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Her taste buds sang a hallelujah chorus as the meat juices and the creamy, salty cheese caressed her tongue. A low moan of gratification eased out round the mouthful of burger and his gaze locked on her mouth, the mocking smile gone.
She swallowed quickly and took another massive bite. She could feel the disturbingly intense gaze as she stuffed the rest of burger in—but she didn’t care.
Let him be as appalled as he liked by her terrible table manners. She hadn’t had a decent meal in days. And it hadn’t been her idea to get kidnapped.
Why did that look so damn hot?
Heat shot into Zane’s crotch as the wide full lips shone from the coating of grease.
‘Slow down, you’ll make yourself sick,’ he murmured.
She peered at him, her expression wary as she continued to devour the burger like a ravenous wolf. He shifted in his seat, suppressing the urge to lick off the trickle of juice dribbling down her chin. She swiped the back of her hand across her mouth, wiping off the trickle, but the tug of arousal made it impossible to drag his gaze away.
I must seriously need to get laid.
Had it been six months since he’d had that weekend fling in Sonora with Elena, the public defender? Six months wasn’t that unusual for him—he’d always been choosy about his sexual partners—but this time the abstinence had to be messing with his radar.
The girl was cute, no question. The slanting chocolate eyes, thick red-gold curls, her wide kissable mouth and pale freckled skin made a unique package—but cute was hardly his type. And then there was the biggest turn-off of all. He was involved with her in a professional capacity. She was definitely a witness, possibly even a perp. And he never crossed that line. Ever.
The heat subsided as he watched her gulp down the last of the burger as if her life depended on it. Exactly how old was she? With that petal-soft skin it was hard to tell, but she could be a teenager.
He forced his gaze from her lips as he lifted the bag of fries off the dash, and passed them to her. ‘How long’s it been since you had a decent meal?’
She stiffened. ‘Not long,’ she said grudgingly but took the bag.
Yeah, right.
She popped the fries into her mouth, but continued to watch him, as if she expected him to snatch them back at any moment.
He suppressed the dart of compassion.
Grab a dose of reality, Montoya.
She’s no damsel in distress—she’s a resourceful little operator with her own agenda. Getting a job at Demarest’s motel had been a neat trick. And how the hell had she tracked the guy from Scotland, when they’d had trouble tracking him across California? Until he had the full story of how she fitted into the picture with Demarest, he didn’t plan to trust her an inch.
But that didn’t solve his immediate problem. What to do with her tonight? He hadn’t planned much past getting her away from Demarest’s motel.
He couldn’t take her back to Morro, and booking her into another motel wasn’t an option either, because she’d skip.
Of course he could dump her on the cops. But while handing her over would ‘contain’ the problem, he couldn’t quite bring himself to do it.
‘So how did you find out Demarest had a room at the Morro, Iona?’ he asked, deciding it was about time he started interrogating her properly—and stopped fixating on those damn lips.
She stopped shovelling fries into her mouth. ‘How do you know my name?’ she said in that lilting Celtic brogue.
‘The motel clerk was real talkative when I told him about your crime spree with his key.’
Her rich chocolate eyes went squinty with temper. ‘You told him? How could you? I’ll lose my job.’
‘You’re not going back there anyway,’ he said, dismissing the prickle of guilt. He wasn’t the one who’d decided to indulge in some after hours B and E. ‘I don’t want you alerting Demarest to our presence.’
‘I’m not going to alert him. Why would I?’ She sounded aggrieved. ‘How am I going to pay my bill now? They probably won’t even give me the wages they owe me.’
‘I settled your bill.’ He’d also paid the clerk to keep her valuables in the motel safe. If Demarest showed up tonight, he might not need the bargaining chip Iona’s ID documents represented, but he had a feeling it wasn’t gonna be that simple. Because nothing about this damn case had been simple so far.
And the biggest complication of all was sitting right in front of him.
A complication made a whole lot worse by his perverse reaction to her.
He’d never before got a kick out of manhandling a woman—even on the force he’d earned the nickname Lancelot, because of his preference for using persuasion and persistence when interrogating female suspects, instead of threats and intimidation.
