Книга - Silk, Lace & Videotape

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.

That smooth voice wrought a tiny shiver. Although she didn’t think gusts of wind would be a threat on an elevator, Amanda decided she couldn’t be too careful at this point and hugged her coat all the tighter.

Nodding, she led the way inside the small space. Soon she would be safe inside Victor’s apartment and this steamy little interlude would be over. That would be a good thing, right? “Tenth floor.”

He pushed the button and Amanda noticed he didn’t press another one for himself. Did he live on Victor’s floor, too? Or was he preparing to mug her in the hallway?

She shook off her suspicion, certain criminals knew better than to wear such memorable clothing. Even if she hadn’t spent her life attuning herself to fashion, she would have known that tie anywhere.

The ancient elevator lurched its way upward, causing Amanda to waver on her feet just a little. The man’s hand slid under her elbow in a flash, securing her with a quick, sure grip.

He steadied her on her feet anyway. Her pulse kicked up a notch at his touch, leaving the rest of her feeling more flustered and overheated than ever.

“Maybe we should have taken the stairs,” he noted, his hand falling back to his side.

“Not in these shoes.” She was used to heels, but these shoes were made of little more than ribbons.

She regretted the words the moment she said them, because his blue gaze slid immediately to her feet. Then he eased up her legs, lingering on the short stretch of pale pink stocking exposed beneath the hem of her coat. Finally, he breezed over the rest of her body, his eyes meeting hers again.

The man had a lazy stare that was far too bold.

Amanda found herself wanting to show him more.

He nodded slowly. “You’re right. The shoes present a problem. But that’s a great coat.”

Amanda stared up at the numbers flashing by as they cruised upward, certain if she met the man’s searing blue eyes he would somehow guess her secret. “Thanks,” she managed.

“Classy and conservative.” He straightened his tie, drawing her attention back to the colorful cosmic pattern. “Right up my alley.”

Amanda couldn’t suppress a laugh. “I can tell.”

The elevator bell chimed as they hit the tenth floor.

For a moment, Amanda forgot it was her stop. She merely soaked up the warmth emanating from this dynamic stranger, wishing she’d known more people in her life who found it so easy to laugh at themselves.

Wishing she’d known a man who could make her feel so sexy without even trying.

“Your floor?” He held the automatic doors open when they began to shut again.

She gave herself a shake. What had gotten into her? “Yes, please,” she murmured, eager to escape those mesmerizing eyes.

She walked with leaden steps toward Victor’s door, her enthusiasm for today’s scheme significantly lessened. How could she seduce her boyfriend when a total stranger had just turned her on more in five minutes than two months’ worth of kisses from Victor?

As she stood in front of apartment 10G, she considered forgetting the whole thing. After nearly overheating in the elevator, Amanda was surprised at the slight chill that tripped over her now.

Then she recalled all the time she’d spent crafting the secret weapon. She’d created the striptease video so that she could finally learn if she possessed the ability to incite a man to lust.

Not exactly the Catholic school values she’d been taught, but Amanda needed assurance he was really the right man. Besides, didn’t she deserve just a little adventure in her life?

Shoving aside thoughts of Blue Eyes, Amanda rang Victor’s doorbell.

The spiky-haired stranger materialized at her side before her summons was answered. “Hey, is Vic a friend of yours, too?”

The heated sensations came flaming back to life.

Was Blue Eyes following her? She needed to put an end to this before she did something she’d regret. Like hustle the man into a broom closet and not come out for a week or two. “Yes. We are practically engaged,” she returned, pretty sure that Victor wouldn’t let anyone call him “Vic.”

“That’s too bad.” He shook his head. “I didn’t realize you would be here at this early hour or I would have waited to come by.”

Maybe the man did business with Victor. “It’s okay. I don’t usually bother Victor during his business hours, but—”

The door to apartment 10G swung open. Only the person standing there was not the man who’d practically begged Amanda to marry him.

No.

The person in Victor’s apartment was an exotic dark-haired beauty with bed-rumpled hair, smeared lipstick and a man’s bathrobe.

Confusion warred with shock. Surely Amanda had the wrong apartment….

Then Victor’s voice shouted from the back room. “Who is it, Cindy?”

The woman in the entryway flicked her gaze over Amanda and seemed to dismiss her. She licked her lips while ogling Mr. Necktie, however.

Cindy didn’t bother to greet them. She turned to shout over her shoulder. “It’s for you.”

Amanda’s confusion turned to anger as she watched the woman’s bold-as-you-please bare feet pad their way across the parquet floor to Victor’s kitchen. The interloper’s generous curves clearly swayed beneath the bathrobe, highlighting the woman’s lack of undergarments.

Humiliation burned Amanda’s eyes then singed its way through the rest of her. If not for the sudden sensation of Mr. Necktie’s bracing touch at her back, she might have whipped her secret weapon across the room straight into the woman’s sashaying butt.

Her elevator companion leaned close to whisper in Amanda’s ear. “Maybe you should come back later.” He nudged her slightly, unaware her feet were frozen to the floor.

Amanda’s good-girl instincts might have won out. She might have turned and walked away from what would no doubt be an ugly scene if two-timing Victor hadn’t stepped into the hallway at that moment.

“Who is it, babe—” he started before halting in his equally barefoot tracks to gape at Amanda.

How could she have ever thought she might love this man? His precisely creased pants were fastened but his belt had not yet been buckled. A silk Armani shirt fluttered at his sides, unbuttoned to reveal a sprinkling of dark chest hair and an abdomen honed to perfection at a posh gym.

How ironic that this was the most she’d ever seen of his body.

Even when he was caught in an act that revealed the blemished nature of his soul, the man had the nerve to look like an airbrushed advertisement.

His betrayal slammed through her, reminding her that no matter how successful her designs became, she’d never truly fit in her father’s glamorous world. Once again, Amanda Matthews had been the outsider, only this time she hadn’t even been aware of it—until now.

Her inner fury sprung to life and effectively un-froze her from her shock. That had paralyzed her. Her feet flew in Victor’s direction. “You no-good, lying bastard—”

Blue Eyes slid in between her and her target. “Maybe we’d all better sit down here and sort this out.” He gripped Amanda by the shoulders, his unwavering gaze fixed on her alone.

Rage burned through her, seeking any target in her path, even an undeserving one. She spewed some of that hurt anger onto Mr. Necktie.

“Who the hell are you?” Amanda’s words mirrored Victor’s.

Blue Eyes withdrew a small leather case from his coat pocket and flashed a shiny badge in both of their directions. His eyes remained on Amanda, however. “Detective Duke Rawlins, NYPD, at your service.”

