by Cassi Carver
“Oh, hell.” Tray stopped and looked up at the ceiling like he was arguing with God. His navy suit was rumpled. He’d probably fallen asleep in his work clothes again. “Out of all the people who could have found her, how did I know it was gonna be you two? And you left the scene, Kara.” His voice grew in intensity as the news hit him. “You broke the law.”
Abbey rose from the couch, threw down her People magazine and stalked toward Tray. “Leave her alone, tough guy. We had a rough night.”
Tray turned his gaze to Abbey, and Kara could see the pain reflected there. “I’m sure you did, sweetheart. Between your vigilante activities and finding a new guy to fuck every night, I don’t see how you even find time to hold down a job at your grandma’s shop.”
Abbey lifted her chin. “Don’t be so bitter, Tray. You dumped me, remember? If you want to be added into the rotation, all you need to do is ask—no, make that beg.” Her wary eyes turned seductive in a heartbeat. “Beg like a good boy and I might still be able to find some time for you later this morning.”
Tray laughed mockingly, shifting on his feet and turning his back slightly so Kara couldn’t see his burgeoning erection. But even if she hadn’t already seen it, the hurt and lust radiating from him permeated the air around her like a decaying bouquet. “That’s not going to happen, sweetheart. Ever. Again. I’d rather go hungry than share my meal with another man.”
Hmmm… So he wasn’t quite over Abbey asking him for a threesome. She’d warned her friend it was a bad idea. “Tray,” Kara began, “I’m sorry I asked you here. I didn’t mean to cause more drama, but I thought we might be able to help you with your investigation, and in turn, you could let us know what you find out.”
Tray finally tore his eyes away from Abbey and turned to Kara. “Do you have any idea how hard it is to use information from you two when I have to keep my source a secret? I’ve already been investigated by internal affairs twice.”
“I get it, but we’re cleaning up the streets, Tray. Serial sexual assaults have been down since Abbey and I started doing this. That has to be worth something.”
Tray blew out a breath. “Of course it is, Kara, but you have to let us do our job. You’re convicting these people without a trial. You’re breaking the law.”
“Not exactly,” Abbey said. “I’ve never read a law that says you can’t cast a spell on someone.”
Tray’s nostrils flared. “It’s assault, Abbey. You think I didn’t notice the report of a guy downtown this morning who says he got his ass beat by a brown-haired woman and her tall, red-haired friend. Even the guys in my unit thought it sounded a lot like you and Kara. I had to tell them they were fucking crazy. But you’re the crazy ones.”
Abbey stepped up to Tray, chest out, hands on her hips, and got right in his face. “It’s not illegal to say some words over a guy’s disco stick. If he can’t get it rockin’ after that, it’s not my problem. Want me to show you how it works, stud? I promise you won’t feel a thing.”
“Abbey,” Kara warned. Now Abbey was just making things worse, and Kara wanted to go to bed and try to forget for a few hours what she’d seen in that alley.
Tray stepped back. “The words may not be illegal, but I’m pretty sure Kara’s boot in someone’s throat and the fact some of these men accidently get sliced could be mistaken as an attack.” His brows rose, daring her to deny it. “Still carrying that syringe?”
Kara shrugged. “It’s just herbs.”
When Abbey took another menacing step forward, Tray didn’t retreat this time but stepped forward to meet her, his chest colliding with hers. “Back off, sweetheart, before you force me to teach you respect for the law.”
A spark lit in Abbey’s eyes at the challenge, and Kara inwardly groaned, envisioning spankings and all sorts of twisted crap. Who knew what Tray and Abbey could come up with behind closed doors as they worked out their issues? Kara didn’t even want to think about it.
“Uh, Officer Oaks?” Kara ventured in her best smart-ass tone. “I have the utmost respect for the law, but you have a real psycho out there roaming the streets. If you want to work together on this, let me know. Otherwise, get the hell out.”
Tray gave Kara a long, hard stare. “I can tell you this—they’re calling our guy the SoCal Rapist.”
“The SoCal Rapist?” echoed Kara.
