The Sexiest Man Alive (15 page)

Johnny was waiting for her in the revolving restaurant at the top of the hotel, in a booth covered in paperwork. He got to his feet when he saw her, leaned down, and kissed her lightly on the cheek.

“Don’t get close to me,” Mazie warned, “because I just came from work and I’m—”

“Beautiful.” Johnny looked at her, and she saw that he meant it. “And I
do
intend to get close to you. Count on it.”

Mazie forgot that she was wearing a T-shirt with a rip under one sleeve, jeans that had been washed once too often, and had hairnet head. With Johnny Hoolihan’s eyes devouring her, she actually
felt
beautiful. He was flirting with her! It had been so long since a man had flirted, she’d almost forgotten how it was done. She slid into the booth across from him.

“Care for a drink?” Johnny asked. “Or maybe you’re hungry?”

It turned out that they were both hungry. They ordered dinner—a steak with baked potato for Johnny, the house specialty lasagna for Mazie. While they waited for their food, their drinks came—a gin and tonic for Mazie and a brandy Alexander for Johnny.

It took only a minute for the liquor to hit Mazie. She sat back against the booth, feeling relaxed, thinking there couldn’t be any better place in the city to drink. The restaurant revolved completely once an hour, and just now their windows were facing out over the harbor. The sun had sunk far enough in the sky to give Milwaukee’s skyline a golden glow.

Johnny was golden, too, Mazie thought, vaguely aware that the gin was allowing lustful thoughts to creep in. He wore a short-sleeved navy knit shirt with the collar open enough to reveal a light scattering of chest hair. His forearms, resting on the tabletop, were large, golden-haired, and muscular. He must have been outside today because his cheeks and nose were tinged with fresh sunburn over his base tan. His eyes were bright silver blue and he looked amazingly alert for someone who probably hadn’t slept in a couple of days.

“Okay, let’s get you up to speed on what’s been happening,” Johnny said, rattling the ice in his glass. “The night the Skulls shot up the bar, Shayla turned up at an all-night mini-mart a few blocks away. When you told me you’d seen bloody footprints heading north, I walked that way, searching for her. That’s when I spotted this Kwik Pantry a few blocks up. It was the only open place around and I figured Shayla might have headed for it. A Korean guy named Park runs it. I badged him—”

“You badgered him?”

“
Badged
him. That’s why I became a cop, Mazie—I still can’t get over the thrill of flashing a badge.” Johnny grinned. “Anyway, Mr. Park was really helpful. He said there’d been a teenage girl in the store that night, right around the time the cop cars were flying by. She came up to the counter with a can of pop. It cost a buck fifty, but she only had a handful of change, so Park let her have it anyway.”

“You think it was Shayla?”

Johnny nodded. “It was her, all right. I asked Park for his surveillance video. Shayla looked scared, kept watching the door. She was wearing a skimpy halter top and pajama bottoms.”

Mazie nodded. “Probably she was getting ready for bed when the motorcycle gang stormed into the bar.”

“If you say so. The way girls dress these days, I can never be sure.”

Their salads came and they stopped talking to concentrate on the food. Johnny finished his salad miles ahead of Mazie and picked up the story.

“Shayla whipped a cell phone out of her pajama pocket and made a call. She walked outside so Park couldn’t hear. He noticed that she was limping. You can see it on the video, too.”

“Was her foot still bleeding?”

“There weren’t any bloody footprints in the store, so it must have stopped. Then Park had to go to the stockroom for something, and when he came back he looked outside and saw Shayla getting in a car. He didn’t get the car’s plates or the make, just saw that it was light-colored and the driver was a man.”

Their food came then. Mazie, who’d become something of a food critic since starting to work in the Elder Hearts kitchen, decided that the intriguing ingredient in the lasagna was basil. Whatever it was, it was delicious and she had to slow herself down so she didn’t gobble.

Johnny cut off a good-sized chunk off his steak. “The Milwaukee PD is taking over the search for Shayla and the guy in the car. We’re all coordinating on this—feds, MPD, and every other agency who’s got a stake in this.”

“What about the gang? Have any of them been picked up yet?”

