Uncorked E-Book

Lois Greiman

• Herausgeber: NYLA
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 436

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2011

Beschreibung

The romance between LA psychologist Christina McMullen and Lieutenant Jack Rivera is finally sizzling...until Chrissy catches the lieutenant in a compromising position. Still, when a vicious criminal from their past is released from prison, Rivera is willing to do whatever it takes to keep Chrissy safe--but does that include murder?Despite sound advice from her best friend, Brainy Laney Butterfield, Chrissy is determined to clear Rivera's name. But first she'll have to tango with a quintet of sexy suitors and her own current beau, Doctor...what was his name again? And when Chrissy is attacked, the stakes become more dangerous than ever, for she's about to pop the lid on the most lucrative criminal enterprise in LA--and to the surprise of this shrink, more than one deep, dark secret is about to become uncorked.

Leseprobe

UNCORKED

Lois Greiman

Copyright

This ebook is licensed to you for your personal enjoyment only.

This ebook may not be sold, shared, or given away.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the writer’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Uncorked

Copyright © 2011 by Lois Greiman

Ebook ISBN: 9781468145342

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

No part of this work may be used, reproduced, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without prior permission in writing from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

NYLA Publishing

350 7th Avenue, Suite 2003, NY 10001, New York.

http://www.nyliterary.com

Praise for Lois Greiman

"Dangerously funny stuff."

Janet Evanovich

“Simple sexy sport may be just what the doctor ordered.”

Publishers Weekly

"Lois Greiman is a modern day Dorothy Sayers. Witty as hell, yet talented enough to write like an angel with a broken wing."

Kinky Friedman, author of Ten Little New Yorkers

"What a marvelous book! A delightful romp, a laugh on every page."

MaryJanice Davidson, NYTbestsellingauthor of the Undead series.

“Amazingly good.” (Top Pick!)

Romantic Times

“L.A. psychologist, Chrissy McMullen is back to prove that boobs, brass, and brains make for one heck of a good time…laugh out loud funny…sassy…clever.”

Mystery Scene

"Excellent!"

Library Journal

"Sexy, sassy, suspenseful, sensational!! Lois Greiman delivers with incomparable style."

Bestselling author ofTo the Edge, Cindy Gerard

"Move over Stephanie Plum and Bubbles Yablonsky to make way for Christina McMullen, the newest blue collar sexy professional woman who finds herself in hair raising predicaments that almost get her murdered. The chemistry between the psychologist and the police lieutenant is so hot that readers will see sparks fly off the pages. Lois Greiman, who has written over fifteen delightful romance books, appears to have a great career as a mystery writer also."

thebestreviews.com

"Ms. Greiman makes a giant leap from historical fiction to this sexy and funny mystery. Bravo! Well done!"

Rendevous

“A fun mystery that will keep you interested and rooting for the characters until the last page is turned.”

Fresh Fiction

"Fast and fun with twists and turns that will keep you guessing. Enjoy the ride!”

Suzanne Enoch, USA Today best-selling author of Flirting with Danger

“Lucy Ricardo meets Dr. Frasier Crane in Lois Greiman’s humorous, suspenseful series. The result is a highly successful tongue-in-cheek, comical suspense guaranteed to entice and entertain."

Book Loons

Dedication

To Caitlin Alexander, the best editor (and possibly the best person) in the universe. Thanks for being you.

Acknowledgements

Special thanks to Lori Speer, Northampton Police Department Court Queen, for answering a barrage of last minute questions. Any mistakes made are solely the fault of the author.

Chapter 1

If love is blind, why is Victoria’s Secret still making a killing?

—Christina McMullen, while eating red velvet cupcakes and agonizing about her expanding waistline

I picked up my cordless on the third ring. Since the demise of my caller ID, answering the kitchen phone always felt somewhat like playing a fun- filled little version of Russian roulette. The call a few minutes earlier had been from my mother, one Constance Iris McMullen. The ensuing conversation had made me as skittish as a scalded cat and a little breathless. “Hello?”

There was a slight pause during which I wondered about the identity of the caller. Maybe one of those sleazy heavy-breathers, I thought, but I wasn’t that lucky.

“There’s only one thing I can think of that makes you that breathless.” The voice belonged to Lieutenant Jack Rivera, police officer, ex-lover, jackass. I had, at one time, been deluded enough to believe we might someday pick out china patterns together, but six months ago I found him slapped up against a bleached blonde with a triple-digit bra size and a double-digit IQ.

After that, I considered picking out a nice hit man who knew how to keep a secret.

Not that I’m bitter. I’m a trained psychologist…and classy as hell. I don’t do bitter.

I pursed my lips and concentrated on being haughty. So what if his voice was as deep as a Dostoyevsky novel and shadowed with a shitload of mouth-watering innuendo? So what if just the sound of it conjured up a hundred lurid memories that burned the back of my mind like a George Foreman grill and sent my nerve endings into a feeding frenzy? I’m an adult. I’m a professional.

“What’s the matter, Rivera? Skank Girl busy on her street corner this evening?”

Okay, maybe there was a teeny bit of bitterness.

I heard him draw a breath and imagined him leaning back, chest expanding. “You know they have pills to help with that pissy PMS problem, don’t you, McMullen?”

“Do they have pills to get rid of cheating bastards, too?” Maybe there was a lot of bitterness. I closed my eyes to the sound of it, letting an errant draft from my little desk fan cool my rancor and soothe my thoughts. But he spoke again.

“I thought you’d have the answer to that one. After all, you’re a trained psychotic.”

