Operative Attraction

by Blue, RaeLynn

  Fifteen minutes later I was proven wrong on so many levels. Squeezing every ounce of horsepower out of the side-by-sides, those two came barreling into the center of town. Though it was a quarter-mile straight, they zig-zagged their way to the saloon at top speed. Driving like stunt drivers on a movie set, they showed off their driving skills by popping off three sixties before careening to a shuddering halt inches away from the steps. Killing the engines, they jumped out of the vehicle, each proclaiming victory.

  “Woohoo!” Jeanie yelled as she threw her fist in the air.

  “I’m the champ!” Dréa said as she broke off a little shimmy.

  “You’re both nuts, is what you are,” Reid said.

  “And you are a hater,” Dréa said.

  Ignoring the five men riding with each of them, they dropped into seats. They may have ignored them, but the rest of us weren’t. For the second time that day, we let out a collective “damn.”

  “I thought y’all were ‘the authorities,’” Shara asked suspiciously.

  “We are, ma’am,” the first male drawled in what was assuredly a Texan accent.

  “How come y’all look like you escaped from a male review?” Laura asked all innocent like.

  “Um,” they began. Well, the ones who weren’t on their knees thanking all of the gods they knew that they’d survived the ride in tried to answer.

  “Show me your badges,” Shara demanded.

  Stepping up, she inspected each of the badges. “They’re legit,” she said.

  “Legit male strippers or legit authorities?” Yazmin asked.

  “The authorities,” Shara answered.

  “Damn,” Reid said. “I’m almost sad that Yaz and I are leaving later this afternoon. As beautiful as the scenery is, it just got a whole lot more interesting.”

  “I hear you. If I wasn’t going to the hair show, I’d delay my plans so I could get a taste of that fineness,” Yazmin said.

  “They’re lucky I’m not eighteen anymore,” Shara said. “Otherwise…”

  “Otherwise they’d have to arrest their damn selves because y’all would break off the kind of kinky shit they would have to make laws about?” I teased, knowing good and damn well that Shara was totally in love with Mr. Her.

  “Yeah,” she said. And then she got that gleam in her eye. “Hey, most of us can’t look, but we can write. CHALLENGE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

  And that is how it began.

  Operative Attraction

  by

  Raelynn Blue

  Chapter One

  Detective Hal Stevens’ very plain name failed to adequately convey the rather extraordinary detective as he stood beneath a huge magnolia tree. He was clad in deep ebony slacks that skated gracefully over narrow hips and tight, hardened thighs, then down his well-shaped calves, stopping a hush from the tops of his equally somber shoes. A shock of extremely dark hair fell to his shoulders in a spiral of loose curls. Broad shoulders stretched his suit jacket taut across the luscious expanse of his frame. A slim, petite brunette strutted past him, tripped and tumbled across the sidewalk, before coming to a stop a few feet from him. He smirked at her, but the expression wasn’t cruel.

  “Caught another one, eh, Stevens?” Avery Lamont asked between chuckles. “Damn girl couldn’t stop starin’ at you. You act like some fashion model instead of a cop.”

  Well, hell, Hal guessed he was looking at Avery, because Avery still wore his deeply tinted shades. He acted like some damn rap star, sporting his sunglasses inside, outside and on cloudy days too, and he had an ego the size of Mount Everest to go with the shades. Hal been partnered with the younger man for nearly four years.

  “Where the hell is that informant?” Hal asked instead, letting the jab at his good looks go by. The precinct jokes about his appearance had made reaching detective difficult, but that was ancient history. Now, if he and Avery could just get their hands on the serial rapist who had been taken into some sort of twisted-ass protection with a ring of criminals, he could finally put the last of the whispers to rest.

  Hal slid his sunglasses down the bridge of his nose and shrugged off Avery’s streetwise commentary. He glanced over to his partner before putting his attention back on the very attractive woman standing about fifteen feet from them. The sun-kissed beauty crouched down to pick up the toy a small toddler dropped as he and his mother walked past her. She smiled gently at the little boy before waving goodbye.

