A Fine Specimen

by Lisa Marie Rice

  Caitlin always thought she’d end up late in life with some nice, low-key scholar. A sweater-and-suspenders kind of guy. They’d study together, have really good conversations and make polite love in the dark, under the covers.

  She knew that beta males make great companions even though they don’t, alas, heat the blood. Just this once, Caitlin wanted her blood heated. The memory of having had a hot time between the sheets with a true, unadulterated alpha male would warm her nights with her nice, tame future husband.

  Hot, unforgettable sex with a man you knew you wouldn’t want for the long-term was one thing. Hot, unforgettable sex with a fascinating man who made her want more…

  Well. That was heartbreak waiting to happen.

  “So, you getting what you need at the cop shop?” The question was asked out of nowhere in an idle tone, but his eyes were sharp as they watched hers.

  Caitlin sipped the wine. God, even the wine was perfect. “Oh yes, thank you. Kathy Martello and Ben Cade have been particularly helpful. I’ve got a lot of useful data.” Including an extensive bio of one Alejandro Cruz.

  “You’re doing it again,” Alex observed mildly as he topped her glass.

  They were on their second bottle and that, combined with the truly excellent food, filled Caitlin with a mellow glow. If you were going to get your heart broken, it might as well be in style.

  “What?” She twisted the stem of her glass, watching the candle’s reflection in the crystal blur and grow into a teardrop.

  “Smiling.”

  “Tell me, Lieutenant, is smiling suddenly against the law?”

  “Maybe it is. Or at least it should be, since here I was, telling you how the state should be run and you start smiling.” They’d been talking about a recent state senate scandal and had found themselves in total agreement regarding who were the scumbags and who were the good guys. “You should be—at the very least—pursing your lips and nodding solemnly at the wisdom I was imparting.”

  Caitlin let out her breath on a long sigh. “Sorry. I was thinking of something else.”

  “Such as?”

  She shrugged, happy that he wasn’t telepathic.

  “Are you going to tell me or am I going to have to call the maitre d’ over and have him break out the rubber hoses to make you talk?” He leaned toward her and assumed a Peter Lorre accent. “Theeessss restaurant’s dooongeon isss famous in four cown-treeeessss.”

  How the candlelight loved the planes of his face, hard and clean and sharply handsome. The black eyes gleamed with humor and intelligence, his skin dark against the pristine white shirt. His mouth looked hard but she remembered—oh-so clearly—how soft it had felt against hers, how, with a twist of his mouth, he’d opened her own. She also remembered how, when his tongue had touched hers, she’d felt it deep in her womb. Everything in her had fluttered when he’d kissed her, including her heart.

  Caitlin put her hands on her lap and clenched them, otherwise she’d reach out and touch his mouth, his skin, run her fingers through his hair. He was sitting way too close to her, so close she could feel his body heat.

  And she could smell him. He smelled simply fabulous. It wasn’t cologne. It didn’t have the undertone of alcohol all commercial colognes had. No, what she was smelling was clean clothes, his soap and shampoo and…his skin. A clean male smell designed by hundreds of thousands of years of evolution to entrap unwary females like herself. Over the centuries, how many women had been tripped up over a smell like that, coupled with dark, knowing eyes and a subtle, sexy smile?

  Millions. And they’d been left heartbroken, every single one.

  Their server slipped an earthenware bowl full of a frothy chocolate concoction in front of them and Caitlin sighed, glad of the distraction. Chocolate and cream were perhaps the only things on this earth that could drag her attention away for even a second from Alex Cruz. “Wow. Tiramisù.”

  “Nothing but the best.” Alex picked up his dessert spoon.

  Caitlin admired the serving bowl, decorated in bright, swirling colors. The heady chocolate smell of the dessert filled her nostrils. She glanced up, smiling, at Alex—and froze.

  Fire. Fire in his eyes. His skin was drawn tightly over his high cheekbones and his full mouth was drawn in a hard, thin line. He looked as if he wanted to gobble her up instead of the tiramisu…

  And the images that look conjured unnerved her so much that her hand jerked, tipping her dessert bowl straight onto Alex’s lap.