But there was no getting away from the fact that when he’d caught her in Demarest’s room tonight—he’d noticed the generous breasts propped on his forearm and the fresh, subtle fragrance of her hair. And while he might have been able to ignore that momentary loss of control—because it had been six months since he’d had a woman, any woman in his arms—that excuse was nowhere near good enough to explain why he’d come close to getting a hard-on just watching her eat.
‘But you can kiss your paycheck goodbye,’ he said, making sure the chill stayed in his voice.
Her big brown eyes widened, making him feel as if he’d just kicked Bambi.
‘Now stop arguing with me or I’ll kick you out of the car and leave you in the middle of nowhere.’
It was an empty threat, he wouldn’t do that to any woman, especially not one who had no money, no ID, who’d just devoured a burger as if she hadn’t eaten in days and who had eyes like Bambi.
But instead of being cowed, she stuck her chin out. ‘Fine, dump me here if you want. I’ve no got a problem with that.’
Damn, she was actually serious.
What kind of guys had she been dealing with? Then he thought of the seedy motel, and her connection to Demarest and had a pretty good idea.
‘Yeah, well, unfortunately I do.’
‘Then take me back to the motel. I’ll get my stuff and stay somewhere else. I won’t interfere with your case, I swear. I want Brad caught as much as you do.’
Maybe it was the flinty determination in her voice or the way her gaze never wavered. But he wanted to believe her.
Which only made him sure he shouldn’t. Ten years on the force had taught him that trust was a dangerous thing—and following your gut instead of having proof could get you killed.
He slid the car into reverse. ‘Forget it. You’re staying where I can keep an eye on you.’
‘Why?’ she said, the hitch in her voice telegraphing her shock. ‘This is ridiculous. You dislike me as much as I dislike you.’
Unfortunately he didn’t dislike her nearly as much as he should, but he let the observation pass.
Her brow creased. ‘All you have to do is trust me a little bit and we never have to lay eyes on each other again.’
‘Trust you?’ He sent her a long look. ‘You think?’
‘Oh, for Pete’s sake,’ she hissed. ‘I already told you Brad stole money from my father.’
So it was Brad now.
‘I was trying to get it back,’ she finished, crossing her arms, and making her breasts plump up under the scoop neck of the tank.
‘Yeah, but I don’t have a heck of a lot of proof.’ He dragged his eyes away from her cleavage. Annoyed with himself. And her. Was she doing that on purpose? ‘And until I do, we’re stuck with each other.’
He reversed out of the lot, deciding the argument was over.
‘Now hang on,’ she piped up. ‘If you don’t trust me, why the heck should I trust you? You say you’re a private investigator, but for all I know you could be an axe-murderer.’
‘I showed you my licence,’ he said, humouring her.
‘Which you could have had forged for you by axe-murderers.com.’
His lips quirked at her tenacity, but he bit back the chuckle. The accusation wasn’t funny, it was insulting.
He braked and pulled out his smartphone, then keyed in the number for the LAPD. He passed the phone to her as it started ringing. ‘Ask for Detective Stone, or Detective Ramirez in Vice, whichever one is on shift. They can vouch for me.’
He waited while she spoke to the dispatcher, and spent some time verifying that she was talking to a genuine LAPD officer—and not one of his axe-murdering pals.
Smart girl.
‘Excuse me, Detective Ramirez,’ came her smoky voice when she got his former partner on the line. ‘My name is Iona MacCabe and I’m here with a man called Zane Montoya. He says he’s a private detective and that you know him. Is that true?’ She listened for a moment, her teeth releasing her bottom lip as she nodded. ‘Can you tell me what he looks like?’ Her gaze roamed over his face as she listened to Ram’s reply. Her scrutiny was sharp and dispassionate, and so unlike the glassy-eyed stares he had come to expect from women that something perverse happened. His nape heated, triggering a flash back to high school, when those glassy-eyed stares had allowed him to charm any girl he wanted into his bed—or more often the back seat of his uncle Raoul’s Chevy.
He rubbed a hand over the back of his neck.
Damn it, Montoya. Get real. You’re not in high school any more and you don’t want Iona MacCabe in your bed, or anywhere else.
‘All right, I guess this is the same guy,’ she murmured, that smoky accent only making him more uncomfortable. ‘And you’re sure he’s no an axe-murderer?’
