Harlequin Romantic Suspense March 2021

by Anna J. Stewart

  He changed into sweats and a T-shirt, and gave the space outside her bedroom a thorough once-over by checking the windows and the sliding patio door. He double-checked the front door and added suggesting she put a second dead bolt on for added security to his mental list. A single woman couldn’t be too careful. Especially if said single woman had drug dealers hovering around her business. But that could wait for when she’d burned off her mad.

  He stashed his bags in the small half bath off the kitchen and had made up the couch with the sheets and blanket she’d delivered with her special brand of resentment. Those eyes of hers could scorch glass, and time after time he found himself smiling in the heat of them. It was no doubt obnoxious of him, to take personal delight in what he knew was a difficult situation, but he had a job to do. Tatum’s wounded pride and feelings couldn’t enter into it.

  Lights dimmed, he sat on the couch and checked his voice mail and email. Nothing new to report except...his heart clenched at the text message he’d missed from Jade. He glanced at the time. Too late to message her back now, except...

  He typed quickly, his pulse racing as he promised to stop by the Stanhope Rehabilitation Facility tomorrow morning. Hitting Send, he wanted his former partner’s almost fiancée to know he’d responded when he could. It wasn’t a minute before his notification banner glowed with a simple TY.

  Cruz clicked off the light, lay down on the couch and squeezed his eyes shut, trying to block out the rush of memories, the torrent of guilt that flooded through him. He could replay that night in his mind a million times and he’d never see any other way out. But he should have done better, should have done more to protect Johnny. Johnny, who had so much more of a life to live for than he did. Johnny, who had put his life in Cruz’s hands only to have things go horribly, horribly wrong.

  He needed noise, he needed a distraction. He needed this condo not to smell like jasmine and fresh-baked bread, scents that only evoked endless images of Tatum Colton and her wild, sexy, untamed mane of golden hair. The only image, it seemed, capable of pushing the guilt and anger into the back corners of his mind.

  Even now, as he tried to block everything but the thought of sleep, he could feel her, smell her. Hear her bare feet padding across the hardwood floors...

  “Cruz?”

  He opened his eyes, tried not to inhale too deeply, but he caught the scent of flower-rich soap on her freshly scrubbed skin. Her damp hair was tied up in a knot. She wore a tank top that clung to every curve of her tight, tempting body, along with boxer shorts that confirmed those legs of hers really did go up as far as he’d imagined. He’d dreamed what those legs would feel like wrapped around him, drawing him near her, closer into her. “Yeah?” He didn’t move for fear he might shatter.

  “This is a one-off.”

  He turned his head, arched a brow. Seeing her there, standing in the barely-there light of her kitchen, suspecting what temptations lay beneath the fabric concealing her form from him, had him clearing his throat. “Oh, yeah?”

  He couldn’t help it. He loved watching her eyes narrow like slit arrows of anger.

  “I don’t need you here,” she said. “More to the point, I don’t want you here.”

  “I know.” He sighed as if the argument had become tiresome. “Deal with it.” When she didn’t move away, he continued. “How’s your head?”

  “Fine.”

  But he could see it wasn’t. She was scared. Despite trying not to be. It was in the sudden shift of her eyes, the way she hugged her arms around her waist. It was all he could do not to wrap his own around her and draw her down beside him.

  “I won’t change my schedule for you. I won’t change my life any more than I already have.”

  “Change it for yourself, then,” he said. “And get some sleep.”

  “We need to be out of here by eight,” she said. “I mean it. Eight a.m.”

  “Right. Eight. Got it.” He looked away, snuggled deeper into the sofa and threw his arm over his eyes. “Go to bed, Tatum.”

  Still, she didn’t move. He could hear, could feel her breathing.

  “I mean it, Tatum.” He’d never growled a statement before in his life. But he did so now. It was the only way to push the words free. “Go to bed before we both do something you’ll regret.”

