Bad Boy Heroes Boxed Set

by Patricia Ryan

  Sandra’s smile widened. She liked these two. “Are you an actor?”

  “Naw. I’ve been an extra in some of Aztec Sun movies, though. Rafael says I’ve got a good face.”

  “You have a wonderful face,” she concurred, causing him to laugh in embarrassment. She pulled out her recorder. “Listen, do you guys mind if I record our conversation?”

  The men exchanged a look. Neither said anything.

  “It’ll make you think before you talk,” she pointed out. “This way you won’t say anything you might regret later.”

  “All right, go ahead,” the older man said. “Turn it on.”

  “You shouldn’t mind getting recorded,” his nephew teased, “being as you’re a movie star and all.”

  He shook his head again and chuckled. “What happened in Vendetta—” he gestured toward his shirt “—was, Rafael grabbed anyone who wasn’t busy and said, ‘Go stand over there on that street corner and shout at Valdez as he runs by. Curse him out.’ So, I stood on the street corner and shouted curses. I guess I did okay, becuse he asked me to be a wino outside a bodega in El Diablo.”

  “He got shot,” the younger man said. “It was great. They strapped bags of fake blood under his shirt, with little detonators that popped when the gun was fired. And then he staggered around and fell. Man, he was great.”

  “It was scary. I don’t like guns.”

  “Yeah, well, you were supposed to look scared before you looked dead. It was great. I was so proud of him.”

  “It was a change of pace from building sets,” the older man conceded with a grin. The waitress arrived with a round of draft beer and a bowl of tortilla chips. From somewhere in the distance a juke box came to life, booming a Los Lobos tune.

  “Do you like working for Rafael Perez?”

  “Oh, yeah, he’s great,” the younger man said. The older man nodded.

  “I heard a rumor,” she said, “that he single-handedly keeps fifteen churches afloat.”

  “Fifteen?” The older man guffawed, then shook his head again. “Not that many. Maybe five or six.”

  “He must be a very religious man.”

  “He’s a good man,” the older man explained. “Religious? I don’t know. But he’s rich. I guess he figures it can’t hurt to give money to a church.”

  “Yeah, and then there’s his sister,” the younger man added.

  “His sister?” Sandra asked.

  “I hear she’s a nun.”

  “No kidding? A nun!” Questions filled Sandra’s mind, filtered down to her mouth and then froze, unvoiced, as a chill rippled down her spine. A chill, followed by a searing heat. The room seemed to shift, the earth’s axis to tilt.

  She knew he was behind her before he spoke. “My sister,” said Rafael, “is none of your business.”

  Sandra twisted in her seat, prepared to apologize—even though she had nothing to apologize for. Rafael knew she was doing a story on him. He had to assume she’d be talking to people who knew him, trying to find out about him. She’d broken no laws in chatting with his employees at Cesar’s.

  But as soon as her gaze met his, her words again died on her tongue. He towered above her, tall and dark and glowering, his lips thin and tight with anger, his eyes as black as the far side of the moon.

  Reaching around her, he pressed the off button on her recorder, lifted the machine and shoved it into the tote at her feet. Then he curled his long, strong fingers around her upper arm, his palm warm and leathery against her bare skin, and pulled her gently but firmly out of her chair.

  “Hector, Vinnie,” he acknowledged the two men with a nod. “Ms. Garcia has nothing more to ask you.”

  With that, he hauled Sandra out of the cantina.

  Chapter Five

  *

  THE HEAVY LATE AFTERNOON WARMTH swaddled them like a woolen blanket. Los Lobos was replaced by the drone of traffic cruising by, tires rumbling over pot holes, engines chugging impatiently at the stop light on the corner.

  Without a word, Rafael marched Sandra around the side of the building to the alley. His hand remained on her arm, his fingers not squeezing but iron hard, his skin too callused to belong to a movie mogul. No hundred-dollar Beverly Hills manicure for the head of Aztec Sun. Rafael had the hands of a laborer.