Her eyebrows inched up her forehead and then she laughed, the sound low and amused and so unexpected it arrowed right through him.
He didn’t even want to think what Ram had said. His ex-partner had a sense of humour coarsened by twenty-five years spent in a squad car and a locker room. It wasn’t exactly subtle.
At last she passed him back his phone. ‘Okay, you check out,’ she said a little grudgingly. ‘The detective wants to speak to you.’
Terrific.
‘Hey, Ram,’ he said without a lot of enthusiasm. He usually enjoyed shooting the breeze with the guy, but not now, not with this woman in the car—who was becoming way more of a complication than he needed.
Ramirez’s amused voice boomed down the phone. ‘Lancelot, man, who’s the chiquita? She sounds cute.’
Zane kept his eyes on Iona, and hoped she hadn’t heard the dumb remark. ‘I’m on a case, man,’ he said sternly, relieved when Iona broke eye contact and stared out of the window, ignoring him.
‘I’ll bet.’ The rusty laugh caused by two packs a day wheezed out as Ram replied. ‘What happened, man? You finally find one you can’t charm out of her panties with that pretty face of yours?’
‘I appreciate you vouching for me, Ram,’ he said, wishing to hell it had been Stone on the late shift tonight—whose sense of humour was about as animated as his name. And ended the call.
He dumped the smartphone on the dash, tunnelled his fingers through his hair. This night had started badly and gone downhill from there.
‘Satisfied?’ he asked Iona.
‘I guess so,’ she said, sounding snotty again.
She wasn’t the only one in a snit now, though.
He started the car and pulled out.
‘You still haven’t told me where we’re going.’
‘Monterey,’ he said, being as vague as possible. ‘It’s about two hours’ drive so you might as well get comfortable.’
‘And why are we going there?’
‘I have a friend who owns some vacation rentals in Pacific Grove,’ he said, remembering the key he still had in his glove compartment to Nate’s property, which he’d stayed at a month ago while his kitchen was being remodelled. He could stash her in the picturesque little cottage for tonight, then review his options.
Without a car, or any cash or ID, she wouldn’t be able to get far. And it was close enough to his place on Seventeen Mile to be convenient.
‘You can stay there tonight—and I’ll bring over your stuff tomorrow.’
When he planned to interrogate her—and find out exactly what she knew about Demarest.
It had been on the tip of his tongue to tell her he was taking her back to his place for the night. He had five bedrooms in the timber-and-glass beach house he’d bought a year ago, and it was a little more remote than Pacific Grove. But he’d kicked the idea into touch almost as soon as it had occurred to him.
He rarely did sleepovers, even with women he was dating. And he’d sure as hell never had one he was planning to interrogate stay over. Plus, given his unpredictable reaction to Iona already, having her under his roof had the potential to turn a complication into a catastrophe.
‘And what if I don’t want to stay at your friend’s vacation rental in Pacific Grove?’ she demanded.
‘I turn you over to the cops,’ he said, not sure why he wasn’t doing that already. ‘Your choice.’
The weighty silence told him what his passenger thought about the proposed sleeping arrangements.
‘Why are you even giving me the option?’ she said at last, the note of caution making it clear she’d accepted the lesser of two evils. ‘I could wreck the place to spite you.’
Good question, and not one he wanted to answer.
‘True enough, but you’d be facing a lot more than a B and E charge when I caught you.’ He slanted her a long look, frustrated that he trusted her even though he didn’t want to—and letting every ounce of that frustration show. ‘And I would catch you.’
Her musical voice didn’t pipe up again until they hit the coastal highway.
‘Fine, I’ll stay where you put me—until tomorrow. But only because I don’t have a choice.’ The Celtic mist of her accent did nothing to disguise the annoyance. ‘But I’m not your chiquita. So don’t get any funny ideas, Lancelot.’
Zane’s fingers tensed on the wheel until he could feel the stitching on the leather biting into his palms.
Gee, thanks, Ramirez.
CHAPTER TWO
THE VICARIOUS PLEASURE at getting the final word didn’t last long when Montoya’s only response was the creak of leather—as he held the steering wheel in a death grip.
Way to go, Iona. Why not draw attention to his reputation for charming women out of their knickers? Because that’s just what you want, to make this encounter personal.
