by Lois Greiman
I took a deep breath. It had been like this since the beginning of time. My brothers could prowl the neighborhood like hot-blooded tick hounds, but I was supposed to be as pure as popcorn salt—apparently until the day I died or got married, whichever came first. It was probably the reason for my early promiscuity. Well, that and the fact that Marv Kobinski was a champion kisser. No, seriously, I think he won awards.
“He likes to cook,” I said, and dropped into a slat-back chair. “He made me breakfast.”
“What’d he make?” Her voice was suspicious, happy to catch me in a lie.
Eddie waved from the open door, still grinning. I slapped a hand in his general direction and turned away.
“Bacon,” I said.
“Bacon! That stuff will kill you.”
I closed my eyes. “You made bacon all the time when we were kids.”
“That was for your father. And your brothers. Men can digest food girls can’t begin—”
“Listen, Mom…” I snapped my eyes open and turned toward the door, searching for an escape. I really didn’t think I could bear to hear the men-can-eat-whatever-they-want speech. “I’ve got to get—” But at that moment my lungs collapsed.
Jack Rivera was standing in my doorway, looking as long and mean as a smoking pistol.
27
You are the perfect woman, a magical blend of beauty, intelligence, and spirit. Without you, my life is nothing.
—Ryan Blackhawk, the good-looking, but fictional, guy in Chrissy’s picture frame
I GLANCED TOWARD my office, remembered the photographs, the gossip, the secrets. My fingers curled involuntarily into the fabric of the robe near my throat. Rivera stared at me, eyes smoking.
“Chrissy!” Drill sergeants have nothing on my mother.
“I’ve got to go, Mom.” I could feel my hair standing on end, reaching for unsuspecting strangers like Medusa’s infamous snakes. There was dried spittle on my cheek. It cracked when I moved my lips. Maybe, I thought hazily, Eddie wasn’t really gay. Maybe he simply couldn’t see himself spending the rest of his mornings with a drooling slob. But turning to men just to get rid of me…that was kind of a complicated ruse. So perhaps he was only trying to spare my feelings. Eddie was a nice guy.
“Who’s the boy toy?” Rivera asked.
I jerked my mind into submission.
Rivera nodded toward the door. He was closer now. I could feel the heat of him in the soles of my feet. I curled my naked toes around the wooden dowel on my chair and held on like a discombobulated spider monkey.
“Is someone else there?” The drill sergeant was getting angry.
“No!” The thought of my mother and Rivera communing in any manner made my mind skitter around like a kid on a sugar high. “Just…No.”
“Let me talk to Eddie again.” Her voice was rising.
My brain was starting to sweat while swear words and apologies popped out of my eyeballs like zits on a tuba player. “Eddie’s gone.”
“I heard a man’s voice.”
My fingers felt numb against the receiver. “It’s the TV.”
“This time of day?”
“Listen, Mom…” I was thirty-three years old—thirty-three—but I was groveling like a spanked whelp. “I have to get to work.”
“Work! It’s—”
“I’ll call you tonight. Promise,” I said, and slapped the receiver into the cradle.
Rivera stood no more than eighteen inches away. His eyes were deadly dark, his clothes rumpled, his body language hushed. The lull before the storm. “You should have let me talk to her,” he said. The light in his eyes was bright enough to read by. It might have been laughter. It might have been anger. Note to self: Learn to read the light in Rivera’s eyes.
“What are you doing here?” My voice was wondrously casual. As if I wasn’t considering the fact that he might have killed his ex-lover in a fit of jealousy. As if two red-hot guys crossed paths at my door every day of the week. As if I hadn’t been digging around in his personal life. As if I hadn’t been prying into his family’s affairs. God help me.
He lifted one corner of his mouth. The scar at the right twitched up in a piratical manner. I curled my fingers tighter against my throat. Good thing I wasn’t a virgin or he might have to torture me.
“I was worried about you,” he said. “Just thought I’d stop by on my way to the station.”
