PlaybyPlay (3 page)

He arched one brow with a cocky grin. “What? Don’t tell me
my presence unnerves you.” He leaned down to set an empty plate before her, his
body just inches from hers, so close that with every breath she drew his
masculine scent mixed with the spice of his cologne deep into her lungs.

She stared up at him, her eyes meeting his, and the flash of
sexual awareness she glimpsed within his gaze made her heart skip a beat and
her breaths uneven. She didn’t want to be affected by his intense gaze, she
fought against it, but it was nearly impossible. She drowned in the golden
depths of his eyes, her nipples tightening, pushing against the thin fabric of
her white tank top.

She stood abruptly, putting as much distance as she could
between them.

“I’ll grab the food,” she mumbled hastily, relieved that her
voice didn’t shake. She busied herself with bringing the plates of food over to
the table until he stopped her.

“I’ll get the salad,” he said, taking the bowl from her,
“you sit down and eat.”

She nodded, still ruffled from the tense moment just minutes
ago. What had all that been about? He’d simply been ribbing her, but then it
had quickly changed into something more. The way he stared at her, as if he
knew his words had hit their mark. And he was right—they had. He did unnerve
her. Every time she looked at him she had to suppress a shudder, all the while
fighting to ignore the sexual heat that clawed at her. Her intense awareness of
him had begun the night she’d spied on him at the Red Velvet Rope and it was
getting worse by the day.

“You look tense. Have some more wine,” Seth insisted as he
topped off her glass. She reached for it desperately, nearly downing the entire
contents in a single gulp. The wine would help her relax, take the edge off the
lust that now burned through her veins, or so she thought.

* * * * *

One and a half bottles later, Seth was starting to seriously
regret offering Katherine any wine. He’d had a few glasses, while she’d had so
many that he’d grown tired of counting. In the two years he’d known her, he’d
never seen her drink so much, but maybe this whole business with the menacing
notes was finally starting to get to her. Whatever it was, who knew his
buttoned-up, uptight boss was such a lush—or a flirt—and possibly a tease.

After dinner, they’d moved into the living room to watch the
evening news and she lay stretched out on the couch across from him. Her hair,
which had been in a tight and prim knot before dinner, now hung in soft waves
over her shoulder. She propped her head up with one hand while she let the
other one roam absently along the bare skin of her long, shapely legs revealed
by terry cloth shorts. Shorts which, since she was now feeling the effects of
the alcohol, were riding higher and higher up her thighs by the second. She was
killing him, and if he didn’t know better, he’d think she was doing it on
purpose.

She reached for the glass of wine on the coffee table
between them and the swells of her breasts pushed dangerously against the scoop
of her tank top until he swore they would tumble out at any moment.

A spike of molten desire caught him low in the gut and he
shot to his feet, struggling to hide the obvious bulge in his pants with one
hand.

He couldn’t take this anymore. He wanted to drag her into
his arms, strip her out of her clothes and ride her lush, sweet body until
neither of them could walk in the morning. Since that wasn’t going to happen,
the longer he spent in her presence, the more he just tortured himself.

“Oh no you don’t.” He swiped the glass off the table before
she could pick it up, ignoring her cry of protest. “You’re drunk and with your
long day tomorrow you need to be at full speed.” He walked into the kitchen and
dumped the contents down the sink. When he returned to the living room she was
on her feet with her hands folded across her chest and a sexy pout on her lips.

“You didn’t have to throw it away,” she said with a slow
smile, “I could have drunk it later.”

He shook his head, the corner of his lips curled into a
small grin. “I bet you would have. Come on, let’s get you to bed.”

Katherine turned toward the hallway, but after two wobbly
steps he didn’t trust her to make it much farther without hurting herself. In a
single motion he lifted her into his arms.

“Put me down, Seth,” she protested. “I can walk.”

He quirked a single brow. “Sure you can.”

With an exaggerated sigh, she flopped her head against his
shoulder, as if the notion of arguing with him further exhausted her. She
burrowed into his warmth, her arms lazily draping around his neck.

