“We’ll see.”
Captain Reid smacked his hand on the metal desk. “No, you’ll see, McDermott. Just make sure you pay more attention to the lady than you do to the game.”
Kane didn’t take offense. The old man’s gruff ways had kept Kane going too many times, when he’d watched neighborhood friends overdose or go down on a bust. The older man had faith in a young kid even when no one else cared enough to bother. He knew Kane’s sense of duty was strong.
“After this one I don’t want to see your sorry butt in here until the middle of next week.”
“A good weekend to you, too. Say hi to Marge.”
“Do it yourself,” Reid grumbled. “She says you don’t come by often enough.” He turned and strode back into his office.
Kane got his mind back on the case. He let the captain’s words about Kayla sink in. Doling out attention to Ms. Luck wouldn’t be a hardship. In her silk top and pearl earrings she was a sexy woman who any guy would be lucky to claim as his own.
Except a cop whose job it was to take down a prostitution ring…if it existed. Her place could be a front as his informant claimed. Maybe the sister knew more than Kayla, but according to his files, Catherine Luck had signed over ownership and was more concerned with her education than the school that paid for it.
He swiveled back and forth in his seat. He had a hard time believing the innocence in that green-eyed gaze wasn’t real but an act for the customer’s benefit. His hands clenched into fists at the thought of Miss Kayla Luck.
Chemistry flared between them hot and strong. Unmistakable. Verbal seduction wouldn’t be a problem tonight, but keeping his hands to himself just might be. He shook his head, trying to dislodge any thoughts caused more by emotion than common sense. Cash in exchange for sex, he reminded himself. Money up-front. Stick to the plan and the answers would follow.
And Kane always stuck to the plan. As a punk kid, he’d followed a different code of conduct than the one he lived by now, but respecting the law on the street had kept him alive. As a cop, he walked on the other side. The rules were different but the reasoning the same. If he followed the rules, he kept his edge honed. Anything less and he didn’t deserve his badge.
Kane closed his eyes and a vision of Kayla danced before them. Between a body made for a man’s touch and a heart-shaped face that would test a saint, he had the distinct notion he needed that edge more than ever before.
“IT’S A BASEBALL GAME, not a formal banquet.”
“It’s a date, not order-in Chinese food with your sister,” Catherine countered. She threw a disgusted glance at Kayla’s old sweatshirt and blue jeans. “Are you trying to turn the man off before he gets to know how disgustingly smart you are?”
Kayla thought back to his references about her classes and how smart women turned him on. He couldn’t possibly know that much about her after such a brief meeting. It had to be a lucky guess. “I don’t want to look too eager,” she said.
“More like you don’t want to look too easy.” Her sister grabbed Kayla’s hand. Head held high, Catherine led the way to her bedroom, a short distance down the hall from Kayla’s own. With dramatic flair so opposite to Kayla’s more subdued actions, Catherine flung open the closet door and began riffling through the clothes inside.
“They won’t fit,” Kayla muttered.
“Maybe we don’t share the same bra size, but don’t tell me you don’t steal my clothes every once in a while.”
“Borrow.”
“What’s the difference?” Catherine held up a yellow blouse, made a face and hung it back on the rack. “I know I swipe yours.” She came out of the small walk-in with a white turtleneck and a pale blue satin jacket. “Here. Leave the jeans and try this. The jacket’s quilted, by the way. It’s supposed to be chilly tonight.”
Kayla glanced at the outfit, more casual than her usual Brooks-Brothers type look. Still, when she tried on the clothes, she had to admit she looked okay. Catherine made a show of walking around her twice, hands on her hips in a judgmental pose. “Perfect. Better than all those trousers and silk blouses you wear. So stuffy—even Mama wouldn’t have left the house like that.”
“Mama liked to dress her own way,” Kayla said, thinking of the woman who had raised her girls alone. A woman with a heart of gold, but tarnished luck.