  It took longer than he expected, and she didn’t scamper. She moved away without another word, but the hesitation in her steps, the slight sound of her increased breathing, had him realizing it was only a matter of time before he was in her bed.

  * * *

  Bap! Bap bap bap!

  Cruz shot awake, reaching for his gun, and was on his feet in the blink of a sleepy eye. When he looked to the source of the sleep-shattering noise, he lowered his sidearm and glared across the room and into the kitchen.

  The sun was peeking in through the kitchen window, announcing the start to a new day. And instead of an in-house rooster, Tatum Colton’s alarm consisted, it seemed, of her bashing a significant round of dough against her floured counter. Plumes of white puffed up and around her, coated her skin and set his pulse to jackhammering.

  “Sorry.” She sounded anything but as she grabbed the dough, whipped it up and over and slapped it back down. “It’s almost five.”

  He pressed his thumb and forefinger into his eyes. “You say that as if it means something.”

  “I didn’t want us to be late. We need to be out of here by—”

  “Eight a.m. Yeah, I got the memo.” She’d all but carved it into his brain last night. “What are you doing?”

  “Making bread.” And she seemed scarily focused on it. “Baking is one of my coping mechanisms.” She winced, shifted the dough around and began to knead it with a ferocity that had Cruz wincing. “I couldn’t sleep.”

  With sleep a forgotten desire, he made his way to the kitchen, poured himself a cup of coffee from the pot she’d already brewed, and took a seat at the bar. When he set his gun on the countertop, her eyes shifted briefly before she refocused on her task. “What’s wrong?”

  She snorted, a sound that had him torn between laughing and offering sympathy. Rather than provoking her, he simply sipped appreciatively and waited.

  “True has been open for three years. Three.” Slap. Bang. Slap bang. “Years. Never once in that time have I felt remotely unsafe in its walls. Among my people.” Slap bang bang bang. “And now...” She folded the dough over, shoved at it with the heel of her hand and began kneading again. “And now...”

  “And now you aren’t sure who you can trust.” He heard the tears in her voice. Not the feel-sorry-for-me tears of a woman whose business might be in serious jeopardy, but the hot, angry, frustrated tears of not being able to do anything about it. “I’m sorry, Tatum.”

  “Are you?” She slapped the dough hard enough to make him jump, grabbed it to whip it around again only to have it fly out of her hand. He caught it one-handed as it arced over his head, as if he’d caught a home run at Wrigley Field.

  The horror in her eyes kept the humor off his face. He reshaped the ball of dough before handing it back to her as a peace offering. “Yes. None of this is your fault. Someone’s taking advantage of you.” And the generous nature that was bound to get her into trouble.

  “Don’t say that,” she snapped, and after poking the dough, seemed to decide it and she had had enough. She retrieved a prepared and parchment-lined loaf pan from behind her. “That makes me sound like some dimwitted dolt who can’t see what’s happening in front of her face.”

  “No,” he argued, wishing he was feeling a bit more coherent for this conversation. “It means whoever is doing this knows what buttons to push. I’ll figure this out, Tatum. I promise.”

  “We’ll figure it out, you mean.” She pressed the bread dough into a rectangle, folded over the ends and pinched it together. Within seconds she had it settled in a loaf pan and set to the
side for a rise beneath a towel. “We’re partners, remember?”

  “No,” he said and purposely looked into the dark liquid of his cup. “We are not. I’m the cop. You’re a chef. You keep your nose in your area and I’ll do my job. That’s the deal.”

  “See, I don’t like that deal. You have nothing to lose if this all goes heels up. Whereas I lose—”

  “Everything. Yes, again, I know.” His cell phone vibrated, the sound reaching him from the coffee table. As it gave him the perfect excuse, he walked away from the counter to get it. The text message was another reminder from Jade. Just three words: Please don’t forget.

  I’ll be there by nine, he replied, and before Jade could respond, he set the phone back down.

  “Bad news?” Tatum had come around the counter, had her own mug of coffee in her hand and looked over the rim at him as she sipped.