Her soft breasts pillowed against his chest and her subtle
feminine scent combined with her rose petal perfume made him suddenly
lightheaded as arousal coiled dangerously in his belly. He didn’t need to be a
genius to figure out where all the blood had gone. Seth bit back a low groan as
he quickened his steps toward her bedroom, and didn’t stop until he laid her down
atop her bed.

She began to chuckle softly, just as he released her and
straightened to his full height.

He frowned. “What’s so funny?”

He didn’t mistake the direction of her gaze, which was
focused on his bulging groin, and when her lips curled into a Cheshire Cat grin
his gut clenched.

“Seth, always so stoic, so unflappable, nothing gets to
him,” she taunted softly, her eyes twinkling with mischief. “Until now. What is
it, Seth? Is it me?”

Her words stirred him and heat surged through his veins, but
his expression never changed. “You’re drunk.”

She smiled. “In the two years I’ve known you, no girlfriend,
no lover. What is it? Are you gay?”

His frown deepened. He didn’t like the direction this
conversation was headed at all. “Not since the last time I checked, unless you
know something I don’t.”

She smiled wider. “Sarcasm—you do that a lot.” She pinned
him with her warm brown eyes as if she was searching for something written on
his face. He remained stoic, unflappable, just as she’d described him. “So what
is it? You don’t do commitment?”

He sighed. It was too late and he was too tired to have an
esoteric conversation with his drunk boss about his love life.

“You’re tired and you need to get some sleep.” He turned to
leave.

“I know all about you, Seth Kyoto.” He stopped then. There
were a lot of skeletons in his dark past. He wondered which ones she’d dug up.
“I overheard you and Joshua. I know what you like to do to women. That’s
probably why you can’t find a girlfriend.”

He glanced at her from over his shoulder, his eyes revealing
nothing even as his body pulsed with a heady combination of tension and desire.
“Who says I’m looking for one?”

She shrugged as if she couldn’t care less, which infuriated
him. If she didn’t care, she wouldn’t have brought it up. He wanted to grab
her, shake her, wipe that silly little drunken smirk off her face. But another
part of him, his darker, more primitive side, demanded that he crush his lips
to hers and punish her for careless and hastily spoken words that probed too deeply
into a life he wanted to keep private.

He held her gaze, every darkly provocative thought he’d ever
had of her, every primal emotion he fought to leash revealed in his eyes, and
when she gasped, her lids fluttering in surprise, he knew she saw it too.

“You have no idea what I do to women,” he growled out in a
dangerously low voice.

“Don’t I?” The challenge in her eyes was unmistakable. He
clenched his jaw tight, fighting the urge to do to her what he’d longed to do
to her ever since they’d met—tame her.

“No. You don’t,” he said firmly. He turned to walk out while
he still had the strength.

“But what if I want to know?” Her voice was soft, a teasing
whisper, and the breathy sound threatened to buckle his knees.

A weaker man would have caved, given her what in her naiveté
she begged for, though he knew she wouldn’t have if she had any idea what he
would do to her, but he wasn’t weak. He kept walking until he reached her open
door.

“Good night, Katherine.” Seth closed the door behind him and
kept walking until he reached her living room, where he would spend the night
on her couch.

He let out a deep breath and closed his eyes. For the life
of him, he didn’t know what had gotten into Katherine, what had prompted her to
say those things, to challenge him like that. He just hoped that she was so
drunk that she wouldn’t remember what she’d said in the morning. Because if she
did remember, he knew she wouldn’t let this subject go, just as he wouldn’t be
able to ignore her challenge.

For both their sakes, he hoped this night would fade from
Katherine’s memory with the first light of dawn. If it didn’t, they were
flirting with something very dangerous, something that, like a raging wildfire,
once ignited could not be stopped nor controlled.

Chapter Two

Katherine glanced up at the knock against her doorjamb.

“Hey boss, you busy?”

