A Fine Specimen (10 page)

Alex probably dealt with
those kinds of situations daily, though not at work. She’d observed, and heard,
that work for him was a very strict no-sex zone. Not that much was happening
right now in his life outside work. Thanks to his colleagues at the station house,
she got the impression that he didn’t
have
a private life, and
considering his looks, his charisma, his overpowering
maleness
, that was
entirely voluntary.

If she were a company,
she’d send a memo to herself.
Note—no way.

She had to remember all
of this, even though he seemed to have some kind of magical sex key where she
was concerned and had managed to give her an explosive orgasm she could almost
still feel on her skin, in her bones. And he’d done it with his mouth and hand.
She shuddered to think of other body parts coming into play. She’d fall into a
billion pieces.

In every way there was,
an affair with Alex Cruz was a no-no.

Wanting Alex Cruz was
perfectly pointless. Like wanting a Mercedes Benz or wanting to be taller. Not
going to happen.

She had to enjoy the
evening for what it was and keep her eye on the main goal, her dissertation.

Alex poured her a glass
of wine from the bottle of Merlot the server had uncorked. He hadn’t asked for
either the wine or the bruschetta, so Caitlin could only assume that he came
here often enough for his tastes to be known to the staff.

“I can recommend the
tuna steak on a bed of pappardelle,” he said, confirming her thoughts.

It was the most
expensive item on the menu, she was amused to note.
Go for it
, Caitlin told
herself. “Sounds good.”

Alex gave their order
and sipped the wine, an expression of pleasure crossing his face. He seemed
utterly at ease, which somehow surprised her. She wouldn’t have thought of an
elegant, high-end restaurant as Alex’s habitat.

Well, okay. He was at
the top of the food chain and he carried that impression wherever he went. He
would probably be equally at ease and dominant in a low-life dive or a royal
palace. Nature had equipped him with the tools to prevail no matter what. She
tried to think of him at a loss—and failed. Alex was the kind of man who knew
what to do and how to do it in any kind of situation.

In bed, he probably—

Whoa!
Don’t even go there.

Too late. She’d already
gone. Whoosh—in an instant, straight into forbidden territory.

Totally unbidden,
completely unwelcome images arose in her mind, full-blown, complete, like
watching a movie. Alex’s dark face above her, eyes narrowed, intent gaze on
hers, broad shoulders blocking out the light. Heavy body on hers, that
amazingly large and thick penis she’d felt through his clothes, inside her,
thrusting heavily…

Oh God.

She was exciting herself
just thinking about it. One part of her was going haywire and the other
part—the part that remained a scholar, a student of human nature—observed
herself, partly amused, partly appalled.

She remembered every
second of his kisses, how his five o’clock shadow had scraped deliciously
across her cheeks as he angled his head this way and that to deepen the kisses.
Kiss, actually. One. One kiss that never ended, that melted her bones, that lit
up every cell in her body with heat and desire.

Amazing. Though her
neurons had sputtered, she’d been aware every second that it had been entirely
new territory for her, that her body had never had those sensations before and
quite possibly never would again.

Immense heat prickling
through her system, pooling in her breasts and between her legs. Skin so
sensitive she could feel the air like a weight, his hands leaving electric
sparks of pleasure wherever he touched. The world simply falling away,
completely gone, as she concentrated on his mouth and hands on her.

The world falling away
was not good. The world was big and bad and bit women who forgot the rules and
lost their heads.

Caitlin squirmed for a
second in her seat. The images of Alex’s kiss had come with sensory input and
she could actually feel the swelling of the lips of her sex. It was like a
small sun blossoming between her legs, so brightly she was surprised it didn’t
generate light.

But just as her head
could tell her body to forget about tiredness and hunger and lack of sleep, her
head now told her body to wipe out those delicious sensations and allowed her
to morph back into her serious, professional persona.

It took more effort than
she liked.

The food arrived. The
waitress had received the message loud and clear that Alex wasn’t on the
market, and placed the plates in front of them with an impersonal smile,
angling now for a generous tip rather than Alex’s body.

The smells coming off
the plates were delicious, perfect. A million miles away from her usual crap
fare. Lately, lack of time had been added to her chronic lack of money and
she’d subsisted on yogurt and sandwiches these past few weeks.

Ah, her life was
changing in so many ways, all of them good. She resolved to enjoy this evening
and keep a tight rein on her reactions to the extremely powerful and extremely
sexy man sitting next to her.

“Eat,” he said, “and
I’ll tell you how the mayor got his nickname, The Lizard.”

She looked at him, amused.
How wonderful to get inside gossip. “Not because he has that leathery salon
tan?”

“No, it involves a
truck, a mistress and a hundred thousand dollars.”

“One of those things you
can’t make up?”

“Absolutely.”

It was a shaggy dog
story, long, convoluted, funny. It saw her through the tuna and pappardelle,
the pear and arugula salad with balsamic vinegar, and several bites of Alex’s
twelve-ounce
bistecca fiorentina
that he insisted she try.

It was delicious.
He
was delicious, perfect.

Oh
God
.

Caitlin had simply
assumed that Alex Cruz was a job-obsessed monomaniac and that the police
station was his natural habitat. He’d looked so at home there, with basically
the whole station house at his beck and call. King of all he surveyed.

A one-dimensional man,
even one as preternaturally sexy and attractive as Alex, was easy to resist in
the long run. Monomaniacs are notoriously humor-challenged, devoid of all
irony. Bad conversationalists, self-obsessed.

She’d dated her share of
them, though to be honest, her type of monomaniac was usually an academic with
an unholy interest in Tibetan literature or Italian
opera buffa
or Dutch
voting patterns.

