“Showtime, Chad,” Eve said, copying Nat’s bright smile and finger wave. “We’ll finish this later.”
He turned and jogged down the stairs, the T-shirt gleaming in the black lights. Her pulse was up, excitement skittering along her nerves as she sank into her chair. Round two went to her.
She couldn’t wait for round three.
*
One of the most basic components of police work was learning to control a situation. In undercover work, situation control was tricky because it meant managing or manipulating rather than using a uniform, a weapon, and escalating force tactics. A good undercover cop adjusted his personality and attitude to manage the situation according to his objectives. Matt was as good as they came, and that bluff should have worked.
Except Eve Webber raised the stakes without blinking an eye, and suddenly white-hot, explicit images of exactly how they’d finish what she’d started flashed in his brain … the skirt that barely covered her upper thighs, her desk, and that sleek mass of black hair she kept tugging free from the glossy color on her mouth. Heat flashed through him, the sensation shockingly intense.
Your job is to keep her alive, not get her into bed.
To combat it he called up the picture of the alley behind the bar in the simmering afternoon sunlight, reconnoitered along with the rest of the bar after he finished prep. The back of the alley made a ninety-degree right turn into a tiny passageway leading to Twelfth Street. It was a rabbit’s warren, a nightmare to capture and easy to defend, which made it a perfect drop spot for clandestine meetings and unnoticed deliveries. As Lyle Murphy no doubt knew. He’d done his research into Eye Candy, but he’d gotten Eve totally wrong.
“Ketel One and cranberry,” a brunette said.
Matt snapped back to the present, then did a double take. His partner stood in front of him, wearing skin-tight jeans, a tight white top, and a sleek wig that rendered her nearly unrecognizable. She rested an elbow on the bar as she waited, which meant she wore platform heels that added five inches to her height. He mixed the drink, took her money, and stuffed the change in the tip jar when she sashayed away with a wink.
Eve emerged from her office around seven, iPhone in hand, and once she started working the room the vibe punched up several notches. Watching her smile and talk to the customers triggered something he couldn’t put his finger on.
During a brief lull, he turned to Tom, the steroid-buffed player working the station next to his. “She looks familiar.”
Tom hit the button on the blender to mix a raspberry daiquiri. “She won the newspaper’s sexiest female bartender contest two years running before she switched over to events management at the Met.” “Fucking moron” was implied at the end of that sentence.
A niggling memory surfaced of the newspaper’s Arts and Culture section getting passed around before the shift briefing a couple of years ago, right before he made the leap to detective and started working long-term undercover assignments. The article’s text meandered alongside a full-length picture of Eve, hair tumbled into her face, hands braced on the bar behind her, wearing a white blouse unbuttoned deep in her cleavage, a tight, short black skirt, black stockings, and heels. Her slim legs were crossed at the ankle, and the angle of the shot made them seem endless. He should have been focused on the briefing, but he’d given the photo a good thorough look before handing it to his partner, who’d looked even longer.
The provocative shot actually masked what won Eve the contest. In person she radiated vitality, a sheer visceral force that drew light, glances, attention. Even more surprising was the way she didn’t hoard the energy but rather turned it back on whomever she was talking to. Like that person was the only person in the room. Like she heard what they were saying, and maybe even what they weren’t saying.
Life flowed into this woman. She amplified it and sent it back out into the world, and he couldn’t stop watching her.
She checked in with her bouncer, the size of the Hulk, with gang ink disappearing into the sleeves of his T-shirt.
“That’s not an off-duty cop,” he said.
“Friend of the family,” Tom replied over the music. “Someone her dad knew.”
“Bars this busy usually hire the pros,” Matt said as he pulled out a fresh rack of glasses.
“You know what those assholes charge? They’re fucking expensive,” Tom said as he handed the drink across the bar. “And they’re nosy. Hot Stuff doesn’t like strangers in her business.”
Matt would bet his Jeep that Eve wouldn’t like being called Hot Stuff, but if Tom hadn’t figured that out, Matt wasn’t about to enlighten him. He watched as she cleared a couple of abandoned glasses off the bar in front of him and handed them to a passing busboy, then came around the corner of the bar, trailing her fingers along the polished wood. He handed the drink to a customer and gave her his full attention.