A cop?

She’d been fighting an attraction to a cop? Amanda’s anger ebbed just a little as a wave of fear took its place. In the background she heard Victor and his trollop both start talking at once, but all Amanda could think about was getting hauled off to jail. The detective had followed her into the building and right into Victor’s apartment. Obviously she had more trouble on her hands than a lying, cheating boyfriend.

Had she committed some violation of the indecent exposure code? Had that gust of wind revealed more than she’d realized? What if he frisked her? Or heaven forbid, searched her? A strip search wouldn’t play out well at all. She tugged her coat tie tighter.

And if she got booked as a common flasher… Amanda didn’t think she’d survive the embarrassment. Her father provided more than enough Matthews family gossip for the tabloids. Her recent accolades as an up-and-coming designer in her own right would be meaningless in light of such a scandal.

Detective Rawlins pointed toward the couch. His whole demeanor had changed. The cheeky grins from the elevator had vanished. He seemed utterly at ease taking command of the room. “Ladies, I’m going to need both of you to take a seat for questioning while I take care of Mr. Gallagher.”

Cindy harrumphed her way over to the couch, no longer flirting with Blue Eyes now that she knew his identity. The woman glared at Amanda, as if the morning’s events were somehow her fault. Amanda ignored her, too worried about how she would explain jail time to her father to let Victor’s other girlfriend rattle her. Amanda carefully seated herself in a wingback chair, making sure her coat remained plastered to her thighs.

Detective Rawlins walked around the living room, his gaze seeming to absorb every detail of Victor’s sparsely decorated apartment. “Vic, you’re already looking at three to ten for helping your drug importer friends. If you start talking to me about your business partners, maybe I won’t call the IRS about all your undeclared income.”

Relief poured through Amanda as the cop read Victor his rights and arrested him on a string of charges Amanda didn’t really understand. What was criminal facilitation anyway?

All she could think about was maybe she wouldn’t face flasher charges now.

Amanda whispered a quick prayer of thanksgiving that she wasn’t going to jail. All she had to do was keep her coat firmly cinched, answer the detective’s questions, and not allow his sexy smile to unnerve her again.

Then with any luck, she could limp out of here in her fuchsia heels and go back to her safe—but respectable—existence.




2


DUKE SAVED AMANDA Matthews for last.

Not because she looked like a fifties movie star in her pink shoes and Grace Kelly hairdo. He was too professional to base his work decisions on personal lust. Besides, he knew society types were out of his league.

Instead, Duke kept Amanda waiting past noon because of her infamous last name. He thought she could be the key to important information for his case and it might help loosen her lips to let her worry a bit.

The notion teased his sex-starved senses.

Poor choice of pImages**.

Duke looked around Victor Gallagher’s apartment in an attempt to pull himself together. His thoughts—and his eyes—had strayed to the curvaceous knockout seated primly in a leather wingback chair all morning. Now, he forced himself to run through a mental checklist of police procedure to be sure every facet of the search, questioning and arrest had unfolded according to regulation.

Duke’s partner had taken a rare sick day today, forcing Duke to be all the more thorough. The last thing he needed was for Gallagher to walk on some bogus technicality and blow this case for him.

Clyde Matthews’s fabric supplier would be the first of many arrests in the Garment District in the next few weeks if Duke’s case progressed as planned. Duke had worked for eight months gathering evidence of shady dealings in the fashion world, and starting today, he would reap the unique satisfaction of restoring justice in his backyard. Not only would he clean up the tenth precinct considerably, he would also be up for a promotion to Detective, First Grade.

Another bad guy behind bars. Another proverbial star on Duke’s chest. His granddad would be proud.

Only two uniformed officers remained on the scene collecting and labeling evidence from the search. Gallagher had been carted off nearly an hour ago, and Duke had just dismissed the gold-digging tart who’d been wearing the bathrobe.

He couldn’t put off questioning Amanda any longer.

She looked more vulnerable in person than in her file photo. Her fingers twisted white-knuckled around the cinched tie of her trench coat. She was obviously cold from the inside out after what had happened today.

No damn wonder.

A few hours ago she’d been “practically” engaged to an industry insider who looked like a walking fashion ad. Now she had a two-timing boyfriend facing at least three years in jail.

No sense feeling sorry for her. Duke knew from experience how women from her world operated. The darlings of New York’s social pages could shake off a bad relationship. By noon tomorrow she’d probably be ready to have a power luncheon with her rich girlfriends to pinpoint the next ideal candidate for engagement.

Duke had been taken in by pearls and good breeding at one point in his life. He’d been left with the retreating tread marks from the designer high heels, too.

Steeling his libido for the next round with those sheer pink stockings, he approached the wingback chair. “Excuse me, Ms. Matthews?”

She started at the sound of his voice. One hand flew from her lap to her chest, as if to still her heart. Or perhaps to clutch that damn coat more tightly to her neck. What on earth was she wearing under that trench coat anyway?

As if in answer to his question, the bunched coat fabric on her thighs slid slightly open, revealing two more inches of stocking and no sign of a skirt hem.

For one riveting moment, Duke thought he spied the top of a stocking. His body stirred in wholly inappropriate ways, even after she secured the folds of the trench coat in her lap again.

Damn. Just how short was her skirt?

“Yes?” She looked up at him with wary hope in her dark brown eyes. “May I go now?”

“I’m afraid not. I need to ask you a few questions about your relationship with Victor Gallagher.” Of course, any information she wanted to volunteer about Gallagher’s business or her father’s mob connections would be helpful, he thought, taking a seat on the couch across from her.

“He’s in serious trouble?” Concern knitted her brows.

“Felony charges with a penalty of three to ten. I’d call it serious.” Did she really care after discovering him in such a compromising situation? The notion bugged Duke. Amanda had a gentle air about her, despite the killer outfit she must be wearing under that trench coat. She seemed too refined to be connected to a criminal like Gallagher. Despite his gangster reputation, her infamous father had obviously sheltered his only daughter.

She rubbed her upper arms as if to ward off a chill. “What exactly did he do?”

“A number of things. He’s been helping to import drugs into the States, using his fabric business as a cover.” He tried to keep the explanation simple, not wanting to dissuade Amanda from cooperating. What if she still carried a torch for the guy?

She looked surprised. And frightened.

“I had no idea.” She worried the fullness of her lower lip with straight, white teeth. “He seemed so…cultured. He doesn’t seem like a street thug.”