  Chapter Six

  “I’m really, really sorry, Alex,” Caitlin said contritely for the bazillionth time. She could feel her blush reaching down to her breasts. Hopefully she still wasn’t the stoplight color she’d been at the restaurant. Alex opened the door to his house and put a hand to her back to usher her in.

  What a nightmare trip across town, with the remains of tiramisù drying on Alex’s thighs while her cheeks burned in the dark and her hands trembled in her lap, totally unable to speak a single sentence without “sorry” in it somewhere. Finally, she had just shut up.

  “Tiramisù,” he said philosophically, looking down at the chocolate-and-cream-covered disaster that was his pants. “At least it’s partly dark. The cream sauce in the pappardelle would have clashed terribly.”

  Caitlin winced and looked away. His pants were dark, made of some expensive, superfine wool and covered in half-dried cream and chocolate. That mess on his thighs was all her fault. “Oh God. What can I say? I’m so sorry.” Caitlin was horrified to hear the shakiness in her voice.

  She wished he’d driven her back to the hotel instead of first detouring to his house to change. She could be huddled miserably on the dirty, lumpy bed with no one to see her humiliation instead of here, red-faced, gulping for air, blinking back tears.

  “Hey.” Alex’s big hand caught her chin and turned her face up to his. His thumb stroked her cheek then touched a tear that was forming at the corner of her eye. “What’s this?” His deep voice was gentle.

  Caitlin jolted when he touched her. God, this was so scary. Even his casual touch felt electric.

  He raised his eyebrows. “You’re not afraid of me, are you?”

  “N-no.” Caitlin took a deep breath. It wasn’t fear, but he definitely made her quake. “But sometimes you make me a little…nervous.”

  “I don’t want to do that,” he said, his deep voice sober. His beautifully shaped black eyebrows drew together in a puzzled frown and he shook his head slowly. “I’d have to go out and buy myself a whole new wardrobe and I really hate to shop.”

  “That was a joke, wasn’t it?” she asked shakily. “Tell me it’s a joke.”

  He wasn’t listening. His hand had slipped into her hair to cup her head. His eyes were fixed on her mouth. She could feel his breath wash over her face. His eyes met hers for a second and the heat in them gave her heart a jolt.

  She could feel herself swaying toward him, an irresistible movement, like iron filings to a lodestone. “Alex?”

  He looked down at his pants then stepped away and it was exactly as if a force field around her had been switched off. She rocked back on her heels, the tension in her shoulders easing. She drew in a deep breath and realized she’d been holding it.

  Alex turned. “I’m going to run upstairs and change. And then we can go back out if you want. There’s a good little jazz club that fixes mean margaritas not too far from here. Or we could take in a movie. Or watch one here.” He took the stairs two at a time and stopped on the landing, looking down at her. The light in the living room didn’t extend far and all she could make out on the landing was the white of his shirt, as if he were a powerful ghost with a deep voice. “Put on some music in the meantime if you want.”

  “Okay.”

  She was grateful for the reprieve. She needed time to get her emotions back under control.

  Trying to distract herself, Caitlin looked around Alex’s house. She hadn’t the vaguest idea where they were except that they weren’t in the downtown area. Caitlin h
ad a little hobby of matching people to their habitats and she was seldom wrong. She’d imagined Alex Cruz living in an apartment in the city, close to the action. A low-maintenance kind of bachelor pad that served as a staging ground for his life, nothing more.

  That’s why she was so surprised when he had pulled into the driveway of a small, neat, two-story house in an upscale residential district about ten miles from the city.

  Who would have pegged him for a suburbanite? He kept surprising her.

  She wandered around the living room, curious to find out more about this man. It wasn’t easy getting a read on him because there were very few personal effects. His house was like a machine for living. There were no knickknacks, no photos, no plants, no souvenirs scattered about like most people had—there was nothing in the living room that in any way betrayed the personality of the owner. The few pieces of furniture were of good quality, the whitewashed walls were bare of paintings or photographs, there was no hint of possible sports he might play or hobbies he might have.

