Skin Deep (7 page)

Which meant that if they weren’t careful, he and Isabella were going to dare each other right past racy flirting and into a quick, hot fuck in the bathroom.

You helped this woman on a case just over twelve hours ago, you ass. You need to lock it up. Right goddamn now
.

Kellan froze as if he’d been hit point-blank with a bucket full of frigid water. As sexy as her body felt against his in the dark of the bar—and fucking hell, it really,
really
did—he knew far better than to let himself get so brazenly carried away on impulse.

Losing control was dangerous. He couldn’t let it happen. Not even for a night.

“Ah.” He shifted to put some breathing room between them, snapping the moment in half. “So how’s that case from this morning going? Did you get any leads from your friend?”

After a handful of rapid-fire blinks, Moreno matched his backward shift, putting clear distance between them as the song on the jukebox shifted into a new one, equally slow. “Oh. Uh, maybe. She’s working at the pizza place until eleven tonight. I’m actually going to head over there tonight to see if I can catch her and maybe dig up some more information.”

“Is your partner going with you?” Kellan lifted his chin in a slight gesture toward the table by the door, where her fellow detectives had been eyeballing them at regular intervals.

“What, Hollister?” Moreno shook her head, filling the air with the tropical smell of coconuts again even though there was enough space between their bodies to be all-business. “No. I haven’t told anyone about this morning yet.”

His heart kicked at his rib cage, part concern and part residual want. Damned coconuts. “You’re going down to the pier just shy of midnight, by yourself, to grab some intel on what might be a serial rape case or a prostitution ring?”

“Yeah,” Moreno said, her tone directly translating to
and why the hell wouldn’t I?

Christ, she was a piece of work. “Don’t you think that’s a little dangerous?”

“Don’t
you
think that’s a little sexist?” she volleyed. “I’ve been a cop for over a decade, Walker. I’m pretty sure I can handle myself.”

Nope. He wasn’t backing down. Not even in the face of her obvious irritation. “It doesn’t have anything to do with you being a woman. It has to do with the fact that your ass isn’t bulletproof, and you have a table full of partners right here in this bar, any of whom would almost certainly go with you. Working a case without backup is stupid, Moreno.”

Judging by her expression, she’d taken that ‘stupid’ comment to heart. “I’m not asking for your blessing,” she said.

“Good, because you’re not going to get it. I want to go with you.”

“No.” Isabella’s spine went rigid. “A CI’s identity is strictly confidential. Hence the ‘C’.”

“Your friend at the pizza place is a CI?” he asked, and wasn’t that all the more reason for her not to fly without a wingman. “Look”—Kellan squeezed her waist, just enough to snare her attention so he could say his piece—“I don’t want anyone’s resume, and I’m not trying to mess with your case. But come on. You’re completely off the books, here. You saw those pictures. Digging into this without backup is asking for trouble.”

Moreno paused. “And you’re going to back me up?”

“You’re not willing to trust your partner or your boss. You got a better idea?”

“I trust Hollister and Sinclair just fine. I wouldn’t work with them if I didn’t,” Moreno said. “This is just a chat with one of my CIs. Detectives do them solo all the time.”

“Not
this
time,” Kellan said, and Moreno pursed her lips, showing off her disdain.

“My CI’s not going to like it. She might not even talk to me with you around.”

Oh, look. Still no. “Don’t worry. I’ll charm her.”

“Seriously?”

Kellan met Moreno’s look of severe doubt with the best smile he could throw together. “What? You don’t think I can be charming?”

The song ended, and Isabella slid her hands down his shoulders, pulling back to cross her arms over the front of her T-shirt. “I think you’re a pain in the ass.”

But Kellan just kept his smile firmly in place as he leaned in toward her, not stopping until their mouths were only a few inches apart.

“Yeah, well like it or not, I’m the pain in the ass who’s going with you to that pizza place. Now are you driving, or am I?”

I
sabella stared
down the ridiculously sexy firefighter in front of her, and damn it, she was going to regret this. But the glint in Kellan’s stormy blue stare told her not only was he not backing down, but he had half a mind to blab her plans to Hollister if she refused to take backup for her meet-and-greet with Carmen, and at this point, she had to pick the lesser of two evils.

