Money, Honey

by Susan Sey

  The cop in her automatically noted his description and filed it: Caucasian, brown hair, brown eyes, an inch or two past six feet. Fashionably scruffy, hair straight and just this side of greasy, wrinkled retro bowling shirt, expensive sneakers. No visible scars or tattoos. Hard to get an age in the poor light, but she’d put him anywhere between sixteen and twenty-six. Probably closer to twenty-six if she was any judge of stubble, though.

  She concentrated on keeping the cop off her face while he and Patrick held a conversation that she could neither hear nor lip-read. She had to concentrate even harder when she saw Patrick slip him one of the fake hundreds.

  “WHAT ARE you doing?” Liz yelled over the music, murder in her eyes.

  Patrick turned into her and grinned. He slid both hands over the sweet curve of her hips and pulled her right up against him, savoring the way she was both lush and lean, round and toned, distant and absolutely, completely touchable. It was like playing a grown-up version of red light/ green light, and damn if he wasn’t just a little bit dazzled.

  “I want to dance with you,” he told her, as if it were the most reasonable thing in the world. “So I’m bribing the DJ to play better music.”

  “You bribed him with a counterfeit note,” she pointed out. Her tone was even, but she was pushing the words through her teeth, Patrick noticed. She was also stiff as a ramrod in his arms. He trailed a hand up the pretty line of her spine, felt the tiny shudder run through her. “And this music isn’t worth even that.”

  “Patience, darling,” he said, watching those wide, blue eyes of hers narrow with suspicion and something like trepidation as the thumping disco beat suddenly morphed into something slower. Something smokier. Something achingly hot and frankly sexual. He swayed into it with her, splayed his hands lower over her hips and held her steady against him as the music rolled over them, into them, through them. He wondered briefly if she was going to stab him to death with one of the heels he’d put her in for the night, then decided it didn’t matter if she did.

  It would totally be worth it.

  He slid his thigh into the froth of her skirt, nestled it exactly where he wanted it and, leaving one hand splayed across the swell of her bottom, swept the other up the warm expanse of her bare back and into the silky mass of hair at her nape. He pressed her firmly into his body as he moved to the beat, deliberately keeping them in intimate contact from knees to chin.

  “Patrick.” He heard her say his name, or maybe she just breathed it. But he heard it nonetheless, and it went straight to his belly like fire, ignited his blood and raced through his entire body. He nudged her head into the curve of his shoulder and felt his entire world come into focus at the sweetness of the fit.

  “Just one dance,” he whispered into her hair.

  LIZ COULD feel him everywhere. The crowd pressed against her back, her sides, hemming her in, but she didn’t care. All she cared about was the hot friction of Patrick’s long, firm body, aligned as intimately with hers as was possible when they were both standing up and fully clothed. Some small voice in the back of her brain pleaded for reason, for restraint, for caution, but she wasn’t listening. She was dancing. With Patrick.

  Just one dance, right? How much trouble could she get into wearing sixteen yards of crinoline anyway? She gave in to the gentle pressure of his hand at the base of her skull and let her head fall into the curve of his shoulder. It fit as if the space had been custom-made for her. She nestled her cheek into the really superior linen of his shirt and pulled in a deep lungful of the warm, spicy air at the base of his throat. She had enough self-control left not to sink her teeth lightly into the solid rise of muscle that pillowed her cheek, but it was a near thing. She settled for lifting her arms instead and winding them lazily around his neck, blatantly flattening her breasts against his chest and running her nails through the crisp smooth hair at his nape.

  A distant alarm clanged in her head, warning her that she was well into the danger zone, but she really couldn’t hear it over the throbbing of the music. Or the throbbing of her pulse, for that matter. Her daring was rewarded when he slid a warm palm from her raised elbow down to the wildly sensitive skin of her ribs. It skimmed over her waist and settled heavily, possessively in the hollow at the small of her back.

