Designed for Murder (Killer Style) (2 page)

“We can’t have that.” He whipped her shirt up and off before lifting her so her center fit snug against his hard cock that was straining against his jeans. The move did more to drive up the tension revving through him than ease it, but a little bit of heaven was better than none. “I’m delicate.”

She wrapped her lithe legs around his waist and undulated against him. “Doesn’t feel that way to me.”

He strode over to the island dividing the living room from the kitchen and slipped his fingers up to her bra closure. The hook slipped free at the same moment he set her sweet ass down on the counter. The position had her snug up against him while leaving his hands free to push the black straps of her bra over her narrow shoulders. It was as close to perfect as they could get while still partially dressed. The lacy material dropped down her arms before getting hung up on the crook of her elbow. More than a handful but not by much, her tits were topped off by pale brown nipples that he couldn’t wait to taste.

“Like what you see?” She let her bra fall to the floor and reached behind him so she could unzip her boots. The shift pressed her hard nipples against his pecs. “How about what you feel?”

“Without a doubt.” He grabbed the island, needing something to hold on to so he didn’t rip her pants off and bury himself deep within her right fucking now. Control. He had to maintain control, even if there was something about Mika that pushed him right over the edge and into territory he wasn’t familiar with—all he knew was that he had to have her.

“If you don’t take off your pants,” she said as one of her boots hit the floor with a
thud
, “bend me over this island…” The
thunk
announced her other boot had joined the first. “And fuck me until I can’t see…” She flicked open the top button of her jeans and wriggled them over her hips. “I’m going to call that cab back myself.”

“You are nothing but trouble.” He got a condom out of his wallet and shucked off his jeans.

“In all the best ways.” She hopped down from the island, turned, stood on her tiptoes, and bent over the granite surface before looking over her shoulder at him. “I promise.”

Her ass had looked amazing in the jeans. Bent over his island, it looked even better.

“Spread your legs.” He rolled on the condom as she complied.

He sank one finger, then another between her slick folds, sliding in and out as he moved his other hand into position so he could rub her sensitive clit. His cock jumped when her walls closed tightly around his fingers and she arched her body, giving him the sexiest view of her back. “You like that?”

“Yes.” She pushed back against his hand.

He increased the speed, turning and twisting his fingers as he did so. The mewling, needy moan told him everything he needed to know. Delving deeper, he cupped his hand, letting his thumb rest in the crack of her ass and rubbed the back of his fingers hard against the bundle of nerves just inside her wet center.

She trembled. “God, I’m coming.”

Moisture coated his fingers, as sweet and hot as she was. She went limp against the granite, her eyes closed and her breathing fast. He glided his palms over the silky smooth globes of her ass, reveling in the fact that she rotated her hips in time with his gentle stroking even as she slowly came back to herself.

“I can still see.” She delivered her complaint with a contented sigh.

He gave her a soft smack on the ass. “Your eyes are closed.”

She opened them, revealing their desire-darkened whiskey-brown color. “Better?”

Carlos didn’t answer with words. Instead, he did what he’d wanted to do since she’d walked across the bar in those painted-on jeans: he sank himself deep within her and didn’t stop until she sheathed his entire length.

Tight and warm, she took hold of him and didn’t let go, lifting her hips to meet his every thrust and crying out her pleasure. The sound made his balls tighten almost as much as the feel of her against him. Grasping her hips, he tilted them up just enough to change the angle so that with every plunge forward he would hit her G-spot, and then he reached forward with one hand so the tip of his middle finger pressed against her clit, tapping out a rhythmic beat. She cried out his name and tightened around him, pushing him over the edge and into oblivion as he came hard enough to make the world disappear.

The temptation to collapse right there on the kitchen floor was powerful, but he had plans for the rest of the night—just as soon as he caught his breath. Bracing his weight on his forearms so he didn’t crush Mika beneath him, he slowly came back to the world. He blinked open his eyes to see her staring at him over her shoulder with a satisfied smile on her face.

She sighed and let her eyelids droop lower. “I might never see again.”

Feeling more relaxed and at ease than he had in longer than he could remember, Carlos laughed. “What good would I be if I couldn’t fuck you back to seeing?”

“No good at all.” She nibbled on her bottom lip.

His cock stirred. Damn. The need to watch her face as she came next time nearly edged out breathing on his priority list.

“I’d better show you what I can do, then.” He scooped her up into his arms, carrying her down the hall and to his bedroom, where he proceeded to do exactly that.

T
he next morning, Carlos woke up on a pillow that smelled like Mika’s rich, spicy perfume and the best sex of his life. Friday mornings were slow at Maltese Security. Maybe he could talk her into breakfast and a repeat performance. Then he had the weekend off, thanks to the Humbert case finishing up early. Really, the possibilities for all the trouble they could get up to during the next few days were endless.