  “Just an appointment I have to keep this morning.”

  “Oh. It looked like it was bad news.”

  She wasn’t wrong. But the bad wasn’t new. It was old enough to have sunk into his bones so deep that it made him ache. “A friend of mine’s in the hospital. A recovery facility.” He shrugged as if it wasn’t a big deal.

  “I’m sorry. Look, Cruz—”

  He held up his hands, not in surrender, but in emphasis for her to listen to him. “I need you to hear me on this, Tatum. And I need you to understand. We are not now, nor will we ever be partners. You watch out for your business. I’ll watch out for the bad guys. You’ve gotten me in to where I need to be and I will take it from here, all right? All you need to do is just keep cooking, keep acting as if everything is as it should be, and if perchance you come across anything that’s amiss or doesn’t sit right with you, you tell me. Got it?”

  “I don’t know.” Her frown disappeared behind her mug. “Could you maybe tell me all that again in a less condescending tone? I don’t want to miss any of my agreed-upon obligations.”

  He swore, vehemently enough that his mother would have smacked him on the back of the head, but instead of looking surprised or even offended, Tatum rolled her eyes and returned to the other side of the counter. “You’re going to have to do better than that to offend me. I got in trouble more times than I can count in school for swearing. And far more creatively than that.”

  “You did not,” he accused.

  “Oh, I sure did. Sister Damien sent me to the principal’s office so often you could have called me ricochet. I ended up in detention for a month the first time. After that I just planned it into my schedule. I even got points for creativity. Off the record, of course.”

  “Sister...Damien?”

  “Ironic, right?” Tatum’s lips twitched. “Look, I get it. You have a job to do. But the sooner you realize you aren’t in this alone, the better off we’ll both be.”

  “You think so?” He strode toward her, partly because he knew she wasn’t paying attention as she turned on her oven.

  “I do think...oh!” She almost bashed into him when she stood up. “Well. Good morning.” She pressed a hand against his chest, just over his heart. He could feel the warmth of her skin through his shirt, as if she was slowly branding him with her touch. “What’s this, then?”

  “I’m just wondering if there’s any way to get you to stop talking.” He said it while purposely looking at her mouth, a mistake, he realized too late, as he could only imagine what those lips of hers were capable of.

  “And I’m wondering if maybe I should ban you from my kitchen.” Instead of backing away, like he thought she would, like he hoped she would, she straightened her spine and inched up her chin. “We got in trouble like this before, Cruz. Are you sure you want to give it another try?”

  “I shouldn’t.” It was like being tempted by a decadent dessert and knowing he was allergic to the ingredients. It didn’t dim the want, the desire, even as he knew the aftereffects could be dangerous. “You’ve got an escape route,” he told her even as her smile widened. He knew that look by now, that challenge only she could offer. There was something about this woman, something he couldn’t define if he tried to, that pushed all thoughts of rationality and reason away and left him only with want.

  “I’m not the kind of woman who runs,” she told him as she traced her index finger down the center of his lips. “You’re a big part of the reason I couldn’t sleep, you know.”

  “Oh?” He leaned in, brushed his mouth, ever so lightly, across hers.

  “Uh-huh.” She returned the favor, upping the ante by nipping at his bottom lip, catching it between her teeth with the barest hint of pressure. “Maybe we just need to get this out of the way. You know. Scratch the itch.”

  He caught her hand as it slipped up his chest, almost curved around his shoulder before he threaded his fingers through hers. “You really think one time would do it?”

  She kissed him, with only her mouth and hands touching him, and set him on fire from head to toe. When Tatum pulled away, she left only a breath between them as she bit her own lip, lifted her gaze to his. “I’d be willing to find out. Let’s see.” When her lips opened in silent invitation, he slipped his free hand around her waist and, pressing his palm flat against the base of her spine, pulled her against him. He wanted, he thought as he claimed her mouth, for her to feel what she did to him. From the fire raging through his blood to how ready he was to take her right now, right here, in her personal fortress.