Duke wondered if she knew the extent of her father’s business dealings. He’d be willing to bet the elder Matthews didn’t seem like a street thug, either, but he rubbed elbows with the oldest—and toughest—gang in the city. “You’re a window dresser, Ms. Matthews?”

“I create windows for my father, but I’ve started my own design business as well,” she corrected him, then smiled. “I make the distinction so my father doesn’t slip back into thinking I’m his personal maid and secretary. How did you know what I do?”

“You’re a line item in Gallagher’s file. I only checked into the basics though.” Her ritzy address, her perfect education, her relationship with Victor—which had seemed fairly superficial from the reports Duke had received. Now that Duke had met Amanda, he couldn’t imagine why Gallagher wouldn’t have claimed her already. The guy had made a colossal mistake as far as Duke could see.

“You were planning to arrest him from the moment I first saw you this morning, weren’t you?”

Duke thought it wise not to reveal the exact nature of his thoughts when he’d first seen her this morning. Purely carnal. “Sorry I couldn’t have spared you the inconvenience, but—”

“It’s Amanda. Please.” She smiled at him in a way that managed to be both warm and distant. She apparently couldn’t shake her boarding school manners even in the event of police questioning, no matter how much the proceedings disrupted her day—her life.

Duke would have preferred to maintain as many social barriers between them as he possibly could—especially with his mind straying back to that tantalizing glimpse of stocking every other minute. He wasn’t about to be rude, however. “Amanda.” The name pleased him as it rolled off his tongue. “Could you tell me why you were visiting Victor Gallagher today?”

She blanched. She shifted uncomfortably in her seat. She might as well have shouted through a megaphone that she was about lie to him. “It was just a simple…social call.”

Duke hadn’t suspected Clyde Matthews’s daughter of anything save poor judgment in boyfriends, but now he began to wonder. She looked as guilty as a sinner on Sunday. “Apparently you were going to surprise him…?”

She adjusted the coat over her lap for the tenth time. “What makes you say that?”

“If he knew you were on your way over, don’t you think he would have showed his lady friend to the door?”

Her cheeks grew as pink as her stockings. “Then it’s a good thing I didn’t tell him I was on my way, isn’t it? I never would have known.”

God knew he could relate to how she felt. He’d learned quickly that the cop groupies he’d dated when he first arrived in New York weren’t picky about which detective they slept with. Duke’s attempts to be selective since then had left him with long dry spells. In fact, his current dry spell had him drooling over Amanda Matthews’s trim calves beneath those sheer stockings, and wreaking havoc on his concentration.

Duke squelched his sympathy, needing to focus on his job. “So your visit today was social?”

She nodded, looking a bit calmer now.

Duke moved on, filing away her reactions along with her answers. He would uncover Amanda’s secrets sooner or later, even if he had to keep her and her very short skirt here for another hour.

Heaven help him.

He withdrew a pen and paper to give himself something to do, a way to distract himself. “And how would you characterize your relationship overall? Is it mostly social, or do the two of you discuss business when you spend time together?”

Amanda heard the detective’s question, but she didn’t want to answer it. She watched his pen seesaw back and forth over his thumb, mesmerized, and tried to think of a way around the question. She didn’t need another cop nosing into her family’s business. Her father might look like a favored son of the mob, but he only made suits for them. The association had troubled her for years, but she had yet to talk her father out of his bigwig clients.

“Victor and I rarely discussed business,” she replied, shifting her position in the gray leather wingback chair.

Her limbs were stiff with the tension of her rigid posture, but she refused to unveil another millimeter of stocking. Had it been her imagination, or had Duke Rawlins’s eyes widened at the revelation of so much thigh a few moments ago?

Had he been admiring her stockings or contemplating indecent exposure charges?

“When you did discuss business, what sorts of things would come up?”

“Victor is not on the creative side of my business, so there wasn’t really much for us to discuss. He’d encourage me to find out what kinds of fabric I thought my father might want for his next collection ahead of time so that Victor could be first in line to give him good prices on it.”

The pen stopped seesawing. “Did you?”

His intent look made her wonder if she should have called a lawyer. But then, what did she have to hide?

Besides the obvious.

“Would it be a crime if I did?” She would brazen this out.

“No, Amanda.”

Why had she asked him to call her that? Her name on his lips had a way of slithering over her like a slow caress. As if in response, the ties on her merry widow began to unravel from their loose knot, threatening to leave Amanda as unbound and jiggling as that hussy Victor had been sleeping with. She sucked in her belly, hoping to ease off any extra pressure from the garment.

This particular article of clothing was not designed to wear for more than five minutes anyway. It was intended to drive a man wild in thirty seconds flat. No wonder she was springing out of it. “Well, I have never been able to anticipate my father’s creative direction, so I never supplied Victor with any inside information. He found out what Clyde Matthews wanted when the rest of us did.”

Her father thrived on the aesthetic of a successful artist—the lunches in trendy cafés, the shows in Paris and Milan, the endless parade of up-and-coming designers, artists and models that peopled his studio at all hours. It didn’t seem to bother him that his artistic immersion had never left time in his life for anything else, including his only child.

Duke Rawlins cleared his throat and set aside his hyperactive pen. “So how long have you known Gallagher?”

Something in his demeanor, the way he leaned forward slightly, made the question sound personal.

The silk lining of her coat teased the tops of her breasts with every breath she took. The fabric would be teasing a whole lot more if her merry widow sprung loose and wound up around her ankles. “For almost a year.”

And Victor had never given her more than a good-night kiss in all that time. Obviously, he’d had a more pleasing partner to fulfill his other needs.

The dog.

“Has he ever offered you illegal drugs?”

“I beg your pardon?” Righteous indignation fired through her.

“You know, methamphetamines, crack, ecstasy, any number of lab-created specialties—”

“He most certainly did not!” Just who did Duke Rawlins think she was? Amanda might not be wearing anything but lace and satin beneath her coat, but she was not that kind of girl.

Trying to coerce her boyfriend into an intimate relationship ranked as her biggest moral transgression to date.

“I have to ask, Amanda.” At least the detective had the decency to flash her a semi-apologetic smile. “If it makes you feel any better, you don’t seem to fit my profile of a drug user anyway.”

Before Amanda could splutter a retort, a uniformed police officer approached.

“Excuse me, Detective.” The young woman lifted a shopping bag to show Duke Rawlins. “We are finished here. I checked and rechecked all the labels and the evidence-gathering procedures. We dug up a few bills of sale for fabric, a list that might be potential drug buyers. Everything is in order.”