“Psychologist,” I corrected irritably. “And if you continue with this obsessive pursuit of me, Mr. Raver, I’m afraid I’m going to have to report this harassment to your superiors.” Doing my woefully inadequate best to ignore the memory of his blistering betrayal, I pushed a wet tendril of hair behind my right ear. It was currently a deep mahogany hue. No one knows what color it would be without chemical assistance. It’s highly probable that even fewer people care.

“I wouldn’t bother calling Captain Kindred if I were you,” Rivera said. “No use confirming his suspicions regarding your mental condition.”

“Ahh,” I said. “How I would love to sit here and listen to your slanderous invectives, Lieutenant Riot, but I have a date.” I gritted a plastic smile. Still damp from the shower, I was as naked as a jaybird, but the weatherman, bastard that he was, had dished up a hundred and eight degrees in L.A.’s dubious shade and I didn’t plan to wear clothes again until the morning commute. And maybe not even then.

“A date?” He spoke the words slowly. “Tonight?”

Was there a tightness to his tone? Could that tightness be jealousy? Be still my evil little heart.

“Yes, tonight,” I said. I was lying, of course. It was 10:27 on a Tuesday night and I had just finished watching McLintock. I was on a John Wayne kick. Hell Town would have to wait until tomorrow. “I just got out of the shower.”

“What are you wearing?”

My heart did the happy dance in my chest. I’m not too proud to admit that I would have paid in plasma to make him jealous.

“I usually shower naked,” I said. “A little eccentricity I have, but that’s the way I am.”

“You’re naked in the kitchen?”

I raised my brows and almost laughed out loud. He was jealous. I was sure of it. “I’m hanging up, now,” I said.

“Are your curtains closed?”

“Stooped to being a Peeping Tom, have you, Reaver? Or just—”

“Are the damn things closed?” he asked.

I lowered my brows, some of my glee disappearing at the memory of him saving my ass on more than one occasion. “Of course they’re closed,” I said, but there was something in his voice that made me glance at each one, just to be sure. And maybe there was an inch or two of window showing beneath my rust-colored kitchen blinds. Still, it surely wasn’t enough for anyone to have seen me. Nevertheless, I pulled a napkin from the table and draped it in front of my body.

“So you’re still trying to get yourself killed,” he said.

“What are you talking about?” My voice had gone from professional to constipated. “What’s the matter with you?”

“Your usual wardrobe is dangerous enough, McMullen. You don’t need to be parading around naked for any passing pervert to see.”

I shot my glance from window to window again. Maybe there was some space between the living room drapes, too, but I kept my voice calm. Sunland may not be Disneyworld, but it’s not exactly the Gaza Strip either. “Luckily, I only know one pervert sick enough to try it…and he’s a cop,” I said.

“Don’t be naive, McMullen. I’m a Boy Scout compared to half the men in this city.”

“Naive! Are you forgetting what line of work I’m—” I began, but he snorted.

“Work!” he said, then chortled. “You think sitting around discussing some bored CEO’s luncheon options is work? Try running down a hopped-up asshole who just raped a woman idiotic enough to leave the curtains open on the ground floor of her Tudor.”

I glanced around at the ground floor of my Tudor, swallowed and did my best to convince myself I wasn’t nervous. “And I suppose you believe leaving one’s drapes open warrants rape.”

“I think even you should have more sense than to prance around in the buff for half the world to see.” His voice had risen a few decibels.

Mine rose a few more. “You’re just mad that I caught you in the act with that stupid hussy who—”

“I’m mad because you’re a raving lunatic. Put some damn clothes on and shut your drapes!”

I felt a heady meld of rage and revenge zip through me. Some people are good at taking advice. And some people are Irish.

“As it turns out, Rivera…,” I said, fluttering the aforementioned napkin in the breeze created by the living room fan. “It just so happens I’m wearing a little something I got for a graduation party.” The napkin had the year 2012 emblazoned across its cherry red expanse and had been purchased for my secretary’s youngest son. One corner sported a dab of frosting retained from the congratulatory cake I had consumed earlier in the day. I licked it a little, then stuck it to my decent-sized right boob.

Rivera was silent for a moment. “So you’re not naked?” A shot of something that felt like aged rum but might have been estrogen splashing through my system.

“Well…maybe it would be more correct to say I got it at a graduation party,” I said.

He paused. Possibly he was thinking. It happens sometimes even with L.A. cops. “Did it come with cake on it?”

“Give the officer a medal,” I said. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m expecting my boyfriend in just a few minutes. Perhaps I should be wearing something that doesn’t say ‘Congratulations’ on it. That might seem a bit suggestive.”

I heard him inhale softly. “What’s the lucky bastard’s name this time?”

I smiled into the middle distance and tried not to enjoy myself too much.

“That’s no longer any of your business, Rivera.”

“Are you going out?”

“Also in the none-of-your-business category, I’m afraid. Now I really must go. I believe he’s already arrived.”

“I don’t see his car.”

“That’s—” I began, but suddenly the implication of his words reverberated through my system like an L.A. earthquake. My eyebrows shot into my hairline, and my heart, just getting accustomed to Rivera’s sex-steeped voice, slammed against my ribs like a gong. “What?”

“Is he too broke to afford wheels, McMullen? You don’t have to pay his bus fare, do you?”

Anger followed the estrogen like a wild flume through my system. Maybe it was because Rivera seemed to be spying on me. On the other hand, it might have been because I was about to get caught in a lie. “You’re outside my house?”

“If you’d close your damn drapes you wouldn’t have to worry about who’s out here.”

“You’re spying on me?” My voice had risen into the range where only canines and arachnids could hear me.

“Not spying. Observing.” He sounded smug enough to smack. “I’m a cop, remember?”

“I remember you’re a two-timing cheat who can’t keep his dick in his pants,” I snarled. Marching buck naked to the curtains in the darkened little office at the front of my house, I yanked them aside and peered into the street. It was entirely empty except for my own antiquated Saturn. The car had a faulty air conditioner, iffy door latches and a trick trunk, but it was still more trustworthy than most men I knew.

