by Joanne Rock
He still couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d seen Lexi somewhere before tonight. Maybe he’d been at one of these events? No. How could he ever have seen a woman like her and not remember?
Josh was squinting to see the details of a photo showing Lexi in a soup kitchen wearing an oversize red T-shirt with a Christmas tree on it, when the sound of the canine whimper distracted him.
He snuck a glance at Lexi, but she didn’t appear to hear. Last night’s dominatrix now had an innocent face, a mouth hanging half open in sleep, and a blanket of black hair covering a shapely naked body.
When the whine came again, Josh remembered Lexi’s menagerie greeting them at the door last night. If that brood was still stuffed in the guest bedroom, they would definitely be crying by now.
Wide awake now, Josh slid off the lounger and located his pants, all the while wondering what the protocol should be for the morning after a night of anonymous sex.
Logic said he should just slip out the door. She was the one who’d wanted it to be impersonal, right?
Josh slid into his pants and zipped up, then padded his way into the hallway. The other women he knew never minded him leaving without a big goodbye. But then, those women were as likely to be his beer-drinking buddies, sparring partners or weightlifting spotters.
Those women couldn’t be more different from the femme fatale he’d spent the night with.
Locating the front door in the living room, Josh oriented himself. Guessing the guest bedroom was the other closed door off the living area, he turned the knob.
And found himself floored by a pack of wild dogs.
“Hey!” Flat on his back, he shouted at the horde of mutts in his scariest bad cop voice, but the canine crew didn’t stand down. They licked his cheeks and sniffed where they had no damn business. The littlest one, a fur ball with no discernable eyes, climbed right on his chest and pranced around excitedly in circles.
“Mush.” He brushed off his limited knowledge of dog language to reestablish command of the situation. “Heel.” The dogs worked together to keep him on the living room floor, on his back. They ran around him in such tight circles that he didn’t have any room to move. “Will you sit down, damn it?”
They seemed to recognize something in that sentence. Josh made a mental note that they must respond to either curse words or “sit” commands.
“That’s better.” He hauled himself up to his feet as the pack of dogs watched him with wide eyes. Except for the fur ball, who probably couldn’t see past the pink bow falling down over her forehead.
“Only three of you?” Where had the other ten dogs disappeared? “How is it three little mutts make as much racket as a kennel full of normal-size dogs?”
Before they could answer, Josh’s pants began to ring.
He fished in his back pocket for his cell phone, before it woke Lexi.
“Winger.”
“I’m on my way out the door, Columbo,” Josh’s partner, Duke Rawlins began without prelude. “Unless you tell me you have a hot lead that forces me to stay in town this weekend.”
“As if I’d give Amanda any reason to kick my ass.” Josh plunked down into a wide white chair in the shape of a scalloped seashell. Where the bedroom had been the jungle, the living room seemed to be the sea. Aqua-colored walls and lamps made of pink coral provided color for a room furnished all in white.
“Yeah, me either. Forget I asked.” Duke laughed the goofy guy-in-love laugh. He’d always been the “good cop” half of their partnership, but ever since he’d fallen for Amanda Matthews, he had added “sappy, would-be family guy” to the list of his good traits.
“Seriously, I just wanted to find out if you learned anything new last night.”
That Duke had to call and ask him was more of a wakeup call than the dogs barking this morning. Josh sure as hell had gotten sidetracked last night if he’d managed to forget all about the smugglers he had been following for two months.
“My cover was blown early on. I didn’t get a chance to look into a damn thing.”
A sudden round of yapping from the doggie set gave Josh the perfect excuse not to explain himself. He definitely didn’t relish the idea of telling Duke how on his big undercover mission he’d wound up handcuffed and sitting in a fake jail cell half the night.
“I’m in control, though,” he shouted over the dogs as he turned to see what they were barking about.
“I’ll tell you all about it when I—” He forgot what he’d been about to say when Lexi strolled into the room wearing a long red silk robe with—honest to God—a little train of material trailing behind her.
