Frisk Me (6 page)

S
o, apparently, there was a naked man running up and down Chelsea Pier.

Well, not a
totally
naked man. Ava had overheard Lopez questioning an elderly couple, and according to them, the perp still wore his too-small white tank top and beat-up leather sandals.

But the crucial, um,
bits
of him were apparently flopping out there for all to see.

And judging by the old lady’s hand motions,
flopping
was unfortunately literal.

Ava stood near the car where Luc had curtly told her to stay put. She didn’t see what the big deal was. Not like she hadn’t seen a naked man before.

Well okay, it had been a while.

Her eyes found Officer Moretti as he interviewed a couple of runners, her eyes taking in wide shoulders and tapered waist.

He was taller than average, but there was nothing lanky or gangly about him. His standard-issue uniform did little to disguise the clench and release of muscles when he moved, and her mouth went dry as she imagined her fingers unbuttoning his shirt, sliding it off sculpted shoulders to reveal what she was about 90 percent sure would be a flawless six-pack…

Ava shook her head to clear it.

Okay, so maybe it had been a
long
while since she’d seen a naked man.

But she hated it was Moretti who made her remember that her last date had been…

When exactly?

Three months? Six?

Why couldn’t it be Officer Lopez who made her a little crazy? Luc’s partner was drop-dead gorgeous, and a hell of a lot more charming than Moretti.

So why did it have to be
Luc
who reminded her that she’d been celibate for way longer than she’d like?

It’s not like Ava was one of those hyper-independent women who was determined to remain single at all costs.

Ava loved to date. Or at least she liked the idea of dating. That giddy anticipation of whether she’d feel
it
—that spark of,
yes, maybe this could work!

Okay, so, admittedly, as far as expectations went, the bar was pretty low.

But Ava was no naive twenty-two-year-old college grad who thought the right guy was just around the corner. She’d kissed a lot of toads.

A
lot
.

She wasn’t at
all
sure her happily ever after was out there, so when it came to first dates, Ava was just fine settling for a
maybe
and decent conversation.

But even the
maybes
had been few and far between. For a city with several million people you’d think there’d be at least one guy she found attractive who didn’t bore her silly.

Ava sighed and readjusted her pony.

After this story, she’d put more effort into the dating scene. She loved her career—sometimes—but she didn’t want to be married to it.

Actually, she didn’t want to be
married
at all. Ever. To anyone.

As though sensing her gaze on his back—okay, his butt—Luc whipped his head around and his eyes clamped on hers.

Embarrassed to be caught staring, Ava jerked her gaze away. This was so not the time to be playing sexy-eyes with a grumpy cop.

Part of Ava’s job was knowing when people were at their limits, and Luc Moretti had been at his when they’d first arrived at the pier and he caught her taking notes while he interviewed a witness.

Whoopsie.

She’d been banished to the car.

But hey, bright side…at least now she knew what an ID was in cop-speak:

Indecent exposure.

It
also
explained why Luc Moretti had changed his mind about letting her tag along. He thought she’d be scared off.

Please. It would take a hell of a lot more than a flaccid penis on a disorderly drunk to scare her off the story.

She would, however, be omitting this particular cop-experience from her prime-time coverage.

And the story
would
be prime time. That had been the only reason Ava had agreed to do something so…scripted.

The network had been hard up for the type of feel-good story for the summer evenings after the featured farm in their farm-to-table, organic food series had gotten nailed on animal cruelty charges.

The higher-ups had been in a panic, and Ava had (stupidly, in hindsight) mentioned the local coverage of a hero cop video gone viral. Her boss had gone crazy for the story.

And as a reward, Ava had gotten first shot at it. This was it. Her make-or-break story. She knew it, Mihail knew it, her bosses knew it…

But Luc Moretti didn’t know it. Or perhaps more accurately, Luc Moretti didn’t
care
.

Ava slumped back against the car for a second before realizing it would probably get dirt all over her suit, and she jumped back before turning around and frantically trying to check out her own ass for smudges. Anchorwomen were supposed to care about these things.

