by Cassie Wild
The low voice had me straightening, pushing away from the rough brick surface of the building, and I turned to see Cutter sauntering out of the darkness.
“They leave you behind?” he asked.
“No.” Holding the phone to my ear, I finished the request for the cab, then put my phone away. Squaring my shoulders, I met Cutter’s gaze dead on.
“If you need a ride, I can save you some money, Ravenna,” he said. “I’d be more than happy to take you home.”
“I’m fine, thanks.”
He edged in closer, eliminating a couple more feet of distance, now well and firmly inside my personal space. “What is it with you, Ravenna? You don’t ever seem to want to give me two seconds of your time. All I want is to take you out for a drink…”
His gaze dropped down to linger on the neckline of my t-shirt. It was a band tee, nothing remotely sexy about it, but the way he was eying my tits, one might think I was wearing nothing but skin.
“I’ve told you a dozen times, I’m not interested in a drink or…anything else,” I told him, not bothering to hide the disdain in my voice.
He heard it too. Jerking his head back, he glared at me, fury transforming his features. “You know what, Ravenna? You think you’re such a hot little bitch with that badge of yours, but you’re nothing more than a fucking tease.” He inched up closer, until he was little more than a few inches away.
I opened my mouth to respond, but a voice came from over Cutter’s shoulder, cutting in before I had a chance to say a word.
“You know, I think you’ve said quite enough, man. Why don’t you back off and leave the lady alone?”
Seven
Nicco
I’d never been to 831, but a few cops I knew mentioned it to me, so I decided to swing by that night and see if any of them were around.
While I understood Suria and Joelle’s wariness of cops, I hadn’t had the same upbringing as they had – thankfully – and didn’t share their outlook. It was a good thing because, in my line of work, I spent a lot of time around cops and in courtrooms. Being a forensic accountant sort of necessitated it.
Two of the cops I was friendly with were there, and we sat at the bar, watching a game while talking shop.
I saw her almost right away, the sexy cop I’d seen just that morning.
Wouldn’t you know it, my first night at a cop hangout and there she was.
She wore a band tee and a closefitting pair of jeans that outlined long, lean legs and a long, lean torso. I never would have pegged myself as having an appetite for the long, lean type, but just looking at her made me hungry. She glanced in my direction, but I didn’t think she saw me as she approached the bar talking with a big guy. His hair wasn’t as red as hers, but the resemblance was clear. A brother, I assumed.
“Made any headway on that case you were talking about a few days ago?”
Dragging my gaze away from the woman, I attempted to focus on Detective Dwight Bowers, one of the guys who worked in the fraud department. I shook my head. “I’d rather not discuss it here.”
He nodded in understanding while the cop next to him, a uniform who would probably retire a beat cop, flagged down the bartender to order some wings. “You guys want any?”
“I’ll take a burger,” I said once the bartender was close enough to hear the order. As much as I loved wings, I wasn’t up to their mess tonight.
I saw her again several times throughout the night, but almost always with somebody who had to be family. I counted four different ones so far, although a couple of them looked almost enough alike to count as twins.
If she’d come out by herself, even once…
No, not when she’s here with family, I told myself.
If she hung out here, then I’d be back.
I wanted a name.
Hell, I wanted more than a name.
I wanted a phone number. Her ankles digging into my back as I thrust inside her.
But I’d settled for a name first.
Watching her as intently as I was, it didn’t take much to notice that somebody else was interested in her too.
He was a big guy, and like a lot of big, muscled guys, he thought that made him a tough son of a bitch. He also seemed to think it commanded him a certain amount of respect, judging by the way he walked around the joint.
More than a few of the cops in the place ignored him, which didn’t surprise me. He might have been more aware of the effect he had on people if he hadn’t constantly had his eyes glued to her ass.
I had to admit, she had a fine ass, but this guy was taking ogling to a whole new level.
It bothered me more than I would have thought possible, and not just because it was some thug who intruded on her space more than a few times. There was no need to do anything about it because those brothers of hers were pretty much right there to deal with it.
She was also very much aware of him, judging by the annoyed way she looked at him every time he approached her.
I was about ready to leave when I noticed that the brothers seemed to be trailing out. I wouldn’t have thought much of it, but I’d noticed the big guy with the butt fetish had ducked into the back a few minutes earlier and hadn’t been back out.
I didn’t know if he’d left or not. It was the or not that kept me in my seat as a few more of the guys who’d been there with Red trickled out. By the time she emerged nearly forty-five minutes later with two more tall, red-haired guys with her, I’d counted six possible brothers in all.
Six brothers.
As the three of them made their way to the front, I slid a look to the back door where I’d seen the guy from the bar disappear. He hadn’t reappeared, not that I’d noticed since he’d ducked through that door.
He’d probably left.
I’d do the same, once I’d paid my bill.
I was wrong.
He hadn’t left.
He was currently getting entirely too close to the cop I’d started calling Red – I had to have something to refer to her since she’d been dominating my thoughts half the night.