Amanda eyed the tall female officer labeled R. Patterson as the woman spoke with Amanda’s interrogator. Ms. Patterson didn’t look like the type to ever wind up half-naked in a police interrogation. Amanda would also lay odds that R. Patterson would kick her boyfriend’s butt if he dared to treat her the way Victor had treated Amanda.

Amanda had that kind of confidence in her professional world, but on a personal level, she couldn’t seem to get her act together. She’d let her father take advantage of her half her life, and now she’d obviously allowed Victor to do the same thing.

“Thanks, Patterson,” Duke Rawlins called over his shoulder as the woman left with the last remaining uniformed officer.

Leaving Amanda alone with a very sexy detective.

The quiet of Victor’s apartment seemed to intensify after the door shut behind the departing officers. Amanda became aware of the clock ticking on the wall, the hum of the overhead light in the kitchen.

And she became keenly aware of Duke Rawlins’s intensely blue eyes upon her.

How could she feel such tangible lust for a man she’d just met? A man who’d arrested her boyfriend, witnessed the biggest humiliation of her life and held her captive with his interrogation while an even bigger humiliation threatened in the form of a renegade merry widow.

What a disaster.

“I guess that’s it, Amanda.” Detective Rawlins tucked his notepad inside his leather jacket pocket, but made no move to stand. “Would you do me a favor?”

For a moment, she lost herself in the depths of his blue eyes. The color matched the fluorescent blue on several of his necktie stars.

She found herself saying, “I will if I can.”

His crooked grin sent a thrill through her, far more potent than the silk lining on her bare skin. “Call me if you think of anything else about your boyfriend that might help me.”

She took his card and read over it absently. “He’s not my boyfriend anymore, Detective,” she clarified.

Amanda sensed the heat of a blush start on her neck and spread to her cheeks. Why had she felt the need to tell him that?

“Can’t say I blame you after today,” he returned, slowly rising to his feet. “And please, call me Duke.”

Amanda scrambled to follow him, ready to flee the apartment and those intense eyes as fast as possible.

Too late she remembered her merry widow.

It slid about two inches south, the bra cups rolling like window shades under the curve of each breast. Amanda would give anything to untie and retie her entire ensemble before she walked out the door, but not while the tempting detective remained in the apartment with her.

She folded her arms over her chest. “Thank you, Duke.”

The words sounded throaty and breathless and very flirtatious when in fact, fear for her costume merely edged Amanda a bit closer to hyperventilating.

She inched toward the door, praying she could escape without flashing Duke. Even her shoes were coming untied, but she refused to bend over to secure them.

“Well, if that’s all then…?” she prodded, waiting only for his official nod so she could slink back home after her horrid day.

He scrubbed a hand along his square jaw and frowned. “Actually, would you mind stopping by the precinct tomorrow to answer a few more questions? Say around eleven?”

“More questions?” Not that she was in a position to argue, but what more could she tell him about Victor? Apparently she hadn’t known him at all.

Besides, she’d have to face the allure of that chiseled jaw and sinful smile all over again.

“I always think of a few more things after the case settles in my mind for a day.” He shrugged as if in apology. “I could send a car over to your father’s studio if it would help.”

“That’s not necessary.” Now there was an image—New York’s Finest descending on Clyde Matthews’s showroom. What if some bigwig crime boss had scheduled a fitting with her father or something? Social awkwardness at its height. Besides, Amanda wasn’t sure how she would explain her run-in with the police to her father in the first place. “I’ll drop by at eleven.”

Once she put some clothes on, conversing with Duke wouldn’t be nearly as…provocative.

She hoped.

“Great.” He strode toward the door and opened it for her. “I’ll see you then.”

Freedom beckoned. Escape loomed so near.

Yet Duke halted her before she could take step into the hallway. “You’ll twist an ankle in that shoe unless you tie it.” He allowed the door to swing closed as his gaze lingered on her foot.

The pink ribbons meant to tie her foot into the shoe had completely unraveled. As with her merry widow, Amanda hadn’t double knotted any portion of her outfit. Now if she bent over to adjust her shoe, her merry widow was history.

If she left her pink high heel untied, she’d hobble right out of it before she reached the elevator.

An untied shoe seemed like a little thing in comparison to finding out her boyfriend had been cheating on her, that her judgment in men led her into a relationship with a criminal.

But it threatened to be more than she could bear in light of everything else. She bit one “Passion Flower Pink” nail and tried to decide what to do next.

She suspected the moment had turned awkward when Duke’s brows lifted in unison.

He jabbed a thumb in the general direction of her foot. “Want me to tie it for you?”

A flood of gratitude had her head bobbing agreement and her mind making mental notes to buy a whole table full of tickets for the Policemen’s Ball this year. “Would you mind?”

He didn’t move for a long moment. Perhaps he was surprised she’d taken him up on his offer.

She wanted to offer an excuse for her odd behavior—perhaps that she’d been afflicted with a debilitating spine condition that inhibited her mobility. Or that she’d sprained her index finger last week and she found it difficult to manage the ties.

But she’d never been any good at lying.

Finally, he reached for her arms. Amanda might have stepped back, but she would have stepped out of her shoe. Or out of her merry widow.

“Why don’t you have a seat for just a minute?” he prompted, guiding her to the arm of the wingback.

She nodded like a complacent five-year-old, having her shoe tied before running out to the bus. Only Duke’s touch didn’t make her feel a bit like a five-year-old.

He kneeled at her feet, anchoring her shoe with his thigh and gently steering her foot into position on the sole. For a moment, his thumb and forefinger ringed her ankle, imprisoning her leg and putting her senses on alert. Then his broad hands glided over the silky finish of her stockings, the rough pads of his thumbs catching the material ever so slightly to send shocks of pleasure up her calf, to her thigh, and beyond….

Her eyes fluttered closed at the unaccustomed sensation. What a shock he would get if he followed that trail with his hands.

In an instant, his hands turned brusque and professional again, tying her shoe with a firm tug on both ends of the knot.

She opened her eyes to find him staring up at her, his gaze broadcasting even more heat than his hands. She made a small sound—a little hiss of breath like a kettle releasing excess steam.

He practically jumped up from the floor. “Are you going to be okay?” His voice scratched along her nerves, low and gruff.

She nodded, remembering her haste to make an exit. “Yes. I am…um…sorry.”

“You’ve had a hell of a day.” He extended his hand as if to shake hers.

Amanda accepted it, regretting those few seconds where she would only have one hand to secure the trench coat. “Thank you, Duke.”

Their palms clasped briefly, though Duke snatched his hand back almost as quickly as she did. With her father’s reputation as a friend of the mob, she’d grown used to men running from her. Still, she couldn’t help but think Duke’s retreat didn’t have anything to do with fear of being a mob target.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” he reminded her.

