Virna DePaul - Shades of Passion

Hell, who was he kidding? He hadn’t been attracted to another woman well before Lana’s death. And since they’d broken up before she’d died, it had been over eight months since he’d even had sex.

That couldn’t be good. Simon was an extremely sexual man and like many cops, he relied on an active sex life to balance out the stress of his career. Before Lana had died, despite the fact she’d still been grieving her dead husband, Johnny Hudson, he’d been focused on her for close to two years. He could barely remember being attracted to a woman before her. After she’d died, well...romance was the last thing on his mind. It hadn’t escaped his notice that of the SIG team members, he was the only one who was currently single or not getting any. Mac had his wife, Jase had Carrie and DeMarco was constantly hooking up with some new woman.

No wonder Mac and Commander Stevens were worried about him. He’d obviously been ignoring his baser needs too long.

Maybe when he was done talking to Dr. Shepard he’d go to McGill’s Bar, a local cop hangout. Pickup joints and one-night stands weren’t his style, but he could probably do with some physical relief. Sex with no emotional commitment. It wasn’t pretty, but not much about his life was.

Without another thought for the females in the convertible, he continued forward. When he caught sight of another woman getting out of her car, however, his gut immediately clenched.

He froze. His first thought was...she looks like Lana.

His second thought was...something’s not right with her.

His cop senses went on alert.

He knew immediately why she reminded him of Lana. She was blonde. Not just pretty. Gorgeous. Elegant. Like Lana, she was the kind of woman you couldn’t help noticing.

So Simon noticed.

And this time when he was confronted with a good-looking woman, he felt an unmistakable stirring of attraction.

He studied her more closely. Her resemblance to Lana was only superficial. Her face was more angular, her features sharper and her eyes were almond-shaped, suggesting she had some exotic ancestry. Her body was also different. Where Lana had been slim and athletic, this woman’s curves were more lush. Her hips wider. She looked tidy, pulled together in a silk blouse and tailored skirt.

Her car, on the other hand, was god-awful ugly. An old Ford station wagon in a faded eggplant color. The contrast between her beauty and the car’s run-down junkyard condition didn’t connect. That immediately made him edgy. He didn’t like things that didn’t make sense.

He told himself he was being ridiculous.

Driving a beat-up old car wasn’t a crime. Maybe she spent her money on hair salons and fancy clothes rather than what she drove.

With a shake of his head, he walked until he was right next to her. Before he could pass her, she turned and brushed against him. Innocent as it was, the brief contact caused both of them to jerk back. She dropped her bag, spilling its contents on the ground.

“Sorry,” she muttered. He crouched down to help her, frowning when he saw the small, crudely sewn rag doll, just about four inches tall, lying amid her keys, wallet and—

She stepped closer and crouched beside him. He couldn’t help noticing the graceful sweep of her slender calves. To his utter surprise, his fingers itched to touch them. To determine for himself if they were as smooth as they looked. Disturbed, he jerked his gaze away and somehow ended up knocking heads with her.

She gasped.

“Shit,” he muttered.

She raised a hand to briefly rub her temple. Her eyes were green. Soft and pale just like her creamy skin and her golden hair. “It’s okay. I wasn’t looking where I was going. I—”

Her gaze flickered to the ground. Abruptly her words cut off and her face turned bright red. Simon looked back down at the contents of her purse. He noticed something he hadn’t seen before and felt heat spread through his body; not to his face but someplace farther south. The word Sextuplets blazed up at him.

Was that—?

She snatched up the DVD case and shoved it back into her purse, then threw in everything else before standing. He straightened far more slowly.

He swiped a hand across his face but obviously didn’t do a good enough job of hiding his smile.

“Not a word,” she said and started to walk away.

Her voice was like another punch in the gut. It was a bit gravelly. A rocker chick’s voice inside a woman who looked like an angel. He fell in step beside her.

She didn’t look at him. When they reached the front entrance and passed through the automatic sliding doors, she paused in front of the Information counter. He followed suit.

Her gaze met his and her chin tilted up. “A patient gave it to me. She’s an older woman and she has a collection and I didn’t want to hurt her feelings—”

He pressed his lips together and managed to keep a serious expression on his face. He nodded. “Right. She collects porn and thought for some reason you might be interested. I wonder what made her draw that conclusion?”

She narrowed her eyes, trying to look threatening but only managing to look adorable. The tendrils of attraction he’d been feeling exploded into something hot and wild. It took him by surprise, so much so that she’d already moved toward the lobby elevators before he noticed. He followed.

She frowned at seeing him standing next to her again.

“What?” he said. “We’re in a public hospital and I have a doctor’s appointment.”

It had been a while since he’d met a woman who blushed so easily.

“Of course,” she said.

“Are you one?”

“Am I one what?”

“A doctor?”

“Yes.”

“Then you shouldn’t be so embarrassed about getting caught with a skin flick in your bag. The human body and what it needs to survive is nothing new to you, right?”

She smiled tightly. “Right. Excuse me...”

She turned and walked away.

He cursed himself for driving her off. “Weren’t you going to take the elevator?” he called.

“Yes, I was.”

He watched her go with more than a little regret, but he was smiling when he got into the elevator. Too bad he couldn’t have run into the doctor at McGill’s. He’d have spotted her and he’d have done his best to bed her. Because despite his musings in the parking lot, he was definitely interested in having sex again.

And suddenly she was the only one he was interested in having it with.

* * *

NINA ACTUALLY FANNED herself as she took the stairs up to the sixth floor. Whew.

That was one handsome man. Not pretty-boy handsome, either.

Manly man handsome.

Manly man sexy.

And given the way he’d reacted to seeing the porn she’d had in her purse, he had a sense of humor, too, which merely made him more attractive.

She cringed at the memory of him seeing that DVD case, but at least it had distracted him from Rachel’s rag doll. She’d noticed the brief surprise on his face when he’d glimpsed it and she’d once again wondered whether her inability to get rid of the doll represented a bigger problem than she’d thought. She didn’t need an object to remember her sister, after all. Especially one that her sister had been cradling on the night she’d...

Swallowing hard, Nina shook her head. No. She wasn’t going to deal with that particular memory right now. Especially not today. It was the third anniversary of Beth Davenport’s death and Nina had no illusions about what was in store for her today. Last year, Beth’s father, Lester Davenport, had proven how resourceful he was, once again tracking down her place of work and mailing her one of those hideous cards of his. Before the day was over, she’d probably get another one. Until then, she would damn well think about something else.