  She smiled to herself and let him hold her there, intimately, against him. Let him roll her hips easily with his in time to the pulsing beat of the music, let her body slide against his in the hotly erotic rhythm he’d chosen. Her blood turned to warmed honey. It buzzed and spread languidly through her entire body, every nerve exquisitely sensitive to his touch, his scent, his direction. She danced with him, moving without thought or conscious volition, simply anticipating him in the wordless harmony of a woman who recognizes a man on the most primitive of levels.

  The music thudded heavy and alive inside her chest, the crowd surged and swirled around them, Patrick slid and pulsed against her and Liz simply surrendered.

  VILLANUEVA LET the writhing mix of people carry him toward his target. The dance floor was dark, hot and sweaty under a thick blanket of collective lust. Strangers made free with their hands and Villanueva had the good fortune to encounter a friendly redhead in a silky dress not two feet from O’Connor and the blond cop.

  He smiled into her heavy-lidded eyes and slid his hands around a set of ripe hips. She purred her approval and pressed her lush bottom into his groin. His body responded appropriately and automatically.

  But he wasn’t paying attention. Not to her. Every cell in his body was attuned to O’Connor and Special Agent Elizabeth Brynn, lost in their own private dance two feet away.

  He was so close. Anticipation jittered through him, pure adrenaline boosting his knee-jerk appreciation of the redhead into something more potent. Arousal burned through him, inseparable from an awareness of the blade he kept strapped to the small of his back. Hunger howled inside him—for revenge, for blood, for satisfaction.

  It would be quick, he knew. A simple turn, a step, two practiced, efficient motions. They would crumple to the floor like a pair of drunks or overeager lovers while he melted into the crowd, wiped his prints off the blade and reclaimed his life.

  But no. Not yet. He rubbed himself against the accommodating redhead, channeling his energy away from vengeance and into her warm, willing body. Killing them now, together, without warning, would be a travesty of justice.

  Because even here in this sexually charged atmosphere, he could smell the lust on them. Could see a miasma of raw want radiating off their bodies. Off O’Connor, especially. Anybody who cared to look could see he wanted the cop with an urgency that blew his customary cool all the way to hell and back. Which interested Villanueva a great deal.

  Astonishing as it seemed, this woman—this cop—had a hold on O’Connor. Something strong, deep and unprecedented. And as much joy as it would give him to spill their blood on this dirty concrete floor, Villanueva was too disciplined to veer from the plan. Too disciplined to even consider not using the weapon O’Connor had just handed him.

  Maybe fucking the redhead would take the edge off his hunger. He smiled into her willing eyes, took her hand and drew her into the darkness.

  THE HEAT gathered inside Liz as she and Patrick danced. It tightened, focused, until it became a heavy, yearning gravity at the very center of her. She wanted him there, she realized with a dull shock. And it could hardly be a secret, not with the way she was unabashedly riding his thigh.

  This wasn’t a dance, she realized, heeding her shrieking brain far, far too late. This was seduction. God damn, the man was determined. And good.

  She snapped back to reality with an ugly shock to find herself wrapped around Patrick like a climbing vine, hot, hungry and aching for him with a violence that shook her all the way to her foundation. She snatched her arms away from him as if he’d burned her and cursed her body for the way it mourned the loss of his fire.

  Patrick didn’t try to hold her. He just tucked his hands into his pockets, his sh
irt now deliciously wrinkled. She’d done that, she realized with a sick twist of her stomach. Her greedy hands had put those wrinkles there. He gazed at her, his crystalline eyes heavy lidded and hot, his mouth faintly curved. Liz just shook her head. She was beyond words anyway, not that he’d have heard her over the music. He lifted his shoulders in good-natured defeat, as if to say, hell, I had to try. She spun on her heel and started fighting her way through the roiling crowd.

  Patrick caught at her hand, and Liz made a valiant effort to yank free. Furious tears were stinging her eyes, though she’d be damned if she’d let him see her cry. She doubted very seriously that she’d allow herself the luxury of tears even in private. The terror she was experiencing was too primal, went too deep.