Though in theory she
liked men, she did have to admit that they could be monumentally boring, and
she’d expected Alex to be no different from the rest of his gender, only sexier
than most. Happy only in one place, doing one thing.

And yet here he was,
perfectly at home in this trendy, upscale eatery. Making light, fascinating
conversation. Suave and urbane. So attractive it should be illegal.

This was
so
not
good. Caitlin had never felt such a powerful, magnetic attraction to a man
before. She hadn’t even known she was capable of it. Last night’s kiss and
explosive climax was way off her radar. It was hard enough to keep her cool
around him and not melt into a puddle at his feet when she thought he was just
a tough, hard-assed cop. Good-looking, okay, that was a given—but horrifically
lousy relationship material. A man who, out of bed, would bore her to death in
the long run. That man was no temptation at all, other than sexual, though God
knew that was bad enough.

Who knew sex was high on
her list of priorities? It was news to her. If Caitlin had to list things that
gave her pleasure, sex would probably be embarrassingly low on the list. Well,
considering what her sex life had been up until now, finding a new library
archive
was
infinitely more exciting than going to bed with William
Trudloe or Marvin the Unreliable. But there it was, a statistical outlier—her
treacherous body had lit up like a Christmas tree the instant Alex had touched
her.

A worldly,
sophisticated, entertaining Alex was truly frightening because he made her
yearn. A worldly, sophisticated, entertaining sex god was guaranteed to ruin
her for other men forever.

Caitlin made it a point
not to yearn after what she couldn’t have. She was really good at it because
she’d had a lot of practice. Over the past few years, she’d watched high school
and college friends get jobs and start rising through the ranks of life. Most
of her nonacademic friends owned their own homes, bought designer clothes,
drove fancy cars, ate at restaurants reviewed in newspapers and went on
vacations to exotic places. Caitlin had known when she opted for the academic
life that these things would be hers only later in life, if ever.

They’d also gotten
engaged and then married. Or at least settled into steady relationships. She
rarely admitted to herself how much it hurt to watch friends pairing up, while
she seemed so relentlessly…
alone
all the time.

So it was a very good
thing she’d decided early on in her career that she wasn’t going to pine after
the unobtainable.

Wanting a real
relationship with Alex Cruz would break her heart. After last night, she’d
factored in that they might have an affair if her willpower suddenly decided to
take a hike. It wasn’t very professional, but then she’d only have to deal with
him professionally for another week or so. It wasn’t as if he were a colleague
or someone she’d have to work with on a steady basis, which would be a real
no-no.

So, yes, if she had to
be honest with herself, hot sex for the first time in her life sounded really,
really good. They’d have fantastic sex and then part ways without any
complications. That was the plan that had been brewing deep in her subconscious
and was now beginning to percolate upward.

Caitlin always thought
she’d end up late in life with some nice, low-key scholar. A
sweater-and-suspenders kind of guy. They’d study together, have really good
conversations and make polite love in the dark, under the covers.

She knew that beta males
make great companions even though they don’t, alas, heat the blood. Just this
once, Caitlin wanted her blood heated. The memory of having had a hot time
between the sheets with a true, unadulterated alpha male would warm her nights
with her nice, tame future husband.

Hot, unforgettable sex
with a man you knew you wouldn’t want for the long-term was one thing. Hot,
unforgettable sex with a fascinating man who made her want
more
…

Well. That was heartbreak
waiting to happen.

“So, you getting what
you need at the cop shop?” The question was asked out of nowhere in an idle
tone, but his eyes were sharp as they watched hers.

Caitlin sipped the wine.
God, even the wine was perfect. “Oh yes, thank you. Kathy Martello and Ben Cade
have been particularly helpful. I’ve got a lot of useful data.”
Including an
extensive bio of one Alejandro Cruz.

“You’re doing it again,”
Alex observed mildly as he topped her glass.

They were on their
second bottle and that, combined with the truly excellent food, filled Caitlin
with a mellow glow. If you were going to get your heart broken, it might as
well be in style.

“What?” She twisted the
stem of her glass, watching the candle’s reflection in the crystal blur and
grow into a teardrop.

“Smiling.”

“Tell me, Lieutenant, is
smiling suddenly against the law?”

“Maybe it is. Or at
least it should be, since here I was, telling you how the state should be run
and you start smiling.” They’d been talking about a recent state senate scandal
and had found themselves in total agreement regarding who were the scumbags and
who were the good guys. “You should be—at the very least—pursing your lips and
nodding solemnly at the wisdom I was imparting.”

Caitlin let out her
breath on a long sigh. “Sorry. I was thinking of something else.”

“Such as?”

She shrugged, happy that
he wasn’t telepathic.

“Are you going to tell
me or am I going to have to call the maitre d’ over and have him break out the
rubber hoses to make you talk?” He leaned toward her and assumed a Peter Lorre
accent. “Theeessss restaurant’s dooongeon isss famous in four cown-treeeessss.”

How the candlelight
loved the planes of his face, hard and clean and sharply handsome. The black
eyes gleamed with humor and intelligence, his skin dark against the pristine
white shirt. His mouth looked hard but she remembered—oh-so clearly—how soft it
had felt against hers, how, with a twist of his mouth, he’d opened her own. She
also remembered how, when his tongue had touched hers, she’d felt it deep in
her womb. Everything in her had fluttered when he’d kissed her, including her
heart.

Caitlin put her hands on
her lap and clenched them, otherwise she’d reach out and touch his mouth, his
skin, run her fingers through his hair. He was sitting way too close to her, so
close she could feel his body heat.