Alec took pleasure in the sure movement of her fingers up and down his spine

His sides. His hips.

He’d never met a woman so certain of herself and ready to claim what she wanted. When her fingers strayed below his belt line, his satisfaction increased tenfold.

That is, until she reached even lower. And lower.

What the hell?

Thrusting her away, he gripped her shoulders with both hands, his anger back with a vengeance.

“If you’re trying to frisk me now, woman, let me spare you the trouble.” Yanking her wrist forward, he steered her palm to rest on the only weapon he carried.

“Thanks to you, I’m damn well armed.”

Dear Reader,

Brace yourselves! I took a dive into darker terrain for the second book in my WEST SIDE CONFIDENTIAL series, as detective Vanessa Torres (remember her from Silk Confessions, Harlequin Blaze #171?) takes center stage. Who knew the tough-talking detective had so many secrets up her sleeve? I hope you enjoy my most suspenseful—and possibly hottest—Harlequin Blaze release yet. I fell for Alec right along with Vanessa, even though he’s hardly a charmer. What is it about those brooding alpha males that can turn a girl’s head? Even Vanessa had to pay attention…once she brought him down a notch or two!

There’s more to come in WEST SIDE CONFIDENTIAL, which will be an ongoing Harlequin Blaze miniseries. You can look for the next release in the series at eHarlequin.com, or visit me at www.JoanneRock.com to learn more. Until then, please keep an eye out for Love Me Tender, an anthology of Elvis-themed stories with offerings from Stephanie Bond, Jo Leigh and me, coming to Harlequin Signature Select in August 2005.

Happy reading,

Joanne Rock

His Wicked Ways
Joanne Rock

www.millsandboon.co.uk

So many hands touch a writer’s work before it finds its way to a reader. I owe great thanks to the people in my life who bolster me and inspire me to take new creative risks. This book is dedicated to Wanda Ottewell, whose expert advice and encouragement have helped me remain focused and enthused about the creative process over the past four years through sixteen releases for Harlequin Blaze, Harlequin Temptation and special projects. Wanda, thank you so much for all your thoughtful insights and helping me make each story the best it can be!

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

1

VANESSA TORRES didn’t need to click the heels of her ruby slippers together to remember there was no place like home.

Nope, her shoes—size ten black leather Converse sneakers that had seen better days—beat the streets of the South Bronx with the same mixture of wariness and attitude that had carried her through twelve years of public school in New York’s toughest borough. So what if the neighborhood had undergone some revitalization? The sun might be shining on an old men’s chess game in front of a new antique shop on 172nd, and the girls skipping double Dutch looked harmless enough, but Vanessa would lay odds the geezers were packing heat beneath their game board and the preteen jump ropers had probably already been recruited by local gangs who still haunted the playgrounds.

Damn straight there was no place like home when you grew up in the Bronx.

Scavenging what peace of mind she could from the 9 mm tucked in the waistband of her jeans, Vanessa gladly endured the late spring heat through the extra layer of a linen blazer since it covered the NYPD-issued weapon. Five years of training in kendo had given her confidence in her ability to fight hand to hand, but sometimes it took a gun to even up unfair odds—a lesson she’d once learned the hard way on this very same street corner.

Shrugging off old ghosts, she studied the buildings around one of the housing projects and searched for the address an informant had given her. God knows she wouldn’t be walking this block if she weren’t here on business, even if this particular piece of police business was still on the q.t.

“Hey baby, you new in town?” The male shout emanated from a construction-worker type wearing an orange fluorescent vest and a hard hat. The guy lounged on the tailgate of an oversize truck while a fire hydrant leaked copious amounts of water two feet from his toolbox.

Why was it so many men possessed all the right equipment and not a clue how to use it? But then, it had been a long time since she’d had a positive disposition in regard to the male species.

Squinting at the guy’s features, Vanessa placed his face. “Hell no, I’m not new here, Tony. Don’t you have anything better to do than toss out tired old pickup lines?”

She stared pointedly at the leaking fire hydrant.

“Damn, Vanessa. I didn’t recognize you.” Lifting a paper cup from a fast-food joint, he toasted her. “Looking good, girl.”

“You bet your pipe wrench.” Having grown up with the world’s biggest buckteeth and hand-me-down Coke-bottle glasses, she now considered her hard-won good looks as much a part of her personal armor as the Smith & Wesson. Her life now at twenty-seven was a carefully erected facade, a slick exterior to hide an inside long grown cold. “Do you know where there’s a new rec center down here?”

None of the buildings around her looked like what her informant had described and she was getting anxious to get off the streets so she could head home before dark.

“Two blocks up.” Tony pointed a negligent thumb before mopping his forehead with his shirt cuff. “Some city guy with a platinum card thinks he can bring urban renewal to the neighborhood with a few new basketball hoops.”

“Yeah?” Could be her man. “I hope he thought to spring for some extra security.”

The local precinct was taxed enough without having to babysit the new wave of cosmo-sipping bohos who moved into urban hell for the sake of low rents and a short commute. She’d taken the express train out of the Bronx five years ago and hadn’t looked back since.

“You should come around more often, Vanessa,” Tony shouted as she started toward the Old School Recreation Center.

“Maybe I would if the public utilities weren’t so damn pitiful,” she called over her shoulder, careful to protect the cool exterior she’d adopted in her career as a detective. “Didn’t they teach you how to use one of those wrenches?”

Tony surely would have stood around and argued that point with her, but Vanessa wasted no time closing the distance between her and the center.

Alec Messina, her current quarry, maintained organized crime connections that went deeper than the Harlem River and he’d been missing for months. His business associates claimed he’d pilfered money out of a real-estate development project and they’d contacted the NYPD for help locating him, making Messina a wanted man.

Or—considering his background—a dead man.

Vanessa didn’t much care which. She only wanted to close this case so she could haul her butt back to Manhattan and leave the Bronx—along with her old hopes and dreams—firmly in the past.

ALEC MESSINA STARED into his uncle Sergio’s face and knocked the older guy clear into last year with an uppercut.

Okay, so it wasn’t really Uncle Sergio but a heavy bag in the rec center gym. Alec seemed to throw his best punches when he envisioned the family wiseguy’s mug tattooed across the red leather.

Alec’s Thursday afternoon self-defense students seemed appropriately impressed with the swing as they whistled and cheered until some punk in the back gave a loud snort.

“C’mon, Perez.” The local kid shouted to Alec using the assumed name he’d adopted during his weeks at the center. A cynical teen with an attention span almost as short as his fuse, the youth was one of many troublemakers Alec had roped into the class. “What good does it do to throw a punch when every kid on the block is armed? Shit, even my grandma packs heat.”

Alec willed away the memory of Uncle Sergio trying to wheedle kickbacks out of his own flesh and blood and concentrated on the task at hand. Alec might not be fielding the big business deals that gave him an adrenaline high lately since he’d been keeping a low profile, but he could damn well teach a bunch of hard-living kids how to throw a punch. Growing up in Bensonhurst had taught Alec to hold his head high. The faster you looked like a force to be reckoned with, the quicker you earned respect.

And if there was one message universally understood in rough neighborhoods, it was Don’t Mess with Me.

“Yeah? Too bad grandma will never have time to draw her weapon if she’s facing an opponent with quicker reflexes.” Alec was only too happy to mix it up with the punk in the back. If he could win over the biggest cynic in the crowd, he’d have the whole gymnasium eating out of his hand. “How about a volunteer to help me demonstrate?”

Purposely making eye contact with the guy—a short-tempered wing nut whose friends called him Easy— Alec willed the kid to step up to plate. He wasn’t real happy when a throaty feminine voice piped up instead.

“I’m game.”

Knowing there were only five women signed up for a class with nearly twenty guys, Alec couldn’t imagine which one of the females made the offer. The two toughest ladies in the group were rumored to have already been recruited by the neighborhood’s most deadly gang, but neither of them had the same tonal inflection as the soft-spoken voice from the back.

A pathway cleared through his students as they stood aside to give him a clear view of the speaker.