  There was absolutely no sign of a woman’s presence, anywhere.

  The house was neat. That she would have imagined. He was always very neatly dressed. His shirts—white—were clean and freshly pressed. His pants—black—had knife-edge creases. His shoes—black—were well polished.

  So the neatness didn’t surprise her. What did surprise her were the books—the walls were lined with shelves filled two and sometimes three deep with books. Alex was a reader. A voracious one.

  He seemed so no-nonsense. So Mr. Macho Cop, the kind of man who’d spend his free time on the firing range or playing pickup basketball.

  Curious, she bent to peruse some of the titles. He read history and popular science, biographies and travel books. Some science fiction. He read mysteries, which didn’t surprise her, and westerns, which did.

  Westerns? Who knew he’d have that in him? Surely a taste for westerns showed a hidden romantic streak? Or was she kidding herself?

  God. Westerns.

  Caitlin had a flash of Alex as he would have been in the old West. Dressed in black, an implacable force for justice, fast with a gun and his fists, eyes shaded by the brim of a black ten-gallon hat with a silver circlet around the brim, silver and mother of pearl handles on the pistols, dark eyes burning… She shivered and moved on.

  On a high-tech metal stand was the largest home entertainment center she’d ever seen, with a ginormous flat-screen TV and a top-of-the-line Swedish stereo set.

  She ran her finger along the rows of DVDs, all of them purchased. No pirated editions for Alex the Lawman. Classic movies, mostly, many she’d heard of but hadn’t seen. The CDs, too, were all purchased—four shelves of them, alphabetized and orderly. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d bought music, but then, she lived in a university environment. Students at college hadn’t bought CDs since 2002. Curious, she ran her finger along the names of the composers and artists. Alex’s taste in music was eclectic, running more to instrumentals than to vocals.

  “The remote for the CD player is in the wooden bowl on the coffee table.” Alex’s deep voice came floating down from upstairs.

  Caitlin found the remote and chose a quiet, bluesy album. The notes from a mournful sax filled the air, melancholy and moving. Caitlin swayed gently to the music, eyes closed, then sat down on the dark green leather couch and leaned her head against the back. The music washed over her, gentle, sad, seductive. Caitlin closed her eyes and let herself go, the tenor sax soothing her nerves.

  “Here.” Caitlin opened her eyes enough to see Alex holding out a crystal glass with a finger of amber liquid and a couple of ice cubes. “Ol’ Coltrane knew what he was doing. He’s good for the nerves, isn’t he? So’s this.” He nudged the glass into her hand.

  “Thanks.” She gulped the whisky as Alex sat next to her. The couch dipped and it seemed as if the entire universe were conspiring to have her dip toward him too. She could feel his body heat, feel the force of his eyes on her. Nervous, she took another long swallow.

  “Hey, go easy there.” Alex’s hard mouth lifted in a half smile. “I want to get you mellow, not soused.” He leaned back into the couch with a sigh, one broad shoulder brushing hers. He lifted his left arm and hooked it over the back of the sofa, brushing her shoulders. The hairs on Caitlin’s nape rose.

  She turned her head slightly to look at him. He’d changed into a black tee shirt and pressed black jeans. Dressed informally, he looked younger than he did in his RoboCop incarnation—just making the world safe for civilians, ma’am, now step aside—though not softer or more approachable.

  She thought of the men she’d dated, though at this particular moment she couldn’t remember the face of even one. They’d been boys, she realized now, not men. That was what had been wrong with them. Soft, weak and, at times, petulant boys. Puppies. There was absolutely nothing boyish or soft about Alex Cruz. He was a powerful man in his prime, a big, magnificent animal, one of nature’s aristocrats, like a tiger or a wolf. Powerful in every way.

  He turned that handsome head to look at her, not even pretending to look at anything else.

  Right now all that formidable power was focused laser-sharp on her. Totally. It was as if the very molecules in the air were charged and focused on her. Caitlin had to remember to breathe and she had to consciously expand her lungs to do it.