I drew a deep breath through my nose and primped a tight smile. “You used to be quite an excellent liar, Rivera.”

“I’m thrilled you think so.”

“And I’m thrilled to have had this lovely chat, but I have to go now. Looks like my date just showed up.” Smacking my palm with my lips, I blew a noisy kiss to my fictional suitor. Then I pulled the drapes sloppily closed, not particularly caring who saw what.

“So you’re planning to give the whole neighborhood a show?”

“Not the whole neighborhood.”

“Chrissy.” He gritted my name, trying to hold his temper at bay. I grinned at his lack of success and made my tone sassy.

“It’s not easy keeping a man’s interest, Rivera. A girl’s got to go the extra mile sometimes. But you know that, don’t you?”

“For God’s sake, McMullen!” Rivera said, sounding pissed enough to pop an artery. “Put on some damn clothes.”

“He’s always so classy. And early,” I said. “Impatient I guess.”

“I mean it,” he growled. “Do you know what kind of sick bastards we see every night at the precinct?”

“Don’t be so hard on yourself, Rivera. You're maybe not as sick as you think you are.” I rustled the drapes vigorously, as if I were peering outside. “Hmm, it looks like the good doctor is driving a different car tonight.”

“Damn it, McMullen, it’s probably not even him. Close the fucking drapes.” In the background I could hear his chair complain noisily, as if he’d just sprung from its seat. I sneered, knowing he wasn’t spying on me at all. Lying bastard.

“You must stop judging people by your own standards,” I said. “My man has four or five vehicles. I never know which one he’ll choose to pick me up in. This one’s an SUV. An Escalade, I think.” I wouldn’t know an Escalade from an escalator, but my Irish was up.

“Fuck it, McMullen, is there really a vehicle parked outside your house?”

“I know you thought I would languish here alone after you cheated on me with every bimbo from her to the Potomac, Rivera, but as it turns out—”

“Give me the make, model and color?”

I laughed. “I understand that you’re jealous, but you can’t put every guy in jail that shows a passing interest in—”

“Which direction is it facing?”

“Good-bye, Lieutenant. He’s getting out. I have to go. He probably…” I paused, then caught my breath as if surprised.

“What? What’s wrong?”

“He looks even taller than usual tonight.”

“Are you still standing at the damn window?”

“His face is kind of shadowed from this vantage point, but I’m…” I let my voice falter a little. “I’m sure it’s him.”

“Give me a physical description!” he barked, but I laughed. It wasn’t all together forced. I’m ashamed to say that I was having a hell of a good time at his expense.

“What?” I asked, voice Marilyn-Monroe soft.

“What does he look like?”

“Who?”

“The man approaching your house!”

“You want a physical description of my boyfriend? That’s not very healthy, Rivera. Even for a—”

“Are you sure it’s him?”

“Of course it’s him. I’m sure it’s… I do wish my security light was still working.”

I won't burden you with the string of obscenities that followed that little lie. Suffice it to say they were fairly inventive. I stifled a laugh.

“Give me his height, hair color and any scars or other distinguishing—”

“He’s tall and handsome and…Oh!” I said with a little gasp.

“What? What is it? Talk to me, Chrissy.”

“Another guy’s getting out.”

“There are two of them?”

“He’s tall, too.”

“Lock your doors!”

“What?”

“Lock your fucking doors. Then call me from your cell phone. I’ll be there in thirteen minutes. Don’t let anyone in. Not even me. And for God’s sake put some clothes on before—”

I could no longer resist. Laughter bubbled up like venom. His words stopped mid-sentence. I could practically hear his mind buzzing. I’d bet my PhD that none of his thoughts were pleasant.

“McMullen?”

I barely managed to stop laughing long enough to answer. “Yes, Lieutenant?”

“If there are no murdering gangbangers parked in front of your house, I’m going to kill you myself.”

“Isn’t that frowned on?” I asked. “Even in L.A.?”

“I’m sure the judge will understand my predicament if he’s met you. Lock your fucking doors.”

“They are locked!” I snapped. “You think I’m an idiot?”

He snorted. “Check them!”

“I don’t have to take your orders anymore.”

Now his snort was more like a guffaw. “As if you ever did a reasonable thing in your entire life! If I had a nickel for every time you took some dumb-ass risk, I’d be up to my eyeballs in—”

“I don’t take dumb-ass risks.”

“Yeah?” The single word was sharp with emotion. “How about the time you confided in Hawkins?”

I stifled a wince. Dr. David Hawkins had been a trusted colleague. Memories washed over me in fresh waves of panic. I glanced at my La-Z-Boy, remembering him sitting there, uninvited. That had been just minutes before the good doctor tried to kill me with a fillet knife.

“Check the door, Chrissy,” he ordered again.

“No,” I said, heart pounding and the entirety of my attention focused on that damn lock. But my tiny foyer was too dark to allow me to see if it was secured. Stiff legged, I pattered silently to it on bare feet.

And at that second, it burst open.

Chapter 2

A gentleman, he is but a wolf that is patient, si?

—Rosita Rivera, whose former husband was a politician and a gentleman

I screamed and lunged backward, ready to run like hell. But I had so little space, and the intruder was already leaping toward me.

I stumbled sideways and grabbed the nearest thing I could find. A framed picture came away in my hand. I swung with every ounce of terror I possessed. The attacker ducked. My impromptu weapon whistled over his head. He lunged at me. I dropped the picture and turned to run, but he dragged me down. I fell to my knees, him on top.