  And the eyes of a killer, she thought, taking in his dark gaze and wondering exactly how alarmed she ought to be. When a man dragged a woman into an alley, something bad usually happened.

  Yet this was Rafael Perez, the cool dude, the good boss, the man about whom no one could think of anything negative to say. Really, how bad was this going to be? Whatever he had in mind for her, she was reasonably certain she’d emerge in one piece.

  The low sun threw a distorted slab of light onto the salmon-colored wall of the bar. Sandra heard the hum of the exhaust fan above her. She smelled the tangy scent of frying tortilla chips once more, chilis and herbs and roasting tomatoes—and the scent of Rafael, soap and citrus and masculinity.

  Deeper into the alley, where the shadows fell in sloping shafts, he turned her to face him but refused to let go of her. She stood close enough to see the day’s growth of beard darkening his jaw. His chest shifted beneath his linen shirt with each ominously slow breath. His hair flared out from his face like a lion’s mane; his eyes were black edged in gold like two solar eclipses, the sort that blinded anyone foolish enough to look directly at them.

  “Listen to me, and listen to me good, mujer,” he murmured, his voice dangerously quiet. “I won’t have you buying my people drinks and interrogating them. You have questions, you ask Diego. Do you understand?”

  She opened her mouth to argue that it was standard practice for reporters to interview acquaintances of an article’s subject, and that in any case Rafael had nothing to worry about. Everyone she’d talked to had been unanimous in praising him.

  But she couldn’t seem to force the words out. Not with Rafael’s palm molded to her arm, not with the gilded dusk light emphasizing the harsh lines of his face, not with his mouth just inches above her own, so close she could feel his breath against her cheeks. Not with her heart pounding like a jackhammer and her pulse roaring in her ears.

  “You ask Diego,” he repeated, his tone growing lower, tauter. “Maybe he’ll answer your questions, and maybe he won’t. But under no circumstances are you to sneak around behind my back and ask people about my personal life. Do you understand?”

  “Yes,” she said, hoping he didn’t notice the quiver in her voice. The fact that she could speak at all reassured her, and she said, more confidently, “In fact, I have lots of questions—but I want answers from you, not Diego.”

  “Any questions you want to ask, he can answer.”

  “What are you afraid of, Rafael?” she asked, wondering why a man who could inspire such awe in others would run from her—and wondering, even more, how she’d found the courage to challenge him.

  He stared at her. That she should doubt his bravery seemed to anger him. “I’m not afraid of you.”

  “Then let me ask you a few things.”

  He almost smiled—a smile of concession, of grace in defeat. Almost. “Ask,” he said.

  Heartened, she pressed her luck. “Can we go somewhere and talk?”

  “We’re already somewhere.”

  She broke from his gaze long enough to survey her surroundings. The wall opposite her was spray-painted with colorful streaks, initials, and warnings about who owned the territory and when the world would end. Bits of litter sullied the gravel-covered ground; bulging plastic bags of trash shaped a mound above the rim of the rusting dumpster occupying the far end of the alley.

  Was he really going to make her interview him here? Well, then, damn it, that was exactly what she’d do.

  She met his stern gaze and asked, “Are there drugs on the set of White Angel?”

  “No.” The answer shot out of him like a bullet, quick and deadly.

  “Are you sure?”

  His fingers ten
sed around her arm. “I’m sure.”

  “How did you get Melanie Greer to work for you?”

  “We offered her a decent script and a decent contract.”

  “She said you were paying her only union scale.”

  “I’m not going to discuss the details of her contract with you. She’s a professional. Her agent okayed the deal, and Melanie signed it.”

  “It’s a big leap for her, from the small screen to a major motion picture.”

  Rafael snorted. “I don’t make major motion pictures. I make B-movies. Maybe Melanie signed on because she wanted to get away from all the Hollywood glamour. Who knows?”

  “You didn’t offer her anything else?”

  His expression relented, anger giving way to bemusement. “Like what? Points? Final cut?”

  He’d already denied the existence of drugs at Aztec Sun. Yet her question had clearly puzzled him, and his puzzlement gave her an edge. She decided to give him another jolt.