But according to his father and Daniel, he’d lost his badge, which meant he wasn’t going to the station. Which meant he was lying. Why would he be lying? “I’m not on the way to the station,” I said.
He gave me a half-assed grin. And despite it all—the lies, the suspicions, our glowering history—I felt my hormones sizzle. He turned toward my office. His jeans rode low on his hips, hugging his thighs, caressing his—
Holy crap! The photos!
“Rivera!” I didn’t shout his name, but I didn’t exactly whisper it, either.
He looked over his shoulder at me, eyes dark and steady, almost bored.
Why bored? Why? He knew something. What did he know? That I’d been snooping around in his life? That I suspected his mother…if not of murder, at least of sleeping with the liquor guy, who couldn’t have been out of diapers for more than a year? That I have an abiding interest in pirates?
“I think you owe me an apology,” I rasped.
He turned slowly, facing me. I got to my feet. I wanted to die with my boots on. Shit, I’d forgotten my boots. Maybe I could run out and buy a nice pair of Guccis. One last splurge.
“An apology?” he said. My breath was coming hard. He seemed to suck all the oxygen out of the air. Like a Hoover, only with a better ass.
“I was just…” I managed to keep my eyes from darting toward the office. “Dinner was your mother’s idea. I was just trying to be…social.”
His brows rose the slightest degree. The scar twitched. “So you weren’t snooping.”
“No!” God, no. Dear God, no.
He took a step closer. I refrained from stepping back. I also refrained from ditching the robe and wrapping my limbs around him until he bleated like a lost lamb. What the hell is wrong with me? “And you haven’t been snooping since?”
My skin felt clammy. “What are you talking about?”
He smiled and rested a hip against my table. It was as lean as a slab of filet mignon, and he was staring at me. Maybe he was wondering if there were bats in my hair. Or maybe he liked the “I’m possessed by demons” look. You don’t know. “Where were you last night?”
“What?” I sounded like a chipmunk. They’re cute.
“Last night,” he said. He could drill holes with those eyes. “You go out or did you and sugar baby have your own party here at home?”
“Sugar baby.” I laughed, but inside, my mind was spinning like The Exorcist chick’s. How much did he know? How much did he guess? How much did I want to dive into the ugly carpet beneath my feet, or sink my teeth into his lower lip?
“We, ummm…” Maybe Rivera had come by last night. Maybe he knew I’d been gone and was just toying with me. That seemed like something he would do. “We went out for a while.”
“Yeah?” He tilted his head lazily. “Anywhere special?”
“No.” I cleared my throat and settled back into my chair, casual, and oh so not nervous. My left knee popped out between the edges of the robe. His gaze shifted to it. My lungs collapsed. It would only be a short jump from gripping the chair to being coiled around him like a Slinky.
“No dancing?”
“Dancing?” I heaved a laugh. “Why would you think—”
He eased into the chair next to me and reached out. My breath hitched up hard in my throat. His hand brushed my thigh and skimmed along the silky fabric of my robe. My legs threatened to fall apart. True, last night’s show may have been a shameful display of male exploitation, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t effective as hell.
“Remember last time you lied to me, Chrissy?” he asked.
My esophagus was dry. Other places weren’t quite so arid. His fingers trailed along the border of my robe, down the length of my thigh.
“When the two guys in the Cadillac kidnapped me and threatened me and took my purse, which I left on the floor when I escaped?”
“Yeah, that time.”
I shook my head. I couldn’t take my eyes off his fingers. “It’s a little blurry.”
“Remember the screaming and the shooting and the you almost getting killed?”
His fingers were dipping toward the inside of my knee. I was pressed back into my chair, breath held, lungs like Goodyear blimps.
“Maybe we should try to avoid that this time,” he said, and slipped his knuckles against my bare skin.
I shivered, took one shuddering breath, and held it. He slid his hand toward my torso. I watched it like a cobra. God in heaven, that felt good.
“Chrissy?” His hand stopped. He was looking at me. I could feel his attention on my face. Was he waiting for a response? Would he not move his damned hand unless I answered?
