by Maggie Price
“Both.”
“That clears things up,” he murmured.
“I’m fine.” She dragged a palm across her forehead, trying to think past the effects of the wine and her swirling emotions. “Oh, hell, will you loan me twenty dollars?”
“Yes,” he said, but made no move to reach for his wallet. “Mind telling me what for?”
“Cab fare.”
“For you?”
“Yes.”
His gaze flicked to the arched door. “Usually on a date, one gets picked up and taken home.”
“Greg...had to leave.”
“Pity.” In one smooth movement, Michael’s arm slid around her waist, pulling her against his body.
She stiffened in surprise. “What are you doing?”
“Dancing with you.” He shifted his grip into dance position, his fingers threading through hers.
“Oh.” She glanced around, suddenly aware that she and Greg had argued in the center of the packed dance floor. So much for keeping your personal business to yourself, she thought.
“Why didn’t you leave with Lawson?”
A.J. tilted her head back to meet his gaze. “He didn’t want me to.”
“Strange dating pattern.” Michael tucked their entwined fingers against his chest. “One I intend to reap the benefits of. How is it you wound up stranded?”
“I don’t know. I don’t,” she repeated when he continued to stare. “Greg called to check on his sick mother and when he got back to the table he was...hostile.”
Michael’s grip tightened. “Hostile?”
She could see the line of concern between his strong black brows, the firm set of his mouth. His reaction made her smile. She felt safe. Protected. Why had she ever wanted walls between them?
“I’m not sure why Greg reacted the way he did,” she said after a moment. “Maybe he didn’t take what I said earlier as well as I thought.”
“What did you say?”
“That I wanted to be his friend.”
“And he got upset? Imagine that.”
A.J. sighed, letting her hips move gently against Michael’s body to the music’s beat. He smelled wonderful, she realized, all musky cologne and masculine soap.
“Just friends?” he asked. His hand rose from her waist, settling against her spine where sequins gave way to bare flesh.
“Just,” she breathed. The subtle, almost imperceptible feel of his palm on her skin put an unsteady bump in her pulse rate.
“You can’t have enough friends,” he said, his voice a soft whisper against her temple.
“Guess not.”
The song ended and she shifted to step from his embrace. His hand tightened on hers; his arm remained an unrelenting bond around her waist, keeping her firmly against him. They stood unmoving, their bodies locked together in the soft glow of twinkling Christmas lights.
Out of the corner of her eye, A.J. saw curious heads turning their way. “People are staring.”
“Let them.” The beginning silky strains of “Unchained Melody” drifted on the air. Michael pulled her closer, again moving gracefully to the soft music.
She gazed up. “Didn’t you promise to dance with Officer St. John?”
“Helene’s not happy with me right now.”
“Why?”
“I told her I want to be friends.”
A.J. felt the agonizing jealousy of a few moments before slip away, replaced by something else—something softer and warmer and altogether soothing. Suddenly, the night felt right. Michael’s arms felt right, more right than anything she’d ever felt before.
She took a long, languorous breath and leaned into him, savoring the relaxed light-headedness that had settled over her. “You can’t have enough friends.”
“Guess not.”
Michael’s hand moved against her bare back, sending flashes of desire skittering along her nerve endings.
“I...” Her voice faltered and her body quavered against a rush of need. Good Lord, how was she supposed to dance when her legs had gone wobbly? “You shouldn’t...do that. Not if you want me to keep standing.”
“I want you standing—or otherwise,” he murmured as his fingers cruised up her spine.
Her heart did a slow whirl at the quiet intensity of his words. He wasn’t the only one who wanted. She couldn’t deny it any longer. Didn’t even try.
“A.J., I was wrong the other night.”
“Other night?” She dipped her head, rested her cheek against his chest while her heart hammered in her ears. Or was it his heart?
“Look at me.” His hand slid up to cup the nape of her neck. “Look at me,” he repeated quietly, nudging her head up. “One hundred percent.”
