In Hot Pursuit

by Joanne Rock

  “Lexi, are you uncomfortable with me being here?” He wanted this woman more than he’d wanted anything in recent memory. Make that long-term memory. But he wanted her at full speed, all or nothing, as hungry for him as he was for her. He searched her face for some clue to her real feelings.

  Damn it, but she looked familiar to him. Still, he would remember having met a woman like Lexi. He had to be mistaken.

  The fish tank burbled softly, while he waited. The chirping bird in the background provided an obnoxiously happy accompaniment.

  “You want to know the truth?” Finally, she tossed her shawl aside and planted jeweled fists on her hips.

  In his mind’s eye he saw her donning boxing gloves, preparing for the round in which she would deliver the knockout blow—the “go home” speech.

  “Nothing but the truth,” he returned, realizing he meant it. He didn’t want a sugarcoated speech from this woman. “Why don’t you tell me exactly what you want.”

  Her eyebrows lifted in surprise, then slowly settled back into place as her gaze narrowed.

  “Then, I’ll tell you exactly what I want, Josh Winger.” She spun on her bare heel and stalked into the living room. Now that his eyes had adjusted to the subdued light of the fish tank he could see her toenails were painted bright blue.

  “I want a man to take me seriously for once.” She folded her arms over her compact body, a body visibly thrumming with an emotion he couldn’t fully identify. “For that matter, I would settle for anyone taking me seriously for once.”

  “Well—”

  Before he could respond, she burst into motion again, stomping around her living room sofa to pose by her coffee table. “I mean, look at me. Why can’t anyone appreciate the fashion sense I impart to all of New York? I know how to be tasteful and refined.” She pointed a finger in his direction and then started a slow trek back to him. “The point is, I don’t allow myself to fall into a rut of the refined but boring clothes that we’ve seen done to death for the past decade.”

  He was so far out of his element he might as well have been swimming in the tank with the damn fish.

  “I think you really look great—”

  “I am willing to take risks, and that’s what no one seems to understand.” In the course of her emphatic speech, a few more locks of hair slipped free of the knot on top of her head. He was trying to follow what she was saying, damn it, but thoughts of unpinning that hair and seeing how much of her body it would cover was more than a little distracting.

  “I might mix a few over-the-top colors, and I admit that my go-go boots with the Gucci cocktail dress was a definite mistake, but the point is, I push the boundaries.” By now, she stood toe to toe with him. “I am willing to try something different in order to create something unique and beautiful.”

  She gazed up at him, eyes so dark they looked like a doll’s—all one color, with no hint of where the pupil ended and the iris began.

  Clearly, the time had arrived for him to speak.

  “I am definitely willing to try something different,” he said, trying to steer the conversation back toward bedrooms and handcuffs.

  By the defeated slope of her shoulders he sensed that wasn’t the right thing to do.

  Damn.

  He scratched his head in the vain hope of stimulating a few coherent thoughts, and took a final stab at it. “But I understand what you’re saying. About taking risks, I mean.”

  Her hip cocked to one side as she shifted her weight. The stance broadcast her skepticism more loudly than if she’d rolled her eyes, but at least she was listening.

  “Like tonight, for example. I took a risk by not running to the tuxedo shop for the monkey suit I was supposed to have worn. The dinner jacket was a risk, as was the earring. But I’m not the kind of guy who makes concessions easily.”

  He hoped that was a smile playing along the line of her mouth.

  “But, like you, I know when to play it safe, too. I knew enough to grab the shiny silver tie out of my closet instead of the red-striped one. Shiny silver says I can bow to convention when I need to, right?”

  Lexi laughed. Was this guy for real? Any other man would have run screaming for her door at the first mention of fashion. Then again, there was nothing ordinary about Josh Winger. She stepped closer to trail her fingers down the tie in question.