A soft click sounded in his apartment. Still half asleep, he rolled over and reached out for her, but the only thing his fingers encountered was the cold sheet. He threw off the covers. His feet hit the icy floor in the next heartbeat and he spun around, searching for her boots, clothes, or any other sign that she was still here. All he saw was a note on his dresser. He slipped on his boxers and padded over to it.

CARLOS, SORRY TO DASH WITHOUT SAYING GOOD-BYE BUT I HAVE AN EARLY MEETING. HOPE TO SEE YOU AT FEENY’S AGAIN. XOXO, MIKA

Hope to see you at Feeny’s again?

That hit him like a sucker punch to the nose. He crumpled the note up and shot it basketball style into the garbage can. It hit the rim and bounced out. He snorted.

Typical.

Mika leaving shouldn’t have stung. He couldn’t imagine Roscoe or Alex getting bent out of shape over a one-night stand dipping out at dawn. So why did he? Because he was a moron when it came to women—of course, at least this one hadn’t tried to poison him during a murder spree. That was a move in the right direction compared to the last woman in his life.

He crossed the room and picked up the wadded-up note. Oh, he might see her at Feeny’s again, but that would be it. He didn’t have time in his life for hot little numbers like Mika who were nothing but trouble. After Ivy, his rule was to never see the same woman twice. The fact that he’d even half considered following his impulse to spend a whole weekend with Mika told him just how much he needed to stay the hell away from her.

His life had one purpose only—to prove to the rest of the Maltese Security team that he wasn’t just the nerdy computer geek who played online role-playing games any more. That guy might have wanted more than a one-night stand, but not him. He compressed the note into an even tighter ball and dropped it in the bin.

Chapter Two

“Real style is never right or wrong. It’s a matter of being yourself on purpose.”

—G. Bruce Boyer

T
his wasn’t good. Not. At. All.

Mika straightene
d in her seat at the end of the conference table at Maltese Security and tried to ignore the fact that she was wearing yesterday’s clothes to a business meeting. A fact made harder because one of the men from last night’s testosterone table sat opposite her, grinning like he knew exactly what had happened when she’d left Feeny’s with his friend Carlos.

Her cheeks turned another shade of pink, and she fought to keep her hands in her lap instead of endlessly twirling the end of her fishtail braid like she normally did when she was so far out of her element. Dancing with a hot guy at the bar? Ordering her Magic Battledome troops into battle? Creating the perfect pattern on the ideal fabric to fit a fashion designer’s mental image? All of that fit nicely within her wheelhouse. Sitting across from two men so muscular they barely had necks? Yeah, not her jam.

“So four people you know have been mugged recently,” said Tony Falcon, Maltese Security’s owner.

“More than mugged—they were attacked,” Mika said. “Two of the guys only had a few bumps and bruises from getting smacked around. Chuck ended up with a broken wrist when he refused to give up his costume. He wouldn’t let go, lost his footing on the slick pavement, and stopped his fall with his wrist. Josh ended up with a badly sprained ankle when he fought back.”

“What makes you think it’s the same guy targeting your friends?” Tony asked.

“Everyone gives the same description. Tall guy, muscular, black ski mask. Plus all he wants is our costumes. It’s weird enough for one person to want our Magic Battledome costumes, but four different muggers? That wouldn’t make any sense.”

“What’s so special about these…” Tony looked down at the sheet of paper in front of him. “Halloween costumes?”

She blinked back the red creeping into her vision and inhaled a deep breath before she unleashed her frustration on Tony—something she’d failed to do with the cops when they interviewed her last week, if two minutes of bored
uh-huh
s could be called a police interview. Controlling her impulsive streak took practice and patience. Right now she was short on both, but she needed Maltese Security’s help. Giving Tony a snarky lesson in LARPing, like she’d done with the officers, wasn’t going to accomplish anything. She slowly let the air out of her lungs.

“Not Halloween costumes,” she said, proud her voice came out calm. “LARPing costumes.”

“What’s lurping?” asked the guy from the bar who’d introduced himself as Cam.

She swallowed her groan. Okay, she was going to have to start from scratch here. “With an A, L-A-R-P-ing. It stands for live-action role-playing.”

“Like at a Renaissance Faire?” Tony asked, his tone even and without the mocking judgment she was used to when she talked about her favorite hobby in front of non-players.

“Sort of,” she replied. “It’s a game based on the characters from the online version of Magic Battledome. You create a character, dress up like her, and then go out and physically act out the game according to a plot written by the game masters.”

“And the costumes? What’s so special about them?” Tony asked.

