Vickie Taylor - The Renegade Steals A Lady

“Then we’re going to your place.”

He turned his eyes away and was quiet, his expression strangely serene, given the circumstances. She wondered if he was remembering, as she was, the first time he’d ridden in her bright blue convertible, the night they made love.

She’d been aware that Marco had been watching her off and on for nearly a month when they’d ended up working a narcotics bust together. Marco had been cuffing a prisoner when the man pulled an ice pick from beneath his belt and slashed Marco’s hand, then ran. Paige and Bravo gave chase, with Marco gaining ground behind them, bloody palm and all, yelling for her and her “poodle” to back off.

Determined to make the collar herself, to show the almighty narcotics detective what the poodle squad could do, she followed the suspect up a hay elevator and into a dilapidated barn. She’d pounded ten feet across the loft before realizing the floor was only half there.

Bravo had his man already, standing over him in the corner.

Breathing hard, Marco had rushed into the barn below her. “Don’t—”

She didn’t. But the floor collapsed, anyway. A second later she found herself sprawled across his chest, chaff from ancient bales of hay dancing in the sunbeams all around them.

“—move,” he’d finished dryly.

He needn’t have worried. She couldn’t, paralyzed as much by the feel of the muscled male body beneath her and the dark eyes boring into her as by the fall.

That night, as she lay in bed with a mystery novel, trying to banish the memory of his heat and the sudden, searing connection between them, she’d heard a tap on her window. Angelosi had stood outside throwing pebbles like a teenager, for goodness sake.

She’d met him in the driveway, her aqua-colored robe locked around her like a suit of armor. He was leaning against her new Miata, an indulgence, the first nonsensible thing she’d bought in years….

“What,” she asked sharply, irritation mixing oddly with excitement in her voice, “are you doing here?”

“This yours?” He stroked the hood, and her mouth turned to cotton.

She nodded.

“Put the top down and let’s take her for a spin. See what she can do.”

“It’s late.”

He laughed. “Yeah, and the breeze is warm and the stars are out. So what’s the problem?”

She fingered the neckline of her robe. “I’m not dressed.”

Leaning close, too close, he fingered her robe just the way she had, picked it back just far enough to see the lacy edge of her nightgown curved over the mound of her breast. “You look fine to me.”

Her breath caught at the rough edge to his voice. She jerked back, her mind spinning. She must be crazy. Insane to even consider this. At the moment, though, insanity—in the form of a tall, dark Italian-American looking at her like the wolf must have looked at Little Red Riding Hood—sounded pretty appealing.

“Give me five minutes,” she said, and ran to the house. She might just be crazy enough to go driving with him in the middle of the night, but she wasn’t lunatic enough to do it in her nightgown.

They drove out of the city, to the rural ranching counties. The stars glittered overhead like a mirrored ball at a dance hall as they streaked down country lanes that smelled of fresh-cut hay and livestock.

“Faster,” Marco urged, and she couldn’t say why, but she found an empty stretch of road and pressed the accelerator down until the wind whipped tears into her eyes and she felt like she was flying.

Far from being afraid, Marco threw his head back and laughed.

Breathless and exhilarated, she pulled back into her apartment complex just before midnight and invited Marco in, where he laid her down on her wide four-poster bed and took her for a ride every bit as breathtaking….

Her night with him had been a learning experience. A discovery.

Not that she hadn’t been with other men. She’d dated. Been intimate on occasion. Safe, mediocre sex with safe, mediocre men.

Nothing about Marco Angelosi qualified as safe.

Or mediocre.

He was wild. He was wicked. He scared her to death.

And he’d ruined her for other men.

From the moment she’d first gazed up into his angel’s eyes, she hadn’t wanted anyone else. She hadn’t wanted anyone else even after she’d sent him to prison. And Lord help her, she wouldn’t want anyone else even after she sent him back.

But she would send him back.

“You okay?”

Marco’s voice sounded faraway. Paige jerked herself out of her reverie and glanced at the rearview mirror. She was surprised, for a moment, to see him so close—just across the seat from her. She was even more surprised to realize her cheeks were as wet as they had been that magical night in the Miata.

Must be due to the head injury.

As unobtrusively as possible, she wiped her nose with her sleeve. “Fine.”

He looked grim. “Your face is as pale as a baby’s bottom.”

“I’ve been shot at, fallen off a cliff and I’m being kidnapped. How am I supposed to look?”

His only answer was a frown. Or maybe it was a scowl.

She rubbed her sleeve harder across her face. She had to get her act together. She was a cop. They were almost to her house. She had to talk Marco into giving himself up.

“You won’t get far in the Miata,” she reasoned. “It’s too easy to spot.”

“Not if no one is looking for it.”

It was Paige’s turn to frown as Marco pulled her Port Kingston PD Expedition into a parking spot in front of the steps to her second-floor apartment. He had to know every cop in the state would be looking for her car within minutes after he left.

Unless there was no one around to tell them he’d taken it.

She shivered, sure that her blood temperature had dropped five degrees in the last five seconds. She didn’t even realize Marco had moved until the car door next to her swung open. One of his hands slid behind her shoulders and the other caught her behind the knees.

Her heart seized up like a bad bearing.

She studied the hard lines in his face, the bruises, the shadows under his eyes. This wasn’t the Marco she knew. This man was a stranger. A murderer, the state trooper had said, and she had no reason to disagree. He’d shot her. Kidnapped her.

For the first time since she’d known Marco, she was afraid of him—truly and deeply afraid. Each step he took with her in his arms added to her anxiety. Her fingers curled to fists on his back. Forget convincing him to turn himself in. She just wanted him to leave.

The thought twisted her pride. She was a cop. She had a job to do. But she was also a woman, alone and vulnerable, and she was hurt.

Bravo followed them up to the apartment entrance and ducked around Marco as soon as the door swung open. Marco followed him to the laundry room. A creature of habit, Bravo went straight to his kennel and stood over his bowl. She always fed him when they got off work.

Standing well back, Marco swung the gate to the dog pen closed with his foot. The clank of the closing latch signaled the loss of Paige’s last best hope for survival.

As she watched Bravo nose his empty bowl, whining, Marco carried her out of the room.

In the bedroom, she scanned frantically for potential weapons. Her thoughts raced with her heart. If he put her on the bed, there was the lamp. If he set her on the chaise in the corner, she might be able to reach the scissors in her sewing basket. If—

He walked right through the bedroom, into the bathroom, and plunked her down on the toilet lid, then promptly turned, dropped the stopper in the tub drain and twisted the faucets on full.

Her jaw hung slack. “What are you doing?”