Johnny frowned. “That gang is good at vanishing. They should have been caught Saturday night—four gang members with skulls on their helmets, riding big Harleys aren’t
exactly inconspicuous. One second they’re speeding along city streets at ninety miles an hour, the next—poof!—they’re gone. It’s the same thing back in Coulee County—we know the Yatt gang has some rat hole where they hide out—an old factory, a warehouse, maybe a cave back in the coulees, but we haven’t found it yet.”

“I’d have thought you’d have undercover cops infiltrating the gang who could find out.”

“It’s tough to get an undercover cop into that gang because most of them are cousins or guys who’ve known each other all their lives.” Johnny looked out the window. They must have been here an hour, Mazie thought, because the restaurant had revolved three hundred sixty degrees back to the view of Lake Michigan and the harbor. The lights on the harbor bridge were reflected, a sparkling, watery necklace.

Johnny yawned, stretching his arms up behind his back. “Unfortunately, I’ve got to head back to Quail Hollow tomorrow or the crime rate will start to soar.”

“Shoplifters out of control,” Mazie said.

“Yup. Cows being tipped over.”

“Do they still do that? I sure miss the good old days. Remember that Halloween when somebody let a goat loose in the high school auditorium?”

“I remember.”

“
You
did it, didn’t you?”

Johnny kept a straight face. “I’m still sworn to secrecy.”

The restaurant pianist began to play a Cole Porter medley. Johnny’s gaze caught Mazie’s. He stood. “Dance?”

“Here?” Mazie looked around at the half-empty restaurant. “Do they let you?”

“One way to find out.” He pulled her to her feet.

She wished she was wearing her Jason Wu dress and heels instead of her grungy jeans and ratty sneakers, but when Johnny wrapped his arms around her, Mazie forgot to be self-conscious. She allowed herself to give in to the lovely sensation of moving to the music and feeling Johnny’s solid body against hers, one hand spread across her back, the other clasping her hand. She’d forgotten what a good dancer he was—graceful and confident, and for a delinquent who’d grown up stealing hubcaps, he was remarkably familiar with old-fogey dance steps like the foxtrot.

“I’ll keep an eye out for Shayla, too,” Mazie promised, deciding that she’d ask Eddie and
Rico to put out feelers. Kids had their own grapevine; someone might know someone who’d seen the girl.

“That’d be good. And by the way, did I thank you for helping me out Saturday night? Sorry it ended up being so dangerous.”

“How’s your ear?” She lightly touched his ear, where a scab had formed over the cut.

“I sort of like it. Makes me look like I’ve been in a duel.”

Mazie smiled. They were quiet for a while, dancing to “Night and Day.”

“Can I ask you something?” Johnny said.

“Okay,” she said cautiously.

“Labeck was with another woman Saturday night. Did the two of you break up?”

“Uhh … yeah.”

“Good.” Johnny drew her a little closer. “Can I ask what happened, or should I just mind my own damn business?”

What did happen?
Mazie wondered. She’d blamed Ben for his lack of attention to her, but had she done the same thing to him—allowed her resentment of petty things to get in the way of appreciating him? Had she forgotten why she’d been attracted to him in the first place? Putting it into words was hard. “We stopped—I don’t know—we stopped connecting.”

The words felt bitter in her mouth and she felt guilty, as though she were somehow betraying Ben by saying them. But that was ridiculous. She’d been merely a sideline in Ben’s life, hadn’t she? His good old reliable but boring Saturday night date. It hadn’t taken him long to rebound, to start seeing Olivia Hyphenated Whatever, who could wear white without spilling chocolate on it, who thought Ben was “the one,” and who would give him tall, beautiful children.

“Mazie?” Johnny was looking at her quizzically and she realized she’d drifted off. “Lovers’ spat or for real?”

“For good.” Mazie tried to make herself believe it.

“So you’re free.”

“Hell, yeah.” It came out a lot more confident-sounding than she really felt.

“The man’s a fool.”

“True.”

“Did you know I’ve had a major crush on you since high school?” Johnny’s voice was low, and he drew her still closer, snuggling her against his body.

His marvelous body. Broad hard chest, wide shoulders, trim waist, his spine a narrow canyon between the muscular swell of his back. Tall as he was, Mazie discovered that she fit into his embrace perfectly. It would be so easy to fall in love with him, she thought. There was no denying the sexual chemistry between them. It’d been there ever since the day this past summer when she’d run into him at a bar in Quail Hollow. Johnny had asked her to dance that day, too, guiding her the way a good male dance partner did, so that she’d felt fluid and light on her feet, barely aware of being led.

