Heidi Rice - Too Close for Comfort

‘A complex, high-level investigation,’ Montoya continued. ‘That your dumb stunt came close to screwing up tonight.’

She ignored Montoya’s irritation. If he expected an apology for her ‘dumb stunt,’ he’d be waiting until they were serving snow cones in hell. She couldn’t care less about him or his anonymous insurance company or his complex, high-level, ‘almost screwed up’ investigation.

All she cared about was her father.

Peter MacCabe was a good man, who’d wanted to give her a dream. A dream she’d destroyed by letting a professional conman into their lives.

They rode in silence for the next few miles. Iona stared into the darkness and tried to get her head around what she was going to do next. It had taken her over two weeks to track Brad this far, in the hope she could get some of the money back. But if all the money was gone, was there even any point in confronting him? The hopelessness of the situation felt debilitating.

The lights of a strip mall shone in the distance as they approached another seaside town, but her mind had gone numb and she simply could not get it to engage.

Even her bones felt tired. She’d been running on adrenaline since she’d got to California, trying to live on as little as possible while she waited for Brad to return to the motel she’d had staked out. Tears of frustration and weariness pricked her eyes. She sucked them up. Crying never solved anything.

The yellow sign of a fast-food franchise flickered on the side of the road. Her stomach protested audibly and the hot flush of shame fired up her neck. Seemed the coffin of her self-respect hadn’t completely rotted away because she’d be mortified if Montoya had heard her hunger pains.

No such luck .

The car bounced across the cracked pavement in the fast-food restaurant’s forecourt, then stopped at the drive-through window.

He slanted a look at her belly. ‘What do you want?’

‘Nothing, I’m good,’ she said, even though she hadn’t eaten since the coffee and doughnut she’d splurged on at breakfast. She’d rather die of starvation than accept charity from this jerk.

‘What’ll it be, sir?’ The teenage girl in the drive-through window blushed profusely before letting out a choked sigh—clearly suffering from the same asphyxiation problem Iona herself had had after her first good look at Detective Sexy.

He glanced at her over his shoulder and she got another unwelcome eyeful of that staggering face. An alarming series of pinpricks shimmered across her nerve endings.

‘You sure?’ he asked.

‘Positive.’ She lifted her chin.

The flat line of Montoya’s lips curved up at one end, sending a dimple into his cheek. The pinpricks gathered and concentrated in all sorts of inappropriate places.

A dimple? Seriously? Give me a break .

The hint of a smile was more rueful than amused, but there was no denying the spectacular blip in Iona’s heart rate—or the loud answering growl of the lion in her stomach still hoping to get fed.

‘Suit yourself.’ He turned back to the blushing teen. ‘I’ll have two double cheeseburgers with a couple of large fries and a chocolate malt, Serena,’ he purred, reading her name off the badge pinned to her heaving bosom.

‘Yes, sir, coming right up.’ The girl jumped to attention. ‘That’ll be six dollars fifty, sir.’

Iona rolled her eyes. What was with the sir? Couldn’t Serena see Detective Sexy already had an ego the size of Mars? Stroking it would turn it into a supernova.

He paid for the food, thanked Serena with what Iona guessed must have been the full dimple effect—because the girl’s face went radioactive—then drove to the pick-up window.

‘Here, hold these.’ he passed her the two grease-spotted paper bags.

The delicious aroma of grilled meat and freshly fried potatoes swirled around Iona as he steered the car to a parking space one-handed while taking a loud slurp of his malt.

A giant chasm opened in her stomach and began to weep as she thrust the bags back as soon as the car was stationary. ‘Why did you get two?’ she snapped, drool pooling under her tongue. ‘I told you I’m not hungry.’

Was he trying to torture her?

‘They’re both for me.’ He patted what appeared to be a washboard-lean stomach, the rueful twist of his lips mocking her. ‘Stake-outs are hungry work and all I’ve had since lunch is ten Twinkies and a gallon of Dr Pepper.’

She glared across the console. ‘My heart bleeds for you.’

The mention of the sugary treats was torturous enough, but then he produced an enormous cheeseburger from one of the takeout bags.

The lurid orange substance that passed for cheese dripped from the sesame-seed bun as the savoury scent filled the car. The chasm in Iona’s stomach yawned as his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down while he demolished the cheeseburger, then made equally fast work of the fries. The crunch of crisp golden potato and the heady fragrance sent her taste buds into overdrive.

He balled up the empty bag and flipped it into a bin outside the car window. She licked her lips as her stomach rolled into her throat.

One down, one to go .

He peered into the second bag, lifted out the last cheeseburger. Wrapping the serviette round one half, he brought it to his lips in slow motion.

‘Wait.’ Her hand shot out to grab hold of one thick wrist as the lion howled.

‘Something you want?’ His tone sounded strangely alluring in the darkness. Her tortured gaze met his mocking one.

‘Yes…I…’ Her tongue swelled, the drool choking her. ‘Please.’

One dark eyebrow lifted. ‘Please, what?’

The bastard was going to make her beg.

