She was one cool customer.

Dr. Carla Abdroghetti sat across the room, surrounded by four homicide detectives, in a chair specifically designed to guarantee that suspects would confess to anything just to get the hell out of it.

Not her.

She was relaxed, loose and her expression was placid.  She had not asked for attorney. She didn't even look annoyed.  Most of the suspects in this room fluctuated between scared and anxious to angry and belligerent. Some of them even threw up in the nearby trashcan because their nerves got the better of them.

Not her.

Carla . . . Dr. Androghetti looked . . . gorgeous. Sexy. Tempting. Delicious.  I couldn't quite name the thing about her that made my heart race and my blood warm under my skin. It wasn't the dark red dress that hugged her curves or the determined shape of her full mouth. It wasn't the way she casually looked at her watch before slicing my boss with a look that would have had most men cowering behind something thick and sturdy.

No, it was something about her. Something that didn't come from clothes or an Ivy-League education or a particular background. You were either born with her type of calm, unshakeable charisma or you would never have it. And fuck me, she had it.

And, fuck me, I would not let it cloud my judgment and keep me from finding out if she'd murdered a U.S. Senator. Because right now she was the number one suspect on a short list of one.

"Gentlemen, I am here by my own agreement and am happy to cooperate with your investigation into Nathan's murder but could we please make it happen soon? I have patients to attend to tomorrow at a very early hour."

Dr. Androghetti's quiet, whisky-laced voice cut through the chatter of the detectives. The bodies around me shifted, all attention on her as she made direct eye contact with each of them.  I glanced at my colleagues as they all broke eye contact, looking everywhere but at the woman taking control of the room and the men in it as surely as if she had reached out her red-tipped fingernails and grabbed them all by their collective balls.

She definitely had me by my cock. Damn it. Not good when I might need to arrest her for murder.

"Dr. Androghetti, we appreciate you coming in to talk to us," Captain Smith said, his expression polite but trying to send a clear signal that he was in charge of the proceedings. I thought it was so cute that my boss thought that was actually the case. She was in charge of this show and we all knew it. I might be confused about my attraction to Carla Androghetti but I had no confusion about the fact that she was a dangerous woman. A brilliant and dangerous woman. “We'll try to get you out of here as soon as we can.”

“I'm not under arrest and I have a full schedule of patients I need to see tomorrow . . .” She glanced down at her watch and then back up at the Captain and each man in the room. When her eyes locked with mine the sizzle was back, crackling under the skin on the back of my neck and down my spine. I ground my body into the seat, determined not to let her see me sweat. When she spoke, it was like she was talking directly to me. “. . .I'll give you an hour."

The room was silent, not even the sound of breathing breaking the moments as we all processed the verbal grenade tossed into the middle of the room.

The Captain was smooth as glass when he finally responded and threw me on top of the explosive device. “Detective Cross is the lead on this homicide. He'll have you out of here as soon as possible.”

All eyes swiveled towards me but I kept my gaze locked on the woman sitting across the room. She stared me down, her eyes wary and cunning. My heart rate kicked up, the sound of its beat heavy in my ears.

Yes, she was a very dangerous woman.

“Dr. Androghetti, can you explain the nature of your relationship with Senator Nathan Marsden?”

“He was a friend. He was also a sexual partner, along with his wife, Davina.”

The men around me shifted in their chairs, the scrape of metal legs against the floor and the nervous tap of a pen against a tabletop giving away their reactions. While my men fidgeted and murmured like pubescent boys, she remained calm and composed. The only hint at nerves was the swift lick of her tongue across her lower lip. My own mouth watered at the glistening red left behind, my body ached with a craving to taste her.

“So, you had an affair with the Senator?” I asked.

“No. It wasn't an affair. I was a third in their bed when they requested it. Sometimes the request came from Davina and sometimes it was Nathan.” She moved in her chair, uncrossing and crossing her legs, pulling the eyes of every man in the room to their sexy, toned length and the red pumps on her feet. “We were friends. We were all friends. We met through a club where we are all members.”

“Do you often sleep with your friends?”

“I try to make it a point to at least like the people I fuck, Detective,” she answered, her lip curling up a little in the corner in a smile. I pressed my own together to stop myself from answering the grin. I should not be enjoying this as much as I was.

“I'll need the name and location of this club.” I said and she paused, giving me a cursory nod of agreement but she didn’t fill the silence with nervous words or explanation. She waited and I admired her control, her grace under the worst pressure. “Was this an arrangement you had only with the Marsdens?”