  But Patrick wasn’t to be shaken off. He held firmly to her hand and somehow had her tucked behind him before she could renew her efforts to free herself. And then he was using that bizarre ability of his to dissolve crowds at will, leading her past their drinks and directly to the door.

  Liz could feel his eyes on her as the steel door swung shut behind them, reducing the music to a deep, grinding rumble. Her ears felt queerly hollow in the stillness of the packed parking lot, and her heart felt about the same, God help her. He squeezed her hand once, and she pulled hers away.

  “I’ll take you home,” was all he said.

  “SET IT up,” Villanueva said into the phone when the kid finally picked up. It was several hours later than he’d intended to call, but the redhead had been more energetic and diverting than he’d anticipated. American women always tried harder in their forties. He’d forgotten that pleasant fact.

  “Yeah, sure.” The kid yawned enormously into the phone. “But what the hell, right? I mean, you were right next to them! I saw you! Why didn’t you do anything?”

  “Improvisation is for amateurs.”

  “Dude, you got distracted by the cougar, didn’t you? The redhead.”

  Villanueva shrugged off a shimmer of impatience. The kid had his talents, useful ones, but knowing when to shut up was, sadly, not among them. “Can I count on you to perform the task as assigned?”

  There was a sullen silence, then, “Yeah, sure.”

  “Excellent. I’ll be waiting.”

  Chapter 9

  LIZ STOOD back and gazed critically at the whiteboard she’d just filled with her small, blocky printing. It was a terse recap of last night’s events and she wanted it that way. Objective and analytical. Succinct. Neither the raw desire she’d been blindsided by nor the eventual and shaky triumph of her self-control had any bearing on the case, and she wanted no trace of either in her report.

  She refilled her coffee mug for the fourth time since beating dawn to the office and took a brutally hot gulp. In spite of her burning gut, her fingers were cold as she pressed them to the bags under her eyes. She’d be facing her team in moments and didn’t care to do it with the evidence of her sleepless night all over her face.

  She was still frowning at the board when Goose sailed in, this time in a suit of deep periwinkle. The jacket was buttoned over a silky camisole of a paler blue, the trousers expertly tailored to show off her yards and yards of leg, all that shiny black hair pulled back into some kind of artful knot at the base of her skull. Chunky silver earrings winked in the fluorescent lighting. Liz suppressed a twinge of envy. Did this woman never have to roll in garbage in the course of a day’s work? Jump in a Dumpster? Liz liked good clothes too much to subject them to the kind of work she did, and she had no idea how Goose could possibly reconcile the two.

  “Morning,” Goose said, smiling easily. “That smells sort of like coffee.”

  Liz eyed what was left in her cup. “It’s in the same zip code, but I wouldn’t actually classify it as such. More like boiling hot rocket fuel. Does the job, though. Nice little caffeine bump.”

  “Ah.” Goose surveyed the little conference room Liz had secured for their morning recap, zeroed in on the coffeepot and the two chipped mugs beside it. “As long as I know what I’m getting into.” She crossed to the coffeepot, threw Liz a glance over her shoulder. “How did it go last night?”

  Liz shrugged, though it felt more like a bad-tempered jerk of her shoulders than the casual little gesture she’d intended. “Nobody looked twice at the bills.”

  “No?” Goose filled her mug and quirked an eyebrow through the rising steam.

  “No.” Liz plopped down in a chair that squeaked remorsefully. “They didn’t get past his damn face.”

  “Ah.” There was a wealth of understanding in the single syllable. Goose seated herself at the scarred conference table with the air of a queen ascending her throne and lifted the mug to deep red lips. “He is rather dazzling.”

  Liz snorted. “And don’t think he doesn’t know it.”

  Goose swallowed her coffee, blinked. She stared down into her mug, then back at Liz. “How much of this have you had this morning?”

  Liz frowned at her. “I don’t know. A couple cups maybe.”

  “Hmmmm.” Goose raised the mug again, this time with careful respect. “Hard night?”

  Liz brought her attention back to Goose, gave her a dark look. “What do you mean?”

