She nodded, flushing even brighter. "Let me up, Lucas, please. We've just been lucky that we haven't been discovered yet by the security guard or, Heaven forbid, someone I know."
To her surprise, he did let her find her feet, holding her steady between his legs until he was satisfied that she could manage on her own, then rising himself right behind her.
"You're right. Believe it or not, I didn't plan that when we got together again it would be in your office.
Allie, who was making her way around the desk, glanced back at him in surprise. "I'm right? And you planned for us to get together again?"
Lucas chuckled. "Yes, you are, and, yes, I did. You didn't think I'd let you get away from me that easily, did you?" It didn't matter how casually he said it. She knew exactly what he meant. "And we were very lucky not to have been seen. We should head home."
It wasn't until they were on the street and she took out her phone to Uber a ride home that she felt herself being carefully corralled towards the only car in the parking lot—a big black Lincoln that Matthew McConaughey would be proud to own.
"Wait—stop! What are you doing?" Allie tried to plant her feet to stop him, but he was much too strong for her, and she knew that, if all else failed, he would simply pick her up.
But instead, he stopped and stood in front of her, cupping her face in his hands. "Despite what just happened between us, I am nowhere near done with you. It's a Sunday afternoon. What else do you have to do besides go home and veg by yourself 'til it's time for work?" He pressed a surprisingly tender kiss to her cheek. "Come home with me. I'll take care of you."
She didn't say anything, biting her lip and looking hesitant, and he knew that her brain and her sense of morality and her conscience were ganging up on the rest of her. But he was just elated—and a little amazed—that she hadn't told him to go fuck himself…yet.
"I'll feed you," he singsonged enticingly, knowing how much she loved food.
"That's not playing fair," she pouted prettily.
Lucas had to laugh. "How many wise guys do you know who play fair, little lady? It's not usually a part of the job description."
She inclined her head with a breathtaking smile. "Point taken."
His arm snaked around her waist to pull her against him, still very mindful of her injury. "So…" he began, doing his best mobster voice. "I'll take care of you—wait on you hand and foot. I'll make you a real Italian meal with my Gramma's recipe for gravy." Then he leaned down a bit and whispered into her ear, "And I'll fuck you raw every chance I get—I'll be inside of you, fucking you up against the wall next to the door, seconds before you leave through it tomorrow morning to go to work tryin' to land me in jail."
And he was, indeed, as good as his word, on all of those fronts.
But—as it had before—the unwieldy baggage that was a monstrous amount of guilt—that had accompanied an ill-fated attempt to loosen herself up a bit—which had just begun to recede around the edges about their last encounter—had settled right back down onto her shoulders by the time she got to work.
Her coworkers, having heard about what had gone on, some of them having seen parts of it, were wonderful and sympathetic, and even her hard-bitten boss—Perry Z. Ellis—Z for Zephraim—brought her into his office, which was usually something he only did to chew her out.
"That was quite a charity event Saturday night, wasn't it?" he started with a grunt as he sat down heavily in his chair. "Doing okay?" he asked as she took her seat a bit gingerly, but that wasn't much due to her ribs—not that he needed to know that.
"Yes, thanks, I'm fine, Perry."
"A bit unusual that it was Lucas Bove who came to your rescue—I was thinking it ought to have been the other way around."
"You mean I should have been rescuing him?" she asked, deliberately playing obtuse.
There was that familiar glare. "You know what I mean. Bove is hardly the type to bother with a damsel in distress, especially since he, or someone associated with him, was more than likely the one who put her in distress in the first place, one way or the other."
He cleared his throat. "You're going to file charges against him, of course, aren't you?" he asked bluntly.
She managed not to roll her eyes, barely. He sounded like Lucas had, every chance he got last night, not that she was going to tell him that. "I hadn't really thought about it."
Perry stopped in the middle of pouring an amount of sugar into his coffee cup that was going to give her diabetes just from watching it. "Bullshit."
Allie sighed. "Well, I can't think that it would be the best career move, do you? If he tells his officers not to cooperate with me—or worse this department—we're fucked."
"We'd survive. We've had chiefs who hated us before, and we'll have more down the line, I'm sure." He leveled his gaze on her. "Do it. This isn't the first time he's tried this."
"Hell, Perry, it isn't even the first time he's tried that with me!" she snorted, realizing just how relieved she was that Lucas hadn't asked.
Sometimes the looks her boss gave her were entirely too close to how her father used to look at her—with great affection, but as if he thought she was completely off her rocker at the same time.
"Well, then, even more reason to hold the bastard's feet—and/or points further north, preferably—to the fire."
But Allie was shaking her head. "I can't think that would be good for this place—and especially not the case I've spent all of this time building against the Bove family. We're literally inches from being able to tighten that noose, but without testimony from his officers, it will all fall completely apart and we'll be back to square one. Of the two, I think there's more good in holding Lucas Bove's feet to the fire, don't you?"
Perry's frown deepened. "But he'll get away with it—you weren't just manhandled, you were injured. I know you were. How can you let him get off scot free?"