  Hal smiled too as he let his gaze start at the bottom of those glossy yellow stilettos, then climb ever so slowly up those tapered ankles, up sculpted, well-defined calves, and right over the full swirl of her sundress or whatever they called those little snippets of cloth. God, he loved summer.

  “She’s beautiful, ain’t she?” he grunted toward Avery.

  The female with the curvaceous body and smooth caramel skin had snared his attention. Could be why he hadn’t seen the skeletal, pale broad struggling to catch his eyes.

  At the mere thought of the fine-ass African beauty, Hal’s gaze went directly back to her, the gorgeous woman draped in a canary yellow dress and all soaked in the beautiful day’s rays. Hal understood why the sun seemed so drawn to her. He too felt an urge, a tug so damn strong he fought hard to stop his cock from rising.

  “Who the fuck is that?” Avery asked beneath his breath. “Ain’t that some shit?”

  Hal shook off his daydreaming in time to see some menacing bastard leering at the dark angel in high heels. Mr. Grabby had his hands all over the woman’s goods, and she didn’t seem to like it none too much. She was trying to slap his hands away, but Mr. Grabby seemed to have grown an extra pair to paw at her.

  “We’re going to stand around and watch the show?”

  He didn’t answer Avery’s question, just gave him a slight glare.

  It didn’t seem right that such a gorgeous day would be ruined by such stupid-ass behavior. Especially directed toward a woman so damn fine. Yeah, they should be waiting on the informant, but hell, this shouldn’t take long. At the very least, he could maybe get the beautiful woman’s telephone number.

  “Get your fucking hands off me!” the woman snapped and slapped at the offending man’s outstretched hands.

  Hal’s gut clenched hard, and the amused smirk on Avery’s face melted off. Just a few feet from them, the woman in question with the sharp tongue and the husky voice had stiffened. Like a viper, the snake of a man snatched her toward him, even as she recoiled.

  “Let go of me!” she shouted, fighting the man’s cruel grip. “Bastard!”

  “You little sniveling bitch! I came all the way from Raleigh to fucking get you, and you wanna run out on me?” the greasy bastard growled at her. “Shut the fuck up!”

  A crimson tint filtered over Hal’s eyes as he moved, charging like a bull toward the target right in front of him. Without having to look or even wait, he knew Avery fell into step behind him. It happened so often that the other knew exactly what his partner thought. At that moment, the only thing that mattered rested within beating-ass length from his clenched fist.

  Mine!

  That singular thought propelled him the way coal did a steam engine, right up through to the quarreling twosome.

  “Who the fuck—” the dirty bastard grunted, swirling around before… Wham!

  The bastard bounced across the sidewalk, skipping like discarded trash.

  “Ma’am, are you all right?” Hal asked, breathing through his nose to quell the hot, quick anger that burned through him like an inferno. No one—ever—should manhandle a woman, much less such a fine creature as this one.

  She turned, and wide, sable eyes rimmed with her own level of pissed-off red met his blue ones. Her full bottom lip quivered, but he understood that tremble came from her annoyance.

  “What the hell are you two assholes doing?” she spat out, delicate fists balled up.

  “Ma’am, I’m here to help you.” His Tennessee drawl slipped into each word. He folded his sunglasses and slipped them into
the front V of his shirt. “I’m Detective Stevens, and this here is Detective Lamont. We’re here from the Greensboro Police Department, and I just wanna…”

  Hug you tight.

  He faltered and coughed to clear the emotions clogging up his throat.

  “You just cost me information! Information that could’ve helped me capture a rapist!” she shouted and jerked Hal’s hand off her arm. “I’m Olivia Eaton.”

  Hal’s grin tightened across his face, frozen in embarrassment and the urge to kiss her all wrapped up and twisted in his gut.

  “Damn, Hal, she’s a superfine male informant, huh?” Avery sniggered and rubbed his bald head. “You gonna pay me now or later?”

  “Later,” Hal growled. “Much later, and it won’t be the ten dollars we bet on either. I got ten knuckle sandwiches to feed you.”

  Avery roared in laughter.

