A Taste Of Temptation
Carrie Alexander
After a mysterious lust potion works its sexy magic on her pals, gossip columnist Zoe Aberdeen wants to know the story behind it.Could the potion be the real thing, or just a hoax? When she asks her neighbor Donovan Shane for help, he's not interested. He's a crime scientist—he's interested only in solving real mysteries, not some weird mojo! But Zoe doesn't like to take no for an answer, and what Zoe wants, Zoe gets.So she decides to "persuade" Shane in her own special way, and soon he's testing the potion and acting out his every fantasy with the sassy redhead. . . .
A TASTE OF TEMPTATION
Carrie Alexander
TORONTO • NEW YORK • LONDON AMSTERDAM • PARIS • SYDNEY • HAMBURG STOCKHOLM • ATHENS • TOKYO • MILAN • MADRID PRAGUE • WARSAW • BUDAPEST • AUCKLAND
To Coco and Jamie
Goddesses of the Lust Potion
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Epilogue
Coming Next Month
1
WHILE THE NEWSROOM BUZZED, clattered and even swirled around her, Zoe Aberdeen sat at her desk with her head in her hands. Her chin was three inches above the oversize calendar blotter she used as backup to her BlackBerry and spiral-bound notebook. If she didn’t pull herself together, she’d drool on December ninth, where she’d written Caballero y Salsa @ La Casa in red marker. With two exclamation points.
“Need some hair of the dog?” asked a sympathetic British voice from behind her.
Zoe didn’t swivel. Even shaking her head was too daunting to attempt. Her pickled brain would slosh around in her skull like the jar of dills that had sat at the back of her fridge for two years, ever since she’d settled in San Diego.
“Mmmph.” She sucked her lower lip. “Got champagne?”
“There’s no sense checking the kitchen. We only have hazelnut creamer and Red Bull.” The rasp of Ethan Ramsey rubbing his jaw magnified to sandpaper on wood in Zoe’s ears. “I can try to get a mimosa from Zanzibar.”
“Good luck,” Zoe mumbled. The local bar and grill delivered, but not alcohol and not so early in the day.
“Drinking on the job will get you fired,” said another familiar voice. A concerned Kathryn Walters peeked over the edge of one of the cork-lined partitions that enclosed the colorfully decorated cubicle. At five eleven, she didn’t have to stand on her toes to do it.
Zoe squinted to lessen the riotous glare of her dance club invitations, glitter-encrusted fairy wand and pink straw cowboy hat. “Never mind that drinking is my job.”
She exaggerated. A major component of her work as a gossip columnist for the San Diego Times was to attend every club opening, charity ball and yacht launching that floated down the pipe. Despite her reputation as the Times columnist most likely to dance on tabletops, she tried to be mindful of overimbibing at the affairs she attended in a professional capacity. Even when she was off the clock and out with her friends, her high spirits didn’t come from alcohol. Not completely.
The past night had been something else altogether….
“Where were you last night?” Kathryn asked.
“A very select holiday benefit for the symphony. They decorated with gold-leaf branches and twinkle lights and served the most expensive, delicious champagne I’ve ever tasted. But the evening was so dull, I—” Zoe stopped and swallowed the sour taste in her mouth. After she’d made notes about the chichi guest list and the dazzling decor, she’d had nothing left to do at the zero-exclamation-point-worthy soiree. Other than fend off questions from a pair of transplanted Bostonians who had known Zoe’s family when they were prominent, accomplished and alive.
She pried her tongue off the roof of her mouth. “I overindulged.”
“Clearly.” Kathryn’s voice was crisp.
“I can get you a headache remedy,” Ethan said as he stepped into the cubicle. He was the Times’ top crime reporter, a raffish Englishman who hadn’t lost his taste for Inspector Dalgliesh and MI-5 despite an intense working knowledge of the somewhat less urbane San Diego legal and penal systems.
“Thanks, but I already popped a couple of pills.” Zoe wagged a finger toward the variety of cure-alls she kept at hand in a brandy snifter on her desk. M&M’s and breath mints mixed with one-dose packets of ibuprofen and NoDoz.
Kathryn sent a look toward Ethan. “What kind of pills?”
Zoe’s eyeballs rolled. Luckily they kept to their sockets. “Strictly over-the-counter, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
Kathryn’s reputation was as arrow-straight as Zoe’s was loosey-goosey. That is, until the buttoned-up book editor had reviewed an erotic thriller, fiddled with a counterfeit lust potion and gained the attention—to say the least—of Coyote Sullivan, a former coworker so overtly and indecently sexy that he could unsnap women’s bras with merely a look.
Zoe’s smile made her head wobble. Coyote was almost worth wearing a bra for. Lucky Kathryn.
“Steady on, Zoe,” Ethan said. “Keep your profile low for the next few hours. Barbie—” Barbara Bitterman, their managing editor “—is on the warpath, looking for chinks in the staff’s armor.”
“If you can hold out, we’ll treat you to lunch,” offered Kathryn. “Food will help.”
“Lunch seems a lifetime away.” Zoe took a deep breath. With an effort, she shifted her head, balancing it very carefully until the room stopped whirling.
“But I will survive,” she added, wincing inside at the retro familiarity of the phrase. She’d been to too many discos and experienced too much loss for one lifetime. Barbara Bitterman was only a mosquito of annoyance in the dark, tangled jungle of Zoe’s psyche.
Nine years ago, Zoe’s parents and older brother had been killed in a car accident on the way to her college graduation ceremony. She’d been twenty, on the verge of becoming a newly minted magna cum laude with a master’s degree in comparative literature, destined to fulfill her Aberdeen destiny. At the funeral, she’d been told by an endless stream of intellectuals and potentates that she must survive—and thrive—to carry on the esteemed family name.
Afterward, when the shock wore off, Zoe had realized that she no longer wished to live a life of duty and boredom. Instead she’d abandoned the education that had meant so much to her parents, seized control of her trust fund and struck out on a series of desperately madcap jet-set adventures heretofore unknown to the stodgy, intellectual, old-money Aberdeen clan.
“Of course you’ll survive,” Kathryn soothed.
Zoe plastered on a carefree smile. “Yep. If I can live through a surfeit of yacht parties in Ibiza, ski trips to Aspen and Christmas holidays at a Thai beach resort, