A Fine Specimen

  “Can you cook?” Alex asked curiously. He was so outrageously sexy sitting there bare-chested in a kitchen chair, with a dark, bristly jaw, half-closed eyes, cock still so engorged she could make out the veins. She could barely keep from flinging herself at him.

  Now he wasn’t the straight-arrow, button-down upholder of law and order. Now he looked rough, tough and dangerous. He looked like someone he should arrest.

  He was relaxed, but Caitlin knew he could move quickly when necessary, like a cheetah, springing from immobility to blinding speed in a second.

  He hitched up his pajama bottoms, covering that intriguing stalk of hard male flesh with its large, plum-colored head, the source of such amazing delight. She nearly sighed as it disappeared under the drawstring pants.

  Caitlin tried to get her mind away from the strong set of his shoulders and his flat stomach with the thick vee of hair arrowing intriguingly into the pajama bottoms…

  She shook her head and tried to remind herself not to get too sentimental about Alex Cruz, considering that he often behaved as if he’d studied at the Mordor School of Charm, under the Dark Lord himself.

  He’d asked her a question.

  “I like good food and can’t afford to eat out much, so yeah, I can cook. If I have food to cook with.” She planted her hands on her hips and tried to look sternly at Alex. It was hard while he was looking at her through slitted eyes, the dark heat so enticing. “I managed to scrounge some scraps for breakfast, but you need to do some serious shopping.”

  “We can go on a food run later,” Alex said lazily, getting up to put plates on the table. “You can fill my pantry to your heart’s delight.”

  “Sounds like a fun way to spend a Sunday.” Caitlin turned the burner back on. She whisked the eggs and milk a bit more and dipped the stale bread in them. The butter started sizzling. “Tell you what, I’ll help you stock up and cook you lunch. And then later in the afternoon you can drive me back to the hotel.”

  “No.” Alex’s deep voice was flat.

  “No?” Caitlin’s hands faltered then shook. Damn her fair skin and the fiery blush of humiliation she could feel rising. Her face would be a hot pink right now. She cursed her pale complexion and the faint hope that had risen in her heart.

  Oh God. It was starting already.

  Though she’d lectured herself all morning not to expect anything from Alex, her traitorous heart had betrayed her. The prospect of spending the rest of the morning and the early afternoon with this new, seductive and playful Alex had been so enticing that she hadn’t stopped to think at all. She’d simply opened her mouth and, like an idiot, let her hopes plop out. She could have slapped herself.

  Everyone at the station house had emphasized that Alex never took a day off. Ever. Not even Sundays.

  He didn’t want to spend the day with her. After the shopping, he wanted to head back to work. And maybe, she thought, as an even deeper flush of embarrassment washed through her, maybe he had another date this afternoon or tonight. The fact that no one knew anything about Alex’s private life didn’t necessarily mean he didn’t have one. Alex Cruz was an incredibly attractive man. He probably had women falling all over him.

  They’d had a brief affair—well, call it what it was, a one-night stand—and it was over. Caitlin swallowed heavily against the acid bile rising in her stomach, telling herself that it was the thought of eating that moldy French toast, though she knew better. It was her idiotic hopes for more than casual sex that were roiling her insides.

  Foolish, foolish Caitlin. She’d known what to expect, no use feeling disappointed. Well, play it cool, Summers, she told herself, turning away—and knocking a mug off the counter.

  Alex moved with lightning speed to catch it before it shattered on the floor. Her flush deepened. Caitlin didn’t even want to think about how she and Alex could have cleaned it up. They were both barefoot.

  This was awful, a repeat of last night’s pants fiasco.

  “Sorry,” she whispered, her gaze going out to the backyard so she wouldn’t have to look at him.

  “Listen to me.” Alex placed the mug back on the counter and caught her shoulders. A long, lean finger turned her head to face him. “I’ll drive you back to the hotel after lunch all right. But just to get your things. You’re not staying in that hotel anymore.”