They hadn’t had much money, but their mother had always made sure she looked her best before leaving the house. Unfortunately her best too often fell short. She looked like what she was: the checkout girl at the local supermarket, an aging woman still attempting to look younger than her years. Until Catherine had taken over clothes shopping, the Luck sisters had usually gone to school looking like miniclones of their beautiful, but flamboyant mother.
“Men definitely took notice,” Catherine said.
“Too bad she never looked at them. Maybe things would have been different.”
“Maybe Mama wouldn’t have died of overwork and a broken heart?” Catherine shook her head. “She chose her life.”
“She liked pining for Daddy, that’s for sure. You ever wonder if Daddy pined back?” Kayla asked.
Her sister shook her head. “I think one kid scared him to death, two made him worse than a coward.”
“Do you really have to sound so…full of hate?” Kayla muttered.
“I don’t hate him. Actually I don’t feel much about him at all. But truth is truth.” Catherine pinned her with her steady gaze. “I don’t think all men are like him if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“Not in the love ’em and leave ’em department,” Kayla agreed. “But in the can’t keep their hands to themselves department, men are all the same.” After all, her parents had had Kayla and Catherine within one year of each other. If that wasn’t a prime example of too much lovin’, as her mother liked to call it, then she didn’t know what was.
Catherine lowered herself onto her frilly white bedspread. “You know, a guy not keeping his hands to himself can be nice.”
For someone with Catherine’s confidence, maybe. Kayla joined her, staring at her fingers spread over her jean-clad legs. “Are you going out tonight?” Kayla asked.
“You bet. Dancing at Shooters.” She snapped her hands in the air. “With Nick.”
Nick had been Catherine’s best friend for years. Kayla suspected he’d once been in love with her beautiful sister, too. But Cat wasn’t interested and Nick had moved on, apparently content as Cat’s best friend. And Catherine was alone.
Kayla narrowed her eyes and took in her sister’s miniskirt and tights, her stretch top that showed off delicate curves. Catherine didn’t have Kayla’s lush figure, but she attracted her own share of attention. Kayla admired her sister but she also knew she had her own share of insecurities. Cat covered them well but the truth was obvious. Both Luck sisters had been scarred by their childhood experiences.
Each Luck sister had reacted in a different way. Instead of becoming a social butterfly, Kayla had learned to push men away. Although she had a lingering desire for hearth, home and a white picket fence, she knew better than to believe she’d find it or the perfect man to share her life with.
Catherine placed a sisterly hand over hers. “Maybe you’ve never found the right guy. The one who will put you first.”
“You think he exists?” Kayla asked but Kane immediately came to mind. He was the one man she didn’t want to push away physically or turn off emotionally. He was the first guy who made her feel special, who made her want to take chances.
Catherine shrugged. “I don’t know. But if the light in your eyes is any indication, you do. And I’d hate to see you lose that special someone out of fear.”
She grinned. “He was different and sexy and…”
“And?”
“He listened,” she said, somewhat embarrassed. “He was interested, if I’m not mistaken, but I’ve been out of the game too long to know for sure.”
Catherine shook her head. “You don’t need experience to know if he mak
es you feel special. This guy could be it.”
Kayla had the sense that Kane was most definitely it. “I don’t really know him,” Kayla reminded her sister.
“But you want to.” Catherine read her mind as she had so many times in the past. “And just wait until he gets a look at you tonight.” Walking back to the closet, Catherine reached inside and tossed something across the room.
Kayla stood before the full-length mirror behind the door. She spun around once more, shocked at the woman whose reflection she saw there. “I don’t even recognize myself,” she said, as she added the finishing touch, a wide headband that would provide both warmth and style for the night ahead.
“That’s because you’ve been so busy hiding behind conservative clothes and a job that involves geeks not hunks. You’ve just forgotten there’s a woman inside.”
Was Catherine right? Of course she was. Between her old accounting job and now running her aunt’s business, Kayla had stifled her sense of self. Add to that her self-imposed lack of a love life and things seemed pretty pathetic about now.