“Yeah. The ER docs wrote on her chart that the carving looked like a sun, and the name stuck. Our sunny Southern California rapist.”
Kara shuddered, thinking about finding the unconscious woman drenched in her own blood. “Great. If this gets out in the news, he’ll get off on his own celebrity.”
“That’s it?” Abbey asked, incredulous. “That’s all you can tell us?” She turned to Kara. “I told you we shouldn’t have invited him over. You expect too much from a man who can’t handle our gifts and runs at the first sign of trouble.”
Kara glanced away, barely containing a get-me-out-of-here groan. Abbey wasn’t talking about Tray as a professional, but as her first steady boyfriend, and Kara didn’t want to be caught in the middle. It was bad enough being able to sense so many of Tray’s emotions.
Tray smiled and leaned down, wrapping one hand behind Abbey’s head while he found her lips with his. She opened for him immediately, clutching his shirt in her small fists, until he whispered into her mouth, “Hey, baby, think of me tonight when you’re fucking some stranger. I’ll be thinking of you…and how I’m better off with my hand.”
He released Abbey and turned toward the door, saying over his shoulder to Kara, “Give me some time to think about the case. I’ll call you.”
After the door closed, Abbey sank to the weathered wood floor, right where Tray had been standing. “I don’t think I can live without that man. I’m going to totally give up all other men, for like…a week. If it goes well, maybe he’ll take me back.”
Kara tried not to snort. A week? She doubted Abbey’s good intentions would hold out that long. Still, a few days of sexual sanity was better than nothing. “If that’s what you want, I know you can do it. And with the SoCal Rapist out there, we don’t have time for men, anyway.”
Chapter Five
No time for men. No time for men. Kara repeated it to herself like a mantra as she walked into her building. Two of the five offices on the lower level already sported their Closed for Lunch signs on the glass.
The clock in the lobby told Kara she’d been able to squeeze in almost four hours of sleep on Abbey’s worn sofa. It still wasn’t enough. She ached down to her bones from hanging off the small couch all morning. At least she hadn’t woken up in a lusty sweat in the throes of another orgasm. Wait…was that a good thing? Screw the stairs and working on her thighs. She deserved the elevator today.
Kara pressed the button, noticing she needed to touch up the chipping paint along the decorative frame of the elevator. On her to-do list for the day, that would fall somewhere below fixing the slow leak in machine number three in the basement laundry, and somewhere far above the mandatory check she needed to do on the condition of Cat Lady’s carpet on the third floor. Kara had promised Cat Lady that if she could clean it up and find a home for half the cats, she wouldn’t report her to the landlord. Here’s to hoping. She really hated being the bad guy.
When the elevator doors opened, a mother and her college-age daughter from the sixth floor walked out. Kara smiled and said hello, hoping they didn’t think of something that had suddenly broken, as many of the tenants seemed to do when they had the fortune of cornering Kara in the elevator. Not making eye contact never helped.
Her smile grew when they simply greeted her and kept walking. She stepped into the elevator, and someone called from the lobby, “Can you hold the doors, please?”
Crap. She sighed impatiently and put her hand out to stop the doors from closing. She wasn’t out of the woods yet. “No problem.”
She only looked up when a set of large feet in expensive black leather shoes fill her vision. Gavin? Her eyes follo
wed the path up his long legs, taking in the oversized box in his arms, until they got to his face. She frowned. Not Gavin.
But as she looked closer, she realized he was the man she’d seen Gavin talking to last night in front of the bar. He had a swarthy complexion with dark, almond-shaped eyes and glossy black hair. Glossy like a feather, she mused, and something low in her belly clenched in delight.
“Hi,” he said simply, but his eyes radiated heat, as if he knew somehow what she was thinking.
“Hi.” Kara looked away and pressed number ten. “What floor?”
The man glanced at the elevator buttons and smiled. “Looks like we’re heading the same direction.”
How was it possible for him to make the simple statement sound like a come-on? And how pathetic was she that her panties were growing damp just being in the small enclosed space with him?
It was his scent. It had to be. He and Gavin must use those stupid body wash products “infused with pheromones” a person could buy on any store shelf now. She’d had no idea that stuff actually worked.
