The Heat Is On Read online

  Also nearly illegible.

  He grinned. “So you do have a fault. You can’t write worth shit. Ever think of taking up medicine?”

  “Hey.”

  He just smiled at her, and it pretty much diffused any righteous indignation she might have mustered.

  He came up close and swept a stray strand of hair back from her face. “You’re going to lock up behind me.”

  She saluted him. Her little attempt at levity. When he didn’t smile, she rolled her eyes and nudged him in the chest. His very hard, very warm chest. “I’m a big girl,” she said softly, leaving her hand on him. Maybe she even gently ran her hand from one pec to the other. She couldn’t help it, he was built. And the way he was standing over her, big and bad and protective, doing his cop thing…

  “Bella.”

  And God, his voice, all low and warning, and completely sexy.

  He wanted her again.

  And he didn’t want to want her again.

  Well, welcome to her club. “Thanks for making sure I got home okay,” she said. “Did you check my closet for monsters?”

  “Your closet’s monster free. So’s your shower. Nice underwear, by the way.”

  She’d hand washed a bunch of it and had left it hanging in the shower to dry. She grinned. “Did you like the black lace?”

  “Yeah, I liked the lace. And the yellow satin thong and matching bra.”

  Her nipples got perky. This was becoming a habit. She wondered if there was documentation of Pavlovian response involving sexily voiced innuendo and nipples. There should be.

  Then he leaned in and put his mouth to her ear. “And while I bet they look hot on you, they’re not my favorite. At least not on you.”

  She’d left her hand on his chest, and her fingers involuntarily fisted in his T-shirt. “W-what is?”

  Backing her to the door, he put a hand on either side of her head against the wood and let his knee touch hers. “Nothing at all.” Oh, God.

  His thigh slid in between hers, and desire skittered across her belly, heating her from the inside out. “Yeah?”

  His mouth skimmed her jaw. “Oh, yeah. But back to keeping yourself safe.” He had her pinned to the door, their bodies flush. She couldn’t have fit one of her wafer-thin phyllo pastry sheets between them. She squirmed, trying to get even closer, and discovered to her delight that either his gun had moved to his crotch, or he was hard.

  “Do you remember what I told you, Bella?” He ran his lips over her jaw and she let out a helpless moan. “Um—”

  He nuzzled just beneath her ear, and she lost her concentration. “Don’t keep the key beneath the mat?” she managed to say. “Before that.”

  “You told me—” His mouth was on her neck. He drew on a patch of skin and sucked. “Oh, God, Jacob.”

  “Told you what, Bella?” He dipped his tongue into the hollow at the base of her throat.

  “T-to have an escape route.” God. God, she needed another taste of him. Just one. “You’re it tonight, Jacob. You’re my escape.” She lifted her mouth and he met her halfway. His hands slid from the wood to her, one cupping the back of her head, the other sliding down her body with a new familiarity that thrilled, and as he devoured her mouth, she couldn’t hold back her moan.

  He reached for her shirt—his shirt—pulling it open, making his hands comfortable on her bare skin, gliding them up her bare thighs, over her back, making her moan again. She felt those fingers catch on the back tie of her bathing-suit top, a light tug, and then it loosened over her breasts. “Jacob?”

  “Yeah?”

  “My bed’s about ten steps away.”

  His fingers went still. Then he kissed her lips softly and dropped his forehead to hers, breathing heavy. “This can’t happen,” he said.

  She rocked against his raging hard-on. “Hate to break it to you, but your body is in disagreement.”

  He looked down at his hands. One cupped her breast, his thumb slowly rasping back and forth over her nipple, making it stand up to attention for him, his other was spread wide over her hip, his fingers beneath the material of her bikini bottoms. He still had a hard thigh thrust between hers, and with a muscle ticking in his jaw, he closed his eyes.