Even if this one had just turned her panties inside out in the middle of a crowded bar.

She bit her lower lip, grounding herself in the sting. She’d given him the update on his sister’s case, he’d apologized, she’d accepted. So what if somewhere in the midst of that, Isabella had impulsively considered dragging him back to her place to fuck him senseless? She could go home and get herself off later—hell, she could even scream his name when she came all over her hand. But what she
couldn’t
do was let a few steamy thoughts of Kellan Walker get in the way of doing her job.

“Fine,” Isabella said, snuffing out the heat threatening to bloom back to life between her thighs. “But we can’t just go tearing out of here together. If you go with me, we’re playing by my rules.”

Walker dropped his chin but not his eye contact. “I’m listening.”

“Well that works out nicely, because I’m only saying this once.” She tilted her head toward the outskirts of the dance floor, continuing when they’d made their way past the people moving to the new, faster song beginning to pulse from the jukebox.

“You’re going with me strictly to look out for trouble. No talking to my CI—in fact, no talking to anybody who isn’t me—and if I ask you to do something, you need to do it, no questions asked. There are reasons for this that don’t involve me being bitchy,” she added before he could open his trap to push back. “But they do have everything to do with protocol. I’m already breaking about sixty rules by letting you tag along. I’d like to at least keep you safe.”

One nearly black brow arched. “You’re going to keep me safe?”

Although she hadn’t really pegged Walker as the type to swing his dick around, Isabella was all too happy to set the record straight. “Unless that actually
is
a gun in your pocket and you’re not just happy to see me, then yeah. I’m lead, you’re backup, and you need to do what I tell you to. Copy?”

Walker surprised her with a slow nod. “Copy. But if anything goes south, all bets for me being a bystander are off.”

“I know how to do my job. Nothing’s going to go south.” Unless Carmen lost her shit at the whole let’s-chat/hot-firefighter-listening double whammy, but Isabella would cross that bridge when she got to it. Speaking of which… “So here’s the plan. We’re each going to go back to our tables. I’ve already told Hollister, Maxwell, and Hale that I’m starting to get a headache, so I should be able to jump in about ten minutes. Give me a twenty minute lead, then park your Camaro a couple blocks over and double back to meet me by the diner a half a block up on Delancey.”

“That’s a lot of cloak and dagger for a meet-up that’s supposed to be no big deal, you know.”

She had to hand it to him. He wasn’t stupid by any stretch. “It’s more caution than cloak and dagger. Your car is conspicuous as hell, and your sister’s even smarter. If she thinks you left but still sees your car in the parking lot, she’s going to grill you into next week about it.”

Understanding flickered over his face, followed quickly by a smirk that made her pulse jump without her consent. “I could always tell Kylie I left with you. After all, it’d be true.”

“Don’t get cocky, Walker, or I’ll leave you here.” The threat was a bluff, to be sure, but hell if she’d let him rock the composure she’d damn well need to tug any information out of Carmen.

Thankfully, Walker didn’t call her bluff. “Fine,” he said. “I’ll move my car in thirty and meet you on Delancey.”

“Excellent.” Before Isabella could talk herself out of the move, she pressed up to her toes, brushing her lips right over the line where the scratchy-soft stubble of his goatee met the smooth skin of his cheek.

Kellan froze, his eyes betraying his shock. “What was that for?”

To lower your guard so you don’t wreck mine
. “The dance. Just don’t make me sorry I agreed to the rest of our night.”

She sauntered off the dance floor, sights set on the table where her fellow detectives sat by the front door. Although the bold, brash part of her that had pushed to kiss him in the first place wanted nothing more than to turn around to see the look on his face, she refrained. Even with the slam-dunk cases, working a suspect required a dump truck’s worth of finesse, from the truths you chose to tell versus the ones you picked to sidestep, or even cover up outright.

Working your partners without them realizing what you were up to? Yeah, quantum physics was a day at the beach in comparison. But as much as Isabella hated the task in front of her, she didn’t have a choice.

If she wanted to get off square one with this case, she was going to have to keep her plans to find more intel hidden from her unit.