Thank God Mihail wasn’t here. He’d be armed with another comment about how Gwen Garrison could wear a white gown at rush hour on the J train and walk away without so much as a speck of dirt on her.

Well Ava Sims wasn’t Gwen Garrison, and this whole fancy, polished thing was
hard
.

But she was determined to get used to it.

After confirming that she didn’t have brown streaks on her butt from the patrol car, Ava turned back around to see if Luc and his quick-with-a-line partner were wrapping up their 10-50-whatever so she could get in a few interview questions.

She wondered how long Lopez and Luc had been working together. She made a note in her spiral to find out.

Sawyer Lopez shared Luc’s same dramatic coloring, with dark hair and blue eyes, and she imagined the pair of them were like heartbreak on a plate for those women who liked the men in uniform thing.

Which Ava didn’t. So she kept telling herself.

She bit her nail, then jerked her hand away as she tried not to get impatient. Sitting still and waiting were so not her favorite activities. Ava pulled out her cell phone. A missed call from her sister, several Instagram updates from her brother in what looked like Vienna, and a text from Beth beginning with SOS.

Ava scanned the text from Beth. As expected, it was wedding related.
All
of Beth’s texts were wedding related these days, and at least half of them were SOS. Not that Ava minded. What were best friends for if not to make the appropriate soothing noises when the videographer you’d been hoping for was already booked.

Dutifully, Ava responded that the videographer was mediocre anyway, they’d find a
way
better one, and why don’t they meet up for happy hour tonight to discuss it?

Beth was definitely toeing the line on Bridezilla territory, but luckily Ava had found the cure: wine.

Maid of honor duty done for the time being, she put her phone away, and to prevent herself from staring—and drooling—over the way Luc Moretti looked in his uniform, Ava began running through the structure of the
America’s Hero
footage.

It would probably take hours of following Luc around to get even five minutes of footage. That’s how it was with stuff like this. Nobody wanted to see that cops sometimes got stuck in traffic too, so they’d resort to a montage.

Likely with a voice-over about “the side of a cop’s day-to-day you never see in the movies.”

Which was really just reporter talk for
boring stuff.

Her fingernail crept up to the corner of her mouth, and she nibbled at the edge of her ring-finger nail.

It was a horrible habit. One she was determined to break. Eventually. Mihail was a champ about always batting her hand away when she got the nervous nail-biting urge, but he was nowhere to be seen today.

Ava groaned and dropped her hand as she remembered her friend.
Mihail
. Why hadn’t she thought to call him? How was she going to get even five minutes of footage when she’d gone and forgotten her cameraman?

It was Luc Moretti’s fault. Those damn blue eyes were distracting.

Her eyes searched for Lopez, but she didn’t see him anywhere. Then she looked for Luc and found him almost immediately. It was like he was a damned beacon for her gaze.

Her eyes narrowed just slightly. What made him tick? What caused that compelling combination of easy charm, effortless competence, and guarded mystery?

Because regardless of how boring her opening voice-over was, the real grit of the story would come from interviews.

She needed to get Luc Moretti to talk to her.

Which wasn’t likely considering she couldn’t seem to go five minutes without pissing him off, but honestly, the man was almost painfully easy to goad.

At least when it came to her.

“Hello, pretty lady.”

It was only pure shock that prevented Ava from jumping out of her skin. That, and Ava hadn’t grown up with two annoying siblings and not been in for a few nasty surprises.

Of course, her siblings hadn’t usually been, um, nude.

And they weren’t mid-forties and balding.

Mr. Indecent Exposure had found her.

And he was still very much
indecent
.

With her heels on, Ava was almost eye level with the half-naked guy, and she kept her eyes very, very carefully locked on his.

She’d been sort of assuming they were dealing with someone who was mentally ill, or perhaps under the influence. But up close, this guy seemed merely mischievous and perhaps not too bright.

His blue eyes were round and twinkling. This man was very aware of what he was doing, even if he was a little clueless about the consequences.

“Sir, I don’t want to embarrass you,” she said, keeping her voice mellow and easy, “but you seem to have forgotten a couple of important items of clothing.”