“Players work for months on their costumes. They build suits of armor, create custom-made character outfits, and forge their own weapons. My court all has matching vestments that I designed and sewed. I’m a textile designer, so it’s not that much of a stretch to create a vestment.”

Cam pointed at his plain black T-shirt. “This is about as design as I get. What’s a textile designer do?”

“I work with fashion designers to create textiles that they’ll use to take their designs from paper to real life. They imagine it, and I make the perfect pattern happen.”

“So how does that translate into these costumes?” Tony asked.

“I get fabric at cost because of all of the designers and textile wholesalers and importers I work with, which allows me to produce the patterns for less than my court could on their own,” she said. “The vestments are a deep aubergine purple with threads of real silver sewn in to form the Silver Queen’s crest. That’s what the thief keeps taking. He leaves the rest of the costume.”

“Real silver,” Cam said. “Could he be targeting them for that?”

“That’s a lot of work for minimal payout.” Tony looked down at the initial police report she’d filed last week before turning to Cam. “You know who we need on this.”

“Not sure if he’s gotten here yet.” Cam gave her a pointed stare. “He had an exciting night. I’ll go look.”

The blond giant stood up and strutted out the conference room door.

“You’ll like this guy. He’s one of our lead investigators,” Tony said. “With his background, he’ll be a perfect fit for your case.”

“What kind of backgrou—” The word died on her lips when Carlos walked in the room, looking just as delicious in the black T-shirt and dark-wash jeans he wore now as he had this morning with his white sheets twisted around his lean hips.

Tony stood up and handed the case file to Carlos. “Mika, this is Carlos Castillo.”

If her brain had hiccupped when Carlos had walked into the room, it went into hyperdrive when Tony said Carlos’s full name. Anyone with the slightest affiliation with Magic Battledome knew exactly who he was.

“
The
Carlos Castillo?” She nearly fell out of her chair. Every community had its heroes, its best-of-the-best. For Magic Battledome players and LARPers, that person stood before her. The guy’s legend had grown even larger when he’d suddenly vanished a year ago. She’d spent the night with him and hadn’t known… Of course, it wasn’t like they’d done much talking. Shit, she hadn’t even known his last name. “
You’re
Zephyr?”

“Not anymore.” His jaw hardened and he turned away as if he’d never seen her before in his life. “Tony, Cam, can I talk to you outside?”

Ouch.

She flinched as if he’d slapped her, but she wasn’t about to sit quietly and politely like he obviously expected.

“Is this because of last night?” Mika sipped her steaming cup of coffee as if her temper hadn’t gone from zero to a bazillion in the past eight seconds. “You don’t have to worry, I’m not a stage-six clinger or anything.”

“Last night?” Tony asked, a confused wrinkle forming between his eyes.

Cam jerked his chin toward the door. “It might be better—”

“We had sex,” she interrupted. “A one-night stand. It was hot and fun and not something that’s going to cloud my ability to work with Carlos. You’re right, not having to explain every aspect of the LARP world would be helpful for the investigation.” She stared at the trio of men, refusing to kowtow to the muscle-bound bros packing heat. “Look, I have bigger problems to deal with than any kind of weird funkiness you three want to put on a woman who is perfectly comfortable with her sexuality. I’ve seen his dick, but that’s not going to blind me to what we really need to be focusing on: finding out who’s stealing my court’s costumes. The police aren’t taking it seriously, but I thought that you would. Was I wrong?”

C
arlos was fucked.

He’d known it as soon as he’d walked into the conference room and spotted Mika looking sexy as hell in last night’s shirt, her hair twisted into some kind of messy bun thing. Of course, h
e should have realized who she was last night when he’d used his tongue to trace the intricate sword tattoo down Mika’s spine. If he’d been thinking with his big head instead of the little one, he would have recognized Dyrnwyn, the legendary sword of Rhydderch Hael. It was the most coveted treasure in Magic Battledome and the symbol for his very real brush with death in the real world. He’d turned his back on that world, and case or no case, there was no way in hell he was getting dragged back into it.

“No, you weren’t wrong, Maltese can help,” he said. “But I’m not the best choice for the case.”

Mika raised her chin, the look of disgust written in the arch of her dark eyebrows and the twist of her red lips. “Then who is? Because I’d like to speak to him or her instead of sitting here wasting my time.”

Tension stretched between them, a taut electric wire stinging his fingertips where he had stroked her soft, smooth skin only a few hours before. He shoved his hands in his pockets, the scratch of denim minimizing the buzzing need eating away at him to touch her again.

“It’s not your choice to make, ’Los,” Tony said, jerking his chin downward in a nonverbal order. “Last time I checked, I signed your paycheck.”