  Bella’s hands had been busy, too. Her fingers were curled in the waistband of his jeans, heading for the hidden treasure. When she wriggled them, he groaned. Grabbing her wrist, he dropped his head to the door, hard.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Knocking some sense into myself.” He opened his eyes and stepped back, face tight, body tense, erection threatening to burst the buttons on his Levi’s. “I’m leaving now.”

  “But—”

  His hot gaze swept down her body one more time. He pressed in close, kissed her hard and just a little bit rough, and loving it, she kissed him back in the same way, but then he was pulling free, shaking his head as he moved away. He shoved his hands into his pockets as if he didn’t quite trust himself. “We can’t— I can’t sleep with you while this case is open.”

  “It’s not your case.”

  He let out a long, slow breath, as if struggling for control. “You need to be careful with what you’re saying to me. Only last night, you wanted me to think you were moving to Siberia.”

  This was unfortunately true. “Yes, but there’s something I didn’t anticipate.”

  He just looked at her.

  How to explain that last night, when he’d been pulling off her clothes, his hands everywhere on her, both demanding and somehow gentle at the same time, she’d been aware even then that being with him was going to be different.

  Better than anything she’d known.

  It’d scared her in the heat of the moment. But now, she wanted to experience it again.

  Just one more time…

  The fact was, in the dark of the night, he’d made her body sing the Hallelujah Chorus, and in the light of day her body wanted a repeat. “We seem to have a little chemistry problem.”

  He didn’t move, but she could see the agreement in his eyes. Plus, he was still hard. Gloriously hard. Her fingers itched to touch, and she reached for him to do just that, until his words stopped her.

  “How long are you staying in Santa Rey?”

  “I don’t know. Why? Trying to figure out if this still qualifies as a one-night stand?” She smiled. “Because I have no problem with a two-night stand. Maybe even a three-night stand if you play your cards right. And by the way, I don’t have an aversion to daytime sex, either.”

  He ran his gaze over her features. Finally, he turned to the door.

  “Let me guess,” she said to his back, fascinated by the play of muscles as he reached for the handle. “This time it’s you who’s moving to Siberia?”

  When he looked back at her, the heat was still in his gaze. His mouth barely curved in a hint of a smile, testosterone leaking from his every pore. “No. I stick, remember?”

  “Then?”

  “Maybe I’m just giving you time to absorb what’s happened.”

  “The murder?”

  “The fact that we’re drawn to each other like a moth to the flame. The fact that it’s only a matter of time before I get you in bed again—if you’re still around. And this time, there’ll be no pretty lies at the end. It is what it is.”

  Every single erogenous zone in her body quivered. “And what is it?”

  He flashed her a wicked, naughty grin, and opened the door. “Lock the door,” he said, and then he was gone.

  JACOB DROVE HOME TO his ranch-style house in the sprawling, rolling hills that backdropped Santa Rey. He’d bought the house back when it was a piece of shit and no one had wanted to live all the way out here, and as a result, he’d gotten it and the land damn cheap. Good thing, as he could never afford it now that the area was in fashion.

  He’d slowly fixed the place up one room at a time, using his own hands and cheap labor—his brothers. He’d found that for the price of beer and pizza, he could coax them out on the weekend
s, and as a result, his place had become Madden central.

  So he wasn’t all that surprised when he pulled up and found Cord and Austin in his backyard, drinking his beer and idly watching his two horses roam the pen they’d all worked on putting up.

  Austin handed him a beer.

  Cord offered an opened tin of cookies, half-empty.

  No one spoke until Jacob had taken a long pull from the beer and put away two chocolate-chip cookies, obviously homemade. Since Cord could burn water, he said, “Tell Lexi these were amazing.”

  Cord grinned stupidly. He’d finally gotten smart and for the last month had been dating his sweet, sexy next-door neighbor, a woman who would most definitely give Cord a run for his money.

  “Long day, I hear,” Austin said. He was a private investigator working insurance fraud, but his office monitored the police scanners. “You caught a murder.”

  “And lost it.” Jacob took another pull of his beer and told them the story, making sure to face Cord as he spoke, since his brother still suffered fifty percent hearing loss from the explosion he’d lived through overseas.