I screamed bloody murder. He smothered me with his hand. I bit. He swore. I struggled, almost got away and was dragged back to the floor. But I wouldn’t go down without a fight. Squirming onto my back, I brought my knee up with all the force I could muster. It slammed against his crotch with satisfying momentum. He grunted and froze. For a moment he was poised above me, then he toppled sideways, falling onto the linoleum like a beached mackerel. I scrambled to my feet. In a heartbeat I was racing toward safety, but he croaked something guttural and terrifying.

I almost made it to the back door before I realized he’d spoken my name. I grabbed the spinning desk fan for protection and pivoted toward him.

“Holy shit, McMullen!” The bastard’s voice was harsh with pain. He lay in a fetal position on the floor, hands tucked between his legs, eyes scrunched shut. “How many times do I have to tell you to set your damn security alarm?”

I backed away a few steps. My hands were just steady enough to flip on the lights.

A well-built, dark-haired man lay writhing in my hallway, but not in a sexy way. More in a dear-God-you’ve-just-crushed-my-nuts sort of way.

I canted my head at him, sucked in a breath and said, “Rivera?” His name escaped like a question, but I knew it was him. Telling me he was outside my house so that I’d believe he was miles away, then yanking open my door and scaring the bejeezus out of me was just the kind of thing he had done on numerous occasions. But I wasn’t quite ready to relinquish the fan. “Is that you?”

“Of course it’s fucking…” He sucked in a careful breath, calmed his voice. “Of course it’s me.” A muscle jumped in his cheek. He’d once called it his Chrissy tick. “Who the hell did you think it was?”

“Well…” I tried a sardonic laugh. It sounded a little asthmatic. Adrenaline was mixing dangerously with a dozen other hormones in my overexcited system, and my hands hurt from gripping the fan with such ferocious intensity. “Certainly not you. You said you were watching my house.”

Turning his head with painful carefulness, he rolled dark, questioning eyes up at me.

“I assumed you were lying!” I shrieked.

“Are you totally nuts?”

“Me? I’m not the one who habitually attacks me in dark allies or—”

“I’m just trying to make sure you’re prepared.”

“Prepared! Are you—”

“Stop!” shouted a voice, and suddenly another man lunged through the doorway. I jerked toward him, still in battle mode, fan lifted high. But my neighbor, Mr. Al Sadr, was carrying a baseball bat in both hands and failed to notice me. “Do not move or I shall—” he began, then came to a screeching halt and stared at the body on my floor in blinking uncertainty. “Lieutenant Rivera?”

“Fuck.” His response was more a groan than a spoken work.

“What has happened here?” Mr. Al Sadr’s face was a meld of concern and curiosity not entirely unknown to me. I first became familiar with that particular expression when, as a four-year-old, I decided to become a professional golfer and hit my brother’s left eye dead on with a nine iron.

“I didn’t know it was him,” I said.

“Miss Mc—” Al Sadr said and turned toward me, but in that instant his eyes popped wide and his bat dropped to the floor with a metallic clatter.

“What?” I raised my own weapon in instinctual defense and jerked back against the wall. “What is it?”

“Holy shit!” Rivera muttered. He almost sounded more tired than wounded.

I jerked my gaze to him. “What?”

“Get some fucking clothes on,” he hissed, and in that moment I once again realized my state of undress.

I felt my face heat all the way to my scalp.

“Christina!” called a heavily accented voice from outside. “Christina McMullen, is all well?” A second later Ramla Al Sadr, too, burst through the open door, holding a can of pepper spray and looking ready to do battle.

At that juncture I rather hoped I would die, simply pass away and move onto the hereafter.

“Christina…” She blinked at me, big eyes dark and round beneath her brightly colored hijab. We have a history. Some of it’s good. Most of it’s weird. “What has happened here? Are you well? Why are you without the clothing?”

My weapon was beginning to droop toward the floor. “I didn’t know it was him,” I said again, but my tone had lost its sterling edge and sounded a little defensive.

She turned toward the supposed villain, who remained on the floor, knees clamped together. Her eyes grew wide again. “Lieutenant Rivera?”

“Hello, Mrs. Al Sadr.” His words sounded a little more normal but still had a good deal of that am-I-dead-yet tone to it.

“Christina, what have you done to him?” she asked and rushed forward. She'd liked Rivera ever since he’d been instrumental in saving her sister from an abusive husband, but I’d been instrumental, too, and I never elicited the kind of adoring glances he did.

“I didn’t know it was him,” I repeated.

“There is another whose testicles you wished to crush?” she asked, glancing up at me as if I was the bad guy.

“No. Well, yes, but—”

“Good God, McMullen, will you put on some clothes?” Rivera hissed again.

I glanced down, glanced at Al Sadr, glanced at his wife.

“Excuse me,” I said, and setting the still-spinning fan carefully back in its allotted position, I slunk along the wall toward my bedroom.

By the time I had dressed and worked up enough nerve to reenter my own kitchen, Rivera was sitting alone at the table. He looked up, eyes dark and malevolent over the chipped coffee mug that housed my favorite maxim: Mornings are for masochists.

“I didn’t know it was you,” I said.

He exhaled something that sounded like a chuckle. “I guess things could have been worse, then.”

I swallowed, cleared my throat, tried to do the same with the guilt. “Ramla made you coffee?”

“Tea,” he said. “She couldn’t find any coffee.”

I nodded. That was probably because I didn’t keep any in the house. I didn’t believe in wasting my daily allotment of caffeine on such an inferior form. It’s chocolate or die for me. “How are you feeling?”

“My balls were just rammed up my esophagus,” he said. His Chrissy muscle twitched again. “How do you think I feel?”

His tone made me a little testy. I mean, seriously, the man had just broken into my house and scared the hell out of me. “Like an ass?”