“Hey. Thanks for watching my beer.” She pushed herself back over the bar stool she’d abandoned fifteen minutes earlier, bracing for impact in three, two…

“Don’t even think about taking the no-big-deal road, you shameless hussy!” Addison Hale, the newest and only other female member of intelligence, shot a look of total disbelief across the table. “Did you just
kiss
Kellan freaking Walker?”

“You saw that, huh?” Of course, Moreno had known full well that the woman had. Even the academy’s freshest recruit would’ve caught the glances her partners had leveled at her and Walker on the dance floor.

Hale made a sound dangerously close to a snort. “Um, yeah. Along with everyone else in the bar. Including all of Seventeen’s A-shift from all the way in the cheap seats.”

“Then I guess I did kiss him,” Isabella said, and score the other half of the reason for her lip service. Distraction was a fucking beautiful thing.

Hale’s disbelief went another round. “You just kissed the same Kellan Walker who’s been trading death glares with you for the last three months over the Fagan case?”

“That would be the one.”

“Jesus, Moreno, please.” Maxwell laughed and ran a hand over his shaved head, tipping his glass of club soda in Hale’s direction. “I know you keep your shit close to the vest, and I’m not really one for gossiping like a tabloid rag. But if you don’t throw my partner a bone, she’s going to stroke out over here.”

Isabella bought herself a no-big-deal pause with a sip of beer.
Nice and easy, girl
. “Walker’s sister wanted me to give him the update on what went down in Chicago last month. Once he heard the Feds have Burton in custody, he came around a little. The whole thing was your basic kiss and make up, no hard feelings type deal. That’s all.”

“Really?” Clearly, Hale had been looking for way more scandal. God, intelligence rookies were so hungry for the angle with the most bang, it wasn’t even funny.

“Sorry to disappoint,” Isabella said. “But really.”

Hollister leaned his shoulders against the ladder-back on his bar stool, aiming a not-so-subtle frown in the direction of Kellan’s table across the bar. “The work you did on the Fagan case was solid. It’s about time he got the fuck over it.”

Ah, hell. Hollister was one of the most straight-up guys in the RPD. He and Isabella might not live by the share-fest code like most partners, and yeah, no one had ever accused him of being calm, cool,
or
collected—especially when it came to his loyalty to the intelligence unit. But he was a decent guy and an even better cop.

And she needed to divert his attention from Kellan Walker. Right now.

Guilt pricked at Isabella’s chest, but she forced herself to shake her head, literally shrugging off the topic. “It’s all good, Liam. The screw up with his sister wasn’t a garden variety oops. He was just doing what big brothers do.”

The use of Hollister’s first name got him, just as she’d known it would, and he turned back toward their table with a lift of one shoulder. “If you say so.”

“I do.”

The conversation turned toward college football matchups and whether or not Hale’s amber lager was better than Hollister’s IPA, and Isabella bided her time with a few well-placed nods, staying a half-step outside of the conversation just as she always did. Finally, distractions done, she slid her fingers over her temple, letting them linger just long enough before pushing back from the table.

“I hate to say it, but my head’s still killing me. I think I’m going to call it a night,” she said, placing the beer she’d been nursing over the soggy and slightly crushed cocktail napkin at her elbow and finding her feet.

“You sure?” Hollister asked, his forehead creasing in concern. Before Isabella could give up her standard-issue nod and smile and get-the-hell-out-of-here combo, though, a very wry, very familiar male voice interrupted her getaway.

“Come on, you guys. This is Moreno we’re talking about. She’s always sure. Even when she’s snoring.”

Isabella turned, arching a brow at the tall, wiry blond behind her. “Damn, Capelli. You really need to stop using that overly large brain of yours to find ways to sneak into this place through the back door. And for the record, I don’t snore.”

“Of course you don’t. That would require you to actually sleep, and we all know you’re too busy working to do that,” he said, pushing his dark-rimmed glasses over his nose with a grin. “Also for the record, I’m not sneaking. I’m simply testing your awareness along with the security measures of this fine establishment, and logging statistics on the most successful methods of gaining entry to public venues undetected. The findings could be useful the next time you go undercover.”

Isabella swallowed the urge to laugh. Leave it to the intelligence unit’s tech guru to blame his skulking around on statistical research. James Capelli was the best in the field, although he didn’t even have a hairsbreadth of room to talk about going the eat-sleep-breathe route for work. “You say potato, I say see you later. I’ve got to jump.”