  “So you boinked the prime suspect.” Cord shook his head and grinned. “And I thought I was the screwup.”

  “Bella didn’t commit murder,” Jacob said.

  “So I guess that means you’ve taken interrogation to a whole new level,” Austin said, cracking Cord up. Jacob sent him a don’t-make-me-kick-your-ass look, which only made Cord laugh harder.

  Whatever. Jacob took the last cookie and Cord stopped laughing.

  “That was mine.”

  Jacob shrugged. “Two types of people in this house. The fast and the hungry.”

  Cord watched the cookie vanish into Jacob’s mouth. “I can go home and talk her into making me more.” He added a love-struck little smile, and both Austin and Jacob stared at him. Each of them had had women in their lives before, plenty of them.

  None had stuck.

  But there was a different element to his brother’s expression lately, an inexplicable light in his eyes that signalled something that they hadn’t seen in a long time. Happiness.

  After the hell Cord had been through with his long, painful recovery, he deserved that. So very much, he deserved it, and Jacob was happy for him.

  And also just a little envious.

  THE NEXT MORNING, JACOB found Ethan waiting for him in his office. He’d made himself at home, sitting back in the guest chair, feet up on Jacob’s desk, legs crossed as he sipped coffee and thumbed through his iPhone.

  “Something new on the case?” Jacob asked him.

  “Crime lab lifted a tread print from the top step to Edible Bliss’s back door,” Ethan said. “They’re working on tracing it.” He looked up from his phone. “And I thought you were staying out of this one.”

  “I am.”

  “Yeah?” Ethan cocked his head. “Is that why you saw Bella last night?”

  “We went out for a bite. I walked her home to make sure she got there safely.”

  “Dude, I came back to ask her a question and heard someone pressing someone up against her front door.”

  When Jacob narrowed his eyes, Ethan smiled. “I was going to ask her if Seth Owen had brought her flowers on their first date. But I heard that rustling up against the door and figured you two…had your hands full.”

  Jacob had no response to make because it was true. He’d had his hands full.

  “Maybe you were frisking her,” Ethan suggested with a smile.

  In return, Jacob suggested something with his middle finger.

  “Huh. Again with the no comment,” Ethan noted. “Maybe she wore out your tongue?”

  Jesus. Jacob drew in a breath, and purposely let it out, refusing to let Ethan push his buttons.

  “So. You get laid again?”

  Jacob shoved Ethan’s feet off his desk and sat behind it. “None of the above.”

  “No frisking, no tongue exhaustion, no getting laid. Got it.” Ethan looked at him for a long moment. “Makes sense since you’re so grumpy.” He paused. “You’re into her.”

  Jacob booted up his laptop.

  Getting no response from Jacob, Ethan pressed, “So into her.”

  “Not that it’s any of your business, but we’re just—” He broke off, because he had no idea what they were just.

  Seeing right through him, Ethan laughed softly. “Look, I get it. You wanted it to be casual because women end up dumping us for the job. It’s a damn fact, man. But if it’s more, it’s more.”

  Again, Jacob didn’t answer. Didn’t know how to answer.

  “Fine. Be the big, strong, silent type.” Ethan rose lithely to his feet. “But if she’s nothing to you, maybe when this is all over, she’ll go out with me.”

  Jacob slid him a long look.

  “You know, since you’re not into her or anything.”

  And though Ethan was an ass, he wasn’t stupid. He was quickly out the door, a wide, obnoxious grin in place.

  Probably if Jacob had consumed any caffeine yet, he’d have caught up with him and pounded him into dust. Probably he could have done it even without the caffeine, except for one thing.

  Ethan was right.

  Jacob was into Bella.

  Luckily, his workload was off the charts, and he managed to keep busy the entire day. First he was called out as backup on a domestic violence case. They had to pull the wife off her husband, and were listening to the man’s side of the story when the wife hit the guy over the head with a flowerpot, right in front of Jacob and his partner. A few minutes later, Jacob was reading the woman her rights, the husband standing there dripping blood, potting soil and daisies.