  Smiling, she said, “I was thinking maybe you offered to sleep with her.”

  His answering smile was predatory. “Would that bother you?”

  “It’s none of my business.”

  “You’re damned right it’s none of your business. Nothing you’ve asked is any of your business.” His grip relaxed a bit more, his fingers lightly stroking the skin below her sleeve. Tiny goose bumps pricked her flesh and then vanished, leaving in their wake a lazy heat that insinuated itself throughout her entire body. She wanted to pretend her sudden feverishness resulted from the September air being churned by the exhaust fan, the evening warmth trapped between the walls of the cantina and the neighboring store—anything but Rafael’s nearness.

  She wanted to pretend, but she couldn’t.

  “Do you trust anyone?” she asked. Her voice was steady but hushed, as if she lacked the breath to support it.

  The question was even less her business than the others she’d asked. Yet he seemed to give it more consideration than anything else she’d tossed at him. As he mulled over his response, he studied her upturned face, his eyes losing their fiery edge, his fingers tracing slow circles on her skin. “I trust very few people,” he told her. “Diego. My sister.”

  “Is she really a nun?”

  “Yes,” he answered, although his look grew forbidding once more. If he claimed his sister was off-limits, he’d be totally within his rights.

  Even so, Sandra was feeling just a little reckless. Reckless enough not to bolt from the alley the instant his hold on her loosened. “Is she the reason you contribute money to so many churches?”

  “No.”

  “Why do you?”

  “The churches I give to are doing good things in the community. The money gets to people who need it.”

  “Your sister has nothing to do with it?”

  “My sister…” He hesitated, pondering Sandra in the waning light. “My sister is important to me. She teaches in a school, and she prays, and she treasures her privacy. If you go pestering her with your questions, I’ll make your life hell.”

  He spoke the threat calmly, as if he were commenting on the weather. His plain tone and steady gaze lent the warning a greater impact. Sandra didn’t doubt for a minute that Rafael could make her life hell if he chose to.

  “I won’t mention her,” she assured him. “I promise.”

  He continued to study her upturned face, his eyes growing milder, less accusing. As the sun dipped lower the light in the alley grew dimmer, adding intriguing nuances to his features. “Diego and Rosa I trust,” he said, reaching up with his free hand and brushing a strand of hair back from her cheek. “I don’t trust you.”

  The sinuous warmth that had spread through her body rose to her cheeks as he skimmed his work-roughened fingertips along her cheekbone to her temple and down to her chin. His eyes locked onto hers for a pulsing moment, and then he tilted her face up and brushed his lips against hers.

  She heard a gasp—she couldn’t say whether it came from him, herself, or both of them together. They stared at each other, yearning and unsure and as far from trusting each other as it was possible to be. She felt his every intake of breath in her own lungs, the beating of his heart echoing her own. The universe outside the alley had vanished. Nothing existed but Rafael, his eyes boring into her, one of his hands still cupping her chin and the other her shoulder.

  He brought his lips to hers again, slowly, deliberately, sliding his hand deep into her hair and angling her head beneath his mouth. He was no longer restraining her with his grip. She could escape any time she wished.

  But she didn’t wish to escape. It was his kiss, not his hands, that held her in place.

  His lips moved over hers in an erotic ballet, graceful, subtle, each caress a benediction, an invitation. She tried to recall the threat he’d posed just moments ago. She tried to remind herself that she was a journalist, that he was her quarry, that he was uncooperative and suspicious and stubbornly determined to thwart her. But the benediction soothed her soul, and the invitation was too sweet to refuse.

  She lifted her hands to his shoulders as he eased her closer to himself. Through the soft fabric of his shirt she felt rigid bone, sleek muscle, the vibrant heat emanating from his skin. The hair covering his collar in back was silkier than she had expected. She toyed with the curling ends, then combed through them to the nape of his neck.

  A muffled groan escaped him, and he dipped his head lower, taking her mouth completely. His lips urged hers apart and his tongue forged deep. Gentleness yielded to hunger, greed, aggression.