"Was there anything else you called me in here to talk about?" Allie asked, rising and tilting her head at him expectantly.
"Well, I did want to make sure that you were okay."
"But not enough to call me Saturday night, or Sunday morning, or Sunday night," she pointed out.
He blushed full on at that, making his complexion even ruddier than it was usually. "Grace wanted me to, but I didn't want to disturb you, and I knew that Harker would make sure you were taken care of."
Her best friend, Laura Harker, had been at the event, too, and had driven her to the hospital. Allie had declined an ambulance ride, but Chief Daughtry—who was out cold and looked like he'd been worked over by an angry bulldozer—was whisked there instead, after Lucas had been literally ripped off him by about five big, strong men before he was taken into custody.
"She did, and I'm good. I'm going to go back to work now."
"Think about it, will you? Please?"
Allie stopped, her hand on the door, and nodded, saying, "Yes, Dad, I will."
Chapter 3
If she had worried that he was going to become obnoxious because of what had happened between them Sunday night—calling, texting, or emailing her incessantly—she was pleasantly surprised. But then he hadn't done that last time, either, although she hadn't known then that he had been planning to reconnect with her, even though she'd given him the cold shoulder.
She managed—usually—to tuck the more pleasant, personable part of him into that little compartment she had for him in the back of her mind palace. And he stayed there most of the time, which was surprising, considering that she spent all day every day working a case—along with people from other agencies—that was meant to bring him down. He'd pegged it perfectly when he'd said that she was going to go to work to try to land him in jail.
But that was her job. And neither of their jobs—nor any sense of self-preservation on their part—nor common sense, even, seemed to be enough to get them to stay away from each other for very long. It had been like that from the first time they'd met, in a court room, of course.
He was
one of those rare men nowadays whose mama had raised him right—in some ways, as she'd said.
Allie had been there early, as was her habit, and, if she admitted it to herself, she was just the slightest bit nervous about meeting him, although she was, of course, going to do her damndest to hide it. It didn't pay to show weakness to the enemy.
But that wasn't a part he relished playing, and his outgoing personality and scrupulously proper behavior destroyed the carefully constructed box labeled "very bad man" that she'd automatically lumped him into at first.
He arrived quietly, with a minimum of fanfare and only one bodyguard who was actually smaller than he was. His suit was understated elegance, certainly a designer name, but definitely not black. He shook hands with his lawyer and a young guy who had to be a junior partner, then, to her great surprise, he crossed the aisle and offered his hand to Matt Bloomer, with whom she was working, smiling broadly and saying, "Good to see you again, Mr. Bloomer—I see you lost the cast—able to play the violin again now?"
Matt grinned back at him like an idiot, saying something like, "Better than ever!" when everyone knew he'd never so much as seen a violin up close. He acted as if he was shaking hands with Mick Jagger rather than a man who was responsible for—directly or indirectly—bringing a shit ton of misery to an enormous number of people via his penchant for murder. Earlier on in his career and never proven, of course. He had an ability to bring an almost corporate structure to the drugs and prostitution that filled his family's coffers at first, although he had largely steered them away from those things to more electronic theft and hacking—the byproduct of having gone to Wharton Business School, one would think. And, if he wasn't doing any of that personally now, it was only because he was the undisputed boss of the organization and had risen above the need to get his hands dirty. But he was still the one pulling the strings, no matter how clean he tried to appear, how legitimate his investments looked at first glance, or how damnably charming he was.
Which, unfortunately for her, was terribly, terribly charming.
"Ah, Miss Barstow. I don't believe I've ever had the pleasure of meeting you. I am Lucas Bove."
He offered her his hand, too, and just for a moment, she considered refusing it in the name of all the people she knew he had hurt, but he simply left it out there, as if he couldn't possibly imagine why she might not shake it while he smiled angelically down at her.
So, she ended up taking it, wishing she felt like more of a hypocrite than she did in doing so.
And he didn't just shake it, but, before he let go, he turned her hand over and kissed the back of it, murmuring, "At your service."
Before she could snatch it back, though, he'd already released it and turned his back to return to his side of the aisle.
He held doors open—not just for her, though, but for everyone, and one morning, when she arrived before everyone else, as usual, she heard him translating Italian for a little old lady who didn't speak English and who was having a hard time getting through the metal detectors, for some reason.
From that first morning on, when he arrived, he had everyone's coffee order in hand as well as what looked like scrumptious little pastries that were passed around—and he even went so far as to bring the box over to them personally.
Allie declined both things, politely, having brought her own coffee and not feeling she needed to indulge or placate him by eating what he offered, not that Matt was plagued by his own conscience in the least about it, until she spoke up loudly while glaring at him. "Thank you, Mr. Bove, but Mr. Bloomer and I are perfectly capable of obtaining our own coffee and sweets if we would like to have them."
Matt's hand was knee deep in powdered sugar by that time, but he dutifully retracted it, handing Lucas back his coffee, too.
"As you wish," Lucas murmured, executing a small bow.