If Amanda hadn’t just been unceremoniously dumped by her boyfriend today, she might have actually looked forward to seeing Duke again. God knew she was attracted. Too attracted. Maybe that was part of the problem.

Her judgment in men was more faulty than San Andreas if today’s fiasco was any indication. She wasn’t about to get burned by a flashy police detective who seemed to know where her on switch was located.

“Bye.” Amanda tossed the word over her shoulder as she left the apartment. She trotted to the elevator as fast as her pink heels would allow her. In less than sixty seconds, she was out the door and in a cab headed back uptown, safe from Duke’s knowing eyes and tempting grin.

Only then did Amanda allow herself to relax. The cabdriver was too busy swearing at traffic and the participants on his talk radio program to notice her furtive attempts to retie her merry widow, shielding her chest with her lapels.

She could hardly believe she’d escaped Victor’s apartment without anyone noticing she wore next to nothing beneath her coat. Relief slowly drifted over her, easing the aching muscles in a body that had been rigid for too many hours.

She’d made it out with her dignity and her secret weapon in tact. Amanda patted her coat pocket to reassure herself it still rested there.

She found nothing.

Ohmigod. Horrified, she patted her other pocket.

Nothing.

The cabdriver’s swearing faded to the background as panic seized her. The traffic lights and midday pedestrians blurred outside the windows, her whole attention focused on searching the taxicab seats in the hope her tape had fallen out of her pocket since she’d hopped into the car.

No luck.

She’d lost her secret weapon.




3


DUKE LINGERED IN the doorframe after Amanda left Gallagher’s apartment. He’d watched her click her way to the elevator in those hot pink Barbie doll heels, her walk as confident as if she’d been in running shoes. Behind him, the room already seemed too quiet, less animated.

Damn.

He’d let her breathy voice and glimpses of stocking distract him from his questioning—something that hadn’t happened in nearly ten years on the job with the NYPD. He’d covered his butt by asking her to stop by the precinct tomorrow, knowing the surroundings would keep his mind focused on his case and not Amanda’s legs.

Still, he hoped like hell she wore pants.

The ringing of his cell phone provided a welcome interruption.

He flipped open the speaker as he stalked Gallagher’s apartment one last time. “Rawlins.”

The male voice on the other end didn’t bother with salutations. “The word at the station is that Amanda Matthews looks even better in person than in her file photo.”

Duke’s laid-up partner, Josh Winger, had obviously heard the scoop on the day’s arrest already. “Hey, Winger. If you weren’t such a wuss you could have seen her for yourself.”

“A few more hours and the doc swears I’m non-contagious. Want me to come in and go over the evidence with you?”

Josh had three more years on the force than Duke, but the two of them had been teamed up more often than not since Duke joined the NYPD. They did a solid rendition of good cop/bad cop, and their investigative styles complemented each other.

But Duke hadn’t minded going solo today. Josh would have given him hell if he had seen how Amanda had rattled him.

“I’ve got it covered.” Duke glanced through Gallagher’s CD collection, looking for any stone left unturned in the earlier search. Maybe he’d find that final piece of damning evidence—some irrefutable link between Victor and his drug buddies. “Why don’t you watch a few more Starsky and Hutch reruns and see if you can pick up a couple of pointers.”

“The only thing I’m learning from Starsky and Hutch is that we’re getting rooked on our standard-issue vehicle. I’m thinking we need to talk to the deputy inspector about issuing us something cooler, something packing a little more horsepower.”

Finding nothing in the CDs, Duke moved to the bookshelf, another area that sometimes went overlooked in a search. He found it odd that the small collection lacked a single title on fashion or fabric. “You get the shakes driving over fifty-five anyway. My granddaddy always used to say ‘don’t bite off more than you can chew.’”

“To hear you tell it, Duke, your granddaddy spoke in pithy wisdom from the moment you were born. Did you just make up this ancestor so you could spout clichés and old wives’ tales?”

“My granddad would kick your city slicker ass if he knew you implied he was an old wife.” Duke smiled to think about it. Granddad had a deep suspicion of New York City, but he’d applauded Duke’s decision to police the Big Apple, assuring him there wasn’t a city in the world that needed a Rawlins so badly. “Besides, aren’t you grateful he made sure I always have something to say?”

Josh groaned. “Now I know who to blame. Call me if you find anything more over there, you hear me? I don’t want you blowing your promotion because you didn’t have me to help you out.”

“Go pop your pills, old man. I’ve got it covered.” Duke flipped the receiver closed before Josh could quibble.

He would make Detective, First Grade, without any help from his partner. Josh had made the upward move last year, and Duke’s review approached at the end of May. Once Duke cleaned up the Garment District with a round of solid felony arrests this spring, his record would be prime for an upgrade.

So shall you scale the stars…another bit of Granddad’s wisdom. Maybe a promotion in the police department wasn’t quite so poetic, but Duke worked with what he had. He loved this job.

He headed to the couch cushions, often a goldmine for scraps of notepaper or maybe an incriminating bill of some sort. Gallagher’s couch looked like it benefited from frequent maid service, however.

He moved to the wingback next. The chair still held a trace of Amanda Matthews’s scent—something clean and rain-washed and simple. Like one flower instead of ten.

She was a mix of contradictions. The conservative trench coat and straightforward fragrance seemed at odds with her starlet hairstyle and pink stockings. Any way Duke added it up, Amanda still emerged from the equation appealing as hell.

Too bad she was a society fixture and mixed up with a criminal to boot. No matter how good she smelled, Amanda Matthews earned a place on Duke’s personal “off-limits” list.

Heaven knew, he could spend hours debating Ms. Matthews’s charms, but he had a job to finish. Duke ordered his nose to ignore the flowery temptations as he lifted the gray leather cushion.

A black rectangular case slid to the floor.

“What the…” How had the search team missed this earlier today? Duke rolled on a pair of latex gloves and bent to retrieve the item.

He opened the case, confirming his suspicion that a videotape rested inside. A white sticker labeled it “Private” in pencil.

Storing the evidence in a plastic bag, Duke pondered the handwriting on the sticker. He might not have a graphology degree, but he sensed a deliberateness in the dark stroke of the lines as if the writer had really meant the “Private” warning.

The thrill of crime busting snaked through him—the same thirst for justice that had pushed him through four years of college and almost a decade on the force. He couldn’t wait to go review the tape tonight at the precinct.

It took him less than an hour to make a final sweep of the place and talk to the building superintendent about Gallagher’s comings and goings. Duke made a few last notes and then headed for the lobby, hoping to get back to the station before commuter traffic kicked in.