Hollister pointed to an empty bar stool at the next table as Capelli commandeered the one she’d just left vacant. “There’s still plenty of room if you want to stick around. We can see if they’ve got any ibuprofen behind the bar, and it’s still pretty early. Plus, Capelli’s giving me the juice on all of this weekend’s football games.”

Isabella’s nod and smile made their belated appearance as she pulled her leather jacket over her shoulders.
Dodge. Deflect. Make your exit
. “Isn’t gambling a bit of a conflict of interest for cops?”

“Online fantasy football is a perfectly legal game of skill,” Hollister said, waggling his brows at her you-can’t-be-serious expression. “And despite being able to crunch all those stats like soda cans, he never bets on the games himself. Don’t you think someone should reap the benefits of this guy’s freaky-deaky brain power?”

Maxwell snorted, saving Isabella from having to dig up a comeback. “Hate to break it to you, man, but you reap the benefits every time he hooks you up with high-end surveillance tech or some piece of obscure evidence he uncovers while data mining the entire fucking Internet.”

“Now, now, Detective.” Capelli grinned, pausing for only a second to flag down a passing waitress and order a beer. “I only data mine most of the Internet.”

“Stop being so modest,” Hale said, busting Capelli’s chops all the way. “You have a photographic memory, for Pete’s sake. As far as techies go, I think you’re the
king
of the Internet.”

Maxwell shook his head. “Laugh now, partner. But when he swaps out your DMV picture with a headshot of Elmer Fudd, you won’t think it’s so funny.”

“Come on, Maxwell. That was three whole years ago, and I changed it back after a day and a half. Plus, Hale here is way more Tweety Bird.”

Everyone in the group broke into easy laughter. Isabella’s stomach tightened at the camaraderie free-flowing around the table, and she took a step back.
Go. Go now
. “On that note of brotherly love, I’ll see you guys on Monday, yeah?”

Offering up one last round of goodbyes, she cut a quick path out of the Crooked Angel, measuring both her footsteps and her heartbeats until the chatter and pulse of the bar noise gave way to the quiet hum of the streetlights overhead. To calm the unease bubbling in her stomach, she ordered the tasks in front of her into a checklist—
grab keys from right pocket, double-check ankle holster, find an inconspicuous parking spot on Delancey Street
—mentally crossing off each item upon completion. Sinking just low enough into the driver’s seat of her Mustang to find the perfect line of sight on the city block in front of her, Isabella killed the engine and let herself blend into the shadows. The laughter-filled banter between her unit-mates filled her mind, tugging at her senses until the strains of a different happy laughter washed over her from a memory.

“Oh, it’s awful,
prima
!” Marisol’s face pinched, her girlish features combining with her adolescent disdain. “Are you sure we’re drinking it right?”

Isabella had no idea, but she was three years older than Mari, and her fourteen-year-old pride refused to let her cop to her cluelessness. “I’m positive. My papi says black coffee makes you strong.”

“It tastes so bitter,” Marisol said, her big, dark eyes hesitating over the cup cradled between her palms. “I want to be grown up, but I don’t want to drink the rest.”

Isabella reached for the white china cup, the light glinting off the gold-rimmed edges as she smiled at her cousin, squeezing her hand. “It’s okay,” she said, pouring the contents into her own cup even though she’d hated the taste of the coffee just as much as Marisol had. “I’ll drink it. Don’t worry. You’re still grown up for trying.”

“Thank you, Isa. You always watch out for me…”

Isabella curled her fingers into fists, focusing on the bite of her nails on the thin skin of her palms. Letting herself go back, even for a second, was dangerous—stupid, really. She couldn’t change what had happened eleven years ago, the day she’d made the decision that had changed everything like a stone in still water, rippling all the things it touched. Still, in the dark of her car where no one could see her, Isabella allowed herself to remember. The horrible stomach ache she got that night from drinking that coffee—God, it had been strong enough to take the chrome off a car bumper. The clink of the china cups as she’d finally been able to sneak them back to the kitchen in the house on the south side of Remington where she’d grown up. The trust in Marisol’s eyes.