Her sister placed her hands on Kayla’s shoulders. “At least this guy has brought my sexy sister out of her shell.” Catherine grinned.
“He’s a customer,” Kayla said. As if that meant anything. As he’d said, the customer thing was an excuse to let her say yes to a date without thinking too much. It was eerie how well Kane McDermott had understood her.
“Since when do you date a customer?”
She met Catherine’s gaze in the mirror. “I don’t,” she admitted.
“I know. And that’s why I think you should go out and feel for once. Take things from there.” Catherine plucked at the headband, straightening it to look suitably stylish. “The clothes are just the trappings of freedom. The rest is up to you.”
Catherine turned her toward the door to the bedroom and steered her into the hall. “I’ll drop you off at the restaurant. It’s on my way and, besides, I want to get a look at this guy firsthand.”
“Checking him out, Mom?”
Catherine shrugged. “We’ve always looked out for each other. No sense stopping now.” She glanced at Kayla. “You think about what I said. You might live to regret it if you don’t.”
Kayla took her sister’s advice, all the way to the outside of the restaurant. He’d given her directions to it during their brief phone conversation and Catherine had given her a lift. Kane waited on the top step, his elbow resting on the brass railing. Irresistible in a black leather jacket, he could show her his charms anywhere, anyplace, anytime, she decided.
Catherine’s whistle brought Kayla back down to earth.
“I take it you approve?”
Catherine answered with a grin. Kayla finger-combed her hair and stepped out of the car. Kane was by her side in an instant. During the brief introductions and small chitchat between Kane and Catherine, Kayla could barely concentrate.
Was her sister right? Was this man, this date, a not-to-be-missed opportunity? Could he be someone in her future? Kayla wasn’t sure, but she was about to find out. And who deserved an honest chance more than Kane McDermott, the first man to excite her and impress her?
The first man to look past her appearance and who genuinely seemed to like the woman within.
WITH HIS HAND ON her back, Kane steered Kayla out of Fenway Park and into the dimly lit Boston streets. The Sox had won in extra innings and the woman beside him hadn’t uttered a single complaint about sitting through the long game or the continuing drop in temperature. Under ordinary circumstances, he’d call the date a hit, but Kayla was no ordinary woman, any more than she was his real date, a fact he had to keep reminding himself of time and again.
“Did I tell you I loved that restaurant?” she asked.
Only about ten times, he thought, wondering why the hell the notion pleased him so much. “The meal or the atmosphere?” he asked.
She laughed, the sound doing more to warm him than his heavy leather jacket. “Both. Wall-to-wall books…” She spread her arms wide, knocking into the people emptying out of the stadium along with them. “Oops.”
Her laughter was contagious, her love of something as simple as books, refreshing.
“But who would have thought of turning a library into a restaurant, and keeping the old volumes on the shelves? How have I lived here for so long and never even known about that place? Where did you find it?”
“I have my sources,” he said, deliberately vague.
“Well, tell them they were right on target.” She laughed again and this time his stomach twisted with regret. Careful research and discreet questions into her background had revealed the blond bombshell was also an intellectual, a Phi Beta Kappa who hit the library most nights after work. Reading was obviously a hobby of hers, one he’d taken advantage of tonight.
The stab of guilt took him by surprise. His job had never bothered him before and it shouldn’t now. As part of his assignment, he could just as easily clear her as convict her. Big deal if he had to dig deep and personal in order to accomplish his goal. But one glance into those trusting eyes turned him inside out. She wouldn’t appreciate the lie. If she was guilty of running a prostitution service, he shouldn’t give a good goddamn. But he did and the guilt stemmed less from sensing she wasn’t involved and more from caring what she thought of him. That in itself was a first and Kane didn’t like it a bit.
After an evening in her company, he’d learned plenty. This was a woman who cared about family, felt things deeply and had put her dreams on hold for her sister’s future and out of respect for her late aunt. The innocence she projected in both her gaze and her gestures told him more than surveillance ever could and that innocence spoke to him. Touched him in ways no one ever had, in places he never allowed anyone to reach.