  Caitlin frowned. He’d gone from amazingly attractive, lazy, sexy Alex to Stern Cop Alex, who was, unfortunately, just as attractive. “I’m not what?”

  Alex’s jaws jumped as he clenched his teeth. “Staying in that hotel. Ever again.”

  “I’m…not?” Caitlin searched his dark eyes.

  “No.” Alex shook her slightly. “You’re going to stay here. With me. At least until you can get yourself set up. I already called the hotel and told them you’d be checking out today. We’ll swing by to get your things this afternoon. I don’t ever want you in Riverhead again. Is that clear?”

  Caitlin blinked. She opened her mouth and nothing came out.

  “I…see,” she said finally.

  “Are we clear?” Alex repeated. She nodded.

  The coffee machine began to hiss and sputter and Caitlin turned it off. She didn’t know what to say…so she started talking. “Sit down. The French toast is almost done. I couldn’t find any syrup or jam, so you can sprinkle some sugar on them instead. There won’t be enough milk after the French toast to put in the coffee, so I hope you like it black. I like a touch of cream myself but…” She shrugged. She took a deep breath, bit her lip and served Alex before sitting down across from him.

  She stared at her breakfast, which didn’t look too appetizing, then lifted her eyes to Alex, who did.

  “I’m going to stay here with you,” she repeated. “For a while.”

  Alex nodded and dug in with a fork.

  Caitlin blew out a breath in frustration. It was what she wanted, but he hadn’t even asked, he’d simply told her.

  Clearly, the country of Alex was no democracy—and its diplomatic corps wasn’t too functional either.

  Alex didn’t have too much experience in politely asking people to do things. In the first half of his life, no one would have done anything for him no matter what he asked or how he asked it. His parents had been lost in their own dark, cruel and desperate world of drugs and alcohol, with nothing left over for him.

  And in the second half of his life, he just gave orders and they were obeyed. Cop shops were like the military. They sure as hell weren’t democracies. So this whole notion of asking someone to do something they might or might not do, depending on their mood, was completely foreign to him.

  Maybe he should have asked Caitlin if she’d like to stay with him while she was doing whatever it was she was doing in the station house.

  No!

  His entire nature balked at the thought. He could ask Caitlin what she’d like for dinner. He could ask her what movie she’d like to see or if she’d like to go for a walk. But her sleeping at the Carlton, in Riverhead, was not an option. It was absolutely out of the question. He’d been crazy to let her stay in the Carlton even one night.

  Riverhead was a place where the druggies and the punks came out of the woodwork after dark. During the day it was only the loonies and sad drunks, so he’d felt more or less satisfied that she wasn’t out and about at the most dangerous times.

  He hadn’t had alarm bells ringing in his head, so against his better judgment, he’d let her stay there. But now they’d had sex. She wasn’t Ray Avery’s anymore, she was his. For the time being, anyway. Her safety was now his direct concern and staying in Riverhead didn’t figure into the equation at all. Riverhead was for scumbags, not gorgeous young scholars.

  She was so beautiful this morning, wearing his shirt, that glorious hair tied back with a shoelace. He’d watched her fussing in his austere kitchen, making a mess, humming softly along with the radio. He’d leaned against the doorframe, drinking in the sight of her and rubbing his chest, where something inside had started
aching.

  She was like a fairy, a good fairy come down to earth just for him, to make him stale French toast and to make sure he broke his three-year record of going into the office every Sunday. Right then, watching her hips sway under his shirt, the idea of going into the office on a Sunday had struck him as insane. Why had he been living like that? Sundays were for gorgeous fairies with their asses swaying gently to the beat.

  “What?” Alex paused for a moment before forking in another bite. She’d said something.

  “I said that’s very kind of you.” When he looked up, startled, she blushed. “To let me stay with you.”

  Alex snorted and sipped his coffee. He wasn’t kind, he was selfish. Having her stay here was purely self-serving. He knew she’d be safe, he wouldn’t have to worry about ferrying her to and fro and he’d have her available for sex whenever he wanted. And now that his dormant hormones had woken up and smelled the roses, he wanted. A lot. But hell, if she wanted to ascribe good-guy sentiments to him…hey.