  “Maybe we do have a few things in common,” she admitted, enjoying the way her fingernails rasped against the crisp cotton of his shirt. “But as much as I would like for something to happen between us tonight, I’m still not sure.”

  She’d broken every rule of smart dating by letting a guy she barely knew inside her apartment and then telling him no. But she trusted Josh on a gut level, and she had always been the kind of woman to let her instincts guide her.

  “What do you need to make you feel sure?”

  His words were surprisingly gentle, coming from a man who looked like he could have been cast as a mobster in a shoot-’em-up flick.

  “I felt more ready to be with you when I thought things could remain sort of impersonal.” She knew she had to stop touching him, had to take a step back from his big, sexy body. But the planes of his chest fascinated her, called to her, wouldn’t let her stop the fingertip massage of all those male muscles.

  “You’re afraid of getting too personal?”

  There was a hoarse edge to his voice that made her wonder if her touch affected him as much as it did her.

  She nodded, not trusting her own voice.

  He gripped her wrists in his palms, lightly restraining her. “That feels phenomenal, but I can’t think straight when you touch me like that.”

  Feminine pride curled through her, even though he seemed to have no idea he’d just paid her a compliment. She whispered a mental “in your face” to all her detractors tonight.

  Houseplant be damned. She must have some magnetism left somewhere, to be able to distract this man.

  Josh closed his eyes while keeping her wrists imprisoned. He tilted his head back, just a little, exposing to her view the thick cords of muscle in his neck.

  Then he looked down, his eyelids snapping open. “I’ve got it.”

  Gray eyes locked on to hers, startling her out of her contemplation. “You do?” She wondered if he was going to let go of her wrists. Part of her didn’t want him to.

  “Anonymous sex.”

  Her heart skipped a beat. Maybe several.

  When it started again, it pumped erratically, awkwardly.

  “Excuse me?”

  Josh relinquished his hold on her wrists, allowing her arms to drop to her sides. Nothing resided between them now except a sizzling two inches of air.

  “You don’t want to make it personal, so we’ll make it anonymous.” His gray eyes glittered down at her, looming nearer as he closed the distance between them. “No lights.” His mouth brushed hers with a featherlight sweep of his lips. “No conversation.” He kissed his way across her jaw to whisper in her ear. “Just you and me—” he trailed his finger down her shoulder to her elbow “—tangled in your sheets until dawn.”

  Lexi didn’t know when her eyes had drifted shut, but she found herself fantasizing about that simple touch winding its way down her belly, or maybe her thighs.

  The imagined caress turned into a very real one as Josh brought his fingertip to rest in the middle of her cheek. He skimmed it along her jaw and down her neck. Slowly.

  “So, what do you say?”

  She pried open her eyelids, needing to look at him when she made this decision. If she kept her eyes closed, she would agree to anything. Everything.

  “I don’t know.” Her voice was breathy, hungry. “It seems a little…”

  “Risky?”

  Yes. But not in the way he thought. Lexi trusted this dangerous-looking police detective to protect her tonight. What she didn’t trust was her ability to forget about him in the morning. And becoming attached to this man was a definite risk.

  Still, Lexi didn�
��t want to spend another night sleeping with Muffin, as much as she adored her miniature poodle.

  She couldn’t let this perfect opportunity slip away, not when she wanted it so badly.

  “We’ve already established that I don’t have a problem with taking risks.”

  Josh nodded slowly, thoughtfully. “Yes, but we’ve also established you can play it safe and conservative when the situation calls for it.”

  Damn it, how could a night with this guy ever be impersonal? He already knew more about her than a city full of her devoted readers.

  She pointed one finger into the muscular wall of his chest, needing to take charge of this situation before it got out of control.

  “Well, this is not one of those times, hot stuff.”

  JOSH COULD TELL by the wicked gleam in Lexi’s eyes that the dynamo he’d met at the bar was back to play.

