A Fine Specimen

Lisa Marie Rice

Lieutenant Alex Cruz eats, sleeps
and breathes law enforcement. He’s tough and brusque, and cops and criminals
alike tremble before him. And that’s the way he likes it. Until he meets
Caitlin Summers—and decides he wants
her
trembling beneath him.

The beautiful scholar is doing
dissertation research in
his
cop shop, and seriously messing with his
head. His self-imposed sexual abstinence comes to a screeching halt in
Caitlin’s ratty hotel room and dies a permanent death in his bed…and his
kitchen…and his living room. Caitlin is also intelligent and funny, kind and
generous, her smile a burst of warmth in his cold, austere life. And that
scares the crap out of him.

With his head and heart fighting a
battle of wills, Alex can barely concentrate on work. And that’s too
bad—because his dangerous job and his newfound love are about to clash in the
worst way possible.

A Romantica®
contemporary
erotic romance
from Ellora’s Cave

Publisher Note:
A Fine
Specimen
was previously released by another publisher under the title
Taming
Nick
.

“What the
fuck
!”

Lieutenant Alex Cruz’s
bellow could be heard clear across the station house. He fucking meant it to be
heard. He was seriously annoyed and he didn’t care who knew it.

“Yo, boss.” Sergeant Ben
Cade cautiously stuck his head around the door and looked at him out of half-moon
glasses. He pulled a pencil out of a Brillo-pad head of graying red hair. “You
barked?”

“What the hell does this
mean?” Alex tapped the report in front of him. Just touching the ink on the
paper disgusted him. Alex had definite ideas on the way things should be and
what was in the report violated every single one of them.

Ben moved warily into
the room, leaving the door open. Ben was a friend, except when he screwed up. Alex
knew he was leaving the door open on purpose, in case Ben thought he needed a
quick escape. Alex was also aware his temper was the stuff of urban myth and he
did nothing to quell the rumors. He knew perfectly well that he was used as a
boogeyman to scare new recruits.

The rumors that he ate
newbies for breakfast were highly exaggerated.

He’d once overheard Ben
telling a wide-eyed rookie that when Lieutenant Cruz was in a mood, his office
was Never Never Land—you never,
never
wanted to go there. It wasn’t
true. Not much, anyway.

Except for right now.

Ben knew when Alex was
pretending to be mad and when it was the real thing. Right now was definitely
the real deal. Alex was furious.

“Ah…” Ben said, looking
from the report to Alex’s face—gauging blowup potential—back to the report,
Alex’s face, the report. The very molecules in the air crackled with tension.
Whatever Ben was going to say was lost as he closed his mouth with an audible
click.

“He gave you the slip.”
Alex’s mouth tightened, his jaw muscles clenched. He found it hard to speak, he
was so furious. “The fucking sonovabitch just fucking upped and…slipped away
from you.”

Ben didn’t have to ask
who “he” was. “He” was Martin “Ratso” Colby, the man they were all hoping would
lead to the downfall of Angelo Lopez, a mobster who had been terrorizing
Baylorville for years. PD had learned through a snitch that Ratso had been
keeping the mobster’s books. At this point, Ratso would know enough to put
Lopez away for twenty years on tax evasion. The scumbag had murdered at least
four people that Alex knew of, but nothing could be pinned on Lopez. Tax
evasion was okay, if it could put him behind bars. A lot of evidence would come
out once Lopez was safely put away. Cockroaches would come out from under rocks
and start singing.

Tossing Lopez in the
bucket had become Alex Cruz’s personal crusade. Alex ate, slept and dreamed of
Lopez—behind bars. Off the streets, the latest girlfriend of some Aryan Nation
bruiser.

Alex loved the idea of
that.

So far it was proving
impossible, though everyone knew what Lopez was. Lopez was too savvy to leave
hard evidence behind. He operated through layers of minions and was
untouchable. But once Alex had found out that Ratso was keeping Lopez’s books,
that muscle in his chest that in other people was a heart simply warmed. Alex
knew Ratso Colby. Everyone on the Baylorville PD knew Ratso Colby. They all
knew he had two passions—money and staying out of jail. Ratso could be induced
to spill the beans on Lopez with the threat of jail time.

If, that is, the police
could ever get their hands on him. Ratso had disappeared. There’d been a
Baylorville Police Department BOLO out on Ratso for a week, but up until now
they had come up empty-handed.