  “It will only be for a few more days, anyway,” she said earnestly.

  “Yeah?” She was so cute when she was serious. Alex put down his cup. “How so? I thought your study was going to last at least a week.”

  “Oh it will.” Caitlin leaned forward and Alex almost did too, looking for a glimpse of cleavage. He stopped himself, ashamed. It was purest instinct. He didn’t need to grasp this opportunity though. Her breasts, her luscious, pale, round breasts were his for the asking. All he had to do was reach over and unbutton his shirt, and she’d let him. Oh yeah. She was right here, in his house, and all he had to do was reach out to have her.

  “I’ll be looking for an apartment next week. The news isn’t official yet, the announcement will be on Thursday…but it looks like I’m going to be awarded that Frederiksson Foundation fellowship I told you about! I can rent a nice apartment with the stipend that comes with the fellowship.”

  What?

  “Well, that’s…that’s good news,” Alex said slowly. The old joke—good news and bad news. The good news was, she’d be sticking around Baylorville. The bad news was, she wouldn’t be in his house. “How long does a fellowship last?”

  “A year, with an option for renewal for two more.”

  A year of Caitlin. Here in Baylorville. Okay. He could work with that. Alex chewed his stale French toast with renewed enthusiasm.

  “I’m so excited!” Caitlin beamed. “The focus of my project will be on August Vollmer. The Frederiksson has extensive archives, particularly for the period I’m interested in, which runs from the Peelian reform in England to the founding of the IACP. I’m hoping to gather enough material for a book.”

  What the hell was she talking about?

  “Vollmer?” Alex pursed his lips, thinking furiously. “Isn’t that an…unusual choice?”

  “Not really.” Caitlin frowned. “I mean, if you stop to think about it, a modern professional police force would be unthinkable without his theories of management. Why, you could almost call him the precursor to community policing.”

  “You’re right. Of course.” Alex deepened his voice and looked thoughtful. “August Vollmer would make a really interesting subject for a book.”

  Who the fuck is August Vollmer? Alex had some vague memory of a hot summer afternoon in the academy and the most boring professor on the teaching staff mentioning August Vollmer, but for the life of him, he couldn’t remember a thing.

  At the academy, he’d aced every subject that he considered practical and pertinent to policing, including law. Especially law, once he’d made the decision to uphold it instead of break it. He’d had top marks in Surveillance Techniques, Self-Defense and Marksmanship and good marks in everything else except for Police Theory.

  August Vollmer had been somewhere inside the boring part, but where? He didn’t give a shit right now. Right now, all he wanted was to get her out of the Carlton and settled in his bed. Er, his house.

  “Okay.” He slapped the table with open palms.”We’d better get started,” he said, rising to put the plates in the sink. “Otherwise we won’t get back in time for you to cook me a fabulous lunch.”

  Caitlin laughed and stuck her tongue out at him. She ran up the stairs and Alex followed, enjoying the view of her bare legs, with tantalizing, glimmering glimpses of bare ass. It was very tempting to think of sliding his hands under his shirt, cupping those firm cheeks while kissing her, but if he did that they’d end up in bed, which as ideas went was a good one. A really good one.

  His cock, which had been at half-mast as he watched those pink lips and small pink tongue as she ate—and had swelled as he watched her run up the stairs—twitched in eagerness at the idea. Down boy, he told himself. For now, anyway. He had to get Caitlin checked out and get some food in the house before they could play.

  And while he was at it, he was definitely going to have to haul some of his old academy textbooks out of storage and bone up. August Vollmer, eh? He was going to have to work hard to keep up with Caitlin Summers.

  * * * * *

  “We’ve got enough food to feed Baylorville for a month when civilization breaks down,” Caitlin complained. Alex had restocked with a vengeance, including a bottle of real French champagne. To celebrate her fellowship in style, he’d said.

  They had just left the Carlton, where she’d packed up her few possessions and checked out. Alex now headed into a rabbit warren of dark, dank streets. She looked at the bleak surroundings. “And judging by this neighborhood, that day might not be too far off. Where are we, anyway?”