  “You’re ready to take a risk, then?” His sense of fairness wanted her to spell it out for him. Despite the dangerous reputation he’d gained in his years on the police force, he wasn’t the kind of guy who could burn up the sheets with a stranger without knowing the stranger in question was one hundred percent into the game.

  “The bedroom is that way, tiger.” She gripped his tie in her fist and backed him up a step.

  Green lights flashed in front of his eyes.

  “With pleasure.” He allowed her to back him right into a closed door.

  He reached for the knob to let them in, but Lexi was too close, too hot, too fierce.

  “With pleasure…is that a promise?” She plastered herself against him—thighs, hips, breasts—and snaked her arms around his shoulders.

  She smelled like a hothouse—feminine and exotic, but she was no delicate flower. Despite her petite size, Lexi possessed surprising strength. Her slender muscles were toned and defined, as if she’d logged more than a few hours at the gym. And she held him against the door with the force of a rookie cop with something to prove.

  “Lady, I’d make it a blood oath if you want me to.” He shifted his weight underneath her, situating one thigh between hers.

  Her thighs hugged him, invited him to dare even more.

  She shook her head, dislodging a few more long locks of hair. “I believe you.”

  He lifted his fingers to the mass of black hair and tunneled through the soft strands in a mad search for pins. He found a single smooth stick piercing the center of the knot and pulled it free.

  A riot of silky black waves tumbled down to her shoulders and spilled over her back and breasts, down to her waist. The scent of her shampoo wafted through the air.

  “Wow.” He wanted to wrap himself in that hair, wrap her in that hair. Run his fingers over every last glossy curl.

  She blew a stray strand out of one eye, pursing her lips in a pucker that nearly sent him over the edge.

  “It’s a little outdated, but I hate getting it cut.” She plucked the stick from his hands and tossed it to the floor, heedless of where it landed.

  “I like outdated. Outdated is sexy.” Josh reached for the doorknob and turned it, backing them into her bedroom. All the while, he kept every inch of her sequined body glued to his.

  He paused when the backs of his legs ran into her bed.

  “Not here,” she whispered, leading them sideways. “The bed’s a bit too personal, don’t you think?”

  He couldn’t think. She had him so fired up, he’d settle for the kitchen floor if it would make her happy.

  “Here—” She stopped in front of a monstrous reclining apparatus that looked like an adjustable bed in the partially upright position. “The chaise seems more in order for an anonymous…encounter.”

  Every word she uttered shifted her breasts over his chest by a pleasantly torturous fraction.

  “Is that what we’re doing? Encountering?”

  She wriggled her hips against his. “I don’t know about you, but I’m encountering something pretty impressive.”

  “Honey, you ain’t seen nothing yet.” Tightening his hold around her waist, he lifted her straight off the floor, dragging her body upward along his and displacing a few of her sequins in the process.

  He paused when they were eye to eye.

  “Do tell, Detective.” Lexi eased the knot on his tie and unbuttoned his shirt just enough to slip her hands underneath the fabric.

  Her touch sent him reeling in a way no street-fight punch ever had. Her little hum of approval made him want to protect and serve her all night long.

  “I’m not telling you anything, Lexi. You’re just going to have to see for yourself.” He set her down on the oversize chaise longue and sprawled out alongside her. “Besides, didn’t we say anonymous sex meant no talking?”

  “No talking?” She looked appalled, but a devilish light in her eyes told him otherwise. “But then, how could I tell you things like this…?”

  She leaned close to him, brushing her breast across his upper arm as she cupped her hand around his ear. Her breathy words were soft and warm.

  “I want to lick every impressive inch of you.”

  5

  LEXI GUESSED HER WORDS had the desired effect when a ragged groan ripped through the bedroom loud enough to set off her dogs’ barking down the hall.

  She couldn’t help but smile. She felt less like a houseplant every second she passed in Josh’s company.

  “Still think we ought to impose that ‘no talking’ rule?” she prompted, sliding his tie out from under his collar and shivering at the sheer sensuality of the sound.