She cocked a hip to one side. “Don’t let me stop you. Go ahead. Tell him all about it now.”
“I’ll catch up with you next week, bud. Gotta go.” Josh slapped the phone closed, well aware from Lexi’s haughty pose that he’d probably done something wrong already. “Morning.”
“Yes, it is.” She agreed with him a bit too wholeheartedly.
“You were hoping I’d have vacated the premises by now, weren’t you.” No use dancing around the issue. He’d made the wrong decision by staying past dawn. A pity, considering he’d been hoping to leave on a peaceful “I’ll call you” sort of note.
Was it such a crime that he’d entertained the notion of seeing her again? Sure, she was like a walking scattergun to his well-focused world. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t at least have a cup of coffee with her after everything they’d shared.
Besides, he was so close to remembering how he knew her. His smuggling investigation might be headed down the toilet, but he could at least solve the mystery of why Lexi looked so damn familiar….
LEXI SHIVERED under Josh’s assessing stare. Did she expect him to be gone this morning? Sort of like she expected the New York Times to be on her welcome mat.
Of course she did.
“Anonymous sex sounds like something that should have circumvented an awkward morning-after, doesn’t it?” She sounded like a serious bitch. And the red robe she’d yanked out of her closet surely only added to the image.
But if she didn’t start drawing boundaries fast, Josh would see beyond her daring facade to the houseplant underneath. She needed to keep her public face very separate from the private one if she wanted to survive in her business. Josh wouldn’t want to know the Lexi whose idea of excitement on a Saturday was taking her dogs for a walk.
Josh patted her miniature poodle absently on the head as he stared at Lexi.
“Sorry about that.” His big, tanned hands moved awkwardly around Muffin’s ears as he re-tied the pink bow falling out of her fur. “It just didn’t feel right to run out of here this morning without saying goodbye.”
Lexi’s bitch imitation couldn’t withstand the appeal of a man who could groom a poodle without feeling like his machismo had been compromised.
“You want some breakfast?” She had to at least ask.
“That’s okay. I’m just going to grab my jacket.” He jerked a thumb toward her bedroom, and she nodded.
He came back in moments, buttoning his shirt. “I don’t look familiar to you by any chance, do I?”
Familiar from her fantasies, maybe. He was everything Lexi wanted in a fantasy man, just a little too dangerous for the real world.
Still, Lexi wanted to pull him back to her bedroom and beg for a replay of last night—this time with lights on so she could watch him touch her body in glorious, living color.
“No,” she managed finally. “Should you?”
“I keep thinking I’ve seen you somewhere before.”
“I don’t think so.” She could feel his eyes on her as she bent to pick up Muffin. No doubt her dog felt very neglected after Lexi snubbed her last night in favor of Josh. She could only hope Muffin’s feminine eye would take one look at the detective and understand Lexi’s decision.
Scooping up the dog, Lexi walked toward the door, needing to bid goodbye to Josh before she did something stupid, like invite him to watch Th
e View or help her with the Sunday crossword. Yeah, he’d be pretty wowed by last night’s bad girl then.
“Guess that’s my cue to head out.” Josh followed her through the living room to the front door. “But I can’t regret not sneaking out like a thief in the night, Lexi. I had a really good time.”
Blush.
Double blush.
Of course he had a great time. She’d demanded they play bondage games in the dark. She had a pretty good idea what men thought about women who acted like that on the first date.
“Um. Me, too.” Social awkwardness didn’t scale any greater heights, but Lexi refused to cringe. She opted to open the door and wave Muffin’s paw at him. “’Bye, Josh.”
He didn’t move. Not even an eyelash. He watched her with light gray eyes frozen in place.
“Holy hell, I know exactly who you are.”
Great, he already had her pegged for a closet houseplant? He took a step back, a horrified look on his face.
