Bam…bam…bam.
The pounding on her front door echoed through the house.
Chester raced into her room and under the bed. "What?"
More pounding. Five steady beats that sounded like metal
on wood. Mari shook herself out of her self-loving induced
fog, and stood on shaky legs.
Who in the hell? If her neighbor had locked himself out
of his house again, she was going to throttle him. Her
entire being pulsed with need. She wrapped herself in her
robe and stomped to the door, swearing up a storm in
Spanish. Now anger simmered right along with the need to
come.
"Who is it?" she barked. Never interrupt a girl’s
orgasm, damn it.
"Lieutenant Marcus Pearson with Denver Police. There’s
an emergency. I need to secure the premises. Open the door."
She peered through the peephole. Sure enough, a man in a
black T-shirt, black cargo pants and dark glasses held a
mean looking rifle in one hand, his face partially obscured
by the badge in the other.
Her hand flew to her mouth at the sight. She’d grown up
in the west, and she’d never before freaked out at the
sight of a rifle, but this black monstrosity was nothing
like Granddad’s Winchester. "What do you want?" She spoke
with her nose against the door. Her second cop encounter of
the night, but things were looking up. This guy wasn’t
overweight and balding. In fact, he looked damn good
through the fisheye lens. She rose on her tiptoes to look
down. Nice.
"I need to requisition your house. Please. It’s official
business."
It might be the orgasm fighting to come out, but even
his voice was sexy. She might forgive him for being a cop.
"My house?"
"I need the vantage point from your upstairs window.
There’s a hostage standoff in the vacant house behind
yours. Could you open the door?"
"I was in the middle of something."
"Ma’am, I need to come in." The fisheye did nothing to
disguise the tightness of his face.
"How do I know you’re for real?"
"I showed you my badge."
"I can buy one of those at the dollar store."
He spun around and ran one hand through his dark hair,
leaving tunnels through the thickness. Perfect--now she had
a view of his ass.
He whipped back around. "Lady…go to your southeast
window and you’ll see what I’m talking about. This isn’t a
joke or a ploy."
Just then, she heard an authoritative voice boom through
a megaphone from behind her house. "Drop the gun, Wilson."
"Hurry up, ma’am," the cop on the other side of her door
growled. His low tone impressed the urgency. "I’ll break
the door down if I have to. It could mean the life of an
officer."
If it was a ruse, he’d gone to a hell of a lot of
trouble to set it up. The megaphone voice went off again,
matching this guy’s intensity. She clutched her robe closer
to her chest and unlocked the door.
Lieutenant Pearson burst in, barely nodded his thanks
and, without a word, stormed down the hall and into her
bedroom. Chester tore out and skittered back under the
couch in record time.
Mari just stared after him. He even smelled good. Her
entire body reacted to the testosterone surge filling her
home. If she weren’t already on the brink of an amazing
orgasm, his mere presence would have kicked it into gear.
She followed him into her room, where he’d swept a stack of
books from her windowsill onto the floor and knelt close to
the edge of the window. He was in place with his rifle
pointed out the open window.
Damn, he was hot. Lieutenant, huh? Marcus Pearson. Marc,
maybe. With his dark hair cut short, he reminded her of an
armed forces poster boy. His sunglasses were now buried in
that hair, perched on his crown. He adjusted the black
earpiece with connected microphone. The spiral cord
disappeared down the collar of his shirt. A thick neck,
muscular shoulders, arms that bulged with just the right
amount of muscle and, holy hell…an ass that should be in
Calvin Kline underwear ads. Mmm, Marc.
"Echo three, in place. Target locked. Awaiting go-ahead."
Francotirador. A sniper. Good Lord. She might actually
have to witness this man shoot another. Mari gasped, and
the sound seemed loud in the utter stillness.
"You might want to leave the room, ma’am." The cop spoke
in the same voice he’d used to communicate with his team,
so she wasn’t completely sure he was talking to her until
he continued. "Just stay away from the windows."
"I…okay…"
"Echo three, affirmative. Position secured."
Mari backed against the hallway wall. She still had a
good view of him through the door. Long moments passed.
Mari’s breathing echoed in the hallway, and her heart
thumped a heavy cadence. The megaphone below blared, but
the sniper in her bedroom hadn’t moved one sinewy muscle.
She wasn’t sure if he’d even blinked.
Damn, the man was one giant hunk of sex. His face had
that rugged masculinity that she found extremely appealing.
He wasn’t one to cover a men’s fashion magazine. Nor would
he fit the part as a boy band front man. This guy looked
like he’d been in a few fistfights in his time. He had an
imperfect shape to his nose, and the stern set to his lips
made him look fearsome and deliciously sexy, which was odd,
because she didn’t even prefer white guys. Or cops. There
must be something seriously wrong with her if there was a
bad deal going down in her backyard—bad enough to call in a
sniper—and she could think only of the man’s sex appeal.
Her hand was still clutching her robe to her breasts.
The rapid rise and fall of her curves moved the satin
across her nipples. A glance at her bed and Mari almost
groaned. Atop the pillows stacked in the middle of the
mattress lay Bob, pretty and pink as could be. She could
almost see the indentation of her body in the rumpled
sheets. She should be embarrassed. She should run into the
room and hide the evidence, but instead she reacted in an
entirely unexpected way. There was a hot as hell cop in her
bedroom. Kneeling by her bed. With a gun. And testosterone
oozing out of every pore, not two feet from where her
sheets still held her body heat.