Tall, lean and dressed head to toe in black, the woman was new to the class. New to Alec’s eyes. And holy hell, what a visual treat she made. Long, dark hair twined into a neat braid that trailed over her shoulder in a silky-looking rope. A total lack of makeup gave her an all-business air while emphasizing the smooth perfection of her creamy skin. Utterly straight posture and a kind of catlike grace in her bearing made Alec think some sort of comic-book superheroine had swooped into his rec center to test his skills.

“By all means.” He gestured to the mat alongside him, curious what she could want with his workshop. “Thanks for offering, Ms.—”

“Torres. Vanessa Torres.” She walked toward him with smooth efficiency and none of the rump-shaking strut some women employed to distract men. “My pleasure.”

Something was off. She looked entirely too sure of herself to be enrolled in a self-defense course. Even his advanced students didn’t have this much confidence. Oh, they talked a good game, but there was a difference between women who said they could kick ass and women who could actually follow through. Alec suspected Ms. Torres fell into the latter category.

And although the idea of her as a comic-book superheroine might appeal to latent teenage fantasies, chances were good she wasn’t some Lara Croft knockoff sent here just to make him drool. That made him a hell of a lot more worried about her purpose.

“I’m sure the pleasure is mutual.” He eyed her across the two feet of distance she left between them. Even close up, she looked too damn sure of herself. He tried to catch her scent and failed, which only made him want to get closer. Much closer. “Care to tell me what you’re doing in this class?”

He couldn’t afford to let one of Uncle Sergio’s underlings discover him here in the heart of the Bronx, doling out free lessons in a rec center he’d cobbled together on a shoestring budget. Not only did it serve a purpose in the community, it gave renegade enemies of the mob a great place to hide.

“Just trying to fill some gaps in my knowledge.” She smiled as she rolled up her sleeves. “That okay with you, Mr.—?”

“Perez.” The name barely stuck in his throat after six months of living anonymously. Damn, but he wanted to reclaim his life. He had a thriving real-estate business to oversee. Clients with big projects and deep pockets who would pay well for his brand of expertise. And beyond that, he’d like to spend a little time indulging more personal wants.

A very particular hunger sprang to mind as he stared at Ms. Torres and her cool-as-you-please dark gaze.

A snort of laughter from Easy made Alec realize he’d probably stared too long. Damn it. Time to get back to work and hope this newcomer wasn’t on his uncle’s payroll. He had enough on his plate here without dealing with mob types bent on revenge.

“Why don’t we make like you’re going for your gun to take me out,” he explained, lining himself up with Vanessa. “And we’ll demonstrate how quick reflexes can even the odds.”

Nodding, Vanessa swept her long braid behind her back and reached into her jacket as if pulling a weapon from inside.

Alec gripped the arm in motion, stabilizing the hand an attacker might have used to draw a weapon. Unfortunately, that left her other hand free, which she promptly used to jab him in the gut.

What the hell?

Morphing out of exhibition mode and into street mindset, Alec refused to let this woman—a hard-hitting new breed of Mafia princess?—get the drop on him. Lowering his shoulder, he used sheer brute force to lift her off her feet and plow her to the mat.

His next view of her was looking down at her flat on her back. A damn fine position for her, if he did say so himself.

Too bad he couldn’t enjoy it nearly long enough. Before he could talk through the finer points of his victory to his class, Vanessa kicked his legs out from underneath him, toppling him to the mat.

“Shit.” His curses ran to the far more colorful in his head, but he was pretty sure that was the only one that managed to escape his mouth. If he hadn’t possessed lightning quick reflexes, Ms. Torres probably would have ended up with his shoulder planted painfully between her breasts when he fell.

Lucky for her, he got his hands out just in time to keep him from smashing into her. Bracketing her arms with his palms to the mat, Alec held his weight off her as he stared down into assessing brown eyes.

“Lesson number one, don’t expect your opponent to fight fair.” Vanessa huffed the words into the mixture of panting breaths between them, but Alec had no doubt the whole class heard.

He’d bet his personal jet that the demonstrations had never been this interesting before.

He held himself there, taking in the soft wash of color on Vanessa’s cheeks, the lone strand of displaced dark hair twining over her neck. At last he caught her scent—a classic, simple tea rose completely unsuited for a woman who probably ate purse snatchers for lunch.

Clearing his throat, he lowered his voice. “And lesson number two, self-defense is more fun than it looks.”

The comment hadn’t really been intended for the rest of the class. But somehow, stretched out over top of her, it was easy to forget they had an audience.

“Oh, it’s looking pretty fun,” some wiseass bystander felt compelled to remark.

Low laughter rumbled through the onlookers.

Damn. This butt-kicking phenomenon—Vanessa— didn’t deserve that. She’d neatly beaten his ass, fair and square, so it seemed sort of tacky to undermine the accomplishment with cheap sexual innuendo.

Propelling himself up, he shoved away from her and found his feet. Time to get his class under control and find out exactly what Vanessa Torres wanted here. Outsiders didn’t just stumble on the Old School Rec Center by accident. Since she didn’t need self-defense lessons, chances were good she’d come here looking for him.

That spelled trouble any way he read it.

“I think that’s enough of a demonstration for tonight.” He extended a hand to his visitor but she ignored it, rolling to her side before pushing to her feet. “Class dismissed.”

His students shuffled out with their usual too-cool posturing, but there was a definite energy in the air as they chattered about class and compared stories of street fights they’d seen.

Far too many considering most of them were half his thirty years.

“You’ve got some nice moves, Messina.” The woman’s throaty voice called to mind barroom hookups and all-night sex.

“Yeah?” He allowed his gaze to roam over her thoroughly, taking in every last detail of her skinny black jeans and formfitting T-shirt beneath her jacket, concentrating on the way the stark fabric possessed no embellishment beyond her lean curves. “There’s more where they came from, but I’ll bet you get that all the time.”

She lifted one arched eyebrow, her expression betraying nothing about who she was or what she wanted from him. He wasn’t worried about her, per se, but he knew better than to underestimate her twice in one afternoon. Especially since he’d discovered an interesting little secret about her when they’d been romping around the mat.

“Let me rephrase that. Your moves are pretty good for a Manhattanite.” She picked up a fallen leaflet about his class that one of his students must have left behind.

“Are you trying to call me uptown?” Damned if he knew why that offended him so much. Truth be told, he’d spent most of his adult life in midtown ever since he’d made his first million. “I grew up in Bensonhurst.”

A fact that she would know if she were some up-and-coming Mafia chick sent by Sergio. But wasn’t the mob too chauvinist to send a woman to do their dirty work? Alec didn’t have a clue anymore.

“You may have been born there, but you don’t fight like Brooklyn.”

“And you’re such an expert on hand-to-hand combat?” He’d always prided himself on shunning the chauvinistic leanings of his family, but he had to admit the only thing that soothed his frustrations right now was to picture Ms. Torres beneath him again.

Only this time, she was naked.

“I’m hardly an authority, but it doesn’t take much imagination to see that you’ve been away from street fighting for a long time. Your technique is more textbook than passion.”

Had he thought she’d annoyed him before? Apparently her capacity to piss him off had been just warming up.

“Any street fighter worthy of his brass knuckles would take the lack of passion remark as a challenge.” He stepped closer, prepared to intimidate. He’d be too glad to show this woman some serious heat.

“Take it for what it’s worth.” Shrugging, she didn’t exactly look intimidated. She had world-weariness down to an art form. “All I’m saying is that no street scrapper would have let me get in those kind of sucker-punch moves. Those types expect the dirty moves before wasting energy on the best technical defense.”

“Let’s not forget who came out of our little wrestling match on top.” Aggravated with all the verbal dancing around, he decided to get to the heart of the matter. And this time, he’d use some passion, damn it. Snaking a hand around her wrist, he held tight. “Care to tell me why you’re here and why you came to my class toting a piece?”

Stiffening in his grasp, she couldn’t mask the rapid heartbeat pulsing through her veins just beneath his thumb. Her soft skin and slender arm were more delicate than he’d expected.

“Care to keep your hands to yourself?” Her voice was steady and even, so cool and controlled he would never have guessed what turmoil lurked beneath the surface if not for the proof of that fiery throbbing against his skin.

Slowly, he released her, alert to her every move. Did her pulse race because she was nervous and had something to hide? What if she’d come here to conduct a hit—a trained assassin with great tits and a heart that fired as fast as her trigger finger? He tensed, waiting.