He was ducking under the potted palms near the elevators when a snappy click of high heels grabbed his attention.

Amanda Matthews had returned.

So did Duke’s response to her. He’d been hoping his earlier lust had been a fluke, but his current physical affliction assured him he wanted her.

Duke took advantage of her distracted state to study her. She’d obviously gone home and changed. Her trench coat flung wide open now, revealing a black turtleneck sweater he’d be willing to bet was cashmere. Gray wool trousers covered every inch of her luscious legs and black leather boots encased her feet, their heels as high as the Barbie doll shoes had been. Her light brown hair remained in the high-class twist at the back of her head, although more strands fell forward now to frame her face. A small leather satchel swung on her arm in time with her fast steps.

She looked like a confident fashion executive now, whereas earlier, she’d seemed nervous and shy. All of which had Duke wondering what the hell she was up to.

Struggling to put his duty as a law enforcement official ahead of his hunger for a small taste of Amanda’s smooth skin, Duke strode closer. “Amanda?”

The word halted her, dragging her attention from the elevator doors toward him. The satchel she carried swayed like a pendulum for a moment, then slowed to a stop along with her.

Now that he had a better view of her face, he could tell she wasn’t as confident as her posture suggested. Little lines of worry creased her brow and set her full lips in a straight slash.

She seemed to take a minute to compose herself. Clearly, she hadn’t thought she would be seeing him here. “Detective.”

With a great deal of effort, he managed to flash his charming grin, his good cop facade. “Call me Duke.”

Her answering smile seemed forced, a difficult unveiling of her teeth rather than an act to light up her delicate face.

Damn. He really did not want to discover Amanda was party to her boyfriend’s criminal activities. Why did she have to look so guilty?

“Right. Duke.”

When she didn’t offer any explanation for her presence, Duke prodded her. “Returning to the scene of the crime?”

Amanda struggled to formulate an answer. She hadn’t expected him to be here an hour after he’d finished questioning her. She had hoped to talk the superintendent or maybe a maid into letting her inside Victor’s apartment.

“Believe me, I didn’t want to return to this building.” That much was true. Memories of discovering Victor’s infidelity only reminded her of her inability to interest a man in a real relationship. She’d lost fifteen pounds and spent two years figuring out how to make herself look as attractive as one of her showroom windows, and still no luck. She’d nursed the hope that the secret weapon would somehow help her get her personal life on track before the whirlwind of the fall fashion shows, before her chaotic professional life took over again. But now she’d lost the tape before she’d ever had the chance to try it out.

Not that she would have wanted to after what happened with her ex-boyfriend this morning.

When Duke only waited, smiling politely and blocking her path with his broad shoulders and six-foot frame, Amanda explained, “I thought I lost something at Victor’s this morning.” No harm in revealing that, right?

Duke frowned. “I went over it again after you left and didn’t find a wallet or keys or anything. The place is clean.”

Should she tell him it wasn’t a wallet? Maybe he had found her tape and mistaken it for Victor’s.

No. She wouldn’t risk having to explain herself to him, because she sure as heck couldn’t lie to a cop—not after all those years in Catholic school. Maybe she’d dropped the tape on the street. She prayed a yellow cab had already run over it.

And if a stranger on the street picked up the tape, at least they wouldn’t know who she was. She supposed there was a certain comfort in anonymity.

“Oh. Maybe I’ll just look around the elevators and the hallways.” She waited for him to move out of her way, but his fluorescent stars and spiky hair remained firmly in her line of vision.

“I’ll give you a hand. What did you say you lost?” He finally stepped back to clear her path, but his body shadowed hers on one side.

His proximity sang along her nerves and caused her skin to tingle. Apparently her earlier attraction to Duke hadn’t been related to her slinky lingerie or her bubble gum shoes. She’d swathed herself in cashmere and leather after spending six hours in nothing but lace, yet she could still feel the heat of his body right through her heavy clothes.

“Umm…my date book.” She found herself lying in spite of herself. She had all she could do to string words together around this man, let alone keep her secret weapon a secret. “It wasn’t really important anyway.”

He gave her a reproving stare, the kind that would have had her biting her nails this morning. But now that she had her clothes on she didn’t feel quite so intimidated by this man. Mostly she just felt…turned on.

“It must have been important to drag you all the way back here.”

She shook her head, relaxing a bit now that it seemed Duke hadn’t discovered her videotape. She had probably dropped it on the street as she was getting into the cab anyway. “Not as important as I thought. Maybe I did just need to revisit the scene of the crime to sort of process the day.”

Duke studied her, scrubbing his hand over a five o’clock shadow. “What a jerk, huh?” he finally said, as if he’d decided it was okay to talk to her man-to-woman instead of maintaining his detective role. He jammed his fists in the pockets of his pants.

Amanda smiled to think the man might have won out. She’d been curious about—okay, majorly attracted to—Duke from the moment she’d first seen him. “No kidding. Thank God I found out before things got any more serious.” Her cheeks grew hot as she heard herself speak the words. “That is, before we talked anymore about marriage.”

“You were really thinking of marrying that guy?” Duke lowered his voice on the last few words as an older couple strode by them with three yapping lapdogs on their way to the elevator.

Amanda could hardly believe it herself, given what she’d learned about him today. How could she have been so blind about Victor? She’d been so focused on launching her first year of designs, so fixated on succeeding professionally, that she hadn’t paid much attention to her personal relationships.

She shrugged. “We seemed to have a lot in common—our business, our social circles—”

Duke laughed. His eyes darkened and his gaze narrowed. “You only need one thing in common for a marriage, Amanda, and those aren’t it.”

Intrigued, she leaned a bit closer. Was it really the words or the man that drew her? “And what’s that?”

Before he could respond, a group of schoolkids drifted in the front doors.

Duke grabbed her hand and pulled her out of the flow of elevator traffic. He seemed to scout the back of the lobby and, finding it acceptable, he tugged her into a quiet corner by an antiquated snack machine. “All you need is chemistry. I thought everybody knew that.”

Amanda wondered if he realized he still held her hand. The warmth of his palm engulfed her fingers. An innocent touch?

Not on the receiving end. Amanda was rapidly overheating at that small intimacy combined with the nearness of his broad chest, a unique effect of this man.

“I don’t know….” If Duke’s preposterous statement about chemistry was true, Amanda had more reason to marry a stranger like Duke Rawlins than Victor. “I think you need to base a relationship on more than that.”