Red had her back to the building, and the big guy leaned over her in a clear attempt to use his physical presence to intimidate her.
As I caught the final half of what he was saying, my temper sparked, and I closed the distance between us in half the time it normally would have taken me.
“You know what, Ravenna? You think you’re such a hot little bitch with that badge of yours, but you’re nothing more than a fucking tease.”
Moving up behind him, I said, “You know, I think you’ve said quite enough, man. Why don’t you back off and leave the lady alone?”
He spun around to face me, a sneer on his face. He opened his mouth, and I readied myself for whatever comment…or whatever else came next.
But the woman beat me to it. She slid between us with a curt look at me. “Thanks, but I can handle him.” She turned a hard look at the asshole. “You want to say that again, you meathead?”
He curled his lip, directing his sneer at her.
I think the big mistake was when he reached out to touch her.
She batted his hand aside as he said, “I called you a fucking tease, Ravenna.”
Ravenna. I tucked that name in my head, holding it tight. On another level, I eased away from her, wanting to give myself room.
If he laid a hand on her again…
He did.
But I didn’t have time to move.
She was already doing it. She trapped his wrist, moving his arm up and around, twisting her body with a speed that was almost mind-boggling. Before I could so much as decide on what action I wanted to take, she was already done and had him slammed up against the wall behind them. “You don’t want to go putting your hands on me again, Cutter,” she said in an affable tone. “You hear me?”
“Let me go, you little bi–” His comment ended in a sharp, strangled noise as she leaned into him and jerked his wrist up between his shoulder blades.
“I’m getting a little t
ired of the name calling,” she advised him. “It’s tedious. Now, acknowledge what I told you, you piece of shit. You don’t want to put your hands on me again, do you?”
He shook his head, the movement almost desperate. I could see why. The human body wasn’t meant to be contorted in the fashion in which she was forcing his to move.
She leaned into him another few seconds, then abruptly shoved back, putting a few feet between them before he so much as turned.
Fury sparked in his eyes.
She had a smirk on her face.
“I think we’re done here,” she said calmly. Then, just as a cab pulled into the parking lot, she turned on her heel and strode off.
I think I fell in love.
Eight
Ravenna
“I’m going to kick Reuben’s ass for leaving you there alone,” Carl announced.
Rolling my eyes, I leaned back in my chair and shook my head. I’d just finished telling him about the incident from the night before and how good it had felt to slam Cutter up against the wall, but was he amused by what I’d done?
Nope. Like a typical big brother, he was pissed I’d had to do it. Or maybe he was pissed he hadn’t had the pleasure.
None of my brothers were much impressed with Cutter Duncan, and after last night, he had moved up pretty high on my shit list, so I could only imagine how high he was ranking on theirs.
Strangely, I knew he would be higher on theirs, and I was the one he’d been hassling. My brothers took their jobs of looking out for me entirely too seriously, especially considering how well they’d taught me to look out for myself.
As if he was reading my mind, Carl’s lips quirked up in a grin. It gave his face a satyr-like sharpness with his high, arched cheekbones. “I guess you’re pretty pleased with yourself though, aren’t you?”
“I’ll admit, it was rather satisfying to slam him into the nearest hard surface and threaten him,” I allowed, my grin widening.
“I bet.” Carl chuckled, some of the tension fading away. “Looks like you’re keeping up with your training.”
“Part of the job now.” I tapped my nametag soberly. “I help uphold law and order.”
He laughed outright and shook his head. “Smart ass.” Hands braced on the desk, he eyed me. “Any idea who the guy trying to play knight in shining armor was? We can buy him a drink for being a decent sort next time we see him in the 831.”
“Buy me a drink,” I said, jabbing a thumb at my chest and resenting the reminder of the delicious piece of man-candy who’d shown up while I was dealing with Cutter. “I dealt with him, no knight required.”
Carl shook his head, still grinning at me. “It’s just a nice gesture, sweetie. What about the next girl? He might think it’s not worth it, and she may well need the help.”
“Decent guys intervene to help no matter what.” I hitched up a shoulder. “If he’s a decent guy, he’ll step up. It won’t matter if you buy him a drink or if I tell him thanks. That’s what decent guys do.”
Somebody called Carl’s name, and he blew out a breath. “Gotta go. You behave yourself, Sinclair.”
“You do the same, Sinclair,” I told him with a half-smile, bending back over the traffic report for the court case I had tomorrow morning.
But it wasn’t the suspect’s face I was seeing.
I saw him, the guy from last night.
It was the same guy I’d seen at the café earlier that day, but now I had a good idea of what he looked like up close and…wow. I really didn’t need that image in my head. He was totally delicious, the kind of guy who looked like he ought to be on the front of a magazine.
Black hair, eyes like the sky at twilight when a storm was moving in. Not entirely blue, not entirely gray, and altogether beautiful.
And a beautiful mouth.
