“I heard you was seen with that little punk-ass reporter yesterday. What did you give her this time, Pallorino?”
“This is my last warning. Step aside. Now.”
Leo snorted, leering his face yet closer. “Why? What you gonna do about it? Sue me for sexualharassment? Gonna go whining to the union, then?” He touched her breast. “Let’s see what you’re made—”
Before Maddocks could blink, Angie reached down and thrust her hand between Leo’s legs, grabbing him by the balls. He froze. She held. Eyes locked with the old cop’s, she squeezed.
“Fuck—fuck! Bitch!” he yelled, bending over in pain as she released him.
Angie then shouldered past him and parroted back at him as she went, “What you gonna do about it, Leo, sue me for sexualharassment?”
“Asshole,” Maddocks muttered as he passed Leo, making after Angie along the small passageway that was hidden from the rest of the bar. But before he could reach her, she’d yanked her coat off the stand near the entrance and was shoving out of the pub doors. Leo barreled up suddenly behind him and bashed out of the doors after Angie like a bull with murder on his face.
Shit.
Maddocks stormed after him in his shirtsleeves, into the dark winter mist and rain.
Ahead of Maddocks, Leo reached Angie, and he grabbed her by the coat. She swung around, but before her elbow could connect with Leo’s face, Maddocks reached Leo and hauled him backward by his shoulders. Leo staggered sideways under the force, and Maddocks delivered a sharp left hook that cracked across the man’s jaw.
Leo lurched backward and went down onto the wet paving with a violent curse. He scrambled back onto his feet, bent double, and came back at Maddocks like a wounded and enraged wild animal. And like a matador, Maddocks pivoted his hips, sidestepping Leo’s thrust, and the old cop went flailing drunkenly forward until he stumbled, tripped, and fell back down onto his hands and knees on the wet parking lot paving.
Maddocks went for him again.
“Whoa!” Angie grabbed Maddocks by the arm.“Enough!”
He swung around to face her, breathing hard, adrenaline pumping like a freight train through his blood. Their gazes met. Their faces were suddenly close, her breathing as rapid as his. She was still holding on to his arm. Rain was falling in a soft, icy mist around them, and his shirt was wet and plastering to his torso. Behind them Leo swore and staggered off into the darkness. And suddenly they were alone and all was quiet apart from the plop of water dripping from eaves and the distant hum of traffic.
“Let him go,” she whispered, her mouth coming closer. Clearing her throat, she added, “Go home, Detective.”
He looked down into her eyes, and in them he saw the same things he’d seen in her face that night in the club when he’d first met her—a luminosity. A hunger. A fierceness. A simmering, barely restrained sexuality that was more about power than submission. But now that he knew her better, he knew there was also something broken in her, and it both intrigued him and fed the lust mounting in him right now. It spoke to the detective in him, the problem solver, and the protector and savior. And more ... He cupped the side of her face, which glistened pale in the rain. “Come with me, Angie,” he said softly. “Come back to my boat. Let’s finish what we started.”
Her mouth opened, but before she could say anything, Maddocks leaned down and pressed his lips over hers.
CHAPTER 42
Angie went rigid, then a blind, primal ferocity imploded all logic as she suddenly opened to his kiss, coming up to him, her breasts, her pelvis, pressing against the solid mass of muscle that was his body. Her sex rules blurred distantly through her mind.
Never kiss ... Never sleep with a colleague ... Leave first. Leave early. No names. Never stay the night. Never breakfast the next morning. Never take one that makes you feel vulnerable in any way ... Always stay in control ...
The rules twisted down into a hot vortex of total oblivion as her mouth, her hunger, her aggression met his, tongues tangling, mating, rough, taking. He fisted her hair, tilting her head farther back, as his other hand slid down her spine. He cupped her buttocks and yanked her hard against him. His shirt was completely plastered to his body, and she could feel every inch of his muscular contours under the wet fabric. She could feel the long hardness of his big, gorgeous dick straining against his zipper as he pressed against her pelvis. Heat pooled molten between her thighs. Dizziness swirled, and her knees began to buckle out from under her. She wanted him. All of him. Inside. Deep and fast and hard and rough. Out here. Right now. She bit his lip, drawing blood as she fumbled for his belt buckle, undid it, found the tab for his zipper, but before she could yank it down, a sound distracted her. She slowed. Her heart hammered.
The pub doors opened, spilling light and voices and laughter out into the night. Angie jerked back and stared up into his face as reality came back into focus. His features had been etched by lust into something smoldering and powerful and dangerous. He licked the blood from his lip. For a moment she was speechless, breathless. Confused. And so was he, both shell-shocked by what had just exploded between them, by this Pandora’s box they appeared to have opened back at ground zero of the Foxy Motel. Possibly they’d never stood a chance—not since the instant their eyes had met over that crowded dance floor—and she’d been kidding herself all along that she could control this. Because right now, right at this moment, she couldn’t. Almost didn’t want to. All she knew right now was that she had to step away. Fast. Process this.
“I ... this can’t happen again,” she whispered, voice thick. She spun around and strode fast into the mist, leaving him standing there in his soaking wet shirt, no tie. Blood thudded against her eardrums. It pulsed in her groin. And as she reached her vehicle she began to shake.
She got inside, keyed the ignition, and sat for a moment, heater running, trying to warm up, but the shakes worsened, and tears filled her eyes, and she didn’t want to think. Or feel. She leaned forward suddenly and engaged the gears. And she knew exactly where she was going.
Maddocks watched her disappear into a veil of rain and darkness. His heart drummed a beat in time with the drips coming from an adjacent awning. A far-off siren wailed. Traffic hummed in the distance. And out there somewhere, he knew, a killer hunted.
He also knew exactly where she was going.
His hands fisted at his sides as desire continued to slam through his body. His cock was hard and his head fucked up. And she was the drug he needed to fix it all. But like a drug, the fix would just make the addiction worse; this he knew, too.
She was right. Theyhadto pull back, stop this while they still could.Ifthey still could. Inhaling deeply, Maddocks turned and went back inside the pub. He grabbed his coat and made for his Impala.
But on the way home, he couldn’t help himself—he turned onto the road that would take him onto Highway 1 instead of the marina. She was going to fuck someone else, and it was eating him alive. He didn’t want to believe it. It wasn’t his business. But his compulsion to prove it to himself took him onto that highway, and he kept his eyes peeled for the rear lights of her Crown Vic.
Rain came down heavier as he headed toward the mountains, but traffic also thinned as he left the city behind, and then, suddenly, he believed he could see her vehicle up ahead. He eased off on the gas, not wanting to be made as a tail.