“As long as you keep your hands where I can see them, Ms. Torres, I’m happy to keep mine to myself.” Forcing his arms to relax at his side, he calculated the distance to his own gun tucked in a desk drawer inside his office a few feet away. He could take her easily without the help of his weapon, but it didn’t hurt to have a backup plan. Especially since she might have her own backup nearby, ready to take him out if she failed.

“Oh, but I think I have something else you’re going to want to see.” Her grin showed off straight white teeth, and he couldn’t remember ever thinking a woman’s incisors were sexy.

And how screwed up did it make him to drool over a probable hit woman? He wondered how many other saps were getting a hard-on for this chick even in the last moments before she popped them.

“I’m sure there are a lot of guys who would love nothing better than to sign on for whatever you care to show off, lady, but I’d rather keep my head on my shoulders a few more days.” His gaze dropped to her lean curves showcased in hip-hugging jeans. The jacket she wore parted like the damn Red Sea around a spectacular rack. “Why don’t you just tell me what you want to show me?”

Her fingers flexed at her side. Clearly, she wasn’t accustomed to sitting still.

“Believe me, it makes more of an impression as a visual.” She paused, perhaps waiting for him to give her the green light to make a move.

She might as well be waiting for all the lights to turn green down Lexington Avenue. He had no intention of staring her down over the barrel of her gun.

Finally, she sighed. “It’s in my pocket.”

Smart woman. He stepped closer, fully prepared to pat down every inch of anyone who set foot in his center with a concealed weapon. The fact that the patting would be a pleasure in this case made no difference.

“Right or left?” He hovered a few inches away from her, catching occasional whiffs of her rose scent.

Her pupils dilated, darkening her brown eyes to near black. The heat between them ratcheted up a few degrees and Alec would be lying to himself to say it was just nerves.

“Right.” Her throaty voice scratched into an even lower register, the word pummeling his sense of caution into stark need. Desire.

He reached into the pocket, his fingers grazing her jeans through the thin fabric of her jacket. If she hadn’t been wearing clothes, the incidental touch would have landed a few delicious inches from the juncture of her thighs.

Sweat trickled down his back.

Fingers closing around a leather case, he retrieved what felt like a wallet. Counting himself fortunate to have survived the close encounter without her pulling a gun or him falling under her sensual spell, Alec stepped back and flipped open the leather billfold.

Revealing an NYPD badge.

“Shit.” The realization thundered through his brain with all the subtlety of a summer riot.

“You’re now a wanted man, Alec Messina.” Her words showered over him with stinging clarity. “I think you’d better come with me.”

2

VANESSA COULDN’T DECIDE what freaked her out more—the fear of Alec Messina pinning her the moment she reached for her weapon, or the definite twinge of magnetism that flared whenever he ventured into her personal space. As a loner cop with plenty of training on the job, Vanessa didn’t have much experience with either emotion—the fear or the attraction. She’d been functioning on clear, cold logic for so long now, she didn’t know how to deal with the sudden influx of heated feelings. Fear, passion, anger—they were always other people’s problems.

“You’re NYPD?” Alec didn’t study the badge, saving his scrutinizing for a slow appraisal of her person.

She stared right back, knowing instinctively she needed to give as good as she got with this man or he’d try to roll right over her. What she saw didn’t compute to a handsome man. His features were too strong and prominent, his nose too large and his eyebrows too thick. Yet somehow on him, with his oversize height and chiseled muscles, it all worked. Well.

“A detective, actually. And one of New York’s finest, at that.” Vanessa tipped an imaginary cap in his direction, hoping to diffuse the tension. “You’re wanted for questioning in extortion charges filed by your business partners in McPherson Real Estate Development. If you’ll just come with me—”

“A city cop. Un-freaking-believable.” He tossed her badge back with an easy flip of the wrist. “Are you on my uncle’s payroll?”

“Not unless you’re the mayor’s nephew.” She tucked her badge back into her pocket, struggling to follow his mercurial mood. He seemed more distant now, but she supposed that made sense given his family’s long-standing animosity for law enforcement. “But we can chat more about it on the way to my precinct.”

She jerked a thumb toward the door, more than ready to leave 172nd Street behind. If only she could get Alec into a squad car and down to the station, she could scratch this case off her docket and consider an old debt to Lieutenant Durant paid.

The pending extortion charges against Messina were more an FBI matter, but nothing formal had been filed yet. Alec’s business partners had just wanted the police to find him. Bring him home. She had no idea if their method of dealing with uncooperative associates resembled mob justice, but Vanessa knew she wouldn’t want to be in Alec’s shoes when he returned to Manhattan.

Then again, maybe he thought he’d just silence her now rather than risk being found by his family.

Not that he stood a chance.

“I’m wanted for police questioning.” He reached for a basketball in a wire bin full of sports equipment on the perimeter of the gym. “In other words, you don’t have jack to pin on me, but you think if I come down to the station for an hour you’ll be able to maneuver me into a confession with some good-cop/bad-cop antics, right?” He spun the basketball on his fingertip, steadying his elbow beneath the moving weight. “Thanks, but I’ll pass.”

Mesmerized by the old playground trick, Vanessa figured as long as his hands were busy with the ball, he couldn’t very well pull any surprise attacks. Unfortunately, the play of his deft, strong fingers didn’t do anything to stifle the unfamiliar tension still coiling through her.

“Don’t you want to clear your name? Let your business partners know where you’ve been?”

“If I wanted them to find me, I would have told them before now.” His free hand whipped the ball faster and faster until it became a blur of orange. “But thanks for letting me know about the trouble over there. I’ll get in touch with them soon and figure out something.”

“They’re pointing fingers at you.” She peered around the gym to make sure they were still alone. Keeping her wits about her around this man took enough of her attention without adding any hidden lurkers to the mix. His students had all filed out onto the street earlier, but she knew there were other entrances to the building. Had in fact scoped them out before she’d insinuated herself in the self-defense class.

“I’m cheating my own company out of money?” He stopped the ball in midspin and tucked it under his arm. “Makes me wonder why I’ve been busting my ass for nine years to build a good business.”

“Maybe it’s all just a misunderstanding.” She didn’t care how things settled out, she just wanted to do her part and get it over with. “If you could come down to the police station—”

“No.” He invaded her space, leaning close to get the message across. “Not gonna happen. You’ve got a pretty badge there, lady, but for all I know you’re as crooked as small-town politics.”

“You’re related to one of the biggest mobsters on the eastern seaboard and you’re afraid I’m crooked?” Didn’t that beat all? “If you’re so concerned, why not just call the police station and have them send a car for you? We can have someone here in ten minutes at the most.”

A perfectly logical plan to circumvent his concerns. Unfortunately, he didn’t seem convinced.

“Look, I’m not going to the police station on principle, even if I thought you were for real and you threw in a full body massage on the ride over.”

“Not in this lifetime, Al.” She lingered over the shortened version of his name he’d been using to hide out in plain sight for months. “And be careful you don’t verbally harass me, bud, or I’ll be hauling your butt back to Manhattan whether I have your consent or not.” Where did he get off distracting her with visions of full body massages?

Even more irritating—where did she get off actually envisioning her hands anywhere on this man’s body? Something was massively wrong with her today. She knew it had been a bad idea to venture into her home terrain, considering all the wrong turns her life had taken here.

“The lady doesn’t mind trading punches, but toss a little innuendo her way and she gets out of sorts.” He raised an eyebrow as he lined up a three-point shot from the side of the court. “You’re not the run-of-the-mill detective, Vanessa Torres.”

Don’t get personal.

Vanessa knew the drill, having long ago figured out how to keep the bad guys at arm’s length along with fellow cops. But Alec Messina wasn’t necessarily either. He had a reputation as a shrewd businessman with ties to organized crime even though he’d never been convicted of anything. Did that make him a good guy? Or merely one who was very skilled at getting away with misdeeds?

“You’re not a run-of-the-mill real-estate developer, either.” She watched him make his shot and then found herself moving toward the ball. Not that she was here to play. Far from it. She just found it impossible to walk away from a potential competition. “But that still doesn’t explain why you’re hiding out in the Bronx using a different name.”