Carlos sat down in the chair farthest from Mika, which gave him the distance he needed but also provided an unobstructed view of her as she sipped her coffee. She didn’t look like a cold-blooded killer, but neither had Ivy. The reminder of the redheaded supermodel turned his gut to lead.

He tore his gaze from Mika and turned toward his boss—the very man whose life he’d saved by shooting Ivy. “You know
exactly
why I’m not right for this.”

“What I know is that you’re the only one here with the background necessary to work this case the way it needs to be done,” Tony said. “Are you really willing to walk away from a case just because of a little ancient history?”

Carlos got it. He’d worked too hard for the past year proving and re-proving himself to miss the man-up message behind Tony’s words. As much as he didn’t want to, he didn’t have a choice. He was going back in…but he’d make sure it was only temporarily.

“Fine,” he said. “So what’s the plan?”

Tony shuffled the papers in front of him and stuffed them back into the folder, slapping it shut with authority. “That’s for you two to figure out.”

“With your history, you can easily come back into the Magic Battledome fold,” Mika said.

Like that was ever going to be the case. Too much had happened, and he was a different man now. “It’s gotta be an inside job. It’s not like anyone else would ever think LARP costumes were valuable.”

“Wow.” Mika exhaled in a frustrated huff. “You have gone totally mundane, haven’t you?”

“Mundane?” Cam asked.

“Someone who doesn’t play the game,” Carlos answered. It was the LARP equivalent of a muggle and was usually used with total derision. Except now being a
mundane
was a point of pride for him. “Someone like me.”

Cam gave him a questioning look. Carlos knew he was being an ass, but he’d promised himself he’d never go back into that world. If being forced to do what he’d promised himself he’d never do again made him act like a dick, then so be it. He’d go in, figure out who was stealing the costumes, and get the hell out of there before he got in too deep. What the hell did he care if Mika liked him or not? He was who he was now, not who he had been.

“Just in case it is someone on the inside doing this,” Tony said, “you need to keep your investigation on the down low.”

“You can go in as her one-night stand,” Cam said. “What?” He looked around, a shit-ass grin on his face. He knew exactly what he was doing; he always did. “Sticking as close to the truth as possible is always the best plan. He goes home with her, finds out she’s into Magic Battledome, and decides to give it another try.”

Simple. Almost honest. It would work. “It’ll get the job done,” Carlos said.

“Not with your douchetastic attitude.” Mika stared at him, challenge burning in her eyes.

“You don’t think I can pull it off?” They were fighting, but it wasn’t only annoyance he was feeling. Blood that normally went north was heading due south.

Mika gave him a cool head-to-toe review before shrugging her delicate shoulders. For someone who had been so hot for him only a few hours ago, she sure was ice-cold now—which was good. If he was stuck taking this case, the last thing he needed was someone who wanted more from him than just a mystery solved, no matter what his half-hard cock argued.

“You can use your…attitude in your favor,” Cam mused. “A dude will do a lot to get with a woman as hot as Mika—no offense.”

She laughed. “There is no filter between your brain and your mouth, is there?”

“Not that I’ve found,” Cam said.

Carlos pressed against his fingers, popping the knuckles one at a time until eight loud cracks had boomed in the suddenly quiet conference room. He looked up and found three sets of eyes on him, two curious and one totally unimpressed. He cleared his throat. “Okay, so when do we get started?”

Mika consulted her phone. “I have a meeting with my court tonight at six.”

“Your court?” Tony asked.

“That’s what my character, the Silver Queen, calls her team,” Mika explained. “They’re the ones who fight under the Silver banner and are being stalked by this thief.”

Carlos swiped the case file from in front of Tony and scooted his chair back from the table. “I’ll pick you up before the meeting.” Discussion over, he stood and took three steps toward the door before his sixth sense made him stop and turn.

Mika was shaking her head. The move made her dangling earrings swing and drew his attention to her jaw, the smooth line of which he’d traced with his tongue last night. He could still taste her on his lips without even concentrating. The vanilla of her lotion, the hoppy beer she’d been drinking, and the intoxicating promise of something more amazing than a regular bar hookup.

“You don’t have to pick me up,” she said. “There’s no need.”

“There is if we’re going to make this cover seem legit.”

Mika had narrowed her eyes. “And we can’t let anyone think you’re just a big old fake, now can we?”

Cam tried to disguise his laugh with a cough.

Tony sighed. “Are you two going to be able to play nice together? If not, we need to figure out another plan.”

Mika rolled back her chair and then strutted over, stopping right in front of Carlos. “I always play nice.” Her whole demeanor changed. All the fight melted away from her, replaced by a flirty look promising a good time and the teasing hint of hot sex. She pursed her red lips together and blew him a playful kiss before patting his cheek with stinging force. “Until I don’t. Pick me up at five forty-five.”