“But last time…last time…” I licked my lips. My tongue felt heavy. “…Elaine was…” His fingers were moving again, stroking gently. Holy crap, it couldn’t be more than eighteen inches between his hand and my crotch. How damned long could it take him to get there? “She was in danger.”
“Maybe you’re in danger this time.”
Was that a threat or concern? And shouldn’t a trained shrink be able to tell the difference? Maybe if the shrink would quit panting like a greyhound.
His gaze burned my face. His hands felt like black magic against my thigh.
“I’m…I’m fine,” I breathed.
He stared at me. “Then who’s in trouble?”
“No…” I began, but his fingers slid a couple more inches. My head jerked back like a ragged-assed puppet’s.
“What’s going on, Christina?”
“Nothing.” I sounded possessed.
His fingers skimmed across my panties. I think I screamed, and suddenly he was on his knees. His hands scooped beneath my robe, pushing it aside. His fingers felt like voodoo around my ass, pulling me close. His mouth was inches from my O zone.
“I don’t want you hurt again,” he rasped.
I shook my head.
He kissed me, just above the elastic. I croaked something indiscernible.
“What were you doing last night?” He kissed me again, lower this time.
“Dinner. Just dinner.” Somehow my fingers had become curled up in his hair.
His grip tightened on my cheeks. “I didn’t know they served meals at the Strip Please.”
For a second my mind froze, then I was scrambling backward, feet, hands, knees, elbows, everything flying. The chair bounced off the wall and toppled. Rivera caught it in one smooth move as he rose to his feet.
“You were following me!” I rasped. What was he afraid I’d learn?
His eyes were midnight black. “What the fuck were you doing there?” His voice was low and soulless.
“What do you think I was doing there?” I was spitting like a cat and raised my chin. Heroic under fire. His gaze crackled like lightning down my midsection and stopped at my crotch. I reached down to drag my robe together, hands shaking like wind socks in a hurricane.
“Looks like the boy didn’t do a very good job.”
He took a step toward me. I took a step back. My knees weren’t all that steady, either, but at least they were together.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said.
“What’d you have to pay him, McMullen?”
“Screw you!” I snarled.
And suddenly he was on me, his body pressed tight against mine, his hands plastered against the wall behind my head. “Only if you tell me the damned truth,” he said. I could feel his erection brush like lightning against the big O. “Why’d you go to the club?”
“No reason.”
“Who’d you talk to?”
“No one.”
He pressed against me. “Too busy with other things?”
I closed my eyes. “Yes.” If he wasn’t a police officer, what was he? Enraged? Desperate? Dangerous?
“Whose things?”
I licked my lips. He watched the movement. I think he’d quit breathing.
“Christ, McMullen, if I’d known you were that desperate, I would have dropped everything.” He captured my shoulders, ran his hands down my arms, pinning them to my sides. “Including my pants.”
I was breathing hard now, rasping like a freight train. “You’re all heart, Rivera.”
“Not quite,” he said, and pressed against me again. My robe had surrendered. His erection felt like a baseball bat against my belly.
“Get off me,” I growled. My internal shrink told me to say something clever to pacify him, but the back of his shirt had become twisted up in my fingers, and the cocktail chick had thought of others ways to calm him.
He dropped my arms, and for one hideous second I was terrified he would do as told, but suddenly his hands were on my waist, sliding upward, bumping over my ribs until he was holding my breasts in his palms. His thumbs flicked across my nipples.
The world exploded. “Damn you!” I hissed, and crashed my mouth against his.
It was all over then. No coherent thought. Just scrambling. My robe was gone, pooled on the floor. We were slipping on it, skittering toward the bedroom. His shirt released his arms and hung from his waistband. My fingers bumbled at his belt. He shoved them away, but it didn’t matter. He knew what he was doing. His erection popped out, big and hard, and plum tight between the teeth of his zipper.
I think I may have taken God’s name in vain at the sight of it. But suddenly we were in my bedroom. No more need for curses.