  “Did I mention I’m a big proponent of free speech?” Josh flicked one strap of her gown off her shoulder. “I think you ought to feel free to say whatever comes to mind.”

  Josh’s gaze did more than undress her. Somehow, those gray eyes invited her to share her secrets and dared her to bare her soul.

  A risk she’d never afforded herself—not with anyone. Nearly two years had passed since her last one-night stand—a blur of awkwardness that hadn’t aroused her half as much as Josh’s single touch.

  No way would she allow their impersonal sex plan to slip off course. She wanted the lights off, blinds down. And all those too-tempting personal glimpses of Josh properly concealed, so she could enjoy her stolen evening revealing other parts of him.

  “Say whatever I want? In that case, how about closing those blinds and then I won’t hold anything back.”

  “Whatever the lady wants.” Josh moved away from her, taking his searing gaze and his body heat with him.

  Lexi watched him prowl about her bedroom, his feral grace not totally out of place in her room full of leopard-print pillows and tiger-striped sheets. Not that he would ever discover those sheets, because she drew the line at letting a stranger sleep in her bed.

  Better to have a tryst in the comfort of the chaise longue.

  The soft snap of the Venetian blinds sliding into place called her from her thoughts. She had a two-second view of Josh by the window before the room was plunged into total darkness. Not even the street-lights penetrated the custom room-darkening shades.

  “Better?” His voice loomed closer than she would have expected.

  Her heart picked up its pace. A shiver rippled over her skin.

  “Better.” She wasn’t about to admit there was something highly erotic about not being able to see him.

  “Good.” The low rumble of his voice came from two inches behind her, lifting the hairs on her neck.

  “You move pretty fast for a man in strange terrain, Winger.”

  The chaise cushions shifted as he joined her on the lounger.

  “Want me to slow down?” The words whispered over her shoulder seconds before his lips touched her skin there.

  Warm, soft, deceptively lazy.

  Lexi suspected this man was as ready as she felt inside. Yet he lingered, his kiss thorough and deliberate.

  “Slow is good,” she admitted. She didn’t realize she was edging back toward the hard length of his body until her sequins snag
ged one of his shirt buttons.

  The absolute dark hid him from her, made her feel free to be bold. She reached backward to palm his thigh, running her fingertips over the lightweight gabardine of his trousers.

  She hadn’t thought it possible for the man to be any harder, but his whole body took one more step toward petrifaction beneath her questing hands. He imprisoned her wrist before she could fully explore the effects of her touch.

  He hissed out a breath between his teeth. “Do you ever sit still?” he asked, tugging aside the veil of her hair from her back.

  It wasn’t the first time she’d been asked that particular question, but the way Josh said it made her perpetual motion sound more like a blessing and less like a curse.

  Or maybe she was just in a receptive state of mind, given that he was licking a circuitous path between her shoulder blades.

  “Sometimes.” She found it difficult to concentrate on his question as he started sliding her zipper down her back. “But only if you make it worth my while.”

  “Are you challenging me?”

  “Definitely.”

  He edged the material of her dress away from her skin, held to her body by a lone shoulder strap. Her back exposed to Josh’s touch but not his gaze, Lexi waited breathlessly for that first caress.

  “I wouldn’t want to disappoint you.”

  He breathed the words over her spine, surprising her with the proximity of his mouth and not his hands.

  She trembled, anticipating his kiss.

  Finally, his lips brushed over her spine between her shoulders, a fluttery kiss that teased more than it satisfied. Heat spiraled through her, flooding her limbs and pooling in her belly.

  She moved to turn and face him, to wrest what she needed from him, but he held her hips in place with his hands.

  “Wait.” He pulled her back against him, allowed her to feel the spectacular length of his body again. His mouth hovered near her ear, mingled in her hair. “Wait one more minute and then I promise I will make you want to be absolutely still.”