“And it’s that bad?” She’d go to the mat that he’d had a good time last night. How disappointed could he be in who she was?
“I knew I remembered you from somewhere. Seeing you holding the dog just made it all come crashing back to me. You’re Amanda Matthews’s best friend.” He slapped his forehead with enough force to jar the diamond stud in his ear. “You might as damn well be Duke’s sister-in-law, for that matter.”
“You know Amanda?” Lexi set down her dog, a sinking feeling telling her Josh had just somehow penetrated her inner circle of friends.
All three of her dogs milled about their mistress, sensing trouble.
“I’m Duke’s partner. You probably don’t remember seeing me the day I came into Amanda’s shop to investigate a drug smuggling case, but you and I passed each other in the doorway once.”
No. She shook her head, willing away the connection with the man who she needed to remain anonymous. “Ohmigod. You’re Columbo?”
Normally, Lexi would have been flattered that Josh remembered her months later. She did sort of remember seeing a dangerous-looking guy with Duke once, before they’d been formally introduced.
But Lexi could hardly savor the compliment of Josh remembering her. Not when their relationship had just shifted from a one-night stand to something about as far from impersonal as two people could possibly get. Their best friends were getting married, for crying out loud. With the way her luck was running, they’d likely be stuck pulling best man and maid of honor duties together.
So much for anonymous sex. She and Josh might as well still be handcuffed together, because they no longer stood a chance in hell of walking away from last night.
HE WAS SO DEAD.
A few hours after he’d left Lexi’s, Josh pumped quarters into a newspaper vending machine on the corner of Sixth Avenue and West Twentieth Street. Damn, but he’d like to spend his last weeks among the living. When Duke returned from his motorcycle trip, he was going to pound Josh for sleeping with Amanda’s best friend.
Ever since Duke had fallen for Amanda, he seemed to have forgotten one-night stands were part of dating. Duke had turned as stand-up damn honorable as his John Wayne namesake, and he would probably fail to see the fun in Josh handcuffing Amanda’s best friend.
He slid a copy of the Daily News from the box and stuffed it under his arm as he trekked toward the Tenth Precinct.
Lexi hadn’t wasted any time giving him the boot after they’d figured out their unwanted connection. She’d been polite enough about it, but Josh knew she was stressed by the way she clutched her poor shih tzu to her chest as she concocted lame excuses about not being able to see him again.
What made her so adamant about not getting personal with him? He weighed the situation as he wove around a few cop cars outside the station, exchanging greetings with a handful of beat cops headed out for their day on the streets.
He’d never minded when women from his gym had come on to him for a one-night stand, but it bugged him to think that’s all Lexi wanted from him.
Not that he necessarily wanted anything more. Lexi was a limelight girl and he was an undercover kind of guy. Josh had the feeling she would be a walking explosion to his well-ordered world.
And what made it worse was that she was tight with Amanda and Duke. Any cop worth his salt would have figured out who Lexi was during the two hours he’d spent locked in a jail cell last night. Why hadn’t he seen it? He’d known Amanda’s best friend was some sort of fashion journalist who spent half her time abroad covering runway shows.
But he’d been so caught up thinking about Lexi as his personal stalker that he’d missed the bigger picture. Too busy indulging personal fantasies to see what was right in front of his face.
Duke was such an old-fashioned guy that he’d probably pull out some pithy wisdom about why Josh shouldn’t expect to get his milk for free. And even if Duke managed to get past it, if Lexi ever said anything about the encounter that upset Amanda, Josh would not only be dead, but mutilated first. Duke allowed nothing, but nothing, to upset his princess.
Shit.
Josh tugged open the precinct door and glowered his way down the hall. His phone was ringing when he sat down at his desk. Instinct told him to ignore it. Professional training wouldn’t allow it.
He tossed the newspaper on the desk and sank into his squeaky office chair.
“Winger.” He stared up at his framed photo of Rocky Marciano and prayed for some focus.
