Undercover Lovers (23 page)

That she had no fortune
didn't seem pertinent at the moment.

“
I couldn’t wait any longer.
We have to talk this through.” He reached for her left hand and
stroked the ring she wore. “This is an engagement ring.”

Genius.
“Yeah. But it’s not mine.”

Shane sucked in a breath.
“What do you mean, it’s not yours?”

She said nothing, too busy
concentrating on not punching his lights out. Or at least making
them flicker.

When he attempted to touch
her shoulder, she shoved him back. He looked at her as if she'd
sprouted an extra head and possibly a forked tongue too. “Are you
all right?”

“
Who are you?” she
demanded.

“
I told you my name is
Shane—”

“
Shane what?”

“
Madison,” he said with no
small amount of trepidation, heightening her suspicions.

Was he on wanted lists all
over North America? Would she see his picture on the wall at the
post office?

Dammit, this was what she
got for paying all her bills electronically!

“
How old are
you?”

“
Twenty-nine.”

“
What is your
birthday?”

“
October seventh,
nineteen-eighty-one. What is this all about? I think we both know
that of the two of us, you're the guilty one here.” For the first
time she noticed the way he studied her, the intense speculation
that lent credence to his claim of once being a cop. Watching for
any signs of weakness, any cracks in her armor. “Are you going to
tell Connor how you propositioned me or will I?”

Emma balled her hands into
fists to compensate for her trembling lips. “Propositioned you? I
most certainly—” She broke off, remembering how she'd done just
that. Numerous times. Then they'd had wild, uninhibited,
one-night-stand sex because she'd been on drugs and now she'd be
left a broken, destitute woman.

She flung herself back on
the mattress and stared hard at the
ceiling. 
Get a hold of
yourself.

Just because she’d never
done anything even half as impetuous before didn’t mean this would
be anything more than one hot night. With a hundred mornings after
of recrimination.

“
Who is Connor?” she asked
once her breathing had steadied.

His rough chuckle grated on
her nerves, even if a couple hours ago the sound alone had been
capable of triggering spontaneous implosion. “Listen, there's no
need to play games with me. I know who you are.”

“
Oh, do you? Who am I
then?”

She actually heard his
molars grinding together. “Why are you pretending with me? We both
know what's going on. Your fiancé knows, Maureen. He set this whole
thing up.”

Emma hissed out a breath. So
much for a blissful night. That she'd wanted a fun, no-strings
fling was no excuse. Next time she’d find out more about the guy
she intended to sleep with before they—

Wait a second,
what
next time? There
would be no next time. She was done.
Finito.

“
I don't have a fiancé, you
dolt. And my name’s not Maureen.” She tugged the sheet with her as
she rolled out of bed and groped for her clothes on the floor. “As
for Connor, if he's as boneheaded as you are, I'm not surprised it
took both of you to set up a trap for this poor woman.”

“
What do you mean you're not
Maureen?” He clambered out of bed and started his own frantic
search for his clothing. “You answered to M—”

“
Em
ma
. My name is Emma Donegan and I'm
not engaged and I don't know anyone named Connor, you
jerk!”

“
How am I a jerk? I told you
who I am. You're the one who didn't tell me your name.” He hopped
around on one leg while he pulled up his jeans. At least he’d found
them.

He’d gotten up a while ago
and brought their clothes in the bedroom. What had he done with her
top? Had he hidden it so she’d be forced to stay here with him in
his sex den?

“
I thought you knew my name,
remember? You said you talked to Becky. But you didn't. You didn't
even know who I am. You put your,” she screwed up her face,
“
thing
inside me
and you thought I was someone else. How icky is that?”

He snapped his jeans and
crossed his arms over his entirely too tempting bare chest. That it
happened to be too dark for her to see most of it didn't diminish
the memory of all those muscles in the slightest. “I didn't hear
you complaining. Nor did my neighbors when you were begging me to
ram it in harder.”

She fastened her bra and
then donned her panties and skirt. “Don't think I used the word
ram. Maybe thrust. But ram?” Giving up the search for her shirt,
she sat on the edge of the bed and yanked on the socks she'd balled
neatly in her shoes. “It doesn't matter what I said.”

“
No? Why is
that?”

“
Because I was drunk and
drugged.” She couldn't keep the haughtiness out of her voice. He
thought he had her number. Yeah, right. “Anything I did is because
of that. I would never behave so wantonly—”

He stepped forward and
grabbed her chin in two fingers. “What are you taking?” he asked in
the same measured cop tone she'd heard him use throughout this
entire conversation. Not once had he raised his voice.

“
I'm not taking anything.”
She batted his wrist but his grip held firm. “I accidentally drank
Becky's drink and she'd added an enhancer to it. I'm really
susceptible to anything alcoholic to begin with. Add a sex drug and
well,” she waved at the mussed sheets, “you get what happened here.
It's probably even why I came a couple times. Trust me that never
happens.”

She expected him to stiffen
at the verbal jab to his prowess—most men would—but nope. “What
sort of sex drug? Is Becky a habitual user?”

He turned around and picked
up his shirt from the back of the chair next to the dresser, the
same place he found her top. Once he'd handed it to her, she pulled
it over her head, grateful she could hide her face for ten heavenly
seconds in fabric that still smelled of his woodsmoky aftershave.
Her own fault for rubbing all over him.

She'd done that naked too.
God, had it felt good. Amazing. In fact, all this talking was sort
of pointless because she still wanted him naked.

Had to still be the
aftereffects, but it had been hours. The drug couldn’t still be
working. Could it?

