Razor's Edge: Men in Blue, Book 2 (10 page)

How had he survived that kind of damage?

Beside her, the seamstress fanned herself with a book of fabric samples.

“Disgusted?” He probably hadn’t intended to growl the question.

“Nope. I don’t think that’s the description I’d have chosen.” Her cheeks flamed as she finally pried her stare away.

Arthur laughed, “Oh, honey, you can say that again.”

Razor spun to face the obvious appreciation in the older man’s eyes. Isabella tensed, wondering if he’d be offended. Instead, he barked out a laugh. “Thanks.”

An evil smile tugged his mouth into the irresistible smirk of a naughty child.“Your turn, Izzy.”

When she hesitated, Eileen came to her rescue. “We can wait until they’re finished if you’d prefer.”

It seemed Razor had gained an ally with his frank acceptance. Arthur argued in his favor. “If you’re going to be partners, you might as well learn to see and touch each other intimately. If you have boundaries between you, you can forget winning this competition. Dancing is about more than the steps. You need magnetism. Looks like you have it. Use it.”

“Yeah. What he said.” Razor waggled his eyebrows. The gesture should have made him look ridiculous—antagonizing her while in his underwear. Somehow, it didn’t. She envied his confidence. “What are you willing to do to win, sweetheart? I double-dog-dare you.”

Isabella sucked in a breath to steel her spine. Do it quick, like a Band-Aid.

She whipped her sweater over her head, heeled off her shoes then shimmied out of her jeans without unbuttoning them. Not a single sound fractured the silence in the room as she concentrated on the lush carpet she curled her toes in. She focused on keeping her hands lax at her sides while she waited for the onlookers to recoil.

“What the hell did he do to you?” She jumped when Razor spoke, ragged and harsh, near her ear before sinking to his knees at her feet. His broad hands cupped her hipbones, angling her until she faced him. The harsh light beside the tailor’s mirrors exposed every tiny mark and flaw.

The two shopkeepers receded, leaving them to settle things in private.

“Disgusted?” She mimicked his earlier tone.

“More like furious. There’s no way you could have done this to yourself.” He traced the faded bruises and shallow cuts, which crisscrossed her abdomen and back, with tender strokes of his fingertips. She forgot to worry while she tried not to purr beneath his petting until his mumbling penetrated the glow she basked in.

“Why on earth would someone do this to themselves?” Her mouth hung open as she wondered what kind of drugs he smoked.

“I gave up trying to figure people out about the time I woke up in the hospital looking like Swiss cheese. The woman who shot me…she paid people to beat her so we’d believe her story.”

Isabella covered her mouth with her palm as she imagined someone so deranged. No wonder Razor sabotaged their budding friendship anytime she drifted too close.

“Can we pretend you never saw this?” She waved a hand at her torso. “I’m not proud of marrying someone who permitted this to happen.”

She trailed off as tears threatened for the second time in one day. So not her style.

“You’re not responsible for someone else’s actions. Mason, Tyler and Lacey have been telling me so for months. Seeing this, though…” He surprised her by laying a series of kisses over the worst of her injuries, right above the frilly pink lace of her panty line. She tangled her fingers in his shaggy hair when he licked a slice on her belly, her knees weakening in the wake of the silky heat. “God, you should have told me before. This had to hurt yesterday, with you sweating and me grabbing you…practically mauling you. For Christ’s sake, I’m a cop. Whatever’s going on here, let me help you. Trust me. Tell me.”

He lifted his mouth from where it brushed her skin with every word to look into her eyes. Though he stopped short of saying please, everything about his bearing screamed of his desperation as loudly as if he’d begged.

“I
do
trust you, James.” She could no longer imagine him taking bribes or condoning corruption. No way.

Some of the tension seeped from his shoulders.

“But I won’t mix you up in another scandal. I respect you too much for that.”

When he began to argue, she laid three fingers over his lips. They were moist from soothing her.

“It’s done. I’m divorcing Malcolm. It’s not worth worrying about.” She half-expected God to smite her for the gargantuan lie. She would figure out how to help the others—a way that didn’t risk such a good man. If she confessed, he’d go straight to his superiors. At least one of them had to be on the take. They’d hurt him because of her. “Please, let’s finish what we came for so we can arrive at the studio on time for practice.”