His gut told him she wasn’t involved in anything more than running an inherited business. One she at times enjoyed, at others resented. Since gut instinct wasn’t admissible in a court of law, he had to rely on his other talents to clear Miss Kayla Luck. Somehow proving her not guilty had taken precedence over making a case against Charmed!’s sensual owner.
“Don’t ask me why, but I had a feeling you would like that place,” he told her.
“You were right.”
“I know.” Because he was a man who prided himself on instinct. Research may have provided the background, but an hour in her company and Kane had discovered even more. All pretense of schooling forgotten, Kayla had opened up to him. He now knew her father’s abandonment had left her hurt and wounded even if she didn’t show it, and the mother she loved had been more a child than a useful, guiding parent.
Kayla had grown up on her own…like him. She had few close ties, apart from her sister…also like him. And by the time dinner ended, he knew how to reach her. He knew when to flatter and when to back off. He even knew how to make her feel beautiful without ogling, because the slightest show of male interest in her looks led to a hasty retreat. He had the sense he knew Kayla Luck. He had connected with her apart from his assignment and the thought made him too damn nervous.
As they rounded the next corner and walked down a street nestled between a double row of buildings, a heavy breeze whipped around them and the temperature seemed to drop even further.
He rubbed his hands together. “I’d kill for a…”
“Cup of hot chocolate covered with whipped cream,” Kayla said, finishing his sentence but not the way he’d intended. Scotch or whiskey was what he’d had in mind. Something that burned like hell and shocked his system into remembering he was on assignment and not out with an intelligent, sexy woman. One he wanted to see again and not behind prison walls. And that wouldn’t be happening.
He needed solid proof to take back to Reid. Time to make his move and get out, Kane thought. They’d both be better off.
He’d gotten nowhere with his subtle questioning earlier, which meant he’d have to take a more direct, a more seductive, approach. He dreaded the idea as much as his overh
eated body craved it. Not even the sharp wind biting at his face and reaching into his bones numbed the burning heat she aroused inside him.
“I was thinking more along the lines of coffee,” he muttered. “But anything hot will do.”
“No kidding.” She nodded in agreement and clutched at her forearms with her hands. She was obviously cold but had no intention of voicing a complaint. Definitely a woman after his own heart. No, he contradicted himself, not his heart. That he’d walled off years ago. He’d learned early on if he made anything other than his job his priority, he risked losing the edge.
As a self-reliant kid, he’d honed the instincts that kept him alive. His uncle had agreed to take him in on the condition he made himself scarce. Kane had only swallowed his pride and asked for a place to crash in order to avoid social services and foster care. Basic survival was what Kane understood best. Sex fell under that heading, caring did not.
But he had a job to do. Time to stop stalling and find out, he thought. She was cold? The least he could do was warm up the lady. He looked down and her gaze connected with his. Wide-set eyes stared back and golden strands of windblown hair touched her reddened cheeks. Intense need kicked in strong. He had to taste her. That it might make or break his case had nothing to do with the fierce hunger lashing through him. He cupped his hands over hers, feeling the ice-cold of her skin and he drew her back into a hidden alley.
The crowds rushed past them, unconcerned with anything except finding warmth. Kane understood that need. He ran his hands up and down her arms. A tremor shook her and instinctively he knew it had nothing to do with the outside temperature and everything to do with body heat. His and hers.
One step and he’d backed her against a dark brick building. Desire rushed through him the moment his body came into contact with hers. Layers of clothing didn’t matter, nothing mattered.
“Kane?”
He looked into questioning eyes and had no answers. None he could reveal to her and, worse, none he understood himself. Which suited him fine. He didn’t need to understand; he needed to feel. Her lips on his, her body, slick and wet, molding around him, producing friction so intense it was unbearable. Not that he’d compromise his job. He wouldn’t let things get that far, or if the informant was right, Kayla wouldn’t, either, not without payment.
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