She dribbled super casually, telling herself maybe she wouldn’t need to shoot if she could keep her hands busy.

“Can’t bear to talk about yourself, can you?” Alec stripped the ball away and jogged to the rim for a layup. “I have to say I’m intrigued why the department sent you out here to bring me in alone. Don’t you people work in pairs?”

“I’ve seen your moves, Messina. I think I can handle it.” She kept her eye on the ball while Alec rebounded and dribbled.

Vanessa had a partner. A great partner who would be there for her in a heartbeat if she needed him. But Wesley Shaw enjoyed working alone just as much as she did. No way would she run to him just because Alec knew how to get under her skin.

“You haven’t seen anything.” He bounced the ball from hand to hand, the thunking cadence reverberating in her ears as he seemed to size her up. “I had to take it easy on you since I thought you were a local with no experience.”

That stung for reasons he couldn’t possibly comprehend since she’d been a local with no experience once. And that lack of preparation—the complete absence of basic self-awareness—had nearly cost her sister her life.

“I’m definitely experienced.” She tugged her thoughts from the quicksand of her past, refusing to get sucked into the same self-recriminations she’d been wading through for years. “And I’ve been around long enough to know I’m making no inroads with you unless I get a warrant, right? I’ll just let myself out.”

Turning on her heel, she headed for the door. No sense wasting time here with a man who just wanted to yank her chain. Six other cases waited on her desk, all of which would keep her comfortably in her Manhattan jurisdiction. She’d only hunted down Messina since her superior had investments with McPherson Real Estate and didn’t want to see the whole company go belly-up. Vanessa had a knack for old-fashioned sleuthing, the kind of tedious paper trail following most detectives hated. She’d done her part by finding Alec in the first place, hadn’t she?

Not.

It definitely would suck to admit defeat, especially to the man who saved her bacon by reassigning her when her first partner on the force had gotten too friendly.

Reaching for the double doors that emptied onto the street, Vanessa paused when Alec shouted to her.

“How’d you find me?” His words echoed slightly against the high ceiling.

Should she stay and hope that she could wrest answers from him without dragging him back to the precinct? To question him here posed more of a risk and kept her tied to the old neighborhood that much longer.

Then again, if she left, she’d have to tell Lieutenant Durant she’d failed. An alternative that held little appeal for a woman who prided herself on success.

“Tell you what, Al.” Pivoting silently on the heel of her sneaker, she faced him across the polished wooden floor. “I’ll answer one of your questions if you answer one of mine.”

IN BLATANT DEFIANCE of the heat surging through him at just the sight of Vanessa Torres silhouetted in the light from the high windows, Alec assured himself he could never be interested in a cop.

His complicated friendship with his uncle’s mistress had reminded him of all the reasons sex needed to stay far, far away from all relationships outside of a committed one. Something Alec couldn’t afford with his personal life consigned to a low level of Dante’s Purgatory. The added knowledge that Vanessa possessed the power to haul him off to jail made his sex thoughts about her all the more unwelcome.

And blasted uncomfortable.

“You’re not cutting me any slack here, are you?” He didn’t want to answer her questions, but he really needed to know how she’d tracked him down. If she could do it, maybe his uncle had already found him, too.

The thought had urged him to call her back just now, when she’d been ready to walk away. If she was legit— an honest city detective trying to do her job—then he couldn’t just let her venture back onto the street unaware of the danger of having identified him. She could have been followed here. Even worse, she could be dispatched now that she’d served her purpose. A chance he wouldn’t take.

“You forget, I’m not here to pay you a social call.” Her perfect posture looked so rigidly ladylike. He wouldn’t have believed she could dribble a basketball with as much finesse as a WNBA star unless he’d seen it with his own eyes. “If you want answers, you’ll have to give up a few of your own.”

“Fair enough.” He’d gladly dance his way around her questions in order to extract whatever information he could. Besides, Vanessa counted as the most intriguing company he’d entertained in a long time. Even if she hid a connection to his uncle bent on revenge, at least Alec would enjoy the view until she made her move against him. “I’ll answer a question if you tell me how you found me.”

Venturing closer, she walked back into the gym with that silent, subtle way she had of moving. He realized she wasn’t quite as tall as he’d originally thought. Her monochromatic clothing and uncommonly straight shoulders gave the illusion of height, but she didn’t top five foot six. Smooth skin and unlined features probably put her in her mid to late twenties.

“I figured your work in real estate gave you plenty of places to hide, so I obtained a list of properties with your name attached.”

“That amounts to hundreds of holdings.” No way could she have tracked him here on that kind of information.

“I paid special attention to land with active building permits under the assumption you’d need to keep busy, or at least keep an income flowing.” She lowered herself to the front tier of pull-out bleachers on one side of the gym. “And it helped that I have contacts in this neighborhood who checked out the property next door to a deserted sports complex.”

“Damn.” Alec had been discreet in his efforts to renovate the building owned by one of his dead grandfather’s cronies, slowly incorporating another decaying edifice into a revamped community center. But still, Vanessa had traced him here even though he’d been using cash to live on for months. “You’ve got friends in the South Bronx?”

“Contacts,” she corrected, smoothing her palms over the knees of her dark jeans. “And it’s my turn to ask a question now.”

“By all means.” He dropped down to the bench a few feet away from her, settling the basketball between them for good measure. He didn’t have any intention of following a dangerous attraction without knowing more about the woman, even if his eyes were glued to her hand resting on the denim-encased thigh. “Fire away.”

“Why do you think your partners have pointed the finger at you now that there is money missing from the company you own together?”

Maybe Uncle Sergio put them up to it. He hadn’t seriously considered that angle until Vanessa showed up— possibly leading anyone looking for him right to his door.

“I guess because I disappeared around the same time.” He twirled the ball on the metal bench, hoping to keep her involvement more marginal. “And I happen to have a blood relationship with a gangster.”

“But you’ve always been related. Why would your partners suddenly decide now that it makes you a bad guy?”

“It’s complicated.” Major understatement.

Vanessa messed up a perfectly good spin by palming the ball. “Hey, I explained my answer. If you’re going to half-ass your end of the deal—”

“I’m not.” He studied her hand on the ball beside his. No fingernail polish. No rings. Just a surprising amount of strength. She was nothing like Donata Casale, who’d been sheltered and pampered her whole life. “It’s tough to explain my relationship with my partners. All along, they’ve provided most of the money while I’ve provided the vision and actual labor required to move the company ahead.”

“From all accounts, you’ve been incredibly successful.” She didn’t say where she came by her information, but Alec knew his company’s projects were in business trade publications more often than not, although he made it a point to keep himself out of the spotlight. A low business profile suited him just fine and his partners were content to be the face of McPherson Real Estate.

Her hands retreated from the ball as she straightened.

“It’s been a good gig.” Until he’d found out half the reason his partners had joined forces with him was to leverage a criminal connection. “We were all getting along just fine until I had a recent falling out with a family member who’s got some powerful friends.”

Uncle Sergio hadn’t taken kindly to his girlfriend’s claim that she’d slept with his nephew. Thanks, Donata. She’d chosen a hell of a way to pay him back for offering to help her escape his uncle’s control.

“They’re upset you fought with your family?” Brow furrowed, Vanessa tucked her hands into her pockets.

“None of their business, right? I didn’t realize until then how much they liked the tie to my well-connected clan.” And damn, but that had turned his whole life inside out. All those years he’d thought he’d been putting distance between himself and the family, his partners had been discreetly using his uncle’s name as a way to cinch business deals. They were all in a shitload of trouble now, and Alec didn’t have a clue how to dig them out of the mess. Yet.

“So you went into hiding to regroup and—” raising an eyebrow, she glanced around the recently refurbished gym “—create an inner-city haven for delinquents to hone their fighting skills?”

That pissed him off. As a cop, she ought to know better. “Just because they live in the middle of a war zone doesn’t make them responsible for the violence.”

For a moment, he thought he saw a hint of regret in her dark eyes. But then the impression was gone, her gaze as remote and unyielding as when she’d swept his legs out from under him and planted him flat on his ass.