Allie did the best she could to ignore him, his gentlemanly gestures, and his offhand reference to one of her favorite movies—if he even knew that was what he was doing—even down to not really wanting to go through a door he held, but she didn't usually get a choice about that. There was something about this man that disturbed her—and not in a "he's a horrible creep" way she was hoping for, considering what she knew about him.
It was more like having a high school crush, and that was definitely not good for someone in her position. Not good at all.
So, when she was sitting on the hood of her car late one afternoon in the relatively deserted parking garage of the courthouse, waiting for AAA to arrive since she had a flat tire and the one lesson her father gave her in how to change a tire went just about as far as the one about how to change her oil, she was busily scrolling through her phone when she heard his voice. The one that she knew she shouldn't be able to recognize so easily. The one that made her heartily wish she was wearing something more substantial than a thong beneath her short pencil skirt.
"May I be of assistance, Miss Barstow?"
She hopped down quickly, but not before he offered her his hand to help her, which she blatantly ignored. "No, thank you, Mr. Bove. Triple A is on the way."
He looked dubious, checking his watch. "It's rush hour. How long did they say it would be?"
Two hours, but she wasn't about to tell him that. "It doesn't matter—I'll be fine here."
Lucas frowned. He knew she didn't want to be around him—she'd made that glaringly obvious. But this was not a safe place for her to be, so he would do whatever he needed to do to make sure she got on her way. "Is there a spare in the trunk?" he asked, putting his briefcase on the ground and shucking out of his suit coat.
"Yes." One of the few advantages to driving beaters is that she had an actual spare tire. "But there's no need for you to do that, thank you. I'm perfectly happy to wait. I've got my phone and unlimited data, so—"
Just when she thought that nothing she was saying to him was getting through, he sprinted away from her, but he'd left his stuff behind. Seconds later, a surprisingly small, older model car came into view, and he parked it a couple spaces over before unfolding himself from behind the wheel, chuckling at the look on her face, which clearly said that she wouldn't have been at all surprised to see twenty other clowns come out after him.
"Not what you thought I'd drive, huh?"
She colored to have been caught staring. "No, I have to say you're right there."
"My father made me earn nearly everything except my room and board and my education. I've paid for everything about every car I've ever owned, and I was—before I got too busy to do it and manufacturers deliberately made it impossible to fix your own car—a fair shade tree mechanic." He leaned a bit closer to her to impart the information like it was a state secret, "This was my first car—bought it when I was sixteen with money I got working at an ice cream stand over the summer. Unfortunately, I bought it before I shot up about six inches—I had to remove the back seat in order to keep driving it through college!"
Against her will, Allie found herself laughing at—and with—him, but worse, being impressed by him.
Then he proceeded to unload things from his trunk that made her feel woefully inadequate as a car owner—can of fix a flat, an actual jack—not one of the toy ones the car makers include—and a tarp, which he proceeded to spread out near the tire in question before gathering all of the tools he'd need to change it and putting them readily at hand on the tarp.
"You really don't need to do this—" she tried again.
He looked up at her as he dropped gracefully to his knee on the clean material while rolling up the sleeves of his white dress shirt. "Yes, I do. My grandparents and my parents would all come back from the grave expressly to beat me about the head and shoulders if I left a young lady such as yourself alone and stranded in a place like this."
With that, he set about changing the tire while Allie tried not to watch the play of muscles across his back, the way his biceps strained against the fine material of his shirt when he was removing the lug nuts, or how his butt loo
ked when he bent over. Unfortunately, there wasn't a thing on her phone that could compare to the show that was playing out right before her eyes.
Of course, he got it done in less than fifteen minutes, including the cleanup, and there was nary a speck of anything on his shirt that hadn't been there beforehand, either.
Another reason to hate him. If she'd been able to do it all, she knew she'd've been covered in dirt—or, looking at the floor of the garage, worse—by the time she was done.
"Thank you very much, Mr. Bove. I appreciate it enormously. Can I pay you—" She knew it was ridiculous to offer, but it seemed terribly impolite not to, considering what he'd just done for her. But the look on his face made her stop dead in the middle of her thought, lest she offend him and he upend her. It was that kind of highly improper look, delivered with his chin down and from beneath heavily drawn brows.
"You most definitely may not, and I should swat your bottom for even thinking of it," he threatened, but with the hint of a smile from where he was standing at the trunk of his car.
Allie's eyes went round, and her mouth dropped open at what he'd just said.
"In fact, I want to give you something."
It was a can of fix a flat that he was holding over his arm, as if he was presenting her with a bottle of expensive wine.
"2016 was a very good year for aerosol tire inflators," he quipped.
"Why didn't you use this rather than going through changing the tire?"
"Well, I figure you work yourself to death and it might be a while before you're able to actually get to a mechanic to get the tire fixed, and I didn't want you to have the hassle of having to deal with another flat, because that stuff isn't really good in the long term." He leaned towards here again, conspiratorially. "Besides, I wouldn't have been able to show off in front of you if all I did was stand there and hold a can."
Allie found herself laughing—and blushing—hard at that.
She took the can he was offering, but reluctantly. "But won't that leave you short?"
Her Bad Boy Page 3