“I’m in Seaside Heights, New Jersey,” the familiar voice of his partner shouted over a crashing surf on the other end. “Ever been down south this far?”
Duke. Just the person Josh didn’t want to hear from twice in one morning. He palmed his forehead and squeezed to ease the tension in his temples.
“I’ve seen enough of Jersey to last me a lifetime.” Josh reached for the dumbbell on top of his file cabinet and launched into mindless curls as he talked.
“Not like this, you haven’t.” Duke covered the mouthpiece and whispered something to his companion, then laughed. No doubt, he and Amanda were having a great time. “I’ve only got a few minutes, but I wanted to ask a favor.”
“Shoot.” Maybe Josh could offset his misdeeds with Lexi by lending Duke a hand.
“I was too distracted yesterday when I was tuning up the bike for the trip to really concentrate on what Amanda was saying about her friend getting blasted in her own magazine. But it turns out this friend—Lexi Mansfield—was slammed in print by Simone Bertrand.”
Josh set down the dumbbell. “Bertrand is a name on the list of potential smugglers located outside the Garment District.”
“Bertrand’s also two cards short a deck and strikes me as way too flighty to be a suspect. Given that she’s on the list and blasting negative press on Amanda’s buddy, however, maybe you could check her out this week and touch base with Lexi?”
“Touch base with Lexi Mansfield.” Last time Josh had touched Lexi, she’d felt very fine. Duke was definitely going to kill him. “No problem.”
“Excellent—” Duke rattled off Lexi’s address and phone number for Josh to copy down—not that Josh needed it.
“Lexi means a lot to Amanda. I want to make damn sure nothing happens to her. Besides, maybe you can at least cross this Bertrand woman off our list.”
“I’ll follow up today.” Even if it meant Lexi would toss him out on his ear, he would at least check on her after he talked to her detractor. He had as much reason as Duke to want to protect Lexi.
Maybe a part of him was glad to have an excuse to see her again—even though it would mean trouble for them both.
“Knew I could count on you. I’m outta here.” Duke slammed down the receiver, leaving Josh to wade through the smuggling case on his own.
They’d been working with a special task force for months, and had already nailed one guy and a few of his cohorts for hiding drugs in crates of imported fabric, but the flow of contraband to the Garment District hadn’t stopped.
Some
how, drugs were still entering the city under Josh’s watch, and he damn well was going to figure out how. If that meant he’d have to cross Lexi Mansfield’s line in the sand, then so be it.
Like it or not, things were about to get personal.
7
SHE WAS IN over her head.
Lexi clicked her way around her apartment in outrageously high heels, hurrying to get dressed and trying not to think about how she’d made a big mistake by sleeping with Josh the night before. Sure, he’d been everything a woman could want between the sheets—or among the velvet pillows, in this case—but he was proving to be pretty damn dangerous to her mental well-being outside the bedroom.
She couldn’t stop thinking about him. About his big hands threading through her hair. About the way he’d followed her rules of anonymous sex last night, even though he gladly would have made love with the lights on and their gazes connected.
She slid a tawny-colored evening dress out of her closet, not giving a fig that it was only mid-day. She lived by her own rules, damn it.
Yanking the zipper up her back, she went over the night in her mind, wondering how she could have handled things differently. She might have stood a fighting chance of putting sexy Detective Winger out of her mind if he’d at least been the total stranger she’d first assumed. But she was guaranteed to see him again if he was Duke’s partner.
How could she ever look him in the eye in a social setting after everything they’d shared last night?
Her body still quivered just thinking about it. Her legs still ached from wrapping around him so tightly. Her lips were full and swollen from his kisses. All this, and the man had left five hours ago.
She was definitely in over her head.
Maybe that’s why she felt compelled to don her highest heels, drape herself in Armani, and scout out Simone Bertrand. Lexi was spoiling for a confrontation, a chance to take control of her life again.