When the elevator opened, Kara got out and held the doors for him again as he shifted the box higher and stepped into the hallway. “Thanks.” He moved the box to his hip and extended his hand. “Julian Mercés.”
She reached out to shake his hand, but as she did, the box tilted ominously and slid from Julian’s grasp, crashing to the floor and spilling assorted toiletry items over the carpeted walkway. Julian stopped, then he looked into Kara eyes and laughed, rich and seductive.
At the other end of the hall, the door next to Kara’s popped open and Gavin walked out. He looked from Kara to Julian before his gaze came to rest on the box. “Having trouble, buddy?” His deep voice trailed over her like a kiss.
Julian laughed again, his eyes darting back to Kara. “Just distracted, I guess.” The way he said it made Kara’s nipples tighten against her shirt.
Gavin walked down the hall toward them, perusing Kara’s outfit from top to bottom, seeming to notice how the tight pebbles under her shirt threatened to poke through. “Hi, Kara,” he said. “Haven’t been home to change yet?”
Crap. She should have borrowed sweats from Abbey to walk home. Half her neighbors probably thought she moonlighted as a call girl as it was. Coming from Gavin, though, the question was just plain rude. She wasn’t sure if he’d asked to let Julian know he’d already been with her, or to call her a slut, assuming she’d been out all night with another man. Either way, it didn’t matter. Getting involved with her neighbor was the last thing she needed.
“Here, let me help,” she responded instead, bending over in her short leather skirt to start gathering the items.
“Thanks.” Julian knelt down beside her with a warm smile. “I’m not usually such a klutz.”
Kara glanced at him out of the corner of her eye, taking in the way his tan skin stretched over broad muscles. He looked like a living, breathing Zorro fantasy come to life. Everything about him screamed that he was a capable man who could take care of a woman’s needs. But he was softer than Gavin, somehow—more ready with a kind word, more open with his smile.
“I don’t doubt your coordination for a minute.” Kara raked him with a hot gaze. She couldn’t help it. Her pussy was throbbing—an itch that could only be scratched by one of these men pounding it out of her.
She froze. Take a breath, horn-dog.
She dragged air in through her nose and let it out slowly through her mouth. Julian paused and licked his lips, and Kara got the impression again he knew exactly what she was thinking—and that he was thinking the same thing.
Gavin reached down to retrieve a wrapped bar of soap. “I missed you this morning, neighbor. I locked the bottom lock when I left, assuming you had a key with you. Did I do good?”
Yeah, he’d done her good, all right. But he hadn’t allowed her to return the favor. She couldn’t look at Gavin as she collected the towels and various bathroom items, most of which still had the tags on. “Yeah, thanks, Gavin. Sorry I had to rush off.”
“I was a little worried, to be honest. But I got the key copied this morning, like you asked.”
“Thanks.”
Julian looked curious about the exchange, though Kara couldn’t imagine Gavin not telling his friend the gory details of their encounter, right down to the way she’d cried like a proper virgin on her wedding night.
Once the items were back in the box, the three rose to their feet and walked down the hall toward their apartments. Gavin opened the door and held his arm out in invitation. “Want to see how it’s coming along?”
“Uh…” Kara wasn’t sure about the wisdom of going into the place with two men who were virtual strangers, but against her better judgment, she heard herself reply, “Sure.”
Gavin smiled and followed her in, closing the door behind her as Julian took the box to the bathroom. The first thing Kara noticed, besides the fact that the men had obviously been hard at work bringing in the big stuff—like a kitchen table, a large brown leather sofa, an enormous flat-screen TV—was that half the stuff either still had tags on it or looked like it was straight out of the box.
Either Gavin had recently moved out of his parents’ house, or he was going through an ugly divorce and his lady had gotten everything but the shirt off his back. Kara guessed the latter, and it made sense when she thought about his guilt last night and how he wasn’t ready to have sex.