Ratso was the Bill Gates
of numbers, no one better, but other than that, he was no rocket scientist and
had zero street smarts. Alex couldn’t figure out what Baylorville PD was doing
wrong. He could feel the tension rising as day after day went by with no Ratso.

And today they’d almost
caught him.

Fuck! They’d almost
caught him!

“How?” Alex’s jaws
clenched so hard he was surprised his back teeth didn’t shoot out his ears.
“How the
hell
did that runt get away from four of Baylorville’s finest?
Wrestle them to the ground?”

They were both silent
for a moment, thinking of Ratso’s miserably puny physique.

“No, um…” Alex had
watched Ben interrogate hardened killers while munching on a sandwich, but now
he was breaking into a sweat. “To tell the truth—”

“Yes, Sergeant? Please
do tell me how it happened,” Alex interrupted silkily, and Ben winced. Ben knew
him well. When Alex used that tone, a smart man, a
prudent
man would
turn tail and run. Alex watched Ben eye the open door with longing. The hell
with that. He wasn’t getting away that easily.

Alex placed his hands
palm down on his desk and leaned forward. “So please tell me how a punk like
Ratso could escape four armed and well-trained police officers. Did I waste
Baylorville PD’s budget buying every single one of my officers a brand-new 9
millimeter Glock 17? Well, Sergeant? Did I?
Shit
!” Alex slammed his fist
on his desk, making papers flutter. He felt like his head was going to explode.
“You guys
know
Ratso has the goods on Lopez. You
know
we can get
him to talk. All we have to do is apply a little bit of pressure and Ratso will
crack like a nut. We were
this close
,” Alex’s index finger and thumb
were half an inch apart and half an inch from Cade’s nose, “
this close
to possibly nailing Angelo Lopez.” He made a disgusted sound in the back of his
throat, the growl a frustrated wolf would make. “I’ve got half a mind to have
you all transferred to Hubcaps.”

Assignment to the
boring busywork of the Stolen Vehicles
Department was every cop’s worst nightmare. Cade took a deep breath. “Look
here, boss—”

“I’m not the boss,” Alex
interrupted. “Ray Avery is. And will continue to be until he retires.”

Cade shrugged his heavy
shoulders. “In a coupla weeks. But okay, whatever you say—you’re the boss.”
Everyone in the station house had long ago accepted the fact that when Avery
retired, which was at the end of the month, Alex would be the new captain.

Alex didn’t give a shit
what other people thought. His own loyalty to Ray was absolute. As long as Ray
Avery was formally captain, Alex was his. Ray was The Man. Always had been.
Always would be.

“So tell me how you let
him slip through your fingers.” Alex sat back in his chair, fingers steepled
under his chin. Calm, still, watching. Alex focused his attention like a laser
beam. He didn’t mean for Cade to be comfortable.

Cade shifted his
shoulders, trying and failing to look away for a moment. “Well, we were down
digging around the Trey.”

Cruz nodded. The
downtown block between 33rd and 3rd was a cesspool. The perfect swamp for a
bottom feeder like Ratso.

“And we cornered Ratso
at the Fat Lady. He gave up without a fight. Then he asked to go to the john.”
Cade lifted his shoulders and sighed. “I mean—what you gonna do? I’m not
getting any younger. I’m starting to have those problems too. We let him go.”

“Did any of you jokers
actually check the john?” Alex asked softly.

“Hey.” Cade puffed up in
indignation. “Of course we did. What do you take us for?” Alex didn’t even
blink. “Okay…okay. Yeah. I went in with Ratso. It was a perfectly normal
two-stall bathroom. No one else was there.” Cade held up a large-palmed hand.
“I checked. Honest.”

“What you didn’t check,
apparently, were the windows,” Alex growled.

“Window,” Cade
corrected. “
One
window, for the record, and it was fucking tiny. One
miserable, filthy, tiny window. A foot by a foot. Who woulda thought—”

“
You
should have
thought,” Alex interrupted heatedly, leaning forward, hands clutching the edge
of his desk with white knuckles. “Ratso’s built like a boy. He just slithered
through and was in the wind before you guys finished picking the lint out of
your bellybuttons.” He picked up a black pen and began tapping it on the desk,
staring as Cade squirmed. Finally he sighed. “Well, that’s that. Put out
another BOLO—”

“Done,” Cade said
hastily.

“And fill out a warrant,
just in case—”

“Ditto.”

