Dawn Atkins - Lipstick On His Collar

“You think so?”

“I know so.”

“Really?” Her tone was both miserable and hopeful.

“Really.”

“Well, thanks for saying so.”

Her fiancé obviously had shot her self-confidence full of holes. Nick could fix that. Easy. With the truth. “Look at me.”

Her gaze shot to his.

“I can hardly keep my hands off you.”

“Oh.” Her eyes went wide, her face pink. She whispered, “Thank God,” and surprised him by leaning over and kissing him. Everything in him rose to take her in—her lips, her smell, the sweet woman taste of her.

She wobbled a little against him, reminding him she’d had a substantial amount to drink. Did she know what she was doing? If he kissed her back, he wouldn’t want to stop. Even if she didn’t want to make up with her horse’s ass of a fiancé, she didn’t strike him as a one-night-stand kind of woman.

He broke off the kiss. “I think this might constitute real stupid,” he said hoarsely.

“Oh.” She blinked, then stared at him, her face flushing as red as her dress. “You’re right. Of course.” She pushed at her hair, glanced at her diamond watch. “Look at the time. I should be going.” She jumped up, bumping the table with her knee in her haste. “Thanks for the talk, Nick. It helped. A lot.” She fumbled in her purse, then slapped a bill on the table. A fifty. Excessive. Like the woman.

Except, before she escaped, he caught hurt on her face. She thought he didn’t want her. He couldn’t stand for her to think that. He also couldn’t stand the fact that she was walking out of his life. He didn’t even know her last name….

So he went after her. He found her walking un-steadily down the sidewalk, crying, and he knew what he had to do. “Miranda,” he said.

She turned to him. The streetlight gave her a bronze sheen like the statue of a goddess.

He cut the distance between them, yanked her into his arms and kissed her hard.

She made a little sound of relief and desire and kissed him back. Their teeth collided, their tongues connected, frantic to make up for lost time. He held her so tightly he could tell she could hardly draw breath. Heat burned between them.

Somewhere the car alarm started up its rhythmic honking, but he could barely hear it for the lust screaming through him like a train through a tunnel.

After a few minutes of frenzied kissing, Miranda panted in his ear. “Please take me somewhere. Now.”

Beep…beep…beep…The car alarm bleated.

Shut up, he mentally told it. Some things you couldn’t fight. Fire shot along his veins and collected in flames below his belt. “You sure?” he asked, locking his gaze with hers.

“Yes. Make love to me.” Her eyes were steady, glazed with lust, but sober enough. And absolutely determined.

Who was he to say no to a lady?

They headed for the Crowne Plaza just around the corner. In the elevator up to their room, he clutched her trembling body to him, sheltering her. She fit so perfectly he forgot for a second that she didn’t belong in his arms. He felt responsible for her, as if it were his job to watch over her like some kind of guardian angel. It was eerie, and she seemed to feel it, too, melting against him as though she craved his protection.

Then she raised eyes hot with desire, and he saw she wanted more from him than protection. Lust pumped through him in thick surges.

The night was incredible. Like a fever dream they both were having. He felt he’d known her body—and her—forever. Maybe it was because they’d shared the experience of being betrayed. Maybe it was just chemistry. Maybe it was alcohol. He wasn’t sure, but he had to know more.

In the pink light of dawn, sated and exhausted, he sent her home in a cab. She’d made him swear to phone her.

But when he did, she wouldn’t take his call.

One year later

“YOU LOOK LIKE a dork in that suit,” the kid said, squinting up at Nick, who held the door for him and his mother.

The kid was right. Nick felt like a circus gorilla in the too-small doorman’s uniform. The epaulets rode close to his neck, his arms hung below the gold-braided cuffs, and the hat sat like a kid-die sailor cap on his head.

“That’s not nice, Rickie,” the mother said, flushing. “How is Charlie?”

It was Charlie’s uniform Nick was wearing. “Better. He’s recovering fine.”

“That’s good. I was so sorry to hear about his appendix. Will he be back soon?”

“Three more days.” Not soon enough for Nick, who couldn’t wait to get out of this clown suit and back to his boat on the lake. Charlie, his friend and former squad mate, had asked him to fill in as security at the Palm View Apartments while he recovered from surgery, and Nick had been happy to help—Charlie had been his training officer when he’d entered the academy.

Besides, the job was simple—accept packages, valet-park cars, carry groceries, fetch the maintenance man when the elevator jammed, as it had earlier that morning, and generally keep an eye on things for the well-heeled seniors, impatient executives and handful of families who inhabited the building.

If it weren’t for the uniform Charlie had neglected to tell Nick he had to wear, it would be only mildly humiliating work for a guy who’d busted some dangerous drug dealers in his day.

Now this kid stared at him like an exhibit in a wax museum.

“Got any homework, son?” he asked, to give him something else to think about.

“Uh, well…” The kid glanced at his mother.

Gotcha.

The woman blinked at her son. “Actually, now that you mention it, you do have a report, don’t you, Rickie? On the Sudan? You had better get right on it. Before TV.”

“Aw, Mom,” Rickie groaned.

“Gotta do your schoolwork, son,” Nick said with a wink. “You don’t want to end up just a doorman like me, do you?”

Rickie rolled his eyes.

The woman turned to Nick and smiled. “Thanks, Mr.—?”

“Ryder. But call me Nick.”

“I’m Nadine Morris…Nick,” she said, letting her eyes drift over his body. She held on to his name, flirting with him. She was pretty, but she wore too much makeup. Why women had to slather on that goop was beyond him. No ring. Divorced, no doubt.

“I’m just filling in for Charlie. Doing what he’d do.”

“Well, you certainly fill out his uniform.”

“I do my best,” he said neutrally. Even if he was attracted to the woman, he couldn’t take her up on the offer in her eyes. She’d want more than a brief affair—she had a kid, after all—and he was leaving for the Coast as soon as he could.

She kept smiling at him until her son dragged her toward the elevator.

Nick stayed outside for a minute, delaying his encounter with the fumes from the ground-floor hair salon. Why the EPA didn’t set restrictions on hair spray like they did auto emissions, he’d never know.

He glanced up at the art deco facade of the Palm View Apartments—one of Phoenix’s few old-fashioned downtown apartment buildings. Most had been torn down and rebuilt as office buildings or gone condo. The sun seemed too hot for early March, and he felt sweat slide along his torso inside the wool jacket, making his bullet scars itch. He rolled his shoulder as best he could in the tight jacket. Almost a year and he still hadn’t gotten back full mobility.

Sunlight glinting off passing cars made Nick blink. The cloying sweetness of citrus in bloom came to him on the light breeze. Nice, but he preferred the subtle tang of desert plants. Even better, the crisp salt scent of the ocean. Soon.

Three more days and he’d be back on Lake Pleasant in his boat, his private heaven, listening to the slap of the water and the coo of mourning doves. Then, once he’d paid off his ex-wife’s IRS debt with some chef work and maybe some bigger-paying security jobs, he’d escape to the blue freedom of the Pacific.