“So why did you come here?” Her tone implied only a moron would spend time teaching self-defense to kids who could easily be the street thugs of tomorrow.

Maybe some of them would use the knowledge unfairly. But if his fighting techniques saved a life…it would go a long way toward making up for a lot of mistakes he’d made.

“It’s my turn to ask a question, remember?” He didn’t have any intention of telling her more than necessary. And he found himself a little too eager to learn more about this woman who fought like she meant it and didn’t waste words. Both rare qualities in women, in his experience.

“I’m ready when you are.” She flipped her long, dark braid over one shoulder and crossed her legs.

Alec told himself he wasn’t following the line of her calf with his eyes. He was just thinking she looked very…fit. Yeah. That’s it.

“Fair enough. How about telling me where you learned those moves you used to fight me off earlier? Those aren’t exactly standard issue for NYPD cops.”

“I’ve been trained in kendo. It’s an older fighting style I don’t see offered much in New York.”

“Yet you managed to hunt down your own archaic fighting master from the comfort of downtown Manhattan.” Something about her didn’t add up. The unusual martial art style. The fact that she’d found him in the first place. She seemed too well trained for a city detective. Too elite to sit around with a bunch of cynical cops all day debating how to set up drug dealers.

Which brought him back to his first inclination that she seemed more like a top-of-the-line hit woman. Probably a paranoid thought fostered by his situation, but he still had to consider it. Vanessa could be either a skilled cop who’d led his revenge-happy uncle right to him, or she could be the means to Sergio’s ends.

“Let’s just say I was well motivated to seek out the toughest training I could find.” She waggled her fingers toward the ball, indicating he hand it over. “Now— completely off the topic—you need to tell me why you don’t want to go to the police station with me.”

“Don’t you think that question is a hell of a lot more personal than me asking you about a few kung fu chops?”

“Depends why you were asking.” She scooped up the ball and balanced it on her forearm, rolling it to her elbow and back to her hand in an easy rhythm. “I can’t help it if you don’t use your questions wisely.”

“For a woman who doesn’t like to talk about herself, you sure don’t mind showing off.” He plucked the ball off her arm and put an end to her trick. “And I already told you why I don’t want to be grilled by a bunch of junior interrogators who think I’m going to be their ticket to a big bust.”

“I recall that’s what you told me, but this time, I’d like to know the truth.” She watched him with those remote eyes of hers and Alec wondered if anything ruffled this woman. Did she ever scream during sex, or did that detached chill remain even then?

“You want to know the truth?” He couldn’t tell her the whole story. Hell, he’d be here for days. And although he hadn’t appreciated many of his uncle’s teachings, Alec still practiced one of Sergio’s most repeated doctrines—never talk about family business outside the family.

“I find it hard to believe you’re afraid to speak to interrogators since you’ve been in a prominent position at a major corporation for years. Anyone who heads up the kind of controversial building projects you do has surely crossed swords with business reporters, or at least a few in-house detractors, before. So any suggestion of you being intimidated by a few cops asking questions rings pretty false to me.”

He wondered idly why a city detective spent her free time watching business reports, but barely had time to guess at the answer when she barreled ahead, her low words spoken with quiet authority.

“Besides, I studied your financial records. I know you’re making money hand over fist with your company and you have been for a long time.” Something flickered in her gaze. Some warm ember of feeling that made him think she wasn’t completely aloof. “So there’s no logical reason for you to take money out of company escrow. I’m curious to know why you won’t just go in to clear your name if you’re innocent.”

“I swear to you, I’m going to answer that, but could we break up the order of this questioning for just a minute and let me ask two of my feeble queries in a row?” A plan was beginning to form in his mind, a possible way to ensure her safety and get them both out of this mess. He just hoped his instincts about Vanessa proved on target. “You said it yourself, my questions suck anyway.”

She was shaking her head no before he even got the words out of his mouth.

“Just hear me out first, and then you can decide.”

“Fine.” She stared out over the gym, not even bothering to make eye contact with him. “But I can’t promise I’ll answer.”

“Do you know a lot about business? Finance?”

That caught her attention more thoroughly than anything he’d said so far. In fact, from the rapid way she whipped her head around to look at him, he’d bet she was ten times more interested in finance and business than his shady relationship with the law.

Bingo.

“I have an MBA.” Shrugging as if it were of no import, she shoved her hand in her jacket pocket. The pocket with her badge, he remembered. “And a small personal interest in finance. Why?”

He recalled the sensation of reaching into her blazer himself, of brushing her thigh through the light fabric. That brief touch had been almost as enticing as when he’d been stretched out over her on the mat earlier. Perhaps because that second time she hadn’t been fighting him off.

Willing away a surge of heat, he steered his thoughts back to his plan to get her out of here and keep an eye on her until he figured out where she fit into his uncle’s revenge plot. She might not even buy it, but maybe if he could keep her distracted…

“I could use some help interpreting company records for McPherson.” He dangled out the best carrot he could think of to keep her with him. And it wasn’t a total lie. He had an excellent knack for making money, less of a knack for organizing it into the neat columns number crunchers seemed to prefer. “And to answer your other question, I won’t go to the police station because surfacing now could put my partners in danger. Or me.”

Or her.

Welcome to Paranoia 101. A pain in the ass to always look over your shoulder maybe, but that same tendency had kept him alive despite his notorious family for too long to set it aside now.

Already, her brow furrowed, his answers not agreeing with her. But he’d had enough personal revelation for one day and their time here was running out.

“I’m sure that doesn’t add up for you, but it’s the truth.” Mostly. He didn’t know how much that pledge would mean to her, but he’d already shared far more than he had planned. “I won’t make any public appearances or go on record, but if you’d lend me a little of that financial expertise for a few hours, I’ll answer as many of your questions as I can.”

“Here?” She glanced around the echoing space, confusion and suspicion in her eyes.

“No.” Speaking of which, they’d better get the hell out of there. Standing, he pitched the basketball back into the bin. “It won’t be safe here for much longer. We could find somewhere else that would be neutral terrain.”

She shook her head, her dark braid swinging behind her. “You’ve been implicated in a crime. Soon you’ll be brought up on extortion charges. And you expect me to just take off with you to act as your financial adviser? You know damn well you need a lawyer, not a cop.”

Shifting to her feet, Vanessa backed up a step.

No doubt about it, she thought he was a lunatic. Frankly, Alec didn’t blame her. But she’d put them both in a precarious situation by finding him. He had to keep her close to protect her from his enemies or, at the very least, prevent her from turning him in and effectively signing his death warrant.

And he was prepared to use any means necessary— including the persistent chemistry that kept him distracted at every turn.

“I don’t need financial help.”

“Then what do you need?” Impatience strained her throaty voice.

Time to offer up the last trick in his bag of unholy bargaining tools.

“I need someone to take a look at the company accounting to help prove my innocence.”

3

“THAT MAKES NO SENSE at all.” Vanessa cocked her head to one side to see if studying Alec from another angle would help. Nope. He might be a total stud on the outside, but inside, he’d lost his marbles. “You’re asking a city cop to look over your books when you’re two steps away from being charged with stealing money from the company? Do you have a special affinity for being clapped in irons, Alec, or are you simply out of your mind?”

“Maybe I’m not guilty.” He ducked into a small office off to one side of the gym and she saw the track pants he’d been wearing go flying across his desk to land in an empty chair. “Ever thought of that?”

What the hell was he doing? Changing his clothes two feet away on the other side of Sheetrock? He returned a minute later, wearing a pair of jeans. He carried a clean T-shirt in one hand and a leather satchel in the other.

“Actually, no.” She eyed him warily as he dropped the bag to the ground and then reached for the hem of the shirt he had on.

Oh.

In theory, she knew she ought to look away for her own good. In practice, however, her eyes remained glued to the scene as Alec pulled his shirt over his head. Leaving him bare chested and…wow.

“Well, I never touched a nickel that wasn’t mine.” Tossing the old shirt aside, he tugged the clean one on. “And I intend to prove it just as soon as I can compare my personal accounting records to whatever doctored BS files someone is using to incriminate me.”

Tearing her eyes away from the naked torso now imprinted on her memory, Vanessa searched for hidden agendas in his request.

“But I could use that information to build a case against you.”