“Well.” Alex sat thinking
for a few minutes, running scenarios through his head, but it all came back to
the same thing. His men had fucked up. He drummed his fingers once, hard, on
the scarred oak desk. It sounded loud in the silence. He blew out a breath to
relieve a little stress. “Okay. Okay. There’s not much more that can be done
until Ratso resurfaces. And when he does, we’ll nail him and he’ll flip. We can
book him on a few minor counts that carry some jail time and he knows it, so
he’ll talk. Oh yeah, he’ll talk.” Alex pursed his lips and treated Cade to a
long, level gaze. “I guess that’s it for now.”

Cade blew out a long
sigh of relief himself, knowing it was all over. Alex’s men knew that he might
blow up, but it blew over quickly. And he didn’t hold grudges.

Alex was already putting
Ratso’s escape from his mind when Cade cleared his throat. Clearing throats was
not a good thing, particularly coming from someone who should have already
disappeared, grateful that Alex hadn’t handed him his ass on a stick.

Alex looked up to see
Cade obviously trying to brace himself. He had something else to say and it
wasn’t going to be good. What was this? Alex’s bad news quota today had already
been exceeded. His mouth tightened. “What?”

“Here, boss.” Cade
handed over an envelope.

“I’m
not
the
boss,” Alex said between his teeth.

“Right, boss. Anything
you say.”

Alex rolled his eyes
then glanced curiously at the white envelope. His name was neatly laser-printed
in block letters. “Who’s it from?”

“Um, Captain Avery. Sir.
He said to say he was sorry he couldn’t stay, but he had to go out of town.”
Cade was shifting his considerable weight uneasily from foot to foot, casting
longing glances at the door. Alex narrowed his eyes. He could read body
language. Cade knew what was in the letter and it wasn’t good. “Captain said to
be sure to give the letter to you in person,” Ben added.

Alex had already slit
the envelope and was quickly perusing the contents. Then he frowned and started
over again. Even after he’d read it two times, it still didn’t make sense. What
the fuck was this?

Alex began from the top
again, though the letter wasn’t making any more sense the third time than it
had the second or first.
Behavioral psychology major…dissertation…C.
Summers…seven days…

What the fuck kind of
sick joke was Ray playing on him?

“What’s this crap?” Alex
asked, his voice low and dangerous. He lifted his eyes from the letter.
Sergeant Cade squirmed again, his stomach following a second behind his
shoulders. It wasn’t a pretty sight. “Did you know about this?”

“Nope. Not until, ah…”

“Do you know what the
old man wants me to do?” Alex’s voice rose as he leaned forward. He was feeling
angry and aggrieved. This was
not
what he needed. Not today. Not
tomorrow. Not ever. “There’s some fucking
scholar
who wants to study…”
Alex frowned at the paper he held in his hand then frowned at Cade, equally
displeased with both. “‘Dominance Displays in Law Enforcement’. Can you imagine
that? I’m supposed to allow some fucking pencil-dick
geek
t
o
follow me around! Starting today.
Fuck
! Right when we’re in the fucking
middle of this fucking mess. Right when I’m ready to nail that fucker Lopez.
Now how the
fuck
am I supposed to do my job when—”

“Excuse me,” a soft
voice broke in.

Alex switched his glare
from Cade to the woman standing in his doorway.

No, not woman—girl. Some
high-schooler, to judge by the bag of books at her feet. Alex was too much of a
cop not to notice everything about her and the more he looked, the more out of
place she seemed in the cop shop.

Pretty, not too tall.
Long, pale blonde hair tied back in a messy ponytail, tendrils of which had
escaped and were curling around her face. Big, pale blue eyes behind round
metal-rimmed glasses. Very pretty. Wispy, ankle-length light blue dress. Long Indian-print
jacket. Sneakers. Very,
very
pretty.

What the hell was a
high-schooler doing in a police station at eleven o’clock on a Friday morning?
Why wasn’t she in school?

Cade, the traitor, had
slipped out while Cruz was focused on the girl.

“Lieutenant Cruz?” Her
voice barely rose above the background noise of the squad room behind her. She
angled back and looked at the name stenciled on his door, then back at him. “Lieutenant
Alejandro Cruz?”

She wanted
him
?
What the fuck was this? How did she have his first name? “Yeah, that’s me, miss.”
Alex’s hand hovered over the morning’s reports. And yesterday’s reports. He was
behind in everything and he didn’t need this. “You’ll excuse me if—”