He stared at me a second, then snorted and took a sip of tea. He didn’t like tea. The thought improved my mood a little.

“Remind me not to worry about you anymore,” he said.

“You don’t worry about me,” I countered, and remembered to hate him. It was easier when he wasn’t curled up on my linoleum like a dying salamander. “We’re not seeing each other anymore. Remember?”

His eyes were as shadowed as midnight dreams. “That’s right,” he said, but there was something in his tone that threatened to suck me in, to roll me under. Fortunately, at that precise moment, I remembered with unexpected clarity that my current boyfriend, one Dr. Marcus Jefferson Carlton, had an IQ of 141. He was a published author, an accomplished yogi, and a dynamite chess player. Unfortunately, he was also incommunicado while he was traveling in another country with no one to keep him company but Sam, his trusty publicist.

“What are you doing here anyway?” I asked.

He shrugged. “Hoping this tea will put out the fire in my balls.”

“I really did think you were someone else.”

“Yeah? You always greet your new beau with a knee to the gonads?”

I gave him a snotty smile and preened my tone to match. “Not at all. Dr. Carlton is a perfect gentleman.”

“Is he?”

“Yes.”

He chuckled a little. “Well, I guess opposites really do attract then, don’t they?”

“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”

He caught my eye again. “You swung at me like I had Spalding tattooed on my forehead, McMullen. Sometimes perfect gentlemen take offense to that.”

“Well, perfect gentlemen don’t come crashing into a woman’s house like a crazed gorilla.”

“I never claimed to be a gentleman,” he said, and something about his tone made me remember the first full night we’d been together. Part of it had been spent at the very table at which we currently sat. Part of it had been spent on that very table. Holy crap, I thought, and wiped away the memory with a sweaty imaginary hand.

“Well…” I got my snotty tone back with some difficulty. He was looking all lean and masculine. I can’t be trusted with lean or masculine. “It’s late. I’m sure you have to get to work tomorrow,” I said, and turned away with resolute good intentions.

“I’m taking the day off.”

I practically stumbled over my own feet as I turned back toward him. “You? The dark detective?”

His scowl deepened. “I’ve taken time off before.”

“I must have been busy that hour.”

“You still pissed because I didn’t have more time to screw you?”

For a second I almost considered remaining above such adolescent banter, but the moment passed like a bullet from a semi-automatic. “I’m pissed because you had time to screw everyone…” I stopped myself. I didn’t really know if he had slept with everyone or not. But it didn’t matter anymore. I was perfectly happy with my current guy. He was intelligent, intuitive and well read. That was so much better than irritating, insane and, well—

“I didn’t sleep with her,” he said.

Anger spouted up in me like Old Faithful on Viagra. “Well, I’m sorry if I interrupted before you could get the job done.”

“I told you before,” he said. “I was questioning her.”

“Really? It looked more like mouth-to-mouth.”

“I was on a case.”

“What case?”

“A case that I can’t talk about.”

“Do they always tell you not to talk about who you sleep with?”

"Listen, I think we've got a bad cop in the department. Things aren't…" He stopped himself, rose abruptly to his feet, barely wincing at the sudden movement. “I guess this was a bad idea.”

“You bet your nuts it was.” We stared at each other. I knew better than to open my mouth again, but the words came nevertheless. “Why’d you come here anyway, Rivera?”

He turned away. “I shouldn’t have bothered you.”

I drew a slow, steadying breath. “Maybe I shouldn’t have kicked you in the balls either.”

He snorted, narrowed his eyes and turned back. “Is that an apology, McMullen?”

I shrugged a little. “Probably the best you’re going to get.”

He smiled and lifted his hand. For a moment I thought he was going to touch my face. I braced myself for the impact. But he took a step back and sobered immediately.

“Andrews is getting out of jail,” he said.

The floor jolted beneath my feet. I felt the blood rush from my face, felt my knees buckle. “Jackson Andrews?”

“Yeah.”

I sat down hard in my kitchen chair. Andrews had had his hand in numerous criminal activities but was best known as the inventor of a dangerous blend of chemicals called Intensity. From the little I knew of the situation, his incarceration had done almost nothing to slow its distribution. “When?”

“Today.”

“Today!” I jolted from my trance. “Shit, Rivera. That means…” I could barely force out the words. “He’s already loose.”

He nodded, sober as a nightmare.

“Couldn’t you have waited a little longer to tell me?” The words were weak. It’s a bad sign when I can’t even issue sarcasm with decent volume.

“I’m sorry,” he said, and wonder of wonders, he actually looked sorry. “I didn’t think you’d want me to…” He paused, atypically uncertain. “I didn’t want to interfere in your life.”

Since when? I wondered, but I didn’t say it out loud.

“When you said there was someone parked on your street, I…” He blew out a slow breath, shook his head once. “I need you to keep your security system armed, Chrissy.”

I nodded. “I really did think I had the door locked.”

“You did.”

I stared at him.

He glanced away. “I had an extra key made before we split up.”

“You have a key?”

“You were always getting yourself in scrapes. I wanted to make sure I could get in if I needed to.”

I tried to dredge up the appropriate amount of rage, but I was tired.

“You have to be more careful.” He sounded tired, too.

“Okay.” I try not to be compliant. Hell, sometimes I try not to even be reasonable. Or maybe that’s just what my God-given DNA demands of me. But Jackson Andrews was certifiably insane. And the thought of him on the loose made me want to move to the Dominican Republic with a bodyguard named Hercules, or maybe Death Ray.

“And keep your drapes pulled,” he added.

“All right.”

“Do you still have the gun Manderos gave you?”

