behind Tanya, the stripper danced her direction, bumping balloons out of his path.
“The scavenger hunt,” Lacey said close to the redhead’s ear.
“I don’t know. You’ll have to ask—” Tanya squealed as the stripper grabbed her arm. He dragged her back into the throng of screaming women.
Derek gritted his teeth. A stripper named Ridge and a scavenger hunt? What kind of warped party was this?
“Lacey, what’s going on?” he demanded.
“Ridge doesn’t count.” She peered at him. “He’s not a real cop, like you are.”
Like me? “What am I, a party favor?”
“Um…more like an item on a scavenger hunt list.”
“Fantastic.” Derek squashed the shopping bag beneath his arm. A bra cup jutted out, and a wire thing jabbed his armpit. “So your harebrained story about the panty thief was to get me here under false pretenses?”
“What? Sorry, I can’t hear you.” Her voice escalated.
Derek leaned forward. His mouth brushed her hair. “Pietro Spazzitori. Is he real?”
Lacey nodded, then steered him around the cheering women and opened a bedroom door. A wrinkled wiener dog—Ridge’s scaled-down sidekick?—snored in the middle of the double bed. Lacey left the door open a few inches, and an orange balloon trickled into the bedroom. The stripper music wound down.
Lacey stepped toward the dog. “Detective McAllister,” she began, “allow me to introduce Pietro Spazzitori, otherwise known as Spazz. He belongs to my friend, Alicia. Perhaps you know her. This is her apartment.”
Derek shook his head. Should he k
now this Alicia? “Then the panty thief…?”
“Was Spazz.”
“And your mother isn’t—?”
“Christina DeMarco. No. Her name is Catherine, but that didn’t sound as exotic. She’s a pharmacist. And there’s no Silken or Teddy.”
“Is your name even Lacey?”
Her lips curled into a sweet smile. “Yes.”
Derek tossed the shopping bag onto the bed. Spazz continued snoring. “Miss DeMarco, I’m a police officer. We deal with criminals. Bad people, do you understand? We don’t have time to squander on wiener dogs with an underwear fetish.”
“Well, I—”
“Calm down, little brother,” a voice said behind them.
Derek stiffened. Janie.
He should have known.
~*~
Lacey’s heart sank. Derek the Dashing wouldn’t want anything to do with her after this! Darn. And she’d only just met him. Yet, crazily, she knew she’d miss him.
At least Janie was back. She’d help Lacey explain.
Derek turned to his sister. “Janie, what is this?”
Lacey looked at her friend. “Little brother?” Derek was far from little. Like six-feet-three-inches too far. “I thought you were twins.” In other words, the same age.
“He’s younger than me by four minutes,” Janie said. “That gives me big sister interference privileges. As for you...” Janie grinned. “This is me getting you a life.” Crossing her arms, she said smugly, “Getting both of you a life.”
Through the open bedroom door, Lacey glimpsed other scavenger hunt enthusiasts returning with their booty. A few women trumpeted cop dolls in victory fists. However, no one other than Lacey and Claire had snared a live cop. And Claire had cheated by renting a fake live cop.
“I have a life,” Lacey objected.
Derek scowled. “So do I.”
Janie snorted. “All either of you do is work. Derek, Rosewood is enjoying its lowest crime rate in years, and still all you do is work.”
“That’s what they pay me for...big sis.”
Lacey’s mind spun. “I don’t get it. I know my image needs an overhaul, but I’m trying. I’m already more assertive. Example: the scavenger hunt list said ‘policeman’. I brought one. Claire cheated with the stripper stunt. Therefore, I should win.”
Janie grinned. “I cheated. I convinced Alicia to add policeman to the list. She knew I’d show it to you.” She winked at Lacey.
“Oh,” Derek mumbled. “That Alicia.”
“Do you know her?” Lacey asked.
He waved a hand. “We’ve met once or twice.”
“Three times,” Janie corrected. “I thought they would hit it off, but Alicia said dating him was torture. But you two…” She nodded at Lacey. “Yes, you and my brother might stand a chance.” Leaning closer to Lacey, she murmured, “Claire’s stripper surprise was a coincidence. The policeman thing was a set-up to get you and Derek together.”
Lacey bit her lip. Yeah, Derek was hot, but— “After Alicia said dating him was torture?”
“Hey, I’m in the room,” he grumbled.
Janie ignored her marginally younger brother. “Alicia’s father and brothers are all in law enforcement. I thought that would work in Derek’s favor, but I guess not. Alicia said there’s no way she could stick it out with a cop.”
Tanya poked her head into the bedroom. “Cop? Hey, girls,” she called over her shoulder. “Did you hear that? Lacey’s brought us another cop!”
An avalanche of Lacey and Janie’s friends spilled into the bedroom. Bouncing balloons trailed them.
“Will he take off his clothes?” Tanya chortled. “Ridge is leaving. We want more.”
Janie rolled her eyes. “Where is Alicia when I need her?”
“With Claire in the kitchen, making me another Mudslide.” Tanya hiccupped.
Janie shoved a hand between Tanya and Derek. “Any more Mudslides in you, my girl, and we’ll have to take you home. My brother’s off-limits to engaged women. He’s for Lacey, if she wants him.”
Tanya pouted. “Awww.”
Janie herded the giggling women out of the bedroom. “I’ve done my part,” she called back. “Now you two can hash it out.”