He squeezed his eyes closed, resting his forehead on her tummy for a solid thirty seconds while his thumbs rubbed delicious arcs over her sides. He lavished comfort, which she soaked up like a desert pelted by rain after decades of drought. Things she’d assumed long dead stretched and blossomed under his care. Content, she allowed the intimate moment linger far too long.

“Okay, Izzy. If you change your mind, you can tell me anything.” His monotone response seized her throat. They both knew she didn’t intend to take him up on the offer.

How could she when confiding in him would put him in danger? Malcolm’s spy could be anywhere. Until she rid herself of her husband, she could never take a chance. Not with someone who mattered more to her with each passing breath. She’d rather weather Razor’s disappointment a thousand times over, even though it made her feel like scum, than place him in the line of fire.

The store manager cleared his throat loudly before reentering the room. She giggled and Razor grinned when the man peeked around the corner as though they might be doing it in the middle of the dressing room. Now there was a thought to tuck away for later daydreams.

“Ready for measurements?”

Chapter Seven

Razor prowled the rows of displays while he waited for the designers to figure out a dress style to flatter Isabella—hell, even a burlap sack would look great on her rocking body—while concealing the evidence of the horror she’d endured at the hands of a man she should have been able to trust implicitly. He rubbed his temples to calm the raging ache there, but knew better than to blame the pain entirely on his hangover.

His blood pressure had shot through the roof imagining someone hurting that girl. In an instant, he’d forgotten everything he’d learned in the past year and surrendered to instinct. He’d barely stopped himself from offering her solace, searing away the world-weary dullness in her beautiful eyes and replacing it with something passionate, something white-hot.

“Why don’t you have a seat? She could be a while longer.” Arthur hovered nearby like a mother hen.

“I can’t. It’s hard enough to stay out here when I want…” He forced himself to leave the thought unfinished.

“Yeah, I can tell. Will you at least take some of this?” The man tossed him a container of ibuprofen from behind the counter.

“If you have some water around here I might even kiss you for this.”

“Only in my dreams, I’m sure.” Arthur smiled as he extracted a plastic bottle from the mini-fridge Razor hadn’t noticed before.

He shook some pills into his palm then chugged them. Hopefully they’d kick in soon. When he held them out in return, the shopkeeper shook his head.

“You better hang on to those. She’s going to need them for that ankle, especially if you two plan to work much more before show time tomorrow.”

“What’d she do to her ankle?” Razor imagined her slipping off one of the hemming blocks in the fitting room.

“I assumed she’d sprained it during your practice session yesterday. It’s wrapped up tight, but she’s favoring it.”

“It was like that when we came in?” How the fuck had he missed her injury?

“Yep. Don’t worry. I imagine it’s hard to concentrate on details around her. Hell, even I can see she’s stunning.”

Isabella’s emergence from the dressing room spared Razor from answering. A huge grin lit her face. “Your team works miracles, you know? If the computer mock-up is anything like the real deal, I can’t wait to wear their creation.”

The wattage of her full smile blasted them both, leaving them putty in her elegant hands.

“Did you try on the shoes, James?”

She’d delegated the task to Arthur, who’d enjoyed Razor’s outraged reaction when he realized the torture devices had heels. As if he was a woman.

“Think of it like this. When she puts on four or five inch stilettos, she’ll be too close to your height for the proper posture. With these, you’ll maintain the optimal differential. You two really are perfect together.”

He’d ignored the mumbo jumbo he didn’t understand in favor of imagining Izzy’s sexy legs in killer spikes and how they’d fit together if they were doing a little horizontal tangoing. It would be an ideal matchup.

“Yes, he fit best in the black pair you suggested. Nice eye, Ms. Buchanan.”

“You’ve been such a tremendous help, Arthur. I can never thank you enough.” She strode right over to the man, wrapping him in a hug. This time Razor detected the slight hitch in her movement. Son of a bitch, he should have picked it up sooner even though she covered it well.

The merchant smiled at her as he returned the embrace with an awkward pat on her back. Good thing for Arthur it seemed entirely platonic.