“Damn straight. Wouldn’t you, to win a bet?”

Oh yikes. That’s what this was about? A bet?

Still, Ava was nothing if not a skilled conversationalist when need be.
Where was Luc?

She needed to keep Mr. Almost-Naked here, and touching the man was out of the question. Obviously. Somewhere along the way, the white tank top he’d supposedly been wearing must have gone the way of his pants.

She gave him an easy smile, never letting her gaze stray below his eyes.
Reel him in, Ava.
“Truth be told, I find it a bit hard to turn down a dare myself,” she said, her voice low and confidential.

Do not look down. Do not look down.

“Yeah!” He brightened, moving as though to sit down on the curb for a nice long chat. “See,
you
get it. I’ve been trying to explain, but—”

“Sir. No.” Ava held up a solitary finger. “Put your pants on.”

“But you said—”

“I said it was
hard
to turn down a bet, not impossible. Have some dignity, man.”

“But I have to stay this way until noon or I don’t win.”

She heaved out a sigh, resisting the urge to ask what prize could possibly be worth this humiliation. She looked around for Luc and his partner. Maybe
this
was why they’d wanted her to stay in the car.

Oh, wait, the
car
…

Ava hitched a thumb over her shoulder. “You do see the vehicle I’m standing next to, right?”

The man followed the direction of her point and for the first time, his impish smile slipped. “Shit. Are you…”

“A plainclothes police officer? Maybe.” She folded her arms across her chest.

He began to back away, and Ava shifted her eyes to the sky to avoid nightmares for a week.

“Sorry, sir. Ma’am. Sir. Officer. Um, I won’t bother you…”

“I’ll tell ya what,” she says, snapping her fingers. “I won’t turn you in,
if
you agree to put on some clothes and then knock some sense into your moron friends who put you up to this.”

But Naked Man wasn’t paying attention to her rather excellent advice. His gaze was locked behind her shoulder, his eyes wide and terrified.

Uh oh.

“Sims, Sims, Sims,” came the low, horribly familiar voice. “Did I just hear you impersonate a police officer, bargain with a known suspect, and then propose that he commit battery?”

“I like to think of it as a Good Samaritan thing,” she said, turning around to face one very pissed Officer Moretti.

“Or…citizen’s arrest?” she asked cheerfully when he didn’t respond.

Behind her, she heard Lopez’s slightly accented voice mingled in with the loud protests of the guy who was now being cuffed. Luc still hadn’t said a word.

“Is um…Lopez putting handcuffs on a butt-ass-naked dude?” she asked, pointing over her shoulder. “Because
that’s
gotta be an interesting visual.”

Luc continued to study her with dark blue eyes.

Ava heaved out a sigh. “Look,
he
found
me
. What was I supposed to do? Run away screaming?”

“Well you sure as hell aren’t to engage him in a conversation!”

“Well I wouldn’t have had to if you’d actually done your job.”

Luc’s eyes flared and he took an angry step toward her.

Interesting
, Ava thought, eyes narrowing. Officer Moretti takes his job very seriously.

Behind her, she heard Mr. Naked explaining the virtues of following through on a dare to a very unsympathetic Lopez. The car door slammed and Lopez came around to interrupt Luc and Ava’s staring contest.

“We are going to need
serious
disinfectant in the backseat,” he said, gesturing toward the car.

Eeew.

Luc pinched the bridge of his nose. “Great. Fucking great. Okay, let’s take him in.”

Lopez set a hand on the small of Ava’s back, and Ava didn’t think she imagined the way that Luc’s eyes traced the motion.

“Sweetheart, this is where we part ways,” Lopez said. “Can’t let you ride along with the perp. Not that you’d want to.”

Ava gave a regretful glance at the backseat of the cop car where Mr. Naked had his face pressed to the window and was shouting something she couldn’t hear. “Do you think I could get his phone number? I think we really connected.”

Lopez arched an eyebrow and leaned in a little, his white teeth flashing sexily against his dark skin. “So you’re single, huh? Because I think I can give this perp a run for his money, if you know what I mean.”