Coming in May

A HARD FIST SLAMMED on the door and she jumped, unable to muffle the shriek before it escaped her.

Find out what’s going on.

A rough, masculine voice.

A familiar one.

Her head started to pound as she looked away from the computer to stare at her door.

There was another knock and she eased her way around the coffee table, leaving the laptop where it was, as it was.

She’d think about that email, and all its assorted creepiness, later. After she saw who was at the door.

You know. Her imagination filled in the blanks—big and blond, with his ice-blue eyes and impassive features, Ben Deverall was a mouthwatering piece of work. Too bad the terror had dried all the spit from her mouth.

“Ms. Goldman, please open the door,” a brusque voice said. “It’s Officer Bennett Deverall with the Clary Police Department.”

The sound of his voice didn’t do anything to soothe her uneasiness.

Why couldn’t she have been wrong?

Why couldn’t he be the Easter Bunny? A cute little girl selling Girl Scout cookies? Anybody other than the cop, because that would mean she hadn’t just known.

She swiped her hands on the soft cotton of her pajama pants and paused for a second to look down at herself. She’d changed when she got home, into something warm and comfortable and soft, desperate for the comfort. Now, though, she wished she hadn’t.

The long-sleeved cotton shirt wasn’t quite thick enough to disguise the fact that she wasn’t wearing a bra and the slogan written across it in vivid, pink font was funny, if you knew the context. She’d gotten it at a book convention she’d attended a few years ago.

But Dev wouldn’t know the context and now she had to open the door with some rather risqué words scrawled across her boobs like an invitation—You’ve been a bad boy...go to my room.

The irony of it all—if it wasn’t a terrible situation she found herself in, having Bennett Deverall in her room wouldn’t bother her a bit.

Groaning at how pathetic she was, she reached for the door, keeping the security chain in place as she peeked out.

He stood with his hands on his hips, head slumped, but at the sound of the door he slowly lifted his head. Rain drenched him, clinging to golden-blonde hair, high cheekbones, and rolling down a jaw so hard it could have been carved from granite.

“Hello,” she said and the unsteady sound of her voice made her want to pound her head against the door.

“I’d like to speak with you.” The rain started to come down even harder and the pitiful excuse she had for a porch didn’t offer much protection at all. “If I could...?”

She undid the chain and opened the door, stepping back. Manners had been drilled into her. If it hadn’t been raining, maybe she could have kept him outside for a few minutes, but not in that downpour.

He came in, rain falling around him to puddle on the floor.

His gaze swept over her and lingered on the shirt.

“Let me get you a towel.” She spun around.

“That’s not necessary.”

“Neither is it necessary for you to drip water all over my floor,” she responded, painfully aware of the fact that he was following her down the narrow hall to her bathroom.

She imagined it was a safety thing, a cop thing, and she tried not to think about how closely he followed her, or anything else.

It was funny, trying to blank her mind, though, because when she tried to stop thinking about him, she found herself thinking about all the little things she hadn’t even realized she knew. Like, she hadn’t been aware of how hard his muscles had felt under her hands when he’d helped her stand earlier, or how wide his shoulders were.

But she was remembering it all in acute detail now.

Grabbing a towel from the rod, she turned around and thrust it at him. “Here,” she said, her voice tight, rusty.

He took it with a sigh and nodded. “Thank you.” He stepped back and gestured.

She slid out of the bathroom, conscious of him rubbing the towel over his face, across his almost ruthlessly short hair. When she led him into her small living room, she caught sight of him in the reflective glass of the windows and saw him drag the towel down his neck, head tipped back.

Nyrene curled her hands into fists as she turned around.

“What can I help you with?”

A rush of heat swamped her as an image assailed her. Take off that damn shirt...

His voice echoed in her mind and subconsciously, she wrapped her arms around her middle, hiding the way her nipples had tightened and were now stabbing into the material of her shirt.

Take off that damn shirt...

Self-preservation made her desperate and she had the insane desire to just slam a door, build a wall, shut a window—anything to keep her from hearing everything that seemed to flood her head now, the images that crowded into her mind...like his hands grabbing the hem of her shirt, peeling it upward.

She spun away and stared at the window. Close the damn window!

The images in her head cut off and the heated rush that had swamped her disappeared. In the breadth of a second.

Thank God.

––––––––

TAKE OFF THAT DAMN shirt for starters, Dev thought sourly. Then his mind underwent a short circuit as he thought of her doing just that, peeling the black cotton away, revealing golden skin and a body that he was already too aware of.

She wasn’t wearing a bra, a fact he hadn’t been able to ignore when she opened the door, and now he also knew that her full breasts had tight, prominent nipples and he wanted to see how she’d react when he rolled them between his fingers, then toyed with them, using his tongue and teeth.

Not what you’re here for. Get your brain out of your dick. He lowered the towel and looked around. “Mind if I have a seat?”

“Feel free.”

He went to sit on the only chair and then stopped, sighing as the water continued to drip off. He had his own little rain puddle. “Maybe I should just stand,” he said, shaking his head.

“That’s not—”

“It’s fine.” Waving toward the couch, he said, “Feel free, though. I’ll try to keep this short.”

He instinctively turned toward the electric fireplace she had on. It was tucked against one wall, giving off a somewhat realistic impression of an actual flame, and the heat felt good, although it served to remind him of how miserably uncomfortable his uniform was.

There was a faint chiming sound and he glanced over just as she looked at her laptop. She caught her lip between her teeth and although she tried to be subtle, he noticed the way she looked at him, then away. And the way she casually closed her laptop. Just a little too casually.

“I only have a couple of questions,” he said, schooling his face into the polite, blank mask he’d perfected ages ago. “Actually, just one.”

“I don’t know if there’s much of anything else I can tell you about the accident,” she said softly. “I already called my insurance. My agent tells me the fault is clear. It will probably take a while to get it settled, but—”

“It’s not about the accident.” He moved over, eyed the wide, fat table and then decided, the hell with courtesy. He was looking over the edge into his grave anyway. Sitting down, he stared at her, eye to eye, wondering if she was yet another stumbling block they’d thrown at him, or if she was just another innocent bystander. He had to know—stumbling blocks could be dealt with. He was tired of innocent bystanders paying the price, though.

“Oh?” Her eyes widened ever so slightly and he couldn’t help but notice the darker striations of brown that splintered the golden color. She seemed all about golden warmth with those eyes and her skin.

Her hair, though, was black as night, straight as rain.

Deliberately, he clenched one hand into a fist.

Thinking about her hair, her eyes, her mouth, her ass—not going to help him learn what he needed to learn.

“The hospital,” he said.

And those golden eyes went blank.

“I’d like to know exactly what that display at the hospital was about, Ms. Goldman. Why were you so determined to keep me out of the parking garage?”

“I...” She said nothing else, just shook her head.

“Okay, then I do have a second question.” Leaning in until only a few scant inches separated them, he held her gaze for a long moment, listening as her breathing hitched, as her pupils spiked. “What does it have to do with the dead woman they found out there?”

She sucked in a breath of air and he wanted to swear. He wanted to hit something. He wanted to grab her and shake her and he wanted to scream.

Because he saw it in her eyes—she wasn’t some innocent bystander.

Somehow, she was connected.

Nyrene Goldman, this woman who intoxicated him and made him want to forget everything that didn’t involve soft sheets and naked flesh, was involved with the men who wanted him dead.