"No. I am a third to several couples."

“Is this a regular occurrence then?" I struggled to keep my voice even. The idea of Dr. Androghetti fucking two or more partners of any gender caused my skin to grow tight, my cock to harden slightly in jeans. It was the last place to get hard over a woman but this one had me off-guard, intrigued. I shoved down my thoughts, my physical reaction to her. It was a simple combination of chemistry and timing. Nothing I couldn't handle. “Do you often offer these . . . services?”

She didn't miss the judgment coating my words. I didn't understand what she did. People could do what they liked in the bedroom but sharing wasn’t my thing. Not after my divorce. I would never be a participant and I’d never agree to such an arrangement. And if she was mine, I would have never agreed to her playing games like that. It could never end well.

She stared me down, the dark of her pupils taking over the whiskey brown of her eyes as they dilated in anger. Her pulse throbbed under the sleek column of the skin of her neck, her fingers clutching the arms of the chair with almost white-knuckle pressure.  She could be rattled. Not to the point of outburst but she had . . .  vulnerabilities. It was my job to rip them open and expose them to get the truth.

“Dr. Androghetti, I asked you a question. Do you make it a habit of sleeping with men and their wives? Playing out whatever fantasy they have locked away?”

“It's not always a man and his wife. Sometimes I'm with a man and his husband or a woman and her wife.”

“So, you’re bisexual?”

She shrugged. “I don't believe in labels. I sleep with who I want, when I want, and on whatever terms I want.”

The men around me shifted again, this time their fidgeting augmented by low snorts of laughter.  I cut a look at them, intending my glare to shut down their juvenile behavior but once again the good doctor had something to say. I turned just as she leaned forward in her chair and let us all have it. Not that she raised her voice. No, her voice was low and even and not to be ignored.

“You can laugh all you want but let's get something straight. I'm not here to reenact a scene from "Basic Instinct" so I'm not going to cross my legs and give you all a crotch shot to feed your masturbation fantasies for later. I'm a grown woman who likes to sleep with couples. I offer myself as a third because I enjoy it. It's my kink. Everything is consensual and other than giving you this information to find Nathan's killer, I don't have to tell you a goddam thing about my personal life.” She eased back in the chair, her posture once again loose and comfortable. “And for the record, I did not kill Nathan Marsden.”

I almost believed her. She was dangerous . . .  and fucking magnificent. And I really hoped she was telling the truth because wanting to fuck a murderer wasn't the worst idea I'd ever had but it was pretty damn close.

“Where were you between ten pm and three am?” She’d already answered this once but I wanted to see if she’d slip up with her emotions running high.

“I was at home. Alone.”

“Did the Marsden’s have a happy marriage?” I threw the question out casually and kept my eyes glued on her. She paused. Not a long stutter, really just a long, slow blink but it was enough to let me know that I’d hit on something potentially important.

“As far as I knew they were happy,” she replied, her fingers twisting into the fabric of her skirt for a brief second before she released it. “I just fucked them, Detective. It didn’t make us best friends.”

I studied her several long moments, contemplating my next move. She wasn’t going to fall on the floor and confess and I didn’t have enough to run a bluff on her right now. She was confident right now and it was probably a good idea to keep her in that head space. If she was going to make a mistake, Dr. Androghetti would only do it if she felt like she had the upper hand. I’d let her keep that illusion for the time being.

“That’s all I have for you right now, Doctor.” I stood, offering a smile. Not too flashy or friendly. Just polite and a little bit apologetic. “Please don’t leave town without letting us now. I’m sure we’ll have follow-up questions.”

Peter flashed me a confused glance as he filed out behind the Captain, taking point on the preparations for a press conference scheduled for an hour from now. We had to address the death of the Senator and publicize the search for his missing wife but I had some unfinished business with the witness. The other officers stood up, their chairs scraping against the floor and filling the room with enough noise to mask our continued conversation.

“You don't like what I do,” she said, her voice low and even and completely missing any kind of judgment or attitude. She was stating what she'd honestly observed. Straight and to-the-point. I liked that about her.

“It's not my job to like it or not.”

“But you don't.”

I contemplated her question. What would I gain by answering her? What would I lose by not answering her? Sometimes solving a case was possible because I made a connection with a person of interest who let their guard down and let me in a little too close.

“I don't get it. I don't understand why you want to fuck all these people instead of having a relationship of your own.”

