07 Uncorked - Chrissy McMullen Mystery (3 page)

“I didn’t sleep with her,” he said.

Anger spouted up in me like Old Faithful on Viagra. “Well, I’m sorry if I interrupted before you could get the job done.”

“I told you before,” he said. “I was questioning her.”

“Really? It looked more like mouth-to-mouth.”

“I was on a case.”

“What case?”

“A case that I can’t talk about.”

“Do they always tell you not to talk about who you sleep with?”

"Listen, I think we've got a bad cop in the department. Things aren't…" He stopped himself, rose abruptly to his feet, barely wincing at the sudden movement. “I guess this was a bad idea.”

“You bet your nuts it was.” We stared at each other. I knew better than to open my mouth again, but the words came nevertheless. “Why’d you come here anyway, Rivera?” He turned away. “I shouldn’t have bothered you.”

I drew a slow, steadying breath. “Maybe I shouldn’t have kicked you in the balls either.”

He snorted, narrowed his eyes and turned back. “Is that an apology, McMullen?” I shrugged a little. “Probably the best you’re going to get.” He smiled and lifted his hand. For a moment I thought he was going to touch my face. I braced myself for the impact. But he took a step back and sobered immediately.

“Andrews is getting out of jail,” he said.

The floor jolted beneath my feet. I felt the blood rush from my face, felt my knees buckle. “Jackson Andrews?”

“Yeah.”

I sat down hard in my kitchen chair. Andrews had had his hand in numerous criminal activities but was best known as the inventor of a dangerous blend of chemicals called Intensity. From the little I knew of the situation, his incarceration had done almost nothing to slow its distribution. “When?”

“Today.”

“Today!” I jolted from my trance. “Shit, Rivera. That means…” I could barely force out the words. “He’s already loose.”

He nodded, sober as a nightmare.

“Couldn’t you have waited a little longer to tell me?” The words were weak. It’s a bad sign when I can’t even issue sarcasm with decent volume.

“I’m sorry,” he said, and wonder of wonders, he actually looked sorry. “I didn’t think you’d want me to…” He paused, atypically uncertain. “I didn’t want to interfere in your life.”

Since when? I wondered, but I didn’t say it out loud.

“When you said there was someone parked on your street, I…” He blew out a slow breath, shook his head once. “I need you to keep your security system armed, Chrissy.” I nodded. “I really did think I had the door locked.”

“You did.”

I stared at him.

He glanced away. “I had an extra key made before we split up.”

“You have a key?”

“You were always getting yourself in scrapes. I wanted to make sure I could get in if I needed to.”

I tried to dredge up the appropriate amount of rage, but I was tired.

“You have to be more careful.” He sounded tired, too.

“Okay.” I try not to be compliant. Hell, sometimes I try not to even be reasonable. Or maybe that’s just what my God-given DNA demands of me. But Jackson Andrews was certifiably insane. And the thought of him on the loose made me want to move to the Dominican Republic with a bodyguard named Hercules, or maybe Death Ray.

“And keep your drapes pulled,” he added.

“All right.”

“Do you still have the gun Manderos gave you?”

I shook my head. Blood was beginning to return to my cerebellum. My face felt warm. “I didn’t have a permit. I couldn’t keep it. It’s against the law for me to carry—”

“I don’t give a shit!” He spat out the words. I refrained from taking a step back, from fainting at his admittance. Rivera was cop to the core. He probably had his badge tattooed on his spleen.

He glanced away, jaw set. “You need some protection.”

“I have Harlequin.” I jerked my head toward the backyard, where my Great Dane was probably hiding behind one of the two landscaping boulders that graced my humble property. Harley doesn’t like controversy.

Rivera turned his head at the mention of the dog I’d once thought of as our love child. “He’s too big to carry in your purse.”

“So is a knee.”

He scowled. I nodded toward his balls.

“But it’s pretty effective in a pinch.”

He didn’t laugh, but some sort of light shone in his dark coffee eyes. If I tried really hard, I could almost believe it was admiration. “Where’s your spray?” I tilted my head.

“The pepper spray I got you. Where is it?”

“In my purse.”

“Get it.”

