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Silk, Lace & Videotape
Joanne Rock
A steamy videoDeciding to add some adventure to her lackluster love life, designer Amanda Matthews tapes herself performing a seductive striptease. This secret weapon is guaranteed to tempt any man into a passionate affair. Too bad the man she made the tape for never sees her show….An unexpected audienceDetective Duke Rawlins has never seen a surveillance video like this one! He's haunted by images of Amanda strutting across his TV screen. And now that he knows what she's covering up with her clothes, there's no way he'll let her out of his sight…or his bed.A breathtaking pursuitAmanda can't believe that being held in custody could be so incredibly satisfying. But Duke still has to get to the bottom of his case. So what else can Amanda do but help him out–undercover…and under the covers?
He should have fast-forwarded past her seductive show…
Duke’s finger wavered over the forward button, urging him to do the honorable thing.
But just then Amanda’s on-screen image reached for her gown’s zipper. The blood pounded through his veins. The room’s temperature jumped at least ten degrees. Restless tension thrummed through him. Duke dropped the remote, gladly trading his eligibility for sainthood to watch that zipper slide south.
Inch by tantalizing inch her skin revealed itself to his avid stare. In his mind’s eye he inserted his hand over hers, his palm against her smooth, warm back. He could almost feel the warmth of Amanda beneath his fingers.
Finally the expanse of creamy-white flesh gave way to the shimmering silk and revealing lace of hot-pink lingerie that sent his jaw to the floor.
At that moment Duke knew he wouldn’t rest until he’d personally discovered the real Amanda Matthews.
Dear Reader,
Amanda Matthews doesn’t mean to give Duke Rawlins a private show, but when her steamy striptease video falls into the wrong man’s hands, she finds herself more exposed than she bargained for!
New York detective Duke Rawlins thinks he’s seen it all until Amanda Matthews blazes across his television screen in little more than a garter belt. Although Amanda swears she had no idea her boyfriend was a white-collar criminal, Duke is certain this uptown girl is hiding more than a penchant for naughty lingerie. He’s determined to stay close to her until he uncovers all her secrets.
If you like Silk, Lace & Videotape, you won’t want to miss my July 2002 Blaze, In Hot Pursuit. Duke’s partner, Josh, and Amanda’s best friend, Lexi, face off over a pair of handcuffs and end up very tied together. Visit me at www.JoanneRock.com to learn more about my future releases or to let me know what you think of my books. I’d love to hear from you!
Happy reading!
Joanne Rock
P.S. Don’t forget to check out the special Blaze Web site at www.tryblaze.com.
Silk, Lace & Videotape
Joanne Rock
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
To wise and wonderful Catherine Mann for reading this
book while she made yet another cross-country move.
Thank you, my friend!
And to Dean,
for always helping me to live by my own light.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
1
IN NEARLY TEN YEARS of stakeouts with the New York police force, Detective Duke Rawlins had never allowed anything to distract him from his job.
Too bad the file photo of knockout designer Amanda Matthews didn’t know that.
Duke stretched in the limited space offered by his police-issued, unmarked car. He smoothed his finger over the grainy black-and-white image stapled inside his latest case file. He needed to arrest Amanda’s drug-smuggling boyfriend this morning. Salivating over a Manhattan socialite with more mob connections than dinner invitations wasn’t about to get the job done.
Since when had Duke started going for the mob moll type anyway? No matter how long her family had been in the social register, Amanda Matthews’s father was a couturier to every mobster in the city. By the look of things, Amanda would follow right in Daddy’s footsteps.
Not that it mattered to Duke.
He slapped the file closed and tossed it across the bench seat. He’d definitely been pursuing Amanda’s boyfriend, Victor Gallagher, for too long.
So what if Amanda’s high cheekbones and pouting lips imparted a movie-star glamour Duke found damnably attractive? She would probably stroll out of Gallagher’s apartment any moment after a night of torrid sex. Maybe that little reality check would force Duke to get his mind back on his work—back on the promotion that Gallagher’s conviction would solidify.