“I never said I didn't want a relationship,” she stated, her expression sincere but still guarded.

That made me pause. Fuck, this woman kept surprising me and I shouldn't like it but I did. I really wanted to peel back the veneer and figure out what was going on under the expensive Ivy League degree and her designer dress. She was the epitome of “still waters run deep” and I figured that a guy could drown in Carla Androghetti if they weren’t careful.

I parsed out my own thoughts, wading through the slog of my own baggage. “That would be . . . difficult. I can't imagine many men . . . or women being excited to know their girlfriend, wife whatever was having a three-way every Wednesday night with you”

“So, you're vanilla,” she observed. Not judgmental, just straight forward. I recalled something she’d said earlier.

“I thought you weren't into labels.”

The smile was back, just teasing her lips but her eyes were lit up. She was enjoying herself and I was responding, leaning into her space and concentrating on every word and not just because she was involved in my case.

“Sometimes they make conversations easier. Am I wrong?

I huffed out a laugh. I liked her directness. “You aren't right.”

Dr. Androghetti stared at me, her head cocked to side as she tried to fit all the pieces in my puzzle. “Fluid? Sexual not gender.”

“Open.” I wasn’t much into labels either but they did make it easier sometimes. I conceded. “Bisexual.”

She looked me up and down, her gaze slow and deliberate before she met my eyes again. When she did, my body tightened with awareness. I wasn’t the only one feeling this arc between us. She was just the only one who wasn’t going to ignore it.

“Good to know,” she said.

“Good? For what?”

“For when I'm no longer a murder suspect.”

“You're not . . .” I rushed to correct her. I didn’t want a high-priced lawyer yelling at me that I’d violated her rights or something.

She waved me off with her hand, her bracelets clinking together with the movement. “Person of interest. Whatever you want to call it.”

I decided that it was time to end this line of questioning. I had somehow become as much the subject of our inquiry as she was and that wasn’t going to lead to anywhere good for me. Not on a high-profile case.

“As much as I might like how you’re thinking, to keep this up could cost me my job. The number one cop rule after “don’t shoot your partner” is don’t sleep with a person of interest.”

She looked at me, the smile back as if she hadn’t just heard me shut this down. “Do you really think I murdered Nathan?”

“I think that every person is capable of killing someone given the right motivation and opportunity.”

“You're being careful with your words, Detective. You’d make a good psychiatrist.”

“Okay, so how careful is this: I think you're a very dangerous woman,” I said, letting the challenge coat every syllable. If she wanted to play cat and mouse, I was happy to show her that I still had my claws.

“So, you do think I killed him?” She took a step closer and I fought the urge to inch towards her and her heat and sexy invitation. I wasn’t a cop because I wanted to play it safe and Dr. Androghetti was the kind of sin I liked to wallow in. Pure and unapologetic. Wild and decadent.

I leaned in closer, whispering in her ear. This close I could smell her perfume, something light and citrus mixed with the warmth of her skin. It reminded me of hot summer days that slid into humid, sticky nights. “That isn't the only kind of danger a beautiful woman brings with her.”

She laughed, her breath on my cheek just before I pulled back to look down at her. She had one eyebrow raised and her smile was full this time, white teeth and lush, kissable lips. Lips that would look great wrapped around my dick. Her words pulled me out of the thought of the good doctor on her knees and back to the present.

“I think you're beautiful too, Detective.”

“Are you flirting with me?”

“I think we're flirting with each other.” She pouted a little, her teasing making me want to sink my teeth into the plump lip. “But that’s not allowed is it?”

“No. Not at all.” I shook my head, once again having to bite back the smile that teased at my mouth. I enjoyed this woman far too much for my sanity.

I had to remember: she was holding something back and it could be the key to solving this murder. I reached into my pocket and fished out a card, turning it over to write my cell phone number on the back. Holding it out to her I held on longer than necessary when her fingers brushed mine and our eyes locked in desire and challenge.

“This is my number if you decide you want to tell me what you didn't cough up in there” I nodded towards the interrogation room behind us.

“I'm not lying.”

I gave her an “A-plus” for the way she lied without batting an eyelash. If I didn’t already know the truth, I would have believed her.

“Dr. Androghetti, an omission is the same as a lie when you're dealing with the cops.”

She looked down at my card and then back at me before she turned on her high heels and walked away, throwing her last comment at me over her shoulder. “I'll keep that in mind, Detective Cross.”