“
Emma?”

Startled by the use of her
actual name, she poked her head out through the neckline of her top
like a turtle emerging from its shell. “No, she’s never done it
before. She created some sort of potion in the lab. Becky's a
chemist,” she reminded him.

“
What kind of chemist mixes
up drugs like that?”

“
A creative one,” she
muttered. She glanced at the nightstand. “Where’s your alarm
clock?”

“
Don’t have one.”

“
Excuse me? How do you get
up in the morning?”

“
I wake when I wake. My
morning starts around ten.” She heard the shrug in his voice.
“Probably another reason I didn’t fit the mold of the almighty blue
stripes.”

She couldn’t fathom being so
lackadaisical that you didn’t even own an alarm. Her job at the
call center started at nine and she’d never been more than a couple
minutes late. She didn’t mind mornings. In fact, staying up past
ten p.m. for Becky’s party had been a real stretch.

One more incompatibility
between them. She didn’t have to try to convince herself this would
never work, because the evidence was everywhere.

Stripper, call center rep.
Sex god, puritan mouse. Just didn’t fit.

“
I'd say her concoction
worked,” she said finally. “I don't normally behave like I did last
night. No way I would've slept with some random
stripper—”

“
Christ, I'm not a stripper.
You said it yourself. I can't fucking dance.”

Shocked that Shane had
finally lost his cool, Emma bit her lip. The quick flare of pain
reminded her how she’d burned the hell out of her lip and tongue at
the restaurant. Funny she hadn’t noticed the residual pain until
now.

Goodbye, buzz. Hello,
cruelest hangover ever.

“
I saw you stripping,” she
said as he sat down beside her on the bed.

“
You saw me trying to strip.
You're much better at it than I am.” Hearing his smile in his
voice, she didn't flinch when he brushed a hand gently over her
hair.

“
If you're not a stripper,
then who are you really?”

“
I told you who I
am.”

“
Shane,” she said, her
patience fleeing. If she'd had any to begin with. This had to be
the oddest conversation she'd ever had. “Who's Connor? Why are you
setting up sting ops?”

“
Sting ops?”

She shrugged. “Hey, I watch
the cop shows.”

Rather than answering her
question, he rose and went over to his dresser. After turning on a
small lamp, he came back holding his wallet. He thumbed it open and
withdrew a photograph. Studying it, he shook his head. “Maybe he
was right.”

“
Who?”

“
My captain. He said I
wasn't cut out for police work. Told me my instincts were off and I
was too susceptible to people's manipulations.” The corner of his
mouth lifted. “That he was my dad didn’t make it any easier to
hear.”

“
Your dad?” she gasped. “He
headed your squad?”

“
Yeah. He’s been on the job
thirty-five years. I couldn’t even hack five.”

“
Wow.” Emma struggled to
find something to say. “I’m not super tight with my parents but
they’d never
fire
me.”

“
He didn’t fire me. He
strongly suggested I consider a new path. So I did.”

“
That completely sucks.
You’re saying because you're a nice guy you can't be a cop?” She
frowned hard enough to make her forehead ache. “I'm sorry, that’s
pretty shitty.”

“
It is what it is. He may be
right. But I am going to make a good PI. Maybe not yet,” his tone
firmed, “but soon. Even if I’ve bungled this, it’s just one case.
My first. My biggest so far. But I’m not throwing in the towel
yet.”

“
You haven’t bungled
anything. I won’t tell anyone.” She took his hand, surprised by how
much she wanted to help him.

“
Now that I look at this
photo of Maureen, I see I was wrong. You don’t look alike.” He
reached up to trace her jaw. “Your lips are so much fuller, with
that little twist that makes you look like you're up to no good.
Your eyes are a brighter green. Hers aren't even close to as
expressive. And your hair...all those curls...”

Her belly trembled. “What
about my curls?”

“
They're beautiful. Your
hair's such a silky black.”

She took the photo from him.
“
This?
This is who
you thought I looked like?”

“
Well, I know she's not as
pretty—”

“
Shane, she's a
knockout.”

He shrugged as if he hadn't
noticed. “You don't think there's any resemblance?”

“
We're both brunettes, both
have green eyes and fair skin. But she's so...”

“
So what?”

“
Sexy. Provocative. The kind
of woman men would kill to get their hands on.”

He took back the photo,
still smiling faintly. “I risked my only client and my reputation
to get my hands on you. You must not see what I do when I look at
you.”

Emma gazed at him for a long
moment, noting the way he rimmed his lower lip with his tongue as
their eyes met. Need clenched in her core. Her breasts weighed
heavy with desire and her skin flushed hotter the longer he
stared.

Was the drug really that
potent? Or had she finally tapped into her inner sex
goddess?

“
Emma.” His large hand
closed over her bare knee. “Can we start over?”

“
You don't have your
suspect. So now what?”

“
Now I go back to the club
and keep dancing until I find her. I shouldn't have told you nearly
as much as I did.”

“
I promise not to say
anything. I guess you can't tell me what she's accused
of?”

He shook his head. “I'm
sorry. I have to protect my client's confidentiality. What's left
of it anyway.”

“
Your client...are you in
some sort of private security now?”

“
No. I'm a PI. I haven't
proven too great at that yet either.” He broke eye contact and
stared at the photo one last time before shoving it in his
wallet.

“
How long have you been in
business?”

“
Almost two
months.”

“
So you're new. You'll get
better. I sucked at my cardio dance classes for months. Eventually
I just sort of picked up the rhythm. I'm sure there's a rhythm to
being a PI too.”