  Boggled the mind.

  In the afternoon, he sat in a hot car for two hours staking out a corner near Fourth Street with binoculars, hoping to catch sight of a known identity thief he’d been trying to pull in. By six o’clock, he’d seen a handful of public sex acts, one or two of which had surprised even him, but not a single sign of his man. By the time he got back to his desk, it was far past dinnertime.

  But his paperwork had piled up, threatening to topple over. It took him two more hours to make even a dent, and by then, he was starving. He shut down his computer and was nearly to his motorcycle, when a call came in. Another shooting.

  Instead of going home, he met Ethan on scene. “Male, shot once with a through-and-through hit to the thigh,” Ethan told him.

  “Connected to the first shooting at Bella’s place?”

  “Don’t know. Going to guess yes, since bullet type matches. The guy was just coming home from being out all day. He had ducked to tie his shoe or he’d have taken the hit to the torso and we’d be calling the coroner about now.”

  “His lucky day,” Jacob said. “ID?”

  “Banning Jefferson. Ring a bell?”

  “No.”

  “He lives in the building. His neighbor reported seeing an unidentified male running from the scene.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Perp’s around six feet and Caucasian.”

  Much preferable to five foot seven and female.

  “Now, get out of here,” Ethan said. “I’m going to nail his ass and I don’t want any technicalities holding me up.”

  “And I’m a technicality?”

  “If these shootings are connected, you could be.”

  Jacob got back on his bike. He needed to go home, eat and sleep.

  But first he wanted to make sure Bella was okay. He’d just follow up, he assured himself, and it had nothing to do with their obvious sexual chemistry.

  Nothing at all…

  Ten minutes later, he was in front of her building. There were no parking spots. With no qualms whatsoever, he parked illegally, telling himself that the salary raise the city hadn’t been able to afford to give him for three years running could be paid back in special parking privileges.

  He got off his bike, removed his helmet and was at the bottom of her steps, just outside the pastry shop
’s back door when he heard a scream.

  6

  The man standing in front of her was faceless. He had a huge bullet hole where his forehead should have been, and he was reaching for her with a hand that held a bouquet of wildflowers. “Bella,” he said in a zombie voice. “Bella!”

  She screamed and took a step backward, stumbling in shock when she realized that she held a smoking gun.

  She’d shot him.

  She’d shot his face off.

  “Bella!”

  She jerked away and fell out of bed. “Ow.”

  Two big, warm hands scooped her up and pulled her into what felt like a wall of muscle.

  Even with her eyes closed, she recognized Jacob by his scent and the feel of his arms, and she melted into him, pressing her face to his throat. He brushed the hair away from her damp face, his warm lips settling against her temple. “Bad dream?”

  “Zombies.” She stayed there in his arms, the sound of her accelerated, panicked breathing and heart pounding in her ears all she could hear as the rest of the world stopped existing.

  Moonlight came in through her shutters, slanting the room in glowing stripes. Jacob was on the floor with her, holding her, and there was nowhere else she wanted to be.

  He pulled back enough to see into her eyes. “Better?”

  Was she? She tried to figure that out. She was damp with terror sweat, wearing only a tiny tank and boy-cut panties. But there was no dead guy without a face, and she wasn’t holding a smoking gun. And she was in Jacob’s lap. “Really bad dream.”

  “Zombies?”

  She let out a shaky breath. “A dead guy. With no face and a hole in his forehead, carrying wildflowers. Chasing me.” She shuddered. “And I had the gun.”

  With a low, wordless murmur, he hugged her closer. Chilled to the bone, she burrowed in. His hands grazed her arms, her back, her bare thighs—

  He froze for a single beat as if just realizing only now how undressed she was. Then she shivered again, and a big hand cupped the nape of her neck. “When I heard you scream, I lost about two years of my life during the time it took me to get in here to you.”

  She tightened her grip. “I didn’t put the key under the mat.”