“No thanks necessary. Could I ask one thing…?”

“Of course,” she separated to smile up at Arthur.

“Can I see you dance?”

“What? Right now? Right here?” Razor panicked at the thought of performing for someone.

“You
are
going to have to do this in front of an audience tomorrow night. Plus, we can see how the shoes fit without risking another trip to the mall. We don’t have time to waste.”

Damn her sound logic.

“We also don’t have our music.”

Arthur overruled Razor’s last-ditch objection with a wink. “Who do you think provided all the selections?”

He gestured to a CD rack with built-in headphones in the far corner of the floor then pressed a button on the store’s overhead system behind the counter. “Here it comes.”

Isabella waited for Razor in the middle of the dance floor, an adorable smirk highlighting her plump lips. “I
triple
-dog-dare you.”

“Well, shit. I can’t keep my man card if I pass up a triple-dog-dare.” He laughed as he crossed toward her. Funny, the ridiculous shoes actually gripped decent on the polished hardwood. For the hell of it, he stopped short, executing his best imitation of a bow from some old black and white movie he’d watched when he had trouble sleeping several weeks ago. He hadn’t expected to enjoy the sappy flick as much as he had.

Hell if she didn’t curtsey in return as though she’d done it a million times before. Probably had. He shook his head as he held out his arms. Isabella came to him, fitting gracefully into the frame he made for her. With Arthur looking on, Razor felt honor-bound to perform well. Izzy didn’t need a bad rap as an instructor.

Neither one of them could afford more trash-talk at this point.

The opening strains of music surrounded them. They moved together. After no more than five seconds, he’d forgotten all about technique, their miniature audience and the fact that he probably looked like a poser. He gazed into Isabella’s eyes, relishing the way her slender body moved against him.

Razor imagined what it would have been like to have lived in simpler times. What if he had been born privileged and could claim any woman he wanted? This woman. He danced to impress her, to steal a forbidden touch here or a handful of curves there.

When they reached the end of the choreography, he dipped her—as they’d practiced—into a drastic bend, which highlighted her flexibility over his tensed bicep. Only this time, he didn’t stop there.

Razor planted his hand on her shoulder while the other lifted to support her head. He ran his palm from the crown of her head backward, gathering the silky fall of her platinum hair. The soft waves teased the sensitive skin between his fingers as he descended while pulling her tighter to his chest.

Though it took an instant, time seemed to slow to a crawl. She watched him come nearer with a dazed smile on her beautiful face. Before he knew what he intended, he tasted the strawberry gloss on her full, slightly spread lips.

One sample could never suffice. He squeezed her close, hardly registering her fingers clenching on his back and around his neck. Instead, he focused on her sweet hesitation, as though unsure of how to kiss him in return. Had her husband never indulged in this fine confection?

He nuzzled her mouth with his, coaxing her into responding as he wished.

When Izzy caught on, she turned voracious. She nipped his bottom lip then sucked to soothe the miniscule hurt. He chuckled into their kiss, letting his tongue dance with hers.

“Ahem.”

The not-so-subtle faked throat clearing startled Razor enough that he nearly dropped Isabella on her perfect ass. Snapped back to reality, he yanked her upright. He lunged away so quick, he tripped in the heeled shoes.

“So sorry, Ms. Buchanan.” Arthur’s cheeks had turned maroon. “I didn’t think you’d appreciate broadcasting your private exchange on the news.”

He gestured over his shoulder to the film crew peering in the shop window.

“They just arrived. They’re doing a behind-the-scenes piece on
Dance With Me
,” he finished with a shrug.

“Th-thank you, Arthur.” Isabella’s voice shook.

“Why don’t the two of you use the service door?” Eileen waited near the dressing room to show them out. “No need to waste any more of your rehearsal time. Though, really, I don’t think you need it. You’re fabulous together.”

“Perfect,” Arthur agreed. “We’ll do the rest. Your dress and tux will be waiting at the studio tomorrow evening. Good luck.”

“The shoes…” Isabella objected, but she sounded like he felt—disoriented, breathless and gooey inside.

“Take them. You two are going to do more for this store than any ad we’ve purchased.”