Just let go and fall, Mazie thought. Let her body follow through on what was already going through her mind. Johnny wanted her; there was no mistaking the erection pressed against her stomach. If he was as good in bed as he was on the dance floor …

As though sensing Mazie’s thoughts, Johnny raised her chin. He gazed steadily at her, then lowered his lips to hers. She responded, that simple brush of lips setting off tremors all over her body. They broke apart, staring into each other’s eyes, a question in Johnny’s. Mazie answered it by standing on tiptoe and kissing him back, this kiss longer, scorching, leaving no room for thought, just body responding to body, tongues touching, exploring, savoring. She forgot that they were on a dance floor, surrounded by people who were finding her and Johnny more interesting than the view of the city, forgot everything except how wonderful he felt against her. They’d stopped dancing and were just standing there swaying slightly, her breasts crushed against his chest, his iron-bar erection pressed up against her stomach. Johnny was taking long, controlled breaths. His hands splayed around her waist, and she sensed that he itched to move them lower, to clench them around her ass cheeks and grind her against him. And she wanted him to.

“I’ve got a room here,” he murmured.

She
wanted
Johnny. Wanted to see him naked, wanted to see his long limbs stretched out across a bed, wanted to kiss him, touch him, drive him wild with desire. But was wanting something enough to give in to it?

He lowered his mouth to her neck, kissed the tender spot just below her ear, making her gasp softly. “Come to my room?” he asked, smoky-voiced.

Yes! Oh, God, yes!
Still, she fumbled for excuses. “I’m kind of—you know—grubby.”

“You can use my shower.” He moved his mouth, brushing it against her ear, whispering, “But I really
like
dirty girls.”

The tiny hairs in her ear canal stood up at attention. Her head whirled and her whole body prickled because all her blood was surging to the few square inches between her thighs. She knew she was being seduced and she loved it. Seduction bypassed the rational part of her brain and left her with the excuse that she couldn’t help herself.

The pianist started playing “Anything Goes.”

“I like the smell of your sweat,” Johnny murmured. “I love your own natural body smell. I love everything about you.”

His voice made her hot and prickly all over. Johnny’s controlled breathing told her she only had to bat a single eyelash and he would take it as a
yes
.

Yes
, she wanted to say, but her lips wouldn’t form the word.

Johnny tilted her face toward his and looked into her eyes. A long, silent moment passed, and then he sighed. “Still not over him.”

“I—it’s too soon. I’m sorry, Johnny.”

“Not as sorry as I am.” He kissed the top of her head. “I knew I should have worn my lucky SpongeBob boxer shorts today.”

Olivia Peele-Harkness. Even her name was classy. She was exactly the kind of woman Ben had always fantasized about. Tall—which meant he wouldn’t have to bend down to kiss her. Slim—she had a high metabolism and said she had to take a special protein supplement to keep her weight up. And blonde—her hair straight, waist length, and so silky, it begged to be stroked.

The fact that Olivia had phoned him was another point in her favor. When Ben had taken her home Saturday night after the Piggsville fiasco, she’d seemed quiet and withdrawn, not impressed by the way Ben had almost gotten into a fight. He’d figured she never wanted to see him again. But to his surprise, she’d phoned him Monday night, suggesting they get together for drinks.

They’d settled on meeting Thursday night at the Guinness Club, a faux-Irish bar in the Marquette University neighborhood within walking distance of Olivia’s condo. Ben got to the bar early because he was still enough of a male chauvinist to believe that women shouldn’t have to wait alone in a bar for their date to arrive. He found a spot on the balcony overlooking the noisy main floor where he and Olivia would have a quiet place to talk.

Olivia arrived on time—another admirable trait—and he hurried down the stairs, heart beating way too fast, palms sweating, to meet her. She looked incredible—sultry and sweet at the same time, her long legs flashing in a short khaki skirt. She wore a white camisole top, a white sweater draped across her shoulders, and intriguing-looking shoes—sort of like ballet slippers with platform soles and laces to mid-calf. He resisted the urge to wolf-whistle.

He got drinks at the bar—a beer for him, a wine spritzer for Olivia—and they went upstairs and settled in at their table. Ben made sure to pull out Olivia’s chair. She was the kind of woman who would appreciate the small attentions.