He backed me toward the mattress. Our lips met, teeth grazed, breath hissed. My buttocks hit the bed. It groaned beneath me. I fell back and lay down, stretched out on the cool sheets. My breasts felt heavy, my skin hot, but not as hot as his gaze, searing on contact.
He straightened slightly. His body was pretty damned beautiful, dark and hard and lean.
“You’re not drunk this time, are you?” His voice was a husky snarl of masculinity.
I managed to shake my head.
“’Bout damn time.” He stepped forward and slipped on something, then dropped his gaze to the floor. And suddenly I knew I was doomed. I didn’t immediately know why, but I could feel the chill like a cold Chicago wind whistling around the corner of my life.
I felt him freeze. He bent down, lean muscles flexing along the bend of his arm. I tried, but I couldn’t manage to lower my eyes in the direction of his. Somehow I knew what he was looking at. I just knew.
Eddie hadn’t left Solberg’s file in the office after all.
When Rivera straightened, he had a half-dozen damning photos in his hand. The world was eerily silent, and then, quietly, almost reverently, he said, “Sali. Damn, she was pretty, wasn’t she? Bright. Funny.” He shuffled the grainy pictures, still staring. A muscle jumped in his jaw. “Almost invincible.” His eyes looked crazy dark. “Almost.”
I don’t remember pulling the sheet over me. But it felt cold against my skin.
“So what do you think?” He lifted his spooky gaze to me. “Did I kill her? Or was it Mama?”
I drew a careful breath, wondering if maybe it would be my last.
“Either way, it’s nice of you to decide to fuck me,” he added.
I wrapped the sheet around me, stepped off the bed. Our bodies were inches apart. I could feel the heat of his chest sear mine. Anger had replaced the void left by passion. “Get out,” I said.
“Have you figured out how I did it yet?” he asked.
“Leave me alone.” I tried to brush past, though I don’t know where I was going. He caught my arm, but destinations are limited anyway when you’re wearing a toga and gorgon hair.
“There were no bruises, Chrissy. No signs of a struggle. No DNA.” His grip t
ightened like a vise. He gritted his teeth. “No fucking witnesses.”
I strained away from him.
He gave me a crooked grin. “But you’re not buying any of it, are you? Not Christina McMullen, Ph.D. You’re still betting on me, aren’t you?”
I didn’t move away, didn’t move at all. Barely breathed. “You didn’t kill her,” I said.
“Yeah?” he said, and squeezed a little closer. “What makes you think so?”
“You didn’t care enough,” I said. “You don’t care enough about anyone.”
He eased up a little on my arm and pulled away half an inch, curious. “Is that your professional analysis? Is that what you think? People only kill if they care?” He ran his free hand through his hair and chuckled. “And they gave you a license to peddle that crap?”
Anger mixed with indignation and turned cold. He could insult my morals, my hair, or my mother, but it really pissed me off when he took swipes at my career. “You saying you’re guilty, Rivera?”
He shrugged. The movement was stiff, his fingers hard. “Doesn’t matter now that the boys in tox finally got their shit together.”
I waited, mind churning. He didn’t continue.
“What are you talking about?”
He dropped my arm and shrugged, but his movements were stiff, jerky. “There was a gas leak.”
“What?”
“In the kitchen.” He nodded once, eyes narrowed. “The oven.”
I hissed in surprise and half shook my head. “That’s what killed her?”
He laughed. “What’s the matter, Chrissy? Hoping for something juicier? You can call the captain if you like. He’ll corroborate my story. Hell, call Graystone, if you want.”
My mind was reeling. “If there was a leak, why didn’t it kill you?”
He propped a hip against the wall. “I left the front door open.”
“But…” My brain was sputtering over facts and suppositions. They were all half-assed at best, but nevertheless, there was something wrong here. I could feel it in the soles of my feet.
“But what, darlin’? This is good news. Now you can fuck me with a clear conscience instead of worrying that you might be screwing a—”