She tried to read his expression but his cool touch against her hot flesh had sent her eyes out of focus. In the space of a few seconds her body had gone from relaxed to taut with nerves, and now she was molten wax, warm and pliable, conforming to every sinewy, masculine inch of him. “I don’t—”
“I believe you. I believe in you, one hundred percent. No matter what.”
A small burning knot of desire began to flame down low, stealing her breath as his lips skimmed along her temple.
“What...changed?”
His fingers roamed up into her hair. “I came to my senses.” His voice was soft and silky, like water gliding over a smooth stone. “You don’t have it in you to do anything illegal. I know that.”
Her steps faltered and she stood motionless in his arms while the music continued. “Are those your instincts talking?”
“My heart. I know in my heart.”
“Oh.” He believed in her, but only her. Not Ken. She saw the truth in his eyes.
But did it matter? Did it really matter that Michael thought her brother guilty?
Lowering her gaze, A.J. stared at the shadowy bodies gliding around them, while need for Michael rose like floodwater in her brain. Need that obliterated any lingering uncertainty. Need that peeled resistance away one thin strip at a time. It didn’t matter what Michael thought about Ken, what he believed. Not tonight. Maybe tomorrow it would, but not tonight.
Until this moment, she had never known such searing want. Never had desire for a man set off fireworks in her blood. This was the man she loved. The abrupt sureness of her feelings left her shaken. As did the realization that Michael had become more important to her than Ken.
Her eyes came up to meet his. It was difficult to talk with her heart in her throat. “Will you...do something for me?”
“Anything.”
“Take me home.”
He stared into her face. “I plan on it. You didn’t have to ask.”
He hadn’t understood her meaning. “Not take me home,” she amended, her voice a throaty whisper. “Come home with me.”
His eyes narrowed, then darkened in comprehension. “If I come home with you, A.J., I won’t leave. Not until morning.”
The raw hunger in his voice transformed the pulse between her legs into a slow, hard throb. “That’s what I want.”
“I can’t make you promises about Ken. I don’t know that I could keep them.”
“I’m not asking for promises.”
His arm tightened around her. “Dammit, I don’t want you to regret this. I don’t ever want you to regret being with me.”
“I won’t.” Her hand slid up, curving at the side of his neck. She reveled at the heat of his skin beneath her palm. “This is right. I know it.”
“You’re sure?”
Her mouth curved into a soft smile. “One hundred percent.”
His lips brushed hers, soft, caressing, full of promise. “Then let’s go home.”
Chapter 12
The night was clear, cold and moonlit. Headlights licked across a brick wall as Michael steered the Bronco around a corner. When they left the convention center, he’d turned the volume down on the police radio and slid a CD into the player. Now, the bluesy ache of a tenor sax hung on the warm air.
A.J. sat
beside him in silence, one gloved hand entwined with his, the other turning her evening bag over and over in her lap. The sultry, arousing scent of her perfume inundated his brain.
He could feel her nervousness. In truth, the humming of his own nerves had him wound tight.
“Are you all right?” he asked quietly, glancing across at her.
“Yes.” Her face was a mixture of shadowy, creamy contours. She gave a shaky laugh. “I feel like a teenager on a first date.”
Michael smiled. “So do I.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
Her fingers tightened on his when he turned into the driveway of the Victorian brownstone where a single light glowed in an upstairs window.
With his breath a gray cloud on the frozen air, he walked around the Bronco and opened the door. Already his blood was racing close to the surface. He knew the minute he touched her the world would tilt off its axis.
Her skin looked almost translucent beneath the wash of the porch light. Silently, he took the keys from her fingers and opened the lock.
She walked to the table at the base of the staircase and flicked on a small lamp, filling the entryway with muted, dusty shadows. She left her gloves and purse beside the lamp, then turned to face him. “Would you like a drink?”
“No.”
Her gaze went to the door of the dark study. “I...can light a fire.”
“You already have.”