“So, Kara…” Julian stepped from the hall, thumbs tucked in the pockets of his jeans. “I was planning to get takeout tonight from that deli around the corner, and I wondered if you might like to come over as a thank-you for helping us move.” If eyes could be hungry, Julian’s would be devouring her, licking the marrow from her bones.
“Us? Are you Gavin’s roommate, then?” The woman in her thrilled at the thought that she’d be seeing more of Gavin’s black-haired friend, but the apartment manager was peeved. “I don’t think you put him on the application, Gavin?”
Gavin shrugged, all six feet seven inches of him suddenly looking like a little boy caught sprinkling salt on his mama’s prized racing slug. “It’s only until he finds his own place. Besides, it’s a two bedroom and he’s pretty quiet—” Gavin pinned Julian with a sharp glare, “—most of the time.”
Takeout, huh? It wasn’t as if Julian had offered to tie her up and service her all night long. What harm could there be in a little dinner, besides the fat and carbs? She met his dark, almost black eyes. “Yeah, sure. What time?”
Julian’s triumphant grin revealed perfect white teeth and adorable dimples on his sculpted cheeks. “Six?”
Gavin walked up beside his friend and patted Julian on the back hard enough to jar the smile off his handsome face. “How hospitable of you, Jules. And at six? When you know I won’t be around to…partake in the meal.”
“Exactly. With you gone, there’ll be too much food for one person,” Julian agreed. “But don’t feel bad about leaving me alone on my second night in San Diego. Look—” he gestured to Kara, “—I’ve already made a friend.”
Standing side by side, Gavin had few inches over his roommate, and Kara supposed Julian himself was big enough to get sideways glances as he walked down the street. Gavin put an arm over Julian’s shoulder, then slipped a hand above his friend’s biceps and pinched hard enough to make his knuckles white.
Julian snorted in pained laughter and twisted out from under Gavin’s arm. “Don’t be upset, buddy. We’re not trying to exclude you. Maybe you can eat with us—” he looked to Kara as though they were a couple trying to help out a pathetic, lonely friend, “—next week?”
Kara chuckled, seeing how Julian enjoyed teasing Gavin. “By all means. Maybe I’ll have you both for dinner next week.”
Gavin’s brows shot up and his smirk reminded her of how he’d looked the night before when he’d told her to stop talking and spread her legs for him.
Kara almost groaned. “Have you over for dinner.” Every word out of her mouth felt pac
ked with double meaning. But she had to admit, the man-buffet before her did look delicious.
Kara blushed, not believing the idiotic things going through her mind around these two. With the overwhelming sexual current thrumming through her body, she was going to have to resort to one of Abbey’s emergency backup numbers if she wanted to be able to focus at all this week. “Well, I’d better get going.” She edged toward the door. “See you tonight, Julian.”
Julian came to her and took her hand. “See you tonight.” Sliding her smaller fingers through his, he brought her hand to his mouth and kissed it gently. The feel of his lips against her skin and the little zap of static electricity it produced made her shiver with need.
“I’ll walk you out,” Gavin said from behind them, his voice grim. He shouldered past Julian and opened the door.
Kara didn’t argue as Julian stepped back and allowed Gavin to take her elbow. Once they were outside in the hall again and the door was shut, Kara regarded her would-be one-night stand. “I live next door. I’m pretty sure I can find my way back.”
Gavin smiled, an intimate grin she’d only seen when they were alone. He leaned over Kara as she stuck her key in the lock, placing his hand over hers as the metal slid into place. “You don’t need him, you know.” He rotated his wrist over hers until she heard the snick of the door unlocking.
“Huh?” Kara turned to look at him. Was he a mind reader?
He leaned close to her ear. “Look at your nipples. They’re dying to be sucked. I was in a bigger hurry than I thought to forget something as important as that. I planned to remedy the situation when I woke, but you were gone. Just one little note, Thanks, when I still had your scent on my face. I’m surprised, Kara. You seemed to enjoy it more than that.”
It was hard to meet his eyes, but she was no coward. “Yeah, I won’t deny I enjoyed it, but I don’t like being the only one.”
Gavin blinked. “Please tell me you’re joking. You don’t think I loved every second of last night?”