‘Could I have a wee bite?’ She begged, ready to sacrifice her pride, her self-respect and anything else he might want for one little nibble.

The intensely blue gaze dipped as her teeth dug into her bottom lip—and the pinpricks radiated up and out from all those inappropriate places. She dismissed her response. It had to be some weird physical reaction brought on by starvation.

She waited, ready for him to torture her some more, but to her relief his lips quirked—making the damn dimple wink at her—and he handed over the precious burger. ‘Knock yourself out.’

She paused for a second as her fingers sank into the spongy bun, then ripped off a huge chunk with her teeth.

Her taste buds sang a hallelujah chorus as the meat juices and the creamy, salty cheese caressed her tongue. A low moan of gratification eased out round the mouthful of burger and his gaze locked on her mouth, the mocking smile gone.

She swallowed quickly and took another massive bite. She could feel the disturbingly intense gaze as she stuffed the rest of burger in—but she didn’t care.

Let him be as appalled as he liked by her terrible table manners. She hadn’t had a decent meal in days. And it hadn’t been her idea to get kidnapped.

Why did that look so damn hot?

Heat shot into Zane’s crotch as the wide full lips shone from the coating of grease.

‘Slow down, you’ll make yourself sick,’ he murmured.

She peered at him, her expression wary as she continued to devour the burger like a ravenous wolf. He shifted in his seat, suppressing the urge to lick off the trickle of juice dribbling down her chin. She swiped the back of her hand across her mouth, wiping off the trickle, but the tug of arousal made it impossible to drag his gaze away.

I must seriously need to get laid .

Had it been six months since he’d had that weekend fling in Sonora with Elena, the public defender? Six months wasn’t that unusual for him—he’d always been choosy about his sexual partners—but this time the abstinence had to be messing with his radar.

The girl was cute, no question. The slanting chocolate eyes, thick red-gold curls, her wide kissable mouth and pale freckled skin made a unique package—but cute was hardly his type. And then there was the biggest turn-off of all. He was involved with her in a professional capacity. She was definitely a witness, possibly even a perp. And he never crossed that line. Ever.

The heat subsided as he watched her gulp down the last of the burger as if her life depended on it. Exactly how old was she? With that petal-soft skin it was hard to tell, but she could be a teenager.

He forced his gaze from her lips as he lifted the bag of fries off the dash, and passed them to her. ‘How long’s it been since you had a decent meal?’

She stiffened. ‘Not long,’ she said grudgingly but took the bag.

Yeah, right .

She popped the fries into her mouth, but continued to watch him, as if she expected him to snatch them back at any moment.

He suppressed the dart of compassion.

Grab a dose of reality, Montoya .

She’s no damsel in distress—she’s a resourceful little operator with her own agenda . Getting a job at Demarest’s motel had been a neat trick. And how the hell had she tracked the guy from Scotland, when they’d had trouble tracking him across California? Until he had the full story of how she fitted into the picture with Demarest, he didn’t plan to trust her an inch.

But that didn’t solve his immediate problem. What to do with her tonight? He hadn’t planned much past getting her away from Demarest’s motel.

He couldn’t take her back to Morro, and booking her into another motel wasn’t an option either, because she’d skip.

Of course he could dump her on the cops. But while handing her over would ‘contain’ the problem, he couldn’t quite bring himself to do it.

‘So how did you find out Demarest had a room at the Morro, Iona?’ he asked, deciding it was about time he started interrogating her properly—and stopped fixating on those damn lips.

She stopped shovelling fries into her mouth. ‘How do you know my name?’ she said in that lilting Celtic brogue.

‘The motel clerk was real talkative when I told him about your crime spree with his key.’

Her rich chocolate eyes went squinty with temper. ‘You told him? How could you? I’ll lose my job.’

‘You’re not going back there anyway,’ he said, dismissing the prickle of guilt. He wasn’t the one who’d decided to indulge in some after hours B and E. ‘I don’t want you alerting Demarest to our presence.’

‘I’m not going to alert him. Why would I?’ She sounded aggrieved. ‘How am I going to pay my bill now? They probably won’t even give me the wages they owe me.’

‘I settled your bill.’ He’d also paid the clerk to keep her valuables in the motel safe. If Demarest showed up tonight, he might not need the bargaining chip Iona’s ID documents represented, but he had a feeling it wasn’t gonna be that simple. Because nothing about this damn case had been simple so far.

And the biggest complication of all was sitting right in front of him.

A complication made a whole lot worse by his perverse reaction to her.

He’d never before got a kick out of manhandling a woman—even on the force he’d earned the nickname Lancelot, because of his preference for using persuasion and persistence when interrogating female suspects, instead of threats and intimidation.

But there was no getting away from the fact that when he’d caught her in Demarest’s room tonight—he’d noticed the generous breasts propped on his forearm and the fresh, subtle fragrance of her hair. And while he might have been able to ignore that momentary loss of control—because it had been six months since he’d had a woman, any woman in his arms—that excuse was nowhere near good enough to explain why he’d come close to getting a hard-on just watching her eat.