Joshua Diaz leaned casually against the doorframe, his tall,
muscular body easily filling up her doorway. A lock of his coal-black hair fell
across his forehead and his liquid brown eyes twinkled as he flashed her a
flirtatious smile, his tiny dimples winking at her. Joshua had been her
employee for almost five years, ever since he’d finished up at UNLV in criminal
justice. He was a fast learner, smart as a whip and always had a ready quip to make
her laugh. Joshua was also devastatingly attractive and possessed a lethal,
sensual charm. And yet she wasn’t attracted to him, not in the least. Often,
she’d decided that was pretty
sucky
for her, that her body craved Seth
and not Joshua.

Joshua was a straightforward man, relatively easy to figure
out, while Seth was a winding labyrinth, a puzzle that was ever changing. She
sighed. Just her luck to want the one man she could never seem to read.

With a slight shake her head, she pushed thoughts of Seth
aside because they made her head hurt, and smiled up at Joshua. “Of course I’m
busy, but I always have time for you. What you got for me?”

He stepped inside, but stilled as soon as he glimpsed the
shadowy figure in the corner.

“Don’t mind Seth. He’s taking this bodyguard thing more
literally than figuratively these days.”

Joshua grinned. “I would too if I was guarding your body.”

Katherine couldn’t help but laugh, even as Seth growled
behind her, “Get to the point, Diaz.”

“Right.” He cleared his throat, his expression sheepish
though not apologetic, which made Katherine smile wider. “I’m glad you’re here,
actually,” he said, glancing toward Seth. “Aaron called a few minutes ago. As
suspected, no prints, and then he told us what we already knew, the letters are
from the same person.”

Katherine frowned. “Is that it?” She’d hoped LVPD would be
able to get something—anything.

“For now it is. The good news is that Aaron was able to pull
a few strings since you’re a friend. He sent all the notes to CSI to see if maybe
we can get a lead on either the handwriting or the polish used to write the
notes.”

She glanced between Seth and Joshua. The expressions on
their faces told her all she needed to know. “You don’t think they’re going to
find anything.”

Joshua shook his head slowly. “I doubt it. Handwriting is
like fingerprints. For starters, this guy’s handwriting would already have to
be in the system for us to get a match, which I doubt it is. Our perp has been
pretty clever so far. He doesn’t leave his prints behind so we can’t identify
him. I’m sure he knows at some point we’d run the handwriting. I’m betting he
was careful as he wrote it out so that we couldn’t trace it back to him. I’d
say we’d have better luck with the polish.”

Polish, likely nail polish, which could be purchased at
practically every dollar store and supermarket in the city. They were nowhere.

“I gotta get back to my office. Stick close to her, Kyoto.”
Joshua winked at her, “I know I would if I were in your shoes.”

Katherine shook her head. “You’re shameless, you know that?”

He flashed a wicked grin. “And if you ever want to find out
just how shameless, give me a call.”

Seth grunted while she chuckled softly and rolled her eyes.
Shameless indeed.

“Wait up, Romeo,” Seth called from behind her before Joshua
could leave. “I need to go over a few things with you before you head back
downstairs.”

Seth stopped at the door before he walked out. “Don’t leave
your office until I get back—”

“But—”

“Michelle has strict orders from me. If you leave your
office before I get back she will page me—”

Her eyes rounded. “
What?
” He hadn’t left her office,
or her side for that matter, since they’d arrived that morning.
If he
had his way, she wouldn’t be able to pee without him. This had to stop. “This
is crazy, Seth. You’re overreacting and completely overstepping your position.”

His gaze darkened, but if he was mad, he didn’t let it show.
She bit back a snort.
Typical.
Seth always kept himself on a tight
leash, whereas she could barely keep the fury off her face.

“I thought we were clear this morning before we left your
place— You’re the boss, Katherine, but until we catch this guy, I’m the one in
charge.”

She wanted to hurl her shoe at his head, but he walked out
before she could pull it off her foot.
Bastard.

He was loving that he now had the upper hand, that he was
now in control. Katherine leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes. Things
had been tense that morning as she prepared for work with Seth hovering around
her. His very presence in her home unsettled her, but it was the way he watched
her that had her heart pumping faster.

He’d stared at her intensely, intently, as if he was
searching for something, and she knew exactly what that something was. He was
looking for even the tiniest clue that she remembered their brief conversation
from the night before.