“Too bad you’re not going to find anything incriminating in there about me because I’m innocent.”

His raised voice called her to look back to his square shoulders and hard pecs. She hadn’t experienced thoughts like this about a man in…well, almost never. She’d never been one of those types to get all sex crazed and foaming at the mouth over a guy, yet here she stood, remembering every inch of Alec Messina’s chest, despite the fact that he might be spending ten to fifteen years behind bars.

“You don’t look all that innocent from where I’m standing.” As soon as she made the remark, she realized she was commenting more on his rock-hard body and powerful arms than his degree of criminal aptitude.

Thankfully, Alec didn’t seem to notice, taking her words at face value.

“There’s a lot you don’t know about me.” He ducked back inside his office, continuing to shout to her through the open door as he shuffled through papers and drawers. “But I guarantee if you find something in those files that suggests I’ve stolen money, I’ll offer up both wrists for some of your cop bracelets. Deal?”

He reappeared in the gym with a ring of keys in hand.

“I’d have to be even more crazy than you to go off to some undisclosed location to read your books.” What if he was guilty as hell and desperate to escape a possible prison sentence?

No. She’d been ready to walk away from him earlier, but he’d called her back. A desperate man would have gladly allowed a detective to leave.

“You think it’s crazy to crack a big case? Snag a little interdepartmental spotlight for yourself?” Pocketing the keys, he stalked closer.

Of all the buttons he could have pressed, how did he know to lay on her need to succeed? That competitive streak had been her downfall more than once in her life.

But she was stronger than that now. She just had to remind herself she hadn’t gone into police work for the glory. Hell no. She was here to save people like the sister she’d failed.

The reminder put a lid on her strange attraction to Alec in a hurry.

“I can’t. This is more an FBI matter, anyhow.” Although, the promise of access to McPherson’s accounting files swayed her a bit. Not only did she fight off the need to solve a case, she also battled the hunger to bury herself in the comfort of numbers and financial data, two well-loved commodities she rarely indulged in her mission to make New York a safer place.

“Are you sure, Vanessa?” He took a step closer, his cross-trainers squeaking on the floor. “Because I can promise there will be arrests to be made by the time you figure out what’s going on. And I’m taking off now, whether you come with me or not. So if you want to keep an eye on me…”

Shrugging, he didn’t bother to spell it out. She knew he’d disappear into thin air again if she didn’t stick with him. And what were the chances she’d find him a second time after a stroke of good luck had helped her track him down the first?

Not to mention, she’d have to tell her lieutenant she’d found Alec Messina but had only succeeded in tipping him off…

Screw it. She didn’t have a real choice here anyhow. Her sister always called her the family pit bull because Vanessa couldn’t let something go once she’d had a taste of trouble. Letting Alec walk away now wasn’t even an option.

“Okay, Messina. You want me to take a look at your books? Fine.” Truth be told, she couldn’t wait. “But I can promise you, I’m not going to be sucked in by a bunch of bogus entries if you’ve tried to revise the data. The police department can obtain company records from your partners for comparison.”

“Fair enough.” Retrieving his bag, he looked her in the eye. “I’ve got outside documentation to support most of my transactions anyhow. I’m not asking for special treatment.”

“Except for your own personal detective to solve your criminal problems.” She didn’t intend to cut him any slack just because she’d agreed to look at the accounts. And she sure as hell wouldn’t just wander off with a potentially dangerous man without some consideration to her own safety. Gena’s battle for her life had taught her better. “But before we go anywhere, I think a few basic precautions are in order.”

Like no more simmering looks. And definitely no more touching. She didn’t like the idea of him knowing how much he fired her up.

But she didn’t plan on sharing those particular safety measures with him.

“You want to take separate cars and meet up somewhere?” His agreeable tone suggested he’d already thought of this.

And while Vanessa appreciated his idea of caution, that’s not what she had in mind. For that matter, maybe she’d be better off not letting Alec Messina out of her sight. A man this eager to stay hidden wouldn’t resurface again for a long time.

“Actually, I was thinking more along the lines of making sure you didn’t stash any weapons on your person when you disappeared into your office.” She hadn’t been able to keep her eye on him the whole time, and that worried her.

He stared at her for a long moment before the barest trace of a smile kicked up one side of his mouth. A full, sensual mouth with as much character as every other inch of his face.

Had she really thought she could keep a lock on the simmering looks they exchanged? A little more proof she was clueless when it came to men. And sex.

“Are you saying you’d like to frisk me?” His low words carried a hint of suggestiveness, as if he were proposing a romp in the sheets instead of a preventive measure.

“Don’t get too excited. I’m a professional at this.” At least she always had been in the past. The thought of frisking Alec and that way-too-masculine body of his suddenly made her hands itchy for a thorough feel. Not exactly the thoughts of a detached expert.

Amazing, considering she hadn’t itched to touch a man for four long years.

“I’m sure you have a very skilled touch.” He bent to set his bag on the ground at his feet, oblique muscles tensing against the fabric of his T-shirt as he moved. “By all means, Vanessa. Feel away.”

His open invitation caught her off guard, rattling her when it should have relieved her. But the procedure that had seemed so clinical a few moments ago now took on whole new shades of meaning.

Clearing her throat, she sought for some of the distance that had come so naturally to her for the past five years.

“I prefer to think of it as a search rather than a feel.” Her words sounded just a little bit breathless to her own ears, a stranger’s voice in her head.

His dark eyes, an even deeper brown than her own, fixed on her with searing intensity. “Call it whatever you like, but we need to get it over with before anyone else gets wind of me being here.”

The step he took toward her touched a match to the last shreds of her cool reserve. Heat swamped her, confused her, blurred her pit-bull instincts. She didn’t stand a chance in hell of touching him with dispassionate hands, but how could she back down now after proposing the idea herself?

To do so would show him a weakness she could barely admit to herself, let alone a stranger. And damn it, she wouldn’t bury her head in the sand and pretend that just because she felt some sort of bizarre attraction to Alec didn’t mean that he wouldn’t hurt her. She was a good cop because she knew better.

Swallowing the lump of uncertainty in her throat, she snapped at him. “Well turn around, for crying out loud.” She made a spinning gesture with her finger. “I can’t very well frisk you when you’re glaring at me like that.”

Sighing, he pivoted on the heel of his shoe, facing away from her. “Happy now?”

TENSING, ALEC JUST HOPED she didn’t find out exactly how happy he was feeling at the prospect of her hands all over him. Bad enough he had to entrust some small part of his problems to a cop who could easily betray him the moment she clocked into her next shift. Now he had to sport a major hard-on for her, too?

Add it to the list of frustrations of the day, beginning with her getting the drop on him in front of his whole self-defense class.

He was still fuming—both with anger and with raw sex drive—when he remembered she stood behind him fully armed.

“Wait.” Whirling on her, he half expected to see her standing there with her gun cocked at brain level, ready to dish out his uncle’s retribution.

Instead, he caught her completely by surprise. A scant arm’s length away, she had moved closer, her unarmed hands frozen in midair as she reached for him. A whoosh of relief nearly knocked him off his feet, and even as he thanked God for not taking advantage of his momentary mental lapse, he suddenly comprehended the expression on Vanessa’s face.

Blatant sexual awareness. And even more startling— vulnerability.

“What?” Recovering herself, she fisted her fingers at her side. “You move on me that fast again, Messina, and you’ll be staring down the wrong end of a barrel.”

He could hardly get his brain around the fact that Vanessa had been unsure of herself for even a moment. Is that why she’d hesitated when it came time to frisk him? The heat between them?

“Actually, that’s what precipitated the hasty move. When you didn’t touch me right away, I wondered if you were going for a weapon.”

She let out a pent-up breath, the minty exhalation reminding him how close they were standing. “You’ve been hanging around the wrong people for too long if you think I’d pull a gun on a man who’d willingly put his back to me.”

Indignation laced her words. But she didn’t step away.

“I still wondered if you might be working for my uncle.” He knew she couldn’t be. Not now. Not after that moment of naked emotion he’d seen scrawled across her face. “He’s got plenty of cops on the take.”

Their panting breaths mingled, the mixture of suspicions and fears they’d been dancing around all evening coming to a head.