He crossed the wooden floor and cupped her face in his hands. Her breath shuddered out when he touched his lips to hers. “If you’ve changed your mind, A.J., you have about two seconds to tell me.”
Her hands reached for him, her fingers curling into his coat sleeves. The light and heat playing in her face stirred everything male inside him. “I want this, Michael. I want you.”
His hands went to her shoulders, and in one smooth movement her coat slid to the floor.
Unmoving, he stared down, taking in the sensuous curves of black sequins, letting the lust build inside him until it bubbled molten lava.
“And I want you, lady.” He shifted his hand, cupped it at the front of her throat against the diamond choker. “When you walked into the ballroom with Lawson tonight, I wanted to take you out of there right then. Take you and claim you.”
He felt the skitter of her pulse beneath his palm, felt the heat rise in her skin.
“You took me out of there,” she said, her voice an almost tangible caress that stroked along his flesh. “The only question left is who’s to do the claiming?”
“I...”
She snaked up on tiptoes, used her teeth to nip at his lips, sending blood sizzling through his veins. Her impatient hands shoved his coat and jacket off his shoulders, down his arms then onto the floor. “You thought you’d be the one, did you?” she murmured while her busy mouth raced from his cheek to his jaw to his ear.
“Mother of...” Words temporarily failed him. So he tightened his hold on her throat, arched her chin back and captured that wonderful, maddening mouth with his. He feasted on her lips, savoring the dark, erotic pleasure that came with her fevered jerking at his bow tie, his cummerbund, fumbling with the buttons on his shirt. Her fingers faltered against the leather straps of his shoulder holster.
He tore his mouth from hers. “Let me.” He pulled away long enough to strip off the holster and shirt and drop them onto the growing pile of clothing. Reaching out, he dragged her against him, his hands going to the slope of her waist, his fingers yanking down the zipper of her dress. Black sequins slithered down her hips, her legs, puddling intimately over leather and blue steel.
“Oh, A.J.,” he murmured, absorbing her with his eyes as his heart did a quick, hard lurch.
Skin-caressing wisps of black lace molded her curves; dark hose held by a garter belt encased her long, slinky legs. “If I had known...” His voice hitched as his hand closed possessively over one firm breast. His thumb brushed across a nipple that budded hard and tight beneath lace. “If I’d known what was under that dress when we were dancing...” Michael buried his face in her hair, drowning in its intoxicating scent as need slammed into him.
“You know now,” she breathed. Her fingers splayed against his chest, making erotic patterns in the crisp black hairs. “It’s all yours, Michael.” Hot, moist lips circled one of his nipples, licking, suckling until he had to concentrate just to breathe.
It took every ounce of control, every degree of will to keep from ripping away those insanely indecent pieces of lace, shoving her onto the heap of clothing and taking her there. His hands clenched when her mouth skimmed across his chest and settled on his other nipple.
He wanted more.
Wanted his hands exploring every silken inch of her while his mouth took a languorous journey across smooth curves and soft hollows. Wanted her lying beneath him, trembling from the inside out while he slowly took her from cool ice to molten fire.
Teeth nipped his flesh. He groaned at the almost unbearable combination of pleasure and pain. His hands shot down, clasping her half-naked bottom, lifting her off the floor until she was eye level with him. Her warm, lush body felt like velvet against his skin.
“This isn’t going to be fast,” he said, his eyes blazing into hers.
Slowly, his hand slid down between her legs; his palm pressed firmly on the damp mound between her thighs. He watched her eyes glaze as his fingers moved, massaged. She went limp against him, her head heavy on his shoulder as she moaned indecipherable words against his throat.
In one deft move he cradled her in his arms and was halfway to the polished oak staircase when the persistent ring of the phone seeped through the haze of his arousal. Her body tensed against his.
“Let the damn thing ring,” he growled, while twisting his hand into her hair, his fingers curling tight.
“Can’t...”
For a mindless instant he arched her head back and ravaged her mouth with his until all he wanted was to consume her, swallow her whole.