He patted his gun and the pocket that held his badge, grateful he wasn’t the type of guy to get distracted on the job. Reaching for the car door handle, he prepared to face the key conviction in the Garment District’s drug smuggling ring. After today, Duke would gladly banish Amanda’s photo to a filing cabinet in the nether regions of the police station.
That is, if she wasn’t connected to her boyfriend’s crimes.
Duke started to step out into the late spring drizzle when a taxi pulled up to the apartment he’d been watching, the bright yellow cab a splash of color in a gray day. On instinct, Duke pulled his car door shut. From his angle across the street and down a few buildings, he had a view of both sides of the cab.
The newcomer was probably no one—just another artsy type who called this trendy area of the Lower West Side home.
Except that the endless feminine leg emerging from the cab didn’t look like it belonged to no one.
No. This trim calf and knee was sheathed in a light veil of pink, as if some clever spider had woven a cotton candy web around that expanse of perfect flesh. Capping off the pink stocking and mouthwatering leg was a hot pink shoe that looked more suited to the bedroom than the puddle-covered pavement of West Twenty-eighth Street.
He recognized that shoe. The Barbie doll he’d bought for his niece two years ago had been wearing heels just like it. This was the first time Duke had seen such impractical footwear on a walking, talking—
Woman.
Duke swallowed hard as the second leg swung down to the concrete. A sweat broke out when a trench coat and hourglass figure slid from the cab. Light brown hair and an all-too-familiar movie-star pout made his jaw drop.
Amanda Matthews had arrived.
Duke reminded himself to breathe. To think. He had a job to do, damn it.
Unfortunately, all he could think of was how odd it seemed for Victor Gallagher’s sexy girlfriend to be entering his apartment building at 9:00 a.m. rather than leaving it.
Did that thought rank as a distraction from his case, or was he thinking about it by thinking about her?
Damn.
It looked like Amanda Matthews didn’t have any intention of being banished to the filing cabinet any time soon.
AMANDA HAD NEVER fully appreciated the silk lining of her trench coat until she slithered her way out of a taxi in the garment with nothing on underneath it.
Well, almost nothing.
The metal hooks on her garters scraped lightly against her thighs as she hopped a puddle on West Twenty-eighth Street. The tantalizing abrasion reminded her she did indeed wear something beneath the oversize camel-colored coat. But she hardly counted the pink lace merry widow and matching panties as clothes. She was prepared to bare scandalous amounts of skin for her boyfriend today if it would help shed her good-girl image. She deserved a little adventure in her life, didn’t she? Before Victor could say, “let’s wait until the wedding night,” she would make her too-honorable beau look at her with something more than warm affection in his eyes.
Of course, Amanda had no intention of dropping her coat and praying for the best. Oh no. She’d planned today’s seduction scene with the same care and precision she’d used to take her career from window dresser to fledgling designer. She wouldn’t ditch the coat until she’d given her noble boyfriend a chance to view her secret weapon.
The video.
Arriving at Victor’s building, Amanda patted her pocket to reassure herself the tape still rested there.
This ranked as the smartest or the dumbest thing she’d ever done.
Either way, after today she would know if she and Victor had any hope of a future together. She wasn’t willing to take it on faith that physical chemistry would magically appear on her wedding night.
She reached for the door, noticing too late that her “Passion Flower Pink” nail polish didn’t match her fuchsia ensemble as perfectly as she’d hoped. Damn. Victor was as fashion-happy as her father. What if the only thing he noticed about the scintillating striptease she’d taped for him was that her manicure clashed with her spandex and lace?
“Don’t go there,” she chided herself, refusing to allow old self-doubts to creep in now. She hadn’t propelled her designs onto the runways of New York and Milan by questioning her judgment.
Before she managed to lever the heavy door open, a broad masculine hand appeared in her line of vision to do the job for her.
“Allow me,” a silky baritone voice rumbled from behind, making her jump.
She turned to thank one of New York’s nearly extinct courteous gentlemen and found herself blinking up at Sinatra blue eyes, a granite jaw complete with cleft chin, and cropped blond hair spiking in careless disarray. The stranger flashed her a gorgeous lopsided grin that packed nearly as much firepower as his multi-colored necktie emblazoned with fluorescent stars. A definite original. This man made Amanda’s father’s male showroom models look as bland as carbon copy Ken dolls.