Duke shook his head, his blue eyes never leaving hers. “Not me. When I find the right chemistry, I’m not going to waste time comparing interests, political parties or astrological signs, I’m just going to jump in with both feet.”

Was it her imagination, or did he look as bemused by this attraction as she felt?

“Really?” Amanda wished she could be that daring. She’d been overprotected most of her life. Only in the last few years had she risked her father’s disapproval by undertaking her own design projects and seeking out an intimate relationship. Although the former had been wonderfully successful, the latter had left her feeling a little wary. Still, she couldn’t squelch the hunger for adventure that had gnawed at her from the moment she’d slipped into her merry widow this morning.

A hunger which Duke’s presence currently fed and stirred at the same time.

“What if you pick the wrong person?” She knew she couldn’t bounce back from something like that.

Duke rubbed his thumb across the center of her palm and pressed the hollow in her hand, a gesture which provoked unnerving repercussions throughout the rest of her body.

“Wouldn’t be the first time.” The stern expression that crossed his face told her he didn’t relish the thought of making a big mistake.

Yet he didn’t move away, didn’t pull back.

In fact, he loomed within tantalizing reach. Did she drift closer or did he? Caught up in his “live for the moment” attitude, Amanda allowed herself to be mesmerized by his eyes.

“I don’t know if I could ever take risks like that.” She whispered the words more to herself than to him.

Her blood pounded out the beat of her heart in the palm of her hand where he touched her. The rhythm joined them somehow, connected them in an elemental way.

“I think we should find out,” he whispered back, so close she couldn’t think of anything else.

Her attention shifted to his mouth, which seemed to be on a collision course with her own. A moment before contact, her eyes drifted shut in anticipation.

She did not bother to deny him. Her lips seemed to part on their own, welcoming the hot stroke of his tongue, the pressure of his mouth on hers.

The electronic hum of the snack machine faded along with the shuffle of people on the other side of the elevators. Their quiet corner closed in around them, the space igniting with the heat they generated.

Duke wrapped his hands around her waist, then slid them up her spine, urging her closer into the hard wall of his chest.

The silk lining of her trench coat might have teased her earlier today, when Duke had been within a few feet of her nearly naked body. But the sensation paled in comparison to the caress of cashmere now that his heated body pressed insistently against the other side.

Duke breathed in the clean scent of her, so hot for her soft curves and welcoming mouth that he couldn’t think straight. Blood roared in his ears, deafening him to everything but Amanda’s shallow breaths, her tiny sighs as he moved his hands over her hips.

He’d been looking for an excuse to kiss her, thinking if he could only have one taste, he’d satisfy his curiosity and get her out of his head. Now he knew that one taste would tease him forever until he had more.

Much more.

The leather satchel she’d been carrying slid to the floor with a thunk—snapping his attention away from Amanda for a split second just as he’d started to pull her hips to his. In broad daylight. In the lobby of an apartment building. What the hell was the matter with him?

“Amanda.” He held himself still, unable to remove his hands from her just yet. He knew better than this. She was a princess in New York’s fashion society. He was a damn frog in a small pond and he had no desire to enter her glitzy world. Especially not when she could be a suspect in his current case.

Still, it soothed his ego to see her slow return to reality. Her lips remained parted for a long moment, her cheeks flushed and her hair slipping from its twist. Duke mentally placed her in his bed, imagining just how she would look if he’d been making love to her with more than his mouth.

“Amanda.” The word sounded harsh, his voice rough with sexual frustration.

Her eyes flew open, her flush growing deeper.

“Sorry,” she murmured, as if that particular remark fell frequently from her lips. She focused on retrieving her satchel from the floor, her hands a sudden flurry of awkward movement.

Damn.

He stepped back, prying his fingers from her body, afraid he would kiss her all over again in some misguided attempt to apologize. “Don’t be.” He pulled her to her feet again, unwilling to let her walk away looking so bereft. “You kiss like an angel.”

Or like a temptress from a teenage fantasy.

But Amanda Matthews seemed like the kind of woman who would appreciate the first analogy more.

She adjusted the leather strap on her shoulder and rewarded him with a tentative smile. “Really?”

Duke stifled a groan. Just how innocent was she? Maybe Victor Gallagher had taken a lover because his girlfriend, the mobster’s daughter, was off-limits until her wedding night. The idea made sense, considering Amanda had been going into Victor’s apartment building this morning rather than leaving it.

No matter that she’d probably been wearing a killer skirt and real, honest-to-goodness stockings underneath her conservative trench coat. She had an inherent modesty about her, an old-fashioned sense of grace and propriety she broadcasted in everything from her fifties starlet hairdo to her perfect posture.

He squeezed her hand and nodded, knowing he was already in way over his head. “Really. I didn’t mean to get so…carried away.”

She flashed him a high-wattage smile—definitely the fantasy temptress variety—and made him rethink his ideas about her all over again. “You won’t hear me complaining.”

It would have been so easy to kiss her again. Amanda obviously wouldn’t mind. He wanted to touch her so badly his muscles twitched with the effort to restrain himself. But Duke forced himself to think about the consequences.

Despite what he’d spouted about chemistry and jumping in with both feet, Duke knew he’d have to give some thought to involving himself with Amanda Matthews. How wise would it be for a New York detective to lose his head with a sheltered daughter of a possible mobster? A sheltered daughter who’d been lying through her teeth when she’d said she returned to Victor’s building for her date book.

Maybe she was just having a hard rebound after her bout with her indiscreet boyfriend this morning. Surely that accounted for the impassioned kiss more than anything.

Duke nodded toward the lobby. “I’ve got to get back to the precinct and go over today’s evidence. You need a ride downtown?” He asked even though he knew better than to spend too much time in her tempting presence. His granddad would kick his butt if he left a woman stranded.

She shook her head, effectively freeing a few more strands of hair from the slipping knot at the back of her head. Duke’s fingers itched to pull the pins from the caramel-colored mass and see it fall down around her shoulders.

“I’ve got to get back to the showroom to work on a window for my father. You still want me to stop by the station tomorrow?”

“I’d appreciate it.” They reached the lobby doors and he pushed one side open for her, remembering how they’d met just that morning.

The sexy look she sent sizzling his way told him she was remembering, too. “See you at eleven.”

She clicked her way down the street, her trench coat waving a sassy goodbye as it moved in time with her confident step. She had a walk to turn heads, stop traffic and make Duke forget what the hell he was doing.

He’d held the door of Gallagher’s apartment building for at least five people by the time she turned the corner at Twenty-eighth Street, out of his sight.

He knew she’d be very much on his mind, however, when he went to the station to review the day’s evidence for his case against Gallagher.