“Listen, Rivera…” I was getting angry again. I mean, I know I hadn’t been all sweetness and light thus far in this little transaction, but kneeing him in the groin had been an honest mistake. Really. And he had no right to tell me what to do. “It’s very nice that you still carry a torch for me but—”

“Show me the pepper spray and I’ll let you get to sleep,” he said.

Sleep, he knew, was tantamount to chocolate on the Richter scale of pleasure for me.

I went to get my purse. I like to leave it in a heap on a kitchen chair. Retrieving it from said chair, I plopped it atop the table. Then I rummaged through it for a while, found a cherry sucker I’d gotten from my bank, two tampons that had escaped from their little protective sleeves and a tube of lip balm I’d mourned the loss of long ago. But no defense spray.

“I must have put it in my jacket pocket,” I said, but when I glanced up, Rivera was glowering at me, eyes angry and body language unspeakable.

“Get it,” he said.

“I left it at the office.” I was just lying now. I had no idea what I had done with the damn pepper spray. I’m not an idiot. Really, I’m not. But I don’t like to spend a lot of time on paranoia about being mugged by some lurking psychotic. It’s hard enough just to pay the bills and keep my bathroom scale from performing treason.

“You lost it, didn’t you?” he asked.

“No, I didn’t lose it.”

“Then get it.”

“I told you—”

“God dammit, McMullen!” Stepping forward, he grabbed my arms.

And suddenly all the air was sucked out of the house. Maybe it was sucked out of the entire universe.

“What are you trying to do?” His voice had gone deep and dangerous again. His lips were a hard, straight line.

I swallowed, watching those lips. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He seemed to be watching my lips too. “I need you to—” I blinked, shivered, tried not to be an idiot. “To…?” I said, but just then he slammed his mouth against mine.

Chapter 3

Violent mood swings—try 'em, you’ll like 'em.

—Crazy Bet, who may not have been quite as crazy as she seemed
I tried to stop him. Tried to pull away, but the kiss was burning a hole straight through my lips to my pituitary gland. And that’s where I keep the command center for my hormones. They were coming alive like Pop Rocks in battery acid by the time he pushed me away.

“God dammit, McMullen! What the hell are you trying to do to me?” My mind was a jumble. My knees felt unhinged and my emotions were roiling like the Red Sea. That’s the only explanation I have for my next action.

I slapped him. That’s right. I slapped him across the face like a wide-eyed starlet in a grade-B movie. One minute I was standing there, limp as a lettuce leaf in his arms, and the next I was cracking him across the cheek with all the force made possible by terror and estrogen toxicity. The strike of my palm against his face sounded like a gunshot in my tiny kitchen. He didn’t even flinch. I slapped him again. Nothing changed. He didn’t step back, didn’t turn away. If anything, his eyes just burned a little brighter.

Rage ripped through me, exacerbated by disappointment, guilt, and a shitload of emotions I wasn’t prepared to address.

“What am I trying to do to you?” The words were raspy. I was leaning toward him as if braced against a bungee cord.

That muscle in his jaw jumped again. “I didn’t plan to come here.”

“Then why did you?”

He stared at my lips, then let his gaze slip lower. I was conservatively dressed in a baggy T-shirt and frayed denim shorts, but I might as well have been wearing a blood red corset and thigh-gripping garters. I swear he could see through my shirt all the way to my breast bone. And my breasts. Which were unfettered. I said I was dressed conservatively.

I didn’t say I was crazy enough to wear a bra in triple-digit temperatures. But my nipples were puckering despite the heat. I’m sure it had nothing to do with Rivera, though he seemed to have come a step closer somehow.

“Why do you think, Chrissy?” he asked, and raised his dark mocha eyes to mine.

They were steaming. Swear to God, steaming like a sweet demon’s.

I swallowed, cocking back my head a little. I was getting that feeling again. That horrible weak-kneed feeling that had nothing to do with released criminals or unbridled fear. But I checked my wobbling instincts and made a play for a snappy comeback.

“I think you must have had a slow day at the precinct,” I said. “Run out of jaywalkers to waterboard?”

“That’s right,” he said. “So I came to torment you.”

“Well, you can just go find someone else to play with. I don’t need you making—” Just then he took that tiny step that separated us. Every nerve ending sizzled like Jimmy Dean’s finest. And that was even before he kissed my neck.