I shook my head. Blood was beginning to return to my cerebellum. My face felt warm. “I didn’t have a permit. I couldn’t keep it. It’s against the law for me to carry—”

“I don’t give a shit!” He spat out the words. I refrained from taking a step back, from fainting at his admittance. Rivera was cop to the core. He probably had his badge tattooed on his spleen.

He glanced away, jaw set. “You need some protection.”

“I have Harlequin.” I jerked my head toward the backyard, where my Great Dane was probably hiding behind one of the two landscaping boulders that graced my humble property. Harley doesn’t like controversy.

Rivera turned his head at the mention of the dog I’d once thought of as our love child. “He’s too big to carry in your purse.”

“So is a knee.”

He scowled. I nodded toward his balls.

“But it’s pretty effective in a pinch.”

He didn’t laugh, but some sort of light shone in his dark coffee eyes. If I tried really hard, I could almost believe it was admiration. “Where’s your spray?”

I tilted my head.

“The pepper spray I got you. Where is it?”

“In my purse.”

“Get it.”

“Listen, Rivera…” I was getting angry again. I mean, I know I hadn’t been all sweetness and light thus far in this little transaction, but kneeing him in the groin had been an honest mistake. Really. And he had no right to tell me what to do. “It’s very nice that you still carry a torch for me but—”

“Show me the pepper spray and I’ll let you get to sleep,” he said.

Sleep, he knew, was tantamount to chocolate on the Richter scale of pleasure for me.

I went to get my purse. I like to leave it in a heap on a kitchen chair. Retrieving it from said chair, I plopped it atop the table. Then I rummaged through it for a while, found a cherry sucker I’d gotten from my bank, two tampons that had escaped from their little protective sleeves and a tube of lip balm I’d mourned the loss of long ago. But no defense spray.

“I must have put it in my jacket pocket,” I said, but when I glanced up, Rivera was glowering at me, eyes angry and body language unspeakable.

“Get it,” he said.

“I left it at the office.” I was just lying now. I had no idea what I had done with the damn pepper spray. I’m not an idiot. Really, I’m not. But I don’t like to spend a lot of time on paranoia about being mugged by some lurking psychotic. It’s hard enough just to pay the bills and keep my bathroom scale from performing treason.

“You lost it, didn’t you?” he asked.

“No, I didn’t lose it.”

“Then get it.”

“I told you—”

“God dammit, McMullen!” Stepping forward, he grabbed my arms.

And suddenly all the air was sucked out of the house. Maybe it was sucked out of the entire universe.

“What are you trying to do?” His voice had gone deep and dangerous again. His lips were a hard, straight line.

I swallowed, watching those lips. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

He seemed to be watching my lips too. “I need you to—”

I blinked, shivered, tried not to be an idiot. “To…?” I said, but just then he slammed his mouth against mine.

Chapter 3

Violent mood swings—try 'em, you’ll like 'em.

—Crazy Bet, who may not have been quite as crazy as she seemed

I tried to stop him. Tried to pull away, but the kiss was burning a hole straight through my lips to my pituitary gland. And that’s where I keep the command center for my hormones. They were coming alive like Pop Rocks in battery acid by the time he pushed me away.

“God dammit, McMullen! What the hell are you trying to do to me?”

My mind was a jumble. My knees felt unhinged and my emotions were roiling like the Red Sea. That’s the only explanation I have for my next action.

I slapped him. That’s right. I slapped him across the face like a wide-eyed starlet in a grade-B movie. One minute I was standing there, limp as a lettuce leaf in his arms, and the next I was cracking him across the cheek with all the force made possible by terror and estrogen toxicity. The strike of my palm against his face sounded like a gunshot in my tiny kitchen. He didn’t even flinch. I slapped him again. Nothing changed. He didn’t step back, didn’t turn away. If anything, his eyes just burned a little brighter.

Rage ripped through me, exacerbated by disappointment, guilt, and a shitload of emotions I wasn’t prepared to address.

“What am I trying to do to you?” The words were raspy. I was leaning toward him as if braced against a bungee cord.

That muscle in his jaw jumped again. “I didn’t plan to come here.”

“Then why did you?”

He stared at my lips, then let his gaze slip lower. I was conservatively dressed in a baggy T-shirt and frayed denim shorts, but I might as well have been wearing a blood red corset and thigh-gripping garters. I swear he could see through my shirt all the way to my breast bone. And my breasts. Which were unfettered. I said I was dressed conservatively. I didn’t say I was crazy enough to wear a bra in triple-digit temperatures. But my nipples were puckering despite the heat. I’m sure it had nothing to do with Rivera, though he seemed to have come a step closer somehow.

“Why do you think, Chrissy?” he asked, and raised his dark mocha eyes to mine. They were steaming. Swear to God, steaming like a sweet demon’s.

I swallowed, cocking back my head a little. I was getting that feeling again. That horrible weak-kneed feeling that had nothing to do with released criminals or unbridled fear. But I checked my wobbling instincts and made a play for a snappy comeback.

“I think you must have had a slow day at the precinct,” I said. “Run out of jaywalkers to waterboard?”

“That’s right,” he said. “So I came to torment you.”

“Well, you can just go find someone else to play with. I don’t need you making—” Just then he took that tiny step that separated us. Every nerve ending sizzled like Jimmy Dean’s finest. And that was even before he kissed my neck.

My knees tried to buckle, my head tried to pop off my neck and roll onto the floor, but I was ready for their traitorous ways and braced myself against the weakness.

“Making what?” he whispered. His breath felt cool against my overheated skin.

I tried to think. Tried to move away. Neither attempt was wildly successful. In fact, I may have gone catatonic and somehow slipped even closer to him. “Making a mess of my life,” I breathed.

He slid his fingertips up my arm. “Doing okay with that on your own?”