  “We’re in the bad part of Riverhead. I’m taking a few shortcuts home.”

  Caitlin had been staring out the side window but when she heard him, she turned, startled. “You mean the Carlton is in the good part of Riverhead?”

  He looked over at her, just a quick glance out of dark eyes. “Yeah.”

  Caitlin sat back, blinking. The sky was darkening with storm clouds, more every passing minute, but it wasn’t the sun behind the clouds which gave the area such a forsaken air.

  Almost all the buildings were boarded up—or worse, with doors and windows ripped off and mounds of rubbish piled up inside. The streets were almost deserted. This whole section of town was abandoned, as if a war had been lost and conquering troops had passed through, wrecking everything in their path.

  The few Dumpsters there were had been tipped over and ransacked. Black, charred circles on the cracked sidewalk showed where bonfires had been lit. A number of rusted hulks of cars, most with the tires long-since stolen, were parked haphazardly along the street.

  Sullen, too-thin men loitered on door stoops, tipping their heads back and drinking out of bottles wrapped in paper bags. Others were clearly drug addicts.

  Some of the houses looked as if they had been bombed. Caitlin supposed that the owners had set fire to them in hopes of collecting insurance money. There wasn’t a business open, there wasn’t a human being in sight who looked purposeful. Though it wasn’t cold, Alex drove with the windows up and the doors locked.

  He’d made her put her purse in the footwell and had put her things and most of the groceries away in the trunk.

  Alex was in full cop mode, silent, utterly vigilant, eyes flickering constantly to the rearview mirrors.

  Caitlin shivered at the stares of some of the men. There was no way for them to know that Alex was a police officer, but the hatred in their eyes as Alex’s sleek, expensive car drove through the neighborhood, as out of place as an alien spaceship, was unmistakable. He didn’t have to be a cop for them to hate him. Alex belonged to a different world, a world they would never join, and that was enough.

  She pulled her new cotton sweater close around her midriff and shuddered. “What an awful place,” she said.

  “Yeah, it is.” Alex’s voice was grim. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I grew up here.”

  Caitlin shot him a startled glance. Alex was looking straight ahead, but she wasn’t fooled. She could fe
el his concentration centered on her, wondering what her reaction would be.

  This was fascinating. She’d known that he’d grown up on the wrong side of the tracks. It was part of the legend surrounding Alex. How he had been a punk and Ray had saved him. But somehow, being in the area where Alex had grown up made it clearer just how greatly the odds had been stacked against him and how far he’d come in life.

  Caitlin felt her heart swell, but not with pity. Alejandro Cruz didn’t need her pity. He didn’t need anyone’s pity.

  Caitlin had worked in the inner city on a sociology project for three summers straight. She knew very well how a bad neighborhood could suck its young into its own negative gravity of hopelessness and despair.

  But Alex had been strong enough, smart enough to get out and prevail over his background. He was an alpha male, and alpha males win or die trying. He’d made a success of his life, despite the odds against it. Caitlin felt only admiration for what Alex had done with himself. Admiration…and something more.

  She’d been close to falling in love with him and, right there, in a car driving through the ’hood, Alex staring straight ahead, his knuckles white on the wheel, she slid all the way in.

  It wasn’t just the sex, she thought almost sadly. It would be easier if it were. Falling in love with Alex Cruz was not a smart move, but there it was.

  “It’s a tough neighborhood,” she said gently.

  Alex nodded, his face tense.

  “But you were tougher.”

  He swiveled his head and Caitlin smiled at him. Alex stared at her for a second then turned his attention back to the road. He was quiet for another mile, then one corner of his mouth lifted in that half smile she was starting to know so well. “Yeah,” he said softly. “I was tougher.”

  They drove in silence. Alex clearly knew his way around the area. Caitlin had long since lost her sense of direction. The sky was turning purple and sheet lightning flared on the horizon. A big fat raindrop splattered on the windshield, then another.