Something between a whimper and a sigh rose in her throat. She dragged her lips from his, her hands tightening on his shoulders as though she’d fall if she let go. “Might...be hospital,” she panted. She looked toward the study, her face flushed, her breath coming in small, ragged gasps. “Aunt Emily...”
A low, gravelly groan lodged in Michael’s throat as he lowered her to the floor. Easing his grip, he slid his hands up her arms, then down again before letting go. He set his jaw, watching her hurried, unsteady steps take her into the dark room while half-crazed desire and frustrated need knotted in his gut.
The ringing stopped. He heard her husky answer at the same time she reached and clicked on the desk lamp. The sight of her went straight to his brain, a sight he would remember for the rest of his life. A.J. Duncan standing beside that desk, diamonds glittering at her throat, her hair a wild tumble of dark gypsy waves, her flushed skin glowing in the lamplight. And that body, clad in raven black lace, dark hose and strappy heels that made her legs look outrageously long and slender.
Michael fought the urge to march across the room, jerk the receiver out of her hand and...
“He’s here,” she said, shoving her hair back off her face. “How did you know to call—? Oh. Yes, we’ll leave now.” She shifted the receiver from one ear to the other and grabbed a pen. “Go ahead.” Her voice sounded remarkably calm, yet he saw the unsteadiness of her hand as she wrote.
“Holy hell!” Michael muttered. He stepped back into the entry hall and dug through the clothing heaped on the floor. Jerking his tux jacket from beneath his wool coat, he instantly heard his pager’s insistent beep. The display flashed OCPD dispatch’s private number.
He snatched up his hopelessly wrinkled shirt and shrugged it on while he headed into the study. A.J. had replaced the receiver by the time he reached the desk.
“That was dispatch.” She took a deep breath and handed him a piece of paper. “We’ve got a homicide.”
He glanced down, saw that the address she
’d scrawled in bold, uneven numbers was less than a mile away. Saw, too, the unsteadiness of his own hands.
“A stabbing,” she continued. “The detectives on call took one look at the victim, then told dispatch to notify you.”
“Auburn hair?” Michael asked as he crammed his shirttail into his slacks.
“Yes.”
“We’ll go by the scene on our way downtown.”
“I...should take my own car.”
He paused. He wasn’t ready to let her go, he realized, to let distance come between them. But she was right. They’d only fuel the fires of the department’s grapevine by arriving at a crime scene together. He shoved a hand through his hair, waited for his heart to stop hammering. Waited for his mind to switch gears and the detached, objective cop to take over. “How did dispatch know to call me here?”
She managed a small smile that only reminded him how seductive her mouth could be. “McMillan. He left orders to contact him on any homicide with an MO matching our suspect’s. The chief saw us leave the dance together—”
“And told dispatch to call here when I didn’t answer my page.”
“Right.” Her eyes lowered; the flush deepened across her cheeks as if she were suddenly aware of her near nakedness. Her lipstick was smeared at one corner of her soft, luscious mouth, her breathing still rapid. She looked all mussed and fragile...and so damn gorgeous. “I need to...change.”
Michael reached out, stroked the smear away, kissed the corner of her mouth. “Every person has one thing in his life he can pinpoint as his biggest regret. That phone call is mine.”
She raised her hand, skimmed her fingers unsteadily along the line of his jaw. “Mine, too.”
The air in the apartment building’s foyer held the Christmassy scent of cedar and bayberry...and a frosty chill that made A.J. shudder. She shifted in an attempt to find a more comfortable position on the bottom step of the staircase and tightened her coat over her slacks and oversize sweater. It was not lost on her that a few hours ago she’d been in another foyer, wearing wisps of black lace over flesh that radiated heat....
Shaking her head, she forced away the thought. She didn’t want to think about what might have happened if Linda Ann Edwards hadn’t gotten killed. Didn’t want to imagine the hours she and Michael might have spent in each other’s arms. Couldn’t do her job if she opened that intriguing door and breathed new life into the needy throb of her unsated body.