I stifled a shiver, but my voice sounded funny when I spoke. “I’m not on my own,” I said. Or maybe I croaked. I hate like hell to admit it, but it might very well have been a croak.

“That’s right.” His gaze shifted to mine, somber as a dirge, sharp as a firecracker. His hand slipped into the baggy sleeve of my shirt. “What’s the lucky bastard’s name again?”

I opened my mouth to answer, but just then he brushed his thumb across my left nipple and I was entirely too involved in remaining upright to form any sort of articulate answer. My lips felt dry. I licked them.

“McMullen?” The whisper washed against my face. “What’s his name?”

I wanted to answer, but my larynx seemed to have forgotten how to function. He had slipped his hand out of my sleeve and by some kind of forbidden magic seemed to be stroking my belly beneath my shirt.

He tilted his head at me. His devilish lips cocked into the semblance of a grin. “You haven’t forgotten, have you?”

“Of course I haven’t forgotten.” Turns out my larynx worked after all, but only in a manner that issued a grating sort of demonic sound.

His mouth hitched up a little farther, highlighting the narrow scar that sliced through the right corner of his lips. “Who is he?” he asked.

My shoulder blades were pressed up against the wall now. We were skin to skin. “Why do you want to know?”

His knuckles bumped down my midline, over my navel, lower. I suppressed a shiver and refrained from closing my eyes and passing into delirium.

“I want to make sure he’s good enough for you.” His fingers slipped into my waistband.

“He’s good,” I rasped.

His lips may have jerked just a little, but his diabolical fingers didn’t stop their downward quest. “Does he make you squeak?”

“What?” The word was little more than a breath against his face. He tightened his jaw and took a steadying breath.

“You squeak,” he whispered. “High pitched and almost silent when you come.” His fingers flicked open the button on my shorts.

I closed my eyes and chanted the rosary to myself. “I do not.”

“Maybe not with him.” He moved a fraction of a millimeter closer. I would have sworn there wasn’t that much space between us.

“Not with anyone.”

“There are others?” His tone was gritty, his body hard as hell against mine.

My mind was beginning to spin like water twirling down a toilet. He had moved his hand around my waist and was trailing his fingers down my spine. I arched my back, involuntarily pushing my breasts against his chest. “I don’t need any others.”

“Nameless is that good?” he asked and slid his devilish fingers inside my shorts.

“He has a name.” I just wished to God I could remember it.

“Is it Francois?” he whispered.

“You wish,” I rasped. Francois just happened to be a certain battery-run appliance I keep in a drawer beside my bed. In my current overheated condition I had no idea how Rivera knew of its existence, much less its name. “I don’t need that anymore.” That was an out-and-out lie. I’d had an impromptu date with Francois less than twenty-four hours earlier. But apparently he hadn’t been quite up to the job of dousing the inferno. “I threw it out.”

“Really?”

No, I thought and prayed he wouldn’t look in my drawers.

“I kind of feel sorry for it,” he said, squeezing my ass with one long-fingered hand.

Desire sparked off in every direction like embers from a forest fire. I managed to remain earthbound. “I think you’re just feeling sorry for yourself.”

He lifted one brow.

“Because I don’t need you.” I panted.

He grinned. “What are you feeling?” he asked, and pressed his considerable length against my thigh.

I did my best not to push back. Sometimes my best sucks the big one. “Nothing.” The word was little more than a gasp as he slid his cock closer to my core.

He shook his head once, eyes never leaving mine. “You used to be a pretty fair liar yourself, McMullen.”

“I’m not lying,” I lied.

“That’s just because you prefer to do it standing up.”

It took me a second to understand his meaning. To which I shot back, “Shows what you know.”

“I know you,” he whispered.

“And you let me go.”

“Fuck that,” he said, and tightening his grip on my ass, pulled me marginally closer. “You’re the one who called it off.”

I laughed. It sounded like something between a hyena’s wail and the bray of a wild ass. “What did you expect me to do, Rivera? Shrug? Laugh? Oh, well, yeah, my boyfriend sometimes sleeps with other women. Sometimes sleeps with whores with big boobs and—”

“I was undercover!” he snarled.

“Under the covers, you mean.”

“Holy shit, McMullen, I never slept with her,” he said, and slid both hands into my shorts.

I refrained from devouring him whole.

“How many times do I have to tell you I’m not interested?” I asked, but my fingers seemed to have become twisted in the hair at the back of his head.

“Nameless have you that enamored, does he?” he asked, and sliding his hands lower, he effectively displaced my sloppy shorts.

“He has a name."

“I don’t believe you.”

“That’s because you’re a psychotic narcissist with sadistic tendencies.”

“Quit talking dirty,” he warned.

“You’re sick.”

“You’re horny,” he said, and dropping his head to my left nipple, sucked it through my shirt.

I shrieked. He snarled. Harlequin howled at the door.

Maybe it was the thought of our erstwhile love child finding us fornicating on the kitchen floor that broke me from the spell. Whatever the case, I found my head and scrambled away, bouncing along the wall like a skittering virgin. “Marc!” I yelped. “His name’s Marc.”

Rivera followed me with smoldering eyes. A dozen emotions burned in them. None looked safe. Several looked as naughty as hell. “Marc what?”

I eased around the kitchen table. “I’m not going to tell you.”

He followed me slowly. One may have been able to call it stalking. “Mark Wahlberg?”

Good God! I wished. “I’m not making him up, Rivera.”

“Mark Harmon?”

Harmon was a hottie, but I kept strictly to reality. “He’s a doctor.”

He stopped in his tracks. His expression changed from hot-charged horniness to anger in the drop of a pair of boxers. “Not another nutcase psychiatrist.”

I blinked at him. “What are you talking about?”

“If I remember correctly, your last psychiatrist friend tried to kill you with a hunting knife.”