  Sex was in the air, heavy, musky, pulsing to the rhythms of a tenor sax playing the blues. Caitlin could practically see pheromones dancing in the dim light. Everything in her body felt heavy—eyelids, limbs, the hot blood coursing slowly through her veins like sweet liquid honey. Everything, that is, but her head. That felt so light it was in danger of floating away.

  The music stopped as the CD player changed discs. For a moment, the silence enveloped them like a blanket, a living thing in the dark room. The music had been keeping them company, like a third person in the room, but it had departed. Now there was only the two of them.

  The music started up again, another tune, another tone—coolly slick and sexy. A clarinet and piano, a low, throbbing undertone overlaid with a sensuous melody. Pure sex set to music.

  Every sense Caitlin had was heightened. She could hear her breathing and his, the soft whisper of a car passing down the residential street outside, her heavy heartbeats. Her skin had become one huge sensitive pad, feeling every inch of her clothes—dress, panties and shoes, all she had on. And the rest of her bare skin felt the touch of his gaze as clearly as if he’d reached out his big hand to caress her.

  His face was all hard lines and shadows in the dim light. Something was waiting in the shadows. The very air was pulsing with something immense, something that was about to happen.

  Caitlin felt like a diver hesitating at the top of the highest diving board, toes hanging in space, looking down, heart thumping with fear and excitement. The next few seconds would change her life, she knew that. She was afraid to move, to breathe.

  She jumped when a hard hand closed on the nape of her neck. Her hand shook and the ice tinkled in her glass.

  Alex reached over and took the glass from her hand. “Careful,” he murmured. “I’m running out of pants.”

  The whisky had obviously wiped out her indignation lobe. All she could manage was a weak, “That’s not funny.”

  His fingers burrowed in her hair. “Not funny at all,” he agreed. “I told you I hate to shop.” Alex’s thumb traced her jawbone. “So…do you want to go out?”

  Out? Did she want to go out? What could she possibly want out there when everything desirable was in here, watching her with heated, dark, half-closed eyes? She shook her head. “No.”

  His expression didn’t change, but it intensified. Everything about his face became clearer, sharper, more tightly focused.

  He slowly removed her glasses and placed them carefully on the coffee table. She was nearsighted, so it didn’t matter. Everything she wanted to see was only inches away.

  Caitlin watched as his face came closer to h
ers. She could see a faint dusting of silver in the black wings of hair over his ears, she could see the floor lamp reflected in his dark eyes, the beard shadowing his face—and then she couldn’t see anything at all because she closed her eyes as his mouth closed over hers.

  A last lingering source of rationality told her to keep her cool, keep a sense of herself, not lose herself in the moment, not lose herself to him.

  Too late.

  At the first touch of his lips to hers, she was gone.

  Alex knew it would happen. Oh yeah.

  He’d been talking a good line to himself—you keep your hands off her, she’s too young for you, she’s a colleague—sort of—and anyway, she’s Ray’s protégé. All in his best Stern Voice of God that worked wonders down at the station house. Yada yada, yeah yeah. He might as well have been whistling at the moon for all the attention his cock was paying to his noble intentions.

  It was one thing to convince himself in the abstract that Caitlin Summers was off limits while they were having dinner. Not too much of a chance of ripping her clothes off and jumping her bones in a room full of diners.

  But he was alone with her now, just the two of them, in his house, and every cell in his body was screaming for sex. They’d been screaming all through dinner and with massive self-control, he’d managed to shut them up. But now there was no more pretending, not with his mouth on hers. He gave up without even a struggle. Just touching her was explosive. Just his hand on her neck, feeling how silky the skin under her ear was, made his heart pound.

  The skin under her ear was soft, tender. As were her eyes, her lips…

  He drew back a moment to breathe, to catch himself. Caitlin’s eyes were closed, the long lashes casting shadows over her delicate cheekbones. Her eyelids fluttered open and her gaze circled his face. In the dim light, her eyes looked silver, rimmed by a slightly darker blue. When she moved her eyes they flashed like lightning. It was fascinating to watch. He could barely take his eyes off her.