  He was used to being in control, in every aspect of his life. But as he felt her grab hold and hook her bare foot around the back of his calf, when she opened her mouth wider so that he could slip deeper into her, he relinquished it eagerly. She matched him move for move, touch for touch, breath for breath until he could feel her heart beating to the same erratic rhythm as his own.

  Her hands released him and he felt himself slipping away, until those nimble, strong fingers of hers trailed down his sides and beneath the hem of his shirt. The second he felt her hands on his bare flesh he grabbed hold of her hips and turned her against the counter, pressing his hardened arousal against her.

  Her gasp was like a bullet to his system, sharp, intrusive and strangely exhilarating. As her hands roamed over his back and her mouth and tongue continued to enrapture him in blind capitulation, he knew there was only one place for this to end. There was only one place he wanted to be. In Tatum Colton’s bed, with her wrapped around him.

  “Tatum.” He murmured her name against her lips, felt the ever so faint acknowledgment of understanding as her mouth pulled away. “Just how important is eight a.m. to you?”

  “What?” The dazed, foggy look in her eyes nearly had him throwing reason and caution out the window and hauling her back into his arms. “Eight oh...oh!” Reality seemed to hit her like a bucket of ice water. “Jeez. Okay, you’re right. Stop.” She planted her hands on his shoulders, but instead of pushing him away, she simply looked at him.

  Was that regret he saw? Or did he just imagine that because he felt it, too?

  “If you don’t believe anything else I say to you, Cruz, believe this.” Tatum seemed to have a hard time catching her breath. He couldn’t wait to make that happen again. “If we aren’t out of here by eight, both of us are going to regret it in ways you cannot even imagine.”

  “So...” He nipped at the side of her neck, felt her shudder, and suspected it wouldn’t take much to put that warning out of her mind. “Is it okay to use your shower?”

  “Yes.” She drew in a shaky breath. “Yes, good idea. Go.” She shoved him playfully, and hard enough for him to understand it was just as difficult for her as it was for him to stop. “I’ll have breakfast waiting for you when you’re done.”

  * * *

  She’d make waffles, Tatum decided. Fluffy, buttermilk waffles stuffed with bacon, cheese, and topped with thick, sugary maple syrup that would send even the most recovered carb addict into a blissful coma.
/>
  “Yeah, that should make me stop thinking about whatever that kiss was.” She had her virtual media player turn on the music, not so loud as to disturb the neighbors at this hour, but definitely so she could lose herself in the frenetic beat. All the better to drown out the sound of the shower running in her bathroom.

  She would not think about Cruz Medina being naked in her shower. Or how his firm, toned torso had felt beneath her far too curious fingers. Nor would she entertain the all too easy notion of joining him to finish what both of them had clearly been far too eager to start.

  “Think food,” she sang in time to the melody. “Food is your safe place.”

  Pulling out the waffle maker had always been a signal to her family she was stressed or uncertain about something. Come finals time the freezer would be set to overflowing with the varying recipes she tried, bulking up the basic recipe she’d memorized before she’d gotten through grammar school. One of the largest cabinets in the kitchen was filled with the selection of waffle irons she’d gotten for Christmas from someone she’d grown up with. It had become something of a Colton holiday tradition, and while it was something they laughed about every year, it was also one of her favorite collections. There was always one to suit whatever mood she was in.

  “Don’t think anyone’s gotten me one for sexual frustration yet,” Tatum mumbled to herself as she dug through the cabinet. She bypassed the small, heart-shaped novelty waffle maker and went for the traditional, oversize, chunky square machine that couldn’t be interpreted—or misinterpreted—in any way.

  Batter made and resting, she slid a cookie sheet of thick-slab bacon painted with maple syrup and topped with a sprinkling of brown sugar into the oven. Within minutes the air was filled with what she considered the most wonderful aroma in the known universe.