His Wicked Ways by Joanne Rock Page A

whistle on both their asses and get them out of the business for good.” He rubbed a weary hand across his face. “I’m tired of always having to watch my back just to do my job. I can do more good at the rec center and probably be a hell of a lot safer, too.”
    Vanessa didn’t blame him for putting some safety measures in place. But even with stepped-up security, she didn’t plan to set foot in the Bronx again any time soon. She could untangle the rest of Alec Messina’s convoluted problems from the safety of Manhattan.
    Or so she really, really hoped. Bottom line, she’d do whatever necessary to nail the guys who’d held a gun on her last night and resurrected her nightmares.
    “Care to tell me how you struck up such a close relationship with your uncle’s mistress?” She hadn’t meant to ask the question. It just slipped out while her eyes locked on the closing lines of one of the e-mails.
    “Are you asking as a cop or as the woman I slept with last night?” Alec didn’t pull any punches. Even when she had a carjacking to investigate, Alec’s abundance of shady friends to wade through and a mob mistress with her claws on the man Vanessa had gone to bed with.
    Not exactly a red-letter day.
    “I’m asking because I damn well want to know.” She hadn’t planned to quiz Alec about the women in his life, but what choice did she have when he waved this female under her nose? “The writer of this e-mail makes it plain as day that her…sex…is yours for the taking. Did you take her up on the offer?”
    Snatching the file folder from Vanessa’s grip, Alec flung it on the sofa nearby.
    “Hell no.” He laid an arm across her shoulders, his hand winding its way into her hair as if to hold her in place by the long length. “Hasn’t anyone wholly inappropriate ever come on to you before, whether you were looking for a connection or not?”
    She met his dark gaze, experiencing the electricity that sparked back and forth between them, a ripple of energy that increased with every breath she took.
    Didn’t matter that she was pissed at the idea of Alec possibly sleeping with another woman. If anything, the edge of frustration only heightened the heat.
    “I meet some very inappropriate people in my line of work.” Of course, she only had one man in mind at the moment. Someone she never should have looked at, let alone touched. She seemed to have lost all common sense where he was concerned, although she had to admit she didn’t miss common sense when she had a hefty dose of sexual healing to make up for the loss.
    “I’ll bet you do.” He twisted his hand fractionally tighter in the strands, enough to steer her closer. “But just because you get propositioned doesn’t mean you jump into bed with anyone.”
    “Right. Normally.” She’d brought razor-sharp focus to her work for the past four and a half years because of it. But now? The edges around this whole case were starting to blur. “Last night being a notable exception.”
    “You still think I’m someone inappropriate?” His hold on her hair loosened as he slid back a few inches. “Hell, Vanessa. You wouldn’t have got anywhere near me if you really believed I had a hand in any of the charges my partners are trying to stick on me.”
    She was glad he thought so because she didn’t trust herself to know anything anymore. The carjacking had put her through the wringer and spit her out a little more vulnerable. A whole lot more tense.
    “Maybe. But I’d feel better about spending the night with you if this case was behind me and I didn’t have the guilt of secret knowledge to carry around. I’m not going to look my lieutenant in the eye and tell him I couldn’t find Alec Messina.”
    “Maybe by the time you see him again, you’ll be able to tell the truth.”
    She didn’t answer, knowing he wouldn’t want to hear about her plan to contact the precinct today. But how could she help Alec without accessing the combined strength of NYPD