  For weeks Hal had assumed, albeit foolishly, that the informant O. Eaton was male. Every correspondence from them bore the signature of O. Eaton. Hal knew many things, but he damn sure didn’t expect his rendezvous contact on the serial rapist and the criminal ring to be a sexy, saucy, and stiletto-wearing woman.

  “Do either of you two know what you’ve just done?” Olivia asked, eyebrows burrowed down in furious anger. Her eyes’ sable-brown roundness seemed to glow in irritation, and for some reason, Hal found it terribly cute.

  Chapter Two

  “Where’s that gloating partner of yours?” Olivia asked as she leaned against the hood of a sleek Lexus.

  “He’s getting us coffees,” he said. “You ain’t still pissed about that, uh, misunderstanding, are you, sugah?”

  She clenched her fist so tight, her knuckles ached. She fought back the urge to punch the handsome white guy square in the face. He’d cost her the only lead she had on the rapist who’d fled Greensboro and had taken up residence in Awau, where he’d found protection among the local criminals. To be sure, she didn’t want a group of asshole criminals running loose, and she didn’t know if Tracey would be able to find out a lot more on them. Her private detective BFF could get anyone to talk about anything, but still, Olivia didn’t like her hanging around a bunch of criminals trying to get information. Dangerous shit, and these two idiots just cost her the opportunity to find him.

  “Your name again, sugah?” she asked, stressing the “sugah” and making it as vulgar as she could.

  “Hal, Hal Stevens,” he replied, frowning at her. “Look, don’t get your panties all twisted and turned, princess. I saw a woman in distress, and I helped. I’m a cop; it’s what I do.”

  Olivia released a single breath and pushed herself off the car’s hood. She zeroed in on him, getting in his personal space, her manicured, purple-painted fingernail poking at his rock-solid chest as she spoke.

  “It’s what arrogant assholes do when they’re trying to score. Let me tell you, Mr. Hero, you get in my face, you get in my way before I nail these depraved, perverted bastards, and I’ll cut off your balls and stuff them in a jar for safekeeping.”

  Hal’s blue eyes narrowed only slightly, but the edges of his deep rose-colored lips twitched at the corners. The fall of ebony hair framed the angular face, and this close, his cologne swept into her nose, making her hot and all too aware of his proximity. Her anger weakened beneath the hot look in his eyes, and Olivia regretted stepping into his personal space. Now he held her fast.

  “Your hands on my balls would be a gift, though your mouth would be a hell of a lot better,” he said softly, grabbing her hand and wrapping his own around it. He pulled her closer still and tilted his head downward, as if he meant to kiss her.

  God, if he kissed her, Olivia didn’t know if she’d melt under his kissable mouth or kick his ass for trying to seduce her.

  “So, don’t toss it out there, sugah, unless you mean to follow through.”

  “Let go of me,” she whispered around the desire lodged in her throat. She couldn’t get away fast enough, and yet she couldn’t crawl into his lap soon enough either. The hardness pressing against her belly confessed his hunger to do more than talk.

  She wasn’t the only one making threats. He meant his words.

  Snatching her hand out of his grasp, she rubbed her shoulders and stumbled back.

  “Aye, Hal, got the white chocolate mocha, but they said they were outta soy,” Avery said, slicing through the moment and forcing Hal’s attention to something else. “Here, plain ole shit for you, miss.”

  “Thanks,” she snapped, her fury ramped back up, fed by embarrassment and the strange boiling in her stomach. “Anyway, you two aren’t from here, so what do you want?”

  “Didn’t you read the e-mails I sent?” Hal asked.

  She shrugged. “It seems you two booked one of the lower level drug dealers, a Marcus Poindexter, and while playing let’s make a stupid-ass deal with the Guilford County D.A., Marcus revealed what we here in Awau have already known for months.”

  The one called Avery put his hands on his hips and sniggered behind those damn sunglasses. The massive hunk of chocolate man seemed like a delectable treat. “Feisty one, ain’t she?”

  “Yep,” Hal replied coolly.

  “You didn’t know about the criminal ring that’s harboring a serial rapist, so don’t even try to fake that shit now,” Olivia said, making herself look into Hal’s cool cerulean eyes. She’d never seen eyes that blue and that damn piercing in her life. It reminded her of the water outside of Jamaica. So damn blue and clear. He’d suck at undercover work because every emotion he had spun in those brilliant orbs.

