The Heat Is On Read online

  A pair of men’s shoes appeared in front of her, topped by faded Levi’s, and she closed her eyes, not up for more unanswerable questions. She heard a rustle and knew the owner of said shoes and jeans had just crouched in front of her.

  When she peeked, she saw long legs flexing as he set his elbows on his thighs and waited on her.

  He finally spoke. “You okay?”

  Wait a minute. She knew that voice. It had coaxed shocking responses from her only last night, and she lifted her head, wondering if her mind was playing tricks on her.

  Nope, it was Tall, Dark and Drop-dead Sexy, no longer wearing board shorts and a relaxed, easy grin.

  Instead, he wore a light blue button-down that emphasized his lean, hard body, the one that had taken hers to heaven and back.

  The man she’d told that she was moving to Siberia.

  Oh, God.

  He had a detective’s badge on his hip, and he was either carrying a gun on his other hip or was very happy to see her, which she sincerely doubted, given the expression on his face.

  Gulp.

  “Hey,” she whispered with a little smile.

  He returned the little smile, his eyes warming, but he didn’t “hey” back.

  Yeah.

  She’d had it right last night. She was in trouble with this one.

  Deep trouble.

  2

  DETECTIVE JACOB MADDEN looked into those jade-green eyes and thought Ah, hell. What had already been a really rough morning shifted into something else entirely, except he wasn’t sure exactly what.

  Not only was he running on less than two hours of sleep, he was he looking into the face of the reason for that lack of sleep.

  The sexiest reason he’d ever had…

  And there hadn’t been a wink of sleep involved. Nope, it’d been a physically active sleepover, and just thinking about it had certain parts of his anatomy twitching to life, though those certain parts should be dead after the night they’d had.

  Christ.

  He knew he shouldn’t have answered his damn cell this morning. He hadn’t been scheduled to work today. In fact, he’d planned on hanging out with his brother Cord, recently injured on one of Uncle Sam’s missions. Today’s physical therapy was to have involved the beach, with a net and a volleyball and some good-old-fashioned ass kicking.

  But dead bodies always trumped days off, so here he was. It was what he did. Work.

  His job took over much of his life, and it wasn’t as if he was petting puppies for a living. Murder and mayhem was his thing, and he was good at it.

  But sometimes it got to him.

  And in this case, she got to him. Bella, with those slay-me eyes, heart-stopping smile and tough-girl attitude, got to him.

  “Jacob?” she whispered.

  “Yeah.” They knew each other’s first names, that they both liked adventure and seafood and that they had physical chemistry in shocking spades. He’d held her, he’d touched her. Hell, he’d had his mouth on every inch of her.

  He knew he liked her.

  A lot.

  That had been the biggest surprise, he thought, considering the fact that the guys at the P.D. had signed him up for the date in the first place. As soon as he’d realized he’d been set up, he’d canceled out his singles club profile, but there’d already been one date planned and it’d been too late to cancel on her. Bella.

  He wasn’t sorry. Or he hadn’t been until she’d walked away sometime before dawn. He’d told himself that had been for the best and, considering her line about moving to Siberia, had figured he’d never see her again.

  And yet here she sat, in the middle of his crime scene, looking anxious and stressed. He’d never been able to walk away from a perfect stranger, much less a woman he’d had panting and coming beneath him, so with a sigh, he reached for her hand. “Bella.”

  Her fingers, icy cold, gripped his. In complete contrast, she kept her voice even. Guts. She had guts.

  “I have a little problem, don’t I?” she asked.

  He found his lips curving slightly. “Little bit, yeah.”

  Letting out a long breath, she pulled her hair out of its messy ponytail. Wild waves immediately fell in her face. “I tend to do that, you know,” she said, trying to corral the hair back into the ponytail holder. “Walk into problems.”

  Shit, he did not want to know this. “Define ‘problems.’”

  She blew out another breath.

  “Bella.” He waited until she leveled him with those eyes. “Dead-people problems?”

  “Oh, my God. No.” She rubbed her temples. “I really should have stayed in Cabo. That’s where I was before this. The kayaking was good, and I was learning how to make the most amazing strawberry-and-honey friand—”

  “Bella, about the dead-people problems.”

  “Right. Sorry. I tend to talk when I find gunshot victims.”

  “Again,” he said carefully. “Does this happen often?”

  Her gaze met his. “You’re a cop.”

  “Detective.”

  She nodded. “I guessed cop or military last night.”

  She’d made him? “How?”

  She sent him a wry smile. “Have you met you? You give off this I’m relaxed vibe but really you’re totally alert, taking in everything around you.”

  He took another deep breath and let it out slowly, considering his response. Last night she’d been wearing strawberry lip gloss, her sweet, seductive lips full and curved in an open, easy smile. Her eyes had been warm and welcoming. This morning her lips were bare, and no less kissable for it, but she was breathing a little erratically, and the pulse at the base of her throat was racing. Dammit.

  He’d been a cop since college, a detective the past five years, and he never, ever got used to the punch of empathy when dealing with a victim.

  Question was, was she really the victim? “You work here at Edible Bliss.”

  She nodded, her light brown wavy hair bouncing into her eyes again. Yesterday he’d loved that hair flying free around her when they’d been cuddled up on a Jet Ski, her arms wrapped tight around his middle.

  Even later, that gorgeous hair had trailed down his body…

  Don’t go there, man. “You’re the pastry chef,” he said.

  Another nod. “My lone talent.”

  He didn’t believe that. Last night might have been nothing more than a really great one-night stand, but he’d seen a lot of sides to her. She was adventurous as hell, tough as hell and sexy as hell.

  She had layers, lots of them. No way was she just her job the way he was. “You found the victim on the stoop when you got to work,” he said, wanting to clarify.

  “No. He wasn’t there when I first came in.” She paused. “Someone shot him.”

  Yes. Right in the forehead. At close range.

  “Shot him dead.” Her voice was a little hoarse. “There was blood…” Her eyes went a bit unfocused, and her tan faded to gray. “Huh. I see spots. Black spots. Do you?”

  Shit. He pressed her head down between her knees, his hand curled around the nape of her neck. Last night her skin had been warm and silky. Today it was cold and clammy. “Breathe,” he commanded softly.

  “I’m sorry.” She grabbed a shallow breath. “I don’t like blood much. You’d think I’d be used to it, given that once I was an assistant to a butcher in Rome, but I’m not. Used to it. God.” Reaching out blindly, she grabbed on to the leg of his jeans and held on. “God, Jacob.”

  “Keep breathing,” he murmured, stroking the tender skin of her neck with his thumb. “Slow and deep.”

  She did her best to comply, sucking in air in a shuddering gulp. “That’s it, Bella. Good.” Again his thumb swept over her.

  “I’m really sorry about the whole Siberia thing,” she whispered, eyes squeezed shut, her hands tightly fisted

  “Just keep breathing.”

  “I shouldn’t have said Siberia. I don’t even like Siberia. I didn’t— I just don’t do the long-term