Her kisses had been hot as a siren’s, but her reaction afterward smacked of an innocence that warned him to exercise caution. Amanda Matthews’s mobster father didn’t intimidate him one bit, but her old-fashioned values and conservative approach gave him pause.

He would proceed very slowly with her, starting tomorrow when she stopped by the precinct at eleven.

Until then, he needed to get his head back into his case and review all the findings of his investigative team today.

And he planned to start by finding out what was on that videotape.




4


AMANDA FUMBLED WITH her keys outside her apartment door. Her overprotective father had insisted she install three different locks to secure the loft that served as her workroom and her home. Normally, she didn’t mind the extra time required to unlock each one, but now that Duke Rawlins’s kiss hummed in her veins, her key ring jumped out of her hands twice before her door was tugged open from the inside.

Her best friend, Lexi Mansfield, stood inside the loft, her black toy poodle at her feet. Lexi had her own apartment on Columbus Circle, but she stopped by Amanda’s often enough to have a closet full of clothes stashed in the hallway. No doubt Lexi had sought out Amanda to hear how the secret weapon had gone over with Victor. Garbed in thigh-high leather boots, a skirt printed with a snakeskin design and a big black angora sweater, the petite brunette possessed an outrageous style that often masked her status as one of New York’s most celebrated fashion reviewers.

Ignoring the jumping and yapping of her little dog, Lexi clucked her tongue and frowned. “You’re giving Muffin a nervous breakdown with all that rattling around out there, girlfriend.” She clutched Amanda’s arm with perfectly manicured red talons and pulled her friend inside. “Come on in here. You look like you need a drink.”

Amanda nodded numbly, not sure whether she was relieved to see Lexi or not. On her short walk home, Amanda had convinced herself the wisest course of action would be to fall into bed and forget the day—the kiss—ever happened. “I’ll have water,” she murmured as she listened to Lexi click her way across the hardwood floors to the small kitchen, the sound echoed by Muffin’s nails tapping along behind her.

Lexi had been Amanda’s best friend since they’d roomed together at boarding school. They shared an interest in clothes that went all the way back to the time Amanda had created a spandex micro-mini dress complete with matching headband for Lexi’s Malibu Barbie doll in second grade.

While Amanda sank into her leather couch, Lexi returned with a cup of hot tea and two gingersnaps perched on the saucer. Even as a part-time resident of Amanda’s apartment, Lexi knew her way around the kitchen far better than Amanda ever had. “Have a cookie, you’ll feel better. I didn’t know what else to do while I was waiting for you, so I baked cookies.”

Great. Just the sort of temptation that would put ten pounds back on her hips in a blink. Still, Amanda smiled at the way her friend blatantly ignored her request for water. The tea tasted better anyway, and it quieted her nerves just a little. At least she felt soothed until she closed her eyes and saw Duke’s startling blue gaze emblazoned inside her eyelids.

Her cup and saucer clattered in her hands. Swiping aside a stack of fabric swatches she’d been working with the day before, Amanda set the teacup on an oversize trunk that served as her coffee table. “Thank you.”

Lexi perched on a tall director’s chair across from her, Muffin curling at her feet. “The curiosity is choking me over here. How did it go?” She looked Amanda up and down. “And please tell me you knew better than to wear all that wool to seduce a man, didn’t you?”

Amanda snorted. “I knew better.”

Lexi leaped out of her chair and plummeted onto the sofa beside Amanda. Her cloud of long black hair floated behind her, kept in motion by Lexi’s natural restless energy. Muffin ran in circles, catching the air of excitement. “It worked, didn’t it? I knew you looked different somehow. Your eyes are sort of starry or something.”

Amanda stifled a groan as she thought of the fluorescent pattern on Duke Rawlins’s tie. “They are definitely not starry. And thankfully, the plan blew up in my face.”

Briefly, she outlined her horrendous day from the moment she’d walked into Victor’s apartment alongside a cop, to her realization that her secret weapon was missing. She stopped short of mentioning Duke’s kiss, however. The experience was still too new, too fresh in her blood to share just yet.

“So Victor turned out to be a cheating scum and a criminal, and you lost a video fit for blackmail all in the same day?” Lexi frowned. “Then what’s with the dreamy look I’m seeing in your eyes, girlfriend?”

Amanda searched for words, knowing she looked like a fish with her open mouth working soundlessly.

“The cop was a hottie, wasn’t he?” Lexi grinned triumphantly, crossing her arms over her angora sweater. “I bet he drooled himself dry if you were wearing some sexy getup for Victor. Did you flash him your garters?”

“Of course not.” Amanda sighed, realizing she couldn’t hide anything from Lexi. “I wore my coat over my videotape outfit, but I did not flash the detective a thing.”

“Come on, Amanda. A New York cop doesn’t miss a trick. I’ll bet he knew exactly what you were wearing underneath that coat and that’s why he hit on you.”

“He didn’t hit on me!”

Lexi leaned forward on the sofa, propping her elbows on her knees. “Please. Every man hits on you until he finds out whose daughter you are.” She pointed one dragon-lady nail at Amanda. “But that’s what will be great about the cop—no detective worth his badge would shy away from Clyde Matthews’s daughter just because of a few mob connections.”

“Lex—” Amanda warned.

Lexi, of all people, knew how much her father’s friendships with mobsters bothered her. Amanda had vowed to confront her father about it before the busy fashion season got into full swing again in the fall. The thought of a serious talk with her father made her stomach knot as the man had the attention span of a six-year-old and he possessed zero interest in anything that didn’t pertain to style or fashion.

“Okay, rumored mob connections. This guy could be your ticket to adventure. And he sounds way more fun than stick-in-the-mud Victor ever was.”

“Duke doesn’t ‘sound’ like anything, because I haven’t told you one thing about him,” Amanda hissed before crunching into a gingersnap.

“Ah, but you know my imagination beats the truth of the matter any day.” Lexi stole Amanda’s other cookie and munched a bite before Amanda’s words sank in. “Duke? Did I hear you right that this guy’s name is Duke?”

Amanda smiled.

Lexi sighed. “That makes him sound like a German shepherd. Or maybe a prissy English nobleman. I wonder where on earth he got a name like Duke?”

“Trust me, you wouldn’t be thinking prissy or canine if you got a look at this guy.” Just the thought of Duke Rawlins sent a shiver of anticipation through her. Amanda had never been kissed the way Duke had kissed her. The few sensual encounters she’d had in her life hadn’t lit her fire half as much as the simple brush of Duke’s mouth on hers.





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