The kind of mouth that reminded me it had been way too long since I’d been out on a date.
Somebody dropped something nearby, and the slamming noise jerked me out of my head. Muttering to myself, I forced my attention back to the report and sighed. I didn’t need to be thinking about Mr. Gorgeous when I had Mr. Greedy Pants to deal with in court tomorrow. He’d tried to bribe his way out of a ticket. Had to focus on that.
I managed to get another twenty minutes or so in before moving to the next case where I might or might not be testifying – a repeat DWI – but before I’d spent more than a couple of minutes refreshing my mind on the night in question, I sensed movement from the corner of my eye and looked up just in time to see Martin Henry, an informant I’d been cultivating, drop into the chair next to my desk.
“Heya, Red,” he said, greeting me with a wide smile.
“The name isn’t Red,” I reminded him. “It’s Officer Sinclair. What are you doing here?”
He smirked. “Seeing the sights. Making the rounds.”
In other words, talking to some other cop he snitched for.
I had no idea who it was.
Dad had recommended Martin to me, and so far, he’d proved to be somewhat useful, having connections to a whole hell of a lot of shit, but what really made him stand out was the fact that he used to be a professional con artist.
He said he was ‘mostly reformed’ now, but he still kept his hand in.
If Dad knew why I needed somebody who had his hand in, he probably never would have referred Martin my way when he retired, but what he didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.
“What are you doing here, specifically?” I asked him, tapping my pen against the file folder on my desk.
His eyes slid down.
Sighing, I flipped a piece of paper over any names he might see. Cops shared snitches, and while I doubted I had anything useful to anybody else in the precinct, if somebody wanted something from me, they could ask.
But he just grinned at me. “Sorry, force of habit.”
“Uh-huh. Again, tell me why you’re here.”
He wagged his eyebrows at me. “I got a name for you.”
Interest lit up inside me, and I sat up a little straighter. “The name I’ve been waiting on?” I asked.
His smile told me everything I needed to know.
Leaning toward him, I waited.
“The man you’re looking for lives down in LA. He’s been there a while,” he told me. “He’s caught local interest but not enough to pin him with anything. I don’t have much of anything beyond his name though.”
“His name is enough.” Just give it to me, I thought, greedy.
Then he did, and as he walked away, I looked at the name I’d written down.
I underlined it once, then stared at it.
Gabriel Marks.
Nine
Nicco
The phone rang.
One thing I missed about working with a firm was that when my phone rang, the only person to answer it was me.
And one look at the caller ID told me I really needed to answer the call too.
It was the police department. If they were calling, they had a job for me, and no forensics accountant worth his salt wanted to turn down a job working with the cops. At least not one who is building his own name as a consultant in the field.
Eying the paperwork on my desk, I let the phone ring twice more before answering. Another thing I missed about working in a firm…somebody who did the paperwork. I needed to start farming out that tedious chore out. There had to be a way to do that.
“Nicco Alexander,” I said in lieu of a greeting.
“Nicco. This is Lieutenant Frank Steppes with the Monterey Police Department. I was wondering if I could have a few moments of your time.”
I glanced at the paperwork. “I can spare a few.”
“Wonderful.”
Ten minutes later, I hung up the phone and bent back over the paperwork. Now, I really had to get it done. Instead of having a free afternoon to do it in, I had the next hour and a half. After that, I was meeting Lieutenant Steppes and several other law enforcement officials who were putting together a task forc
e to deal with organized crime.
They’d like my…expertise on it.
That was what Steppes had told me.
I needed to clear my plate for the afternoon since I’d be spending the rest of the day in the police station.
A face flashed through my mind, and I wondered how much of my saying yes had to do with the chance that it made it more likely I’d run into the sexy officer by the name Ravenna.
I couldn’t answer the question without lying or embarrassing myself, so I tucked the entire thing to the back of my head and forced myself to focus on work.
Minutes dragged by. Each one of them felt like an hour.
I found myself eying the clock instead of double-checking the billable hours for the client I’d been working with last week.
I jerked my attention back to the computer screen and started over. Couldn’t have a forensic accountant screwing up and overbilling the client now, could I? That would look pretty fucking bad.
Of course, it would help if I didn’t keep having to jerk my brain away from the hot handful who had been dominating my thoughts from the very first time I’d laid eyes on her.
And I was definitely lying to myself if I tried to pretend me taking this job had nothing to do with my hopes of seeing her again.
It was just after one when I gave my name to the uniform manning the front desk. I told him I was there to see Lieutenant Steppes, then moved away to wait.
I’d finally succeeded at getting Ravenna out of my mind for long enough to get the paperwork done, although the moment I finished, she crept back in like a ghost.
I’d banished her again before coming inside, but I found my eyes straying to the bullpen that lay just beyond the desk in front of me, shielded by an overlarge, plate glass window.
I didn’t see a head of bright red hair, and I cursed myself for looking despite my determination to stay focused on the job.
“Mr. Alexander?”