“Not this one.” She met his gaze with boldness, the truth of her words—even her own pride in them—perfectly evident.

“I was going to ask you to put the gun aside while you frisked me.” He nudged his way deeper into her personal space, closing the distance between them to just a few inches.

“Still don’t trust me?” Her throaty purr wrapped around him like sex in stereo, an auditory act of foreplay.

“Actually, I do. But now that I’m toying with the idea of touching you, I think maybe you’d feel more at ease if I didn’t have access to your firearm, either.” When he put his hands on her again, he didn’t want her to worry he was making a play for the piece. And how warped was that for a concern of intimacy? What happened to the old days when a first kiss meant you might knock braces? Now you needed to be sure all parties put their ammo aside.

“That’s okay.” Nose to nose, she gave him a smile of mocking indulgence. “We already know I can kick your ass if I need to, sport. With or without the gun.”

That took the damn cake.

He reached a hand up to her neck and curled his fingers under the collar of her jacket. “If you think you can wound my ego while you’re breathing so heavy I can hear it, you’re sadly mistaken.”

“And if you think you can wound any other part of me by getting into my pants, you’re going to walk away very disappointed.” She parted her lips just enough to flash him a hint of bared teeth. “I’m unbreakable as far as you’re concerned.”

He wondered if she’d ever lost control in bed and sank those perfect white teeth of hers into some unsuspecting man’s shoulder.

“I’ll consider myself warned.” Not that it would stop him from touching her more. Not now. “For the record, I don’t give a damn if you’re unbreakable. I just want to see you unravel.”

Her skin burned against his palm, her lips glistening with damp heat. He would get her out of here, away from his compromised hideout, just as soon as he claimed one small taste of her.

Diving down those last few inches, he sealed his mouth to hers. Locked her torso against his with both arms until the scent of soft roses and sexy-as-hell woman drifted up from her skin. The mint flavor of her lips did little to cool the simmering of blood through his veins.

A sudden need to feel every inch of her pressed close consumed him, sending his hands on a roving quest up and down her body to draw her nearer. He nudged her shoulder blade with his palm and felt her breasts flatten against his ribs. He dipped down into the notch of her waist and found her abs tightening along his groin. Her body responded easily, her limbs toned and taut beneath the linen jacket he flicked off her shoulders.

Her muffled cry echoed through the rafters and reverberated in his ears. She arched fully against him, extending up on her toes to align their bodies more evenly. Skimming herself up his rigid erection with mouthwatering effect.

He moved his hands lower, savoring the feel of her, but she dodged his touch before he could reach her lower spine. He’d ask her about that in a minute—knew damn well she was hiding something. Right now he settled for cupping her sweetly rounded ass with both hands, drawing her up even higher as he plunged his tongue deeper in her mouth. Taking more than just a taste, he plundered all he could, just like the thief she thought him. In this much, at least, she could be right. He’d steal every sighing breath, every moaning cry and every shiver of excitement she couldn’t hide from him now that he had her wrapped in his arms.

Tilting her head to one side, she gave him deeper access, more room to savor the slick wintergreen warmth of her mouth. His lips slid over hers with slow, fascinated strokes until he found a rhythm that made her go utterly slack against him.

Yes.

He took far more pleasure with the upper hand here than he would have on the gym mats earlier. Vanessa Torres might have slammed him to his knees with a kick, but he’d have her melting to hers with a kiss in no time at all. And damn, but that victory tasted sweet.

He speared his fingers into the loosened hair that escaped her braid, testing the silky length of the rebellious strands. Anchoring her to him by cupping the back of her head, Alec took pleasure in the sure movement of her fingers up and down his spine. His sides. His hips.

He’d never met a woman so certain of herself and ready to claim what she wanted. When her fingers strayed below the belt line, his satisfaction increased tenfold.

That is, until she reached even lower. And lower.

What the hell?

Thrusting her away, he gripped her shoulders with both hands, his anger back with a vengeance.

“If you’re trying to frisk me now, woman, let me spare you the trouble.” Yanking her wrist forward, he steered her palm to rest on the only weapon he carried. “Thanks to you, I’m damn well armed.”

4

OVER FOUR YEARS had passed since the last time Vanessa had cradled a man’s erection in her palm. Four long years without sex of any kind.

And yet, she could hardly appreciate the solid strength of him straining beneath her palm. Not when his dark eyes captured her attention so thoroughly.

Anger lurked there. Deep, dark and dangerous, the shades of cold fury in his brown eyes compelled her stare. Her curiosity. What gave a man such a fierce aspect, especially when he had been kissing her with enough heat to melt a normal woman’s insides just a few moments ago?

Clearing her throat, Vanessa shifted her grip on the front of his jeans—and realized his hand no longer imprisoned hers there. How long had she been touching him of her own free will?

Yanking her hand back, she commanded her breathing back to normal. Slow and steady.

“That’s quite a piece you’re carrying.” Cool and easy. She couldn’t let him rile her any more than he already had.

“Yeah? You just let me know if you’d like a closer look and I’ll be sure to accommodate you.” Bending, he scooped up his bag and reached for her hand. “Right now, we need to get the hell out of here before somebody finds us.”

Or before Vanessa jumped this guy’s bones—regardless of where he stood in terms of the law.

“Do you have a car nearby?” She moved to follow him, Converse squeaking on the gymnasium floor. Night had fallen while they’d talked, and already she felt squeamish about heading out onto the streets in this part of town.

“Private underground parking.” He led her through a darkened front lobby and down a back corridor full of paint cans and spattered scaffolding. “One of the perks of revamping the place myself.”

Arriving at an elevator bay, he opened the doors and inserted a pass card in the panel to access a basement level. Vanessa held her breath as the electronic doors swished shut behind them, sealing them in the private, close quarters. She didn’t need to catch the male scent of him, her senses already too attuned to his movements, his body.

“You think the rec center is going to make a difference around here?” Determined not to think about the fact she’d just recently had her hand on this guy’s crotch, she concentrated on how they were going to get out of the Bronx.

She’d seen so many fights on these streets from the safety of her bedroom window growing up. Her grandmother had raised both Vanessa and her sister since their teenage mom had been more interested in getting high than taking care of her kids. Which was just fine with Vanessa since Nana was the coolest lady in their housing complex, with a good job at the local dry cleaners and a knack with tools that made all the tenants vie for Nana’s help with repairs the superintendent ignored.

But even Nana, a major kick-ass grandma, had taken every precaution never to send her girls out of the house alone. The South Bronx—especially in those days before urban renewal—was a damn scary place to live.

“Why would I waste my time building this place if I didn’t think it was going to help?” Alec shrugged, palms up. “You think I’m an idiot? I know what it’s like here. But if the center gives five kids a safe place to hang out and grow up, I think that’s making a pretty damn big difference.”

She hadn’t expected that kind of clear-eyed thinking from someone who must have dumped a small fortune into a facility that would be covered with graffiti and crawling with homeless people in less than six months.

The elevator chimed as it reached the basement, the doors sliding open to the dank, stale air of an underground garage. A small fluorescent light blinked on a cement pillar between the only two cars in the small area. Two other spaces remained vacant.

“A Mercedes and a Ford Focus.” Vanessa eyed the two vehicles, the S600 sedan shouting money and the Ford quietly announcing practicality. “My guess is an uptown guy like yourself needs the Mercedes.”

“They’re both mine.” He pressed a button on his key ring and unlocked the doors on the big sedan. “You want me to give you a lift somewhere? If you drove up here, you don’t want to stay parked on the streets overnight.”

Her heart drummed in her chest at his choice of wording. They might be working into the night, but she definitely didn’t need to categorize her time with him as an “overnight.” No sense giving her long-slumbering libido any false hope since she planned to squash it with all due haste.

“I took the subway.” She hadn’t wanted to drive out here today since the locals had a knack for picking out police automobiles, even the unmarked vehicles. She’d planned on calling a patrol car to pick up Alec if she’d been able to talk him into coming in for questioning.

It might not be wise to go anywhere with him, but seeing him with those kids tonight—trying to make a difference in their lives—had squeezed something unexpected inside her. She and her sister would have given anything to have had someone besides Nana root for them, teach them how to protect themselves, just spend time with them.