  And right now, Hal’s emotion seemed locked on one thing—lust.

  “We’re here, aren’t we?” Avery snapped, crossing his arms over his wide chest. “You act like we’re a bunch of country bumpkins. We’re city slicks. You the one who’s the civilian.”

  “That’s the damn problem,” Olivia said, setting the coffee on the hood of the car. “This ain’t the city. Look around. You don’t have any clue about the reason they chose this town. Women own the majority of real estate and land in this town. You didn’t even think to ask why a bunch of criminals and a rapist would come to a town where women are predominantly in charge? Hell no. You two boys are just chasing your tails.”

  “I know some tail I’d like to chase,” Hal said, pushing off the car’s hood. “But let’s get to the point. A group of criminals came here to protect a serial rapist. Terrance Brown was chased through the center of town not two weeks ago by a woman in Wonder Woman boots, and he escaped. According to Marcus, Terrance didn’t get far. A group of criminals hid him amongst the very women and in the place he had tried to escape from.”

  “Yes, but the question is why?” she asked. “Mr. Grabby was going to tell me until Mr. White Knight came crashing in.”

  Hal grinned, a soft, rosy tint on his cheeks. “You want me to apologize for doing my duty. It ain’t going to happen, sugah.”

  She pursed her lips and folded her arms across her chest, forcing Hal’s attention to move back up to her face. “I almost had it.”

  “You fit the menu, princess, nothing more. You looked like what the rapist wanted to taste. Now that Mr. Grabby knows you work with the police, you can’t go back to that role anymore. You’re done with that. I did you a favor.”

  Jay-Z’s rap song lit up the silence around them, and Avery slipped his cell phone out of his pocket. He put it to his ear before turning his back on both her and his partner. With the flick of his wrist, the call ended, and he looked back at Hal. “Hal, the greasy dude feeling up Ms. O here was snagged by the locals. He’s been read the riot act about some missing ATVs and vandalism.”

  “We gonna go talk to him?” Olivia asked, tossing her now cold coffee into the trash.

  “Uh, nah,” Avery said, giving her the briefest of glances. “The lieutenant said she’ll call after her crew softens him up. The bad news is, Ms. O’s cover’s blown.”

  “What? We’re supposed to just sit and wait?” Olivia put both
her hands on her luscious hips. “Thanks to you two morons, my cover’s in pieces.”

  “We have to meet after the lieutenant leaves the compound and returns to the jail. Nothing we can do till the forces that united to bring the ring down decide the next step,” Hal said and leaned back against the hood. “I’m going to get some food and a nap. You comin’, Avery?”

  “Hell yeah. I ain’t hanging around here.”

  Avery opened the door to the car and slipped into the driver’s seat. He kept staring up at the rooftops as if he was searching for something.

  “Come on, princess,” Hal said, turning those wonderful, delightful eyes to her.

  “I’m not going anywhere with you,” she snapped.

  “Yeah, you are, princess.”

  “In your sorry-ass dreams, Stevens,” she said, turning on her stiletto heels. She strutted away, kissing off the idea of riding him like her inner cowgirl wanted and bucking her ass against those firm-ass thighs, when he coughed.

  “Uh, remember that your cover is blown, which means a group of hardened criminals is gunning for you. You’re under my protection, civilian.”

  She stiffened and swore. He had a point.

  And to be honest, sitting in the car with Hal back to Asheville wouldn’t be so terrible. He smelled good—real good.

  “There ain’t no place around here. So you might as well come on back with me,” Hal said softly, inching closer to her. At the same time he crossed the chasm between them physically, he was bridging the gap between them emotionally.

  “Where?” she croaked out, adjusting her purse over her shoulder.

  “Biltmore.”

  “Nice,” she said, tossing her head back and strutting by Hal to the backseat of the car.

  “I agree,” he said, and as she glanced over her shoulder to figure out his tone, he added, “and I don’t mean the hotel.”

  Chapter Three