“That’s not true.”

“He was in this house, planning to kill you with a—”

“Fillet knife.” It felt good to correct him.

He raised a brow.

“It was a…" I began, then realized the stupidity of our current argument. “Marcus is a very capable doctor.”

“Capable,” he said, and laughed out loud. “Is that what you’re settling for these days?”

“Screw you!”

“I’m game if you are.” He took another step closer.

I tried to move away, but my legs were stuck on the screwing idea.

It was then that my phone rang from inches away. I jumped, squawked then grabbed it like a lifeline, knowing it was Elaine even before it reached my ear.

“What’s wrong?” She spoke before I had the chance to say hello.

“Laney!” My tone was desperate. My throat ached with need. “Rivera’s here.” I don’t know what I expected her to do about it. I don’t even know what I wanted her to do about it, but she didn’t hesitate an instant.

“Let me talk to him.”

I removed the phone from my ear and handed it to him, hands shaking like a heroine addict’s.

He deepened his scowl, eyes steady and onyx dark, but he took it. “Yeah?”

I could hear Elaine’s voice on the far end but couldn’t make out the words.

Rivera stood in silence for several seconds, listening, brows lowered, then, “I know.”

Laney’s voice could be heard again, slow and reasonable.

“I didn’t plan it.”

His body was taut. His lips twitched. He closed his eyes.

“All right,” he said finally and handed me the phone. “Arm your fucking alarm,” he said, and after one last smoldering glance, stalked out of my life.

Chapter 4

A true friend is one who’s happy when you do good and is ready to plan a kick-ass prank when someone else does.

—Chrissy’s brother, Pete, while in high school…though the ensuing years haven’t changed his philanthropic philosophy much

I stared after him for several seconds, then dropped into the nearest chair, exhausted and numb.

“Mac?” I could vaguely hear Laney’s voice through the phone that drooped in my right hand.

I did a little more staring and blinking before I managed the Herculean task of pressing the phone back to my ear. “Yeah?”

“You okay?”

I shrugged, though I was pretty sure she couldn’t see it from where she was. Which was on location in Matamata, New Zealand. Elaine Butterfield is a kick-ass actress, my best friend since grade school, and something of a weird-ass telepath, but generally she can’t see my body motions unless she’s there in front of me. I wished rather desperately that she was there right then, but she’d gotten married about a year earlier and tended to spend a good deal of time with her husband, a dweeby little nerd named J.D. Solberg.

“Yeah. Sure.” I stared at my back door for a second and whined. It took me a moment to realize it wasn’t me that sounded like an abandoned pup. It was Harley. Rising like an automaton, I trailed off to let him in. He slunk inside, swinging his boxy head left and right in search of Rivera. It’s a well-known fact that even the most neglected kids love their deadbeat dads. “I’m fine.”

“Is he gone?”

“Looks like it.” I tried to buck up. “What’d you say to him?”

“I told him the truth.”

“That he’s a jackass?” I said, but I didn’t really think he was a jackass. I thought I should think he was a jackass, but when I considered his ass I rarely had the equus asinus in mind.

“That you deserve more than a panting reunion once every few months,” she said.

“Uh huh.” I nodded dismally. “But did you threaten him with some kind of bodily harm or something, too?”

“I said he was being unfair to you.”

This was kind of a disappointment. I mean, it’s not as if I wanted Rivera hanging around or anything. But I would have preferred to know he wasn’t that easy to dissuade from the whole panting reunion thing. Although, I have to admit, Brainy Laney Butterfield has amazing powers of persuasion. She’s been convincing men to act like idiots ever since the advent of her boobs.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“For what?”

“That he left.”

“Are you kidding me?” I said, and snorted. It was a first-class snort despite my exhaustion. “You did me a huge favor. I didn’t want him hanging around here.”

She remained silent. I fidgeted in the quiet. I’m never comfortable lying to Laney. She could make me fidget from another solar system. Silence is kind of like her own personal truth serum.

“Well…” I paused and sat down. “Most of me didn’t want him here.”

“My apologies to those bits that did.”

“Yeah, well…” I breathed deep and rotated my neck, beginning to relax a little as I fiddled with Harley’s ear. His search for Rivera had been fruitless and he had come to plop his snout on my thigh and give me the droopy eye. “Those bits are fickle.”

“And happy with Marc, right?”

I sat up a little straighter. Harley rolled his eyes up at me but didn‘t move his head. “Of course they’re happy with Marc. They’re thrilled with Marc. Did I tell you he sold out at the bookstore in Pinsk?”

“Do you mean Minsk?”

“No.”

“Okay. Well…that’s…exciting,” she said, and for a moment I almost wondered if she was being sarcastic. Laney does sarcasm so well it’s sometimes difficult to detect. I’m not always so subtle. “I’m just not sure what that does for your fickle bits.”

“My fickle bits are unimportant, Laney. Because I’ve changed. Grown up. I’m classy now.”

“Instead of Irish?”

I ignored her. “I’ve learned to make chicken marsala.”

“Really.”

“I wash my car on a regular basis,” I said, and didn’t bother to add that my less-than-classy automobile sometimes rebelled by popping an orifice open at rather surprising moments…such as when I was driving down the interstate.

“Wow.”

“And I’m reading…” I glanced toward the dog-eared romance novel on my coffee table, then searched for the classic I had begun six months earlier and lost a half an hour after that. “…The Sun Also Rises.”

“Yikes.”

“Because I now realize that cerebral stimulation is so much more important than a couple moments of gasping pleasure.”

“Just a minute,” she said, then spoke to her husband, who was, apparently, in her vicinity. “J.D., honey, send some burly guard to Mac’s house will you? I think there’s someone there impersonating her.”