“So you’re okay with getting in the car with me?” He opened the passenger-side door for her, clearly shocked she would venture into his private terrain.

Damn it, she hadn’t broken with police procedure once in five years. She could afford to take a chance tonight as long as she was armed. Ready.

“Let me put it this way—you’re driving. I have a gun.” She edged past him, eager to retrieve some of her usual calm. “I think I’ll manage.”

Her body registered the heat of Alec’s as she brushed past him, the spike in her temperature becoming more predictable the longer she spent time around him. She couldn’t even think about the kiss they’d shared without her brain short-circuiting. At this point, she was more concerned with maintaining reasonable, professional distance from him than protecting herself from possible violence at his hands.

After all, she knew exactly what kind of heat he was packing, and it wouldn’t kill her. It might drive her insane with pleasure, but clearly, she’d survive.

Then again, it might leave her as cold inside as she’d been for the past five years since her sister’s body hit the pavement in a drive-by, and that scared her almost as much as the thought of finding pleasure in Alec’s bed.

She didn’t realize Alec had knelt down beside the passenger seat, his tall body doubled up so he could look at her on eye level, until he leaned almost into her line of vision.

“You sure you’re okay?” He’d gotten close to her again. Breast-tingling close. Mouthwatering close.

And oh God, she’d messed up big time by coming to the Bronx without her partner, a rational voice of reason, at her side. She was getting sucked into old fears, old guilt and major sexual hang-ups she’d never been able to face. This wiseguy on the lam with an overdose of testosterone seemed to be shaking it all to the surface for her.

“I’m fine.” She glared at him with the bitch-look she saved for criminals she needed to intimidate. “Can we get out of here now, please?”

The open expression in his eyes shuttered as he retreated, assuring her he hadn’t missed her point. For a moment, she regretted her attitude, regretted the need to lash out at anyone who got too close. Still, keeping men at arm’s length seemed a hell of a lot kinder in the long run than letting a guy think he was making progress with her, only to find out she couldn’t work up any enthusiasm in bed.

Alec slid into the car and started the engine without a word while Vanessa readjusted her gun at her waist. As he pulled the car out of his subterranean lair and into the night, she realized the windows were tinted so black no one could see inside the vehicle. Illegally black, in fact, but she’d be willing to bet there were plenty of other cars roaming these streets with the same kind of windows. Eyewitnesses said the car carrying whoever shot Gena had blackened windows. The shooter had never been found.

The morose turn of her thoughts called her to remember Gena had lived. After a week of fighting for her life, she had turned a corner. Of course, it had taken months of grueling physical therapy to retrain her legs how to walk, her thigh and hip sustaining grave damage. She’d never walk without a limp, but the rest of her had recovered faster than Vanessa, who still found ways to blame herself for what had happened and still sought out cars with tinted windows.

Just like this one.

“Have you had this car for long?” She remembered he said he grew up in Bensonhurst, but he had to be at least thirty years old. The lines around his eyes had seen some living.

Had they seen an innocent twenty-year-old crumble to the curb?

“I just picked it up two years ago.” Slowing for a stop sign, Alec leaned forward in his seat to peer down a one-way street. “It took me that long to decide it was okay to reward myself now and then.”

As the streets grew darker in a less populated part of town, she realized they were heading toward the Cross Bronx Expressway, navigating the small side streets beneath the highway.

Always a good place for crime.

“And you haven’t had any problems rolling through the South Bronx in a sedan worth a hundred Gs?” Back in the days she lived here, kids in junior high would pry hubcaps off cars like this to wear as medallions off the cheap gold chains they bought from a guy on the street. She’d never been sure if the look was supposed to convey status—as in “look at what expensive cars I can rip off”—or if the trend merely served to show off unusually strong neck muscles.

Vanessa had missed out on a lot of nuances in her preteens since she’d still been wearing the hand-me-down eyeglasses given to Nana by a social worker who’d wanted a smoke alarm installed. She’d spent two years of tripping over her own feet before they could afford to put new lenses in those frames. Damn, but she wanted to get out of this part of the city before she lost her mind to the past. Thankfully, the entrance to the highway should be just up ahead. Tension knotted in her gut.

“I think the general assumption is that only a drug dealer would have the balls to drive through here in this kind of Mercedes. And the locals stay away from the dealers. Either way, I’ve never had any problems.” He slowed to a stop at the entrance ramp where a fire hydrant sprayed water in an arc over the street, flooding the road. Two sawhorses had been erected around the mess, but there were no road workers in sight.

Damn.

They wouldn’t be entering the freeway here. Unless she hopped out to move the sawhorses and they could plow through the water? “You think the Mercedes could make it through this? I don’t care where we go, Alec, but I’d like to leave the Bronx far behind.”

Too bad he was already putting the car into reverse.

“No problem.” Leaning on the accelerator, he redirected the car through the darkness, the majority of the streetlights broken. Maybe someone had tossed rocks at them. Or shot them out with a gun. “We can go this way.”

The tension in her gut knotted all the more.

“Freaking Tony.” Muttering under her breath, Vanessa cursed the abominable lack of effort by the local road crews as she shrank down in her seat. Thanks to the flooded ramp, they’d have to backtrack.

ALEC HAD NEVER BEEN the sensitive type. He had no clue what women wanted, and no real desire to find out. He knew they smelled good and tasted better. This one in particular.

So it didn’t surprise him that he had no idea what the sizzling cop in his passenger seat wanted from him. But it seemed to his limited understanding of women that Vanessa Torres was more complicated than the average female. If men were from Mars and women were from Venus, Vanessa had probably dropped by the rec center from Pluto, her ways unfathomable to his kind.

She’d been brooding in his passenger seat for almost fifteen minutes straight, barely managing civil conversation. And now when she finally spoke to him, her only request had been to get her the hell out of here.

Alec knew a shortcut, and the V12 engine could plow through these streets in record time. He’d do what she asked, and he’d cross his fingers that she would continue to ask for what she wanted, because he could never hope to understand cryptic phrases like Freaking Tony, without her interpreting.

He shifted into high gear and blasted down a deserted street of businesses that had been boarded up twenty years ago, anxious to get them both someplace safe. His speedometer hit fifty miles an hour when a car pulled out of nowhere and stopped in the middle of the one-way, perpendicular to the narrow lane.

“Shit.” Slamming on the brakes, the vehicle skidded and screeched across the asphalt with a squeal that could have been heard all the way to Jersey. The seat belt tore into his skin, his swerve lurching him so far sideways he was forced to view the scene in front of him from a ninety-degree angle. His head hit the steering wheel at some point, and he wasn’t sure if he shouted inside, or if Vanessa was screaming at the top of her lungs. Noise blared through his ears and filled his whole head. Through the dizzying spin of the vehicle, he thought he saw Vanessa crack her head against the window.

Thank God for German engineering, or he would have creamed the other car. As they turned askew in the skid, he could see the beat-up Chevy that didn’t even have its headlights on.

No wonder he hadn’t seen the thing.

The smell of burned rubber assailed his senses, his sedan now cranked around perpendicular to the road. The street lamps must have been shot out on this block because the usual city lights were nowhere to be found. About six blocks away, he could see a blinking yellow stoplight, reminding him it must be after midnight by now. He reached for Vanessa’s hand, needing to make sure she was safe.

Before he could touch her, the passenger window smashed through from the outside.

“Get out of the car.” The male voice barked into the vehicle as arms reached in from the darkness to unlock the door and yank Vanessa from the sedan. The unseen speaker shouted obscenities while another man forced the barrel of an automatic weapon into the Mercedes.

Alec tried to launch out of the other side of the car but his seat belt was still on, his head muddled from the blow on the steering wheel.

Shit.

He thought about the .22 caliber Beretta he’d stowed in his bag in the back seat. Three feet away might as well be three miles for all the good it would do him now.

“Get out of the car.” The kid with the semiautomatic shotgun crouched into Alec’s line of sight, butting the barrel through the door and up against his chest. The piece vibrated with the guy’s nerves, adrenaline or possibly a drug high. His face was mostly covered with a Raiders bandanna, but his eyes remained visible. “No one tries to be a hero and no one gets hurt, you get me?”

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