Amanda forgot what she’d been about to say. The only thought in her brain was that this guy had more charisma in his pinky than those male models had in their overstuffed portfolios.
He also had a very broad chest beneath that loud necktie.
The man leaned fractionally closer, making her all too aware of the scant whisper of lace beneath her coat. His blue gaze scorched right through to her skin.
He winked. “Never a doorman around when you need one, is there?”
His words jarred her, reminding her she wasn’t just daydreaming again. She was actually face-to-face with a fantasy-worthy man and she could only ogle him like an overwrought adolescent. Not that she’d spent any teenage years wearing peekaboo lace panties.
“Thank you,” she managed, vaguely annoyed a handsome man could distract her from her important purpose today.
She wanted cultured, refined Victor Gallagher in her life, didn’t she? She didn’t need a fleeting attraction to a flashy stranger with a sinful smile.
And much too knowing eyes.
She stepped inside Victor’s building and a gust of wind caught the hem of her coat. The cold breeze swirled up her trench coat and around her thighs to tickle her in shocking places. She hoped the breeze caused the ensuing tingling rush and not thoughts of the man beside her.
Amanda clutched the heavy material more tightly to her, tormented by visions of her garters bared to the world—especially the guy standing at six o’clock.
She sensed his presence trailing slowly behind her as she rushed toward the elevator. One of the elevator doors was closing, but maybe if she hurried…
“Hold the elevator,” she called. Picking up her pace, she was so intent on escaping the sexy man behind her, she forgot about her made-for-the-bedroom shoes and nearly twisted her ankle.
New visions arrived—even more horrible. If she took a tumble in the lobby, the man behind her would see a lot more than garters.
Stray strands of her hair were springing loose from the chic French chignon she’d struggled half an hour to create. How could a total stranger fluster her this much?
Taking long, calming breaths, Amanda waited for the next elevator and assured herself once she initiated an intimate relationship with Victor, she wouldn’t feel a stray temptation like this again. She was probably just starved for male attention, considering her years of unwanted celibacy.
That had to be it.
She sure hoped so anyway because the push-up underwires her getup required were rubbing her breasts raw. Certainly that accounted for the tightening sensation in her nipples and not the slow footsteps of Blue Eyes as he approached.
She had never tried to attract much attention as a teenager because she’d been fifteen pounds overweight and relentlessly focused on succeeding in her father’s glamorous world. Then later, she’d been overlooked because she was famous designer Clyde Matthews’s daughter and no one wanted to risk a back seat tangle with the daughter of a man reputed to be tied to the mob.
All of which had driven her to set the fashion world on fire with her own designs—but it had also left her nearly as inexperienced as a virgin at the age of twenty-five. Her one sexual encounter with her college boyfriend in his car had resulted in the man’s hasty departure to enroll in a liberal arts program somewhere in Utah. No doubt, her powerful father had influenced that decision. But Clyde Matthews hadn’t objected to her relationship with his best fabric supplier, Victor Gallagher.
Maybe once she got closer to Victor, she would consider his repeated offers of marriage. All Amanda had to do was take their relationship to the next level to be sure they were really…compatible.
And try to ignore studly strangers she bumped into on the street.
Amanda stood amid the potted palm trees in the lobby, willing away a fierce attack of nerves as his footsteps grew louder, closer. Her feminine radar blinked wildly as he reached her side again. Her skin turned to gooseflesh beneath her coat. The silk lining of the trench coat teased her mercilessly.
It had to be the lingerie and spike heels making her feel this way, heightening her awareness on the most basic level. She just wasn’t that type of girl. She’d gone to Catholic school, after all. She rarely went out with the party crowds of her father’s fashion world. So far she’d managed to avoid the hubbub of life in the tabloids, preferring to spend her free time close to home.
And this was the only time in her life she hadn’t worn clothing beneath her outerwear.
“Going up?” the spiky-haired stranger asked as an elevator door slid open in front of them.
