“Told her I was your boyfriend, that we had a fight, and you wouldn’t answer the phone. Said I wanted to make up real bad.”
She groaned. “That’s even worse.”
“How come she didn’t know you had a boyfriend, Max?”
Avoidance was the best tactic where the boyfriend-girlfriend thing was concerned. “Sunny Wright and I don’t discuss personal stuff. I only work for her temp agency.” When she needed money or she was going stark raving mad with nothing to do but talk to a ghost, Sunny found her temp jobs in accounting. Her previous profession before Cameron died.
“For you never getting personal with her, the woman seemed damned obliging. Almost giddy.” She heard the laughter in his voice and saw it in his blue eyes. He was too damn pleased with himself. Even though he hadn’t even gotten inside her last night nor reached his own release. Witt was far too patient and easygoing.
He bent down and took her lips with a bruising, hot, heavy, yet too-quick kiss.
She looked around to see if they were being watched. Not that it mattered a damn-diddly. They weren’t, though. On a job, she always arranged to leave at three-thirty to avoid the traffic. Sunny must have told him that, too. “This is my first day here. Don’t screw it up for me.”
He held up his hands and stepped away from the car to stand in front of her. “Who, me?”
She threw her purse into the front seat of her Miata. Certain this was one of the last warm days of the season, she’d left the top down.
Witt still wore his detective outfit, navy suit, light blue, button-down shirt, and striped tie. Three spaces away, he’d parked his nondescript tan department vehicle.
Then his big body blocked the view. Max wasn’t short, she topped five-nine with her three-inch heels, but Witt towered over her. It never failed to make her feel petite and feminine.
“People will see.”
He ignored her protests, moving in until she had to lean back to look into his eyes. “Didn’t get my good-bye kiss last night.” He hadn’t gotten anything else either, well, except her orgasm.
“I kissed you.”
“You call that peck on the cheek a kiss?”
“Yeah.” Damn, he smelled so good she couldn’t concentrate. “Plus you stole one.”
“Quickie. Want a better one.”
“You came all the way for that?” She couldn’t even find a decent reason not to do what he asked since she’d parked down a little slope at the far end of the parking lot and it wasn’t even five yet. And if they fired her for extra-curricular activity in the parking lot, Sunny would merely find her another job.
“Came for another reason, but I want a kiss first.”
“What reason?”
He shook his index finger in her face. “You aren’t going to wheedle it out of me. Kiss me first.”
She pursed her lips. “How do I know it’s worth it?” The feel of his mouth on hers would definitely be worth even the most ridiculous of reasons.
One side of his mouth quirked. “Lance La Russa.”
It was all he had to say. She hadn’t even given Lance a thought until he said the name, but she wanted the information. She’d even pay him to get it. Besides, she wanted to kiss him right there in the parking lot. That way she knew he couldn’t make any really big moves on her.
Putting her hands on his shoulders, she knew he wasn’t going to accept the quick peck this time. She went for the full liplock but no tongue. He tasted like butterscotch candies. Her fingers slid into his hair, and his arms went around her waist, pulling her flush against him. His muscles were hard. The collar of his shirt still smelled fresh out of the laundry. His hair was baby fine and soft. She should have pulled back then, but she couldn’t, didn’t want to. Instead, she relaxed and went up on tiptoe to wind her arms around his neck.
He hadn’t kissed her like this last night in the truck. In some ways, kissing was so much more intimate.
She couldn’t be sure later if she was the one who opened her mouth first, but she heard his sigh and felt his tongue and she liked it. No, she loved it. Warmth spread through her. Her heart rate spiked. She gave a tiny sound of pleasure, and his arms tightened across her back. His teeth nipped at her lower lip. His lips trailed to her ear.
“Jesus, Max,” he whispered, his breath fast, his voice shaky.
She slid down his body until she was standing on the heels of her shoes again. She tingled, she ached, felt all those delicious feelings they talked about in romance novels. “That was police coercion.”
“Mmm. Sure felt a helluva lot better than beating the crap out of a suspect.”
She tipped her head back to look at him. “No way, Detective. You’d always play good cop to someone else’s bad cop.”
He might be persistent. He was certainly dictatorial. He was also the most honorable man she’d ever met. His pride was clearing all his cases, but his goal was justice. Beating a confession out of someone would never even occur to Witt.