~*~
The bedroom door banged shut behind Derek’s sister. Good thing, because he’d just been about to strangle her.
Punting a long balloon out of the way, he stepped toward Lacey. “I apologize for Janie, since she’s obviously incapable of doing so herself. She had no right to set you up like that. She deceived you.”
Lacey winced. “She deceived both of us. And I deceived you. If either of us should apologize, it’s me. Derek, I’m sorry.”
She sank onto the bed and stroked the sleeping dog. Derek hadn’t seen the mutt before tonight. Alicia must have adopted him after their disastrous dating attempts.
“Don’t worry about it.” He couldn’t fault Lacey too much if her hijinks were responsible for her red dress. “So you’re not the wing-nut I thought you were when you dumped underwear all over my desk?”
“I’m anything but a wing-nut.” She sighed. “Normally, I’m a boring workaholic, like Janie said.”
Derek let his gaze travel up Lacey’s toned legs. Boring? Not a chance. “You have a company to run. You can’t slack off and expect Lacey’s Little Underthings to succeed.” He looked her in the eyes. She’d told him so many half-truths tonight, he had to ask, “Tell me Lacey’s Little Underthings is an actual company.”
She nodded. “I’m in the process of getting it off the ground. I have a meeting with some Seattle investors next week. This is the chance I’ve been working toward, so I didn’t want to blow it. Janie’s helping me supercharge my image, and tonight was part of that. Or so I thought.” She plucked the hem of her clingy dress. “Looks like your sister and I took things too far.”
“I’ll say. But I don’t regret that you did.”
Her mouth curved. “You don’t?”
“Nope.” He sat beside her on the bed. The extra weight on the mattress toppled the shopping bag. The red thong dribbled out to meet the gun holster on his belt. “As much as I don’t approve of Janie’s tactics, she hit it on the nose when she said all I do is work.”
“Same here. I haven’t had a date in so long, I’ve forgotten what’s supposed to happen during one.”
“Maybe it’s time we each learned to let off a little steam. Just because Janie decided to play matchmaker doesn’t mean we can’t go for a coffee or something. I knew from the moment we met that I’d like to ask you out. I haven’t changed my mind.”
“I feel that way, too.” Lacey drew in a breath. “It doesn’t bother you that I’m not as exciting as I appear right now? I’ve never owned a dress this risqué.”
“Trust me, I find you plenty exciting.” He picked up the slippery thong and dangled it between them, much as she’d done at the station. “In fact, if I found you any more exciting, I’d have a heart attack from looking at you.” Clichéd, but true.
Her face brightened. “Then imagine what might happen if you kissed me.”
He’d love to. But he shouldn’t. Well…
“Technically, I am off-duty.”
Her blue eyes twinkled. “There’s no case, Derek.”
“No burglary,” he verified.
Her shoulders lifted in a ladylike shrug. “Nothing but a girl yearning for a kiss.”
Aw, damn. He couldn’t resist her.
Dropping the thong to the mattress, he cupped her face with one hand and covered her mouth with his. He kissed her, gently, sweetly. Long enough to feel her lips moving in response. And long enough to realize he honestly wanted to get to know her—whether the scintillating red dress revealed her true nature or not.
Reluctantly, he broke the kiss. “I should get back. I need to finish a report.”
She smiled. “And I should return to my friends. Tonight is for Tanya. I can’t run out on her.”
They were both so responsible it ki
lled him. “I want to see you soon.”
“Tomorrow night?”
He shook his head. “Too long. When does this party end?”
“At the rate Tanya’s throwing back those Mudslides, maybe as early as midnight.”
“Perfect. I’ll be at my desk until you’re done. Call me.”
“Sounds great.” She retrieved her cell phone from the shopping bag. He rattled off his number, and she programmed it in.
As she rose from the bed, a knock rapped on the bedroom door. Alicia’s voice carried through the wood. “Lacey? Sorry to interrupt, but Tanya really wants to play Honeymoon Horror, and that’s your game idea...”
“Coming,” Lacey called. She glanced at Derek. “Promise you’re not interested in Alicia?”
“Not in ten lifetimes.” Alicia Maxwell had more hang-ups than a prank caller. She needed a guy with the patience to help her kick them. “We lacked a romantic vibe.” And a whole lot more.
“Could you be friends with her?”
Derek wobbled a hand. “If necessary.”
“Great. Because I like her.” Lacey patted his thigh, and warmth spread beneath the denim. She said, “I need to run across the hall for the game props. Are you staying to say goodnight to Janie?”
He nodded. “I’d like to thank my big sister for tonight, before I describe in great detail the horrible fate in store for her if she interferes in my life again.”
Lacey laughed. “Good luck. I’ll send her in.”
She sashayed out of the bedroom. The chatter of women drifted through the open door. The old dog yawned.
“Hey, Spazz, how’s life?” Derek asked.
The mutt sniffed the shopping bag, one paw stretching toward the red thong.
“No, you don’t.” Derek grabbed the bag and skimpy underwear to give Janie for safekeeping until Lacey returned with her game props. The satin thong slid sensually over his palm.
He lifted his eyebrows. His fingers itched to stuff the sexy souvenir in his pocket—an act of total irresponsibility and wild man abandon.
But what a souvenir of the night he’d met Lacey.
He shot a glance to the doorway. No one was looking. He gazed at the old dog. Did those soulful brown eyes hold a hint of mischief?
Deceiving Derek Page 2