  Goose laughed, a lovely twinkle of sound. Liz tried not to grit her teeth. “Just that you don’t look like a woman who got to go clubbing last night with a devastatingly handsome man on the government’s dime.”

  “What do I look like then?”

  “Like you’ve been thrown, hard.” Goose set aside her mug, tapped a nicely manicured nail against the table. “Forgive the bluntness, Liz, but this team isn’t going to work if all the cards aren’t on the table. There’s more happening between you and the delicious Mr. O’Connor than either of you is saying.”

  Liz leaned back in the chair, studied her. “Nothing’s going on.”

  Goose shook her head. “Maybe nothing’s happened. Not yet. But that doesn’t mean nothing’s there.”

  “Nothing’s happened,” Liz said. “Nothing’s going to happen, either. It’s out of the question.”

  “What, he doesn’t do it for you?” Goose asked, a wicked grin tipping up the corners of her mouth.

  Liz rolled her eyes. “He does it for just about everybody on the planet,” she said. “It’s hardly personal.”

  “See, that’s where you’re wrong. I think he’s taking it very personally indeed.”

  Liz shoved away from the table and shot to her feet. “Why would he? He can have any woman he wants. I’m sure he’ll find a way to comfort himself in the wake of my stunning rejection.”

  Goose took another cautious sip of coffee. “No, you misunderstand. He’s not taking your rejection personally. Surely someone somewhere has said no to him before. Hard to imagine, but odds are. No, it isn’t so much that you want him and won’t have him.” She waved a dismissive hand over Liz’s protesting noise. “And please don’t insult me by denying that basic truth.”

  Liz shut her mouth and shrugged tightly. “Fine.”

  “It’s more that he wants you just as desperately, and can’t talk himself out of it. That, he’s not used to. And he’s taking it damn personally.”

  Liz goggled at her. Then she laughed. “That may very well be the nicest thing anybody’s ever said to me.” She wiped her eyes and sighed. The laugh had felt good. A tension breaker. She ought to try that more often. “No, see, there’s a revenge thing at work here. He’s pissed because I keep roping him into weaseling for me. I’m sure there’s some male ego tangled up in it somewhere.”

  “Mysterious thing, the male ego,” Goose murmured.

  “Exactly.” Liz nodded, finally in harmony with the other agent. “And when Bernard promoted him from weasel to independent consultant, I dinged his ego a nice fat one, right in front of you.”

  “You did.”

  “So I cornered him to apologize, but he was still riding the mad, I guess, because there was this little, uh, scene.”

  “Really?” Goose’s dark eyes sparkled.
“What kind of scene? Don’t spare the details.”

  Liz squirmed. “Turns out, he needed more than an apology. He’s got to ding me back before we’re straight—ego again, I guess—and he pretty much declared war on me.”

  “War?”

  “Yeah.” Liz cleared her throat. Felt the blush creeping up her neck and cursed her pale complexion. “Of a sexual nature. He doesn’t win until he’s screwed me six ways from Sunday and left me weeping and brokenhearted, the abandoned notch on his proverbial bedpost.”

  Goose considered this. “Worse ways to go, you know.”

  Liz sighed and closed her eyes. “You’re not being helpful.”

  “I’m not trying to be. I’m just sizing up the situation. If I have to work with you both, I need to know where the land mines are buried.”

  Liz tightened her mouth. “I’ll keep you posted.”

  Goose smiled brightly. “I’ll look forward to that.”

  They both turned at the sound of approaching footfalls, and Patrick appeared in the doorway in all his obscene gorgeousness. He leaned against the doorjamb, a paper tray of Starbucks coffees balanced in one hand, his dark trousers breaking just so over supple leather loafers, his button-down shirt untucked and rolled casually back at the cuff.

  Didn’t look like he’d lost a wink of sleep himself, Liz thought sourly. He grinned at her.

  “I could smell that god-awful coffee all the way to the parking lot,” he said, strolling into the room and distributing the steaming to-go cups. Liz pointedly ignored hers and took another gulp from her mug. “Until further notice, Liz is hereby banned from having contact of any nature with a coffee machine.”