  Her legs trembled. Her abdomen ached. Her hands clenched against his back; her breasts felt heavy and tender, crushed against the hard wall of his chest. She shouldn’t want this. She didn’t.

  Yet her body defied her, leaning into him, letting a dark surge of desire engulf her. He was the eclipse now, blocking out the last of the fading daylight, blocking out her reason for being here, her ambition, her longing for the big story, the big headline—everything she’d ever wanted.

  Right now, she wanted only one thing: Rafael’s kiss.

  The muscles in his back flexed against her fingers. He brought his arms around her in a tight, possessive circle, drawing her fully to himself, letting her feel the changes in him, the raggedness of his breath and the motion of his hips as his arousal became evident. Then, so suddenly she reeled from it, he tore his mouth from hers and took a step back.

  He was still breathing unevenly. His hands curled into fists at his sides. His eyes glinted, reflecting a light the source of which Sandra couldn’t begin to guess.

  She swallowed and lifted her hand to her lips. They burned with the imprint of his kiss. Her tongue still held his flavor; her blood still carried his sensual message to every cell in her body.

  Dear God. She was a reporter. Rafael Perez was her story. If he could overpower her that easily, she wasn’t worth the salary Flannagan was paying her.

  She struggled to wrap herself in what few shreds of dignity she had left. “Don’t you ever kiss me like that again,” she muttered, her voice hoarse and raw.

  A faint smile skipped across Rafael’s lips—the lips she had tasted, the lips that had proven how very vulnerable she could be to him. As soon as it appeared, the smile was gone. “Same goes for me, dulcinea,” he murmured, then turned and stalked out of the alley.

  Sandra sank against the dusty adobe wall and tried to collect her wits. Her mind filled with explanations for what had just happened.

  Rafael was just attempting to throw her off balance. He wanted to intimidate her. She’d overreacted because it had been so long since she’d fallen hard for a man.

  Not that she’d fallen for Rafael, hard or soft or any way at all. But he was sexy, there was no denying it. And he certainly knew how to kiss.

  And how to touch. How to cradle a woman in his large, strong arms, how to guide her with his hands and seduce her with his tongue. How to stand so tall in front of her that she could believe, for a few cra
zy minutes, that he was the sum of her world.

  When a man dragged a woman into an alley, something bad usually happened. Wasn’t that the truth, she thought miserably. As she pushed away from the wall and wandered out of the alley on wobbly legs, she forced herself to acknowledge that she might not have emerged in one piece from this encounter with Rafael, after all.

  *

  TURNING THE CORNER, he broke into a run. A jog, just fast enough to burn off the tension without calling undue attention to himself. Just fast enough to put as much distance as possible as quickly as possible between himself and Sandra Garcia.

  He must have been insane, kissing her like that. He must have lost his head. Control was essential, and something about Sandra made it much too easy for him to lose control.

  He slowed his pace as he neared the studio entrance. Greeting the guard with a nod, he strode through the gate. Once he was safely inside, his breathing back to normal and his heart no longer racing, he grinned at the comprehension that Sandra had been as out of control as he. Whatever had occurred in the alley behind Cesar’s, it had hit her equally hard.

  When he’d come upon her at Cesar’s, pumping his people for information about his sister, he’d wanted to hit her. Violence was something he’d learned to avoid, but for one furious moment he’d wanted—well, not to hit her, but to grab her by the shoulders and shake her until her bones rattled, until her pretty brown eyes filled with tears she begged him to forgive her. How dare she grill Hector and Vinnie about Rosa? Rosa teased him that he was an overbearing idiota when it came to her, but that was an accusation he wore with honor.

  The outdoor lights winked on as he strolled past the executive parking lot and then the visitors’ lot, heading for his office.

  Building B would be stirring back to life soon. Filming hadn’t gone well that day. The morning had been a total fiasco, and even after Melanie had had some lunch and calmed down, John wasn’t satisfied with what he’d gotten on film. They couldn’t kill another day on this one stupid scene, so Rafael had told them to break for supper and resume filming tonight.