A Fine Specimen (11 page)

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.

“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 had 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 hers. 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.