My knees tried to buckle, my head tried to pop off my neck and roll onto the floor, but I was ready for their traitorous ways and braced myself against the weakness.

“Making what?” he whispered. His breath felt cool against my overheated skin.

I tried to think. Tried to move away. Neither attempt was wildly successful. In fact, I may have gone catatonic and somehow slipped even closer to him. “Making a mess of my life,” I breathed.

He slid his fingertips up my arm. “Doing okay with that on your own?” I stifled a shiver, but my voice sounded funny when I spoke. “I’m not on my own,” I said. Or maybe I croaked. I hate like hell to admit it, but it might very well have been a croak.

“That’s right.” His gaze shifted to mine, somber as a dirge, sharp as a firecracker. His hand slipped into the baggy sleeve of my shirt. “What’s the lucky bastard’s name again?” I opened my mouth to answer, but just then he brushed his thumb across my left nipple and I was entirely too involved in remaining upright to form any sort of articulate answer. My lips felt dry. I licked them.

“McMullen?” The whisper washed against my face. “What’s his name?” I wanted to answer, but my larynx seemed to have forgotten how to function. He had slipped his hand out of my sleeve and by some kind of forbidden magic seemed to be stroking my belly beneath my shirt.

He tilted his head at me. His devilish lips cocked into the semblance of a grin. “You haven’t forgotten, have you?”

“Of course I haven’t forgotten.” Turns out my larynx worked after all, but only in a manner that issued a grating sort of demonic sound.

His mouth hitched up a little farther, highlighting the narrow scar that sliced through the right corner of his lips. “Who is he?” he asked.

My shoulder blades were pressed up against the wall now. We were skin to skin.

“Why do you want to know?”

His knuckles bumped down my midline, over my navel, lower. I suppressed a shiver and refrained from closing my eyes and passing into delirium.

“I want to make sure he’s good enough for you.” His fingers slipped into my waistband.

“He’s good,” I rasped.

His lips may have jerked just a little, but his diabolical fingers didn’t stop their downward quest. “Does he make you squeak?”

“What?” The word was little more than a breath against his face. He tightened his jaw and took a steadying breath.

“You squeak,” he whispered. “High pitched and almost silent when you come.” His fingers flicked open the button on my shorts.

I closed my eyes and chanted the rosary to myself. “I do not.”

“Maybe not with him.” He moved a fraction of a millimeter closer. I would have sworn there wasn’t that much space between us.

“Not with anyone.”

“There are others?” His tone was gritty, his body hard as hell against mine.

My mind was beginning to spin like water twirling down a toilet. He had moved his hand around my waist and was trailing his fingers down my spine. I arched my back, involuntarily pushing my breasts against his chest. “I don’t need any others.”

“Nameless is that good?” he asked and slid his devilish fingers inside my shorts.

“He has a name.” I just wished to God I could remember it.

“Is it Francois?” he whispered.

“You wish,” I rasped. Francois just happened to be a certain battery-run appliance I keep in a drawer beside my bed. In my current overheated condition I had no idea how Rivera knew of its existence, much less its name. “I don’t need that anymore.” That was an out-and-out lie. I’d had an impromptu date with Francois less than twenty-four hours earlier. But apparently he hadn’t been quite up to the job of dousing the inferno. “I threw it out.”

“Really?”

No, I thought and prayed he wouldn’t look in my drawers.

“I kind of feel sorry for it,” he said, squeezing my ass with one long-fingered hand.

Desire sparked off in every direction like embers from a forest fire. I managed to remain earthbound. “I think you’re just feeling sorry for yourself.” He lifted one brow.

“Because I don’t need you.” I panted.

He grinned. “What are you feeling?” he asked, and pressed his considerable length against my thigh.

I did my best not to push back. Sometimes my best sucks the big one. “Nothing.” The word was little more than a gasp as he slid his cock closer to my core.

He shook his head once, eyes never leaving mine. “You used to be a pretty fair liar yourself, McMullen.”

“I’m not lying,” I lied.

“That’s just because you prefer to do it standing up.” It took me a second to understand his meaning. To which I shot back, “Shows what you know.”

“I know you,” he whispered.

“And you let me go.”

“Fuck that,” he said, and tightening his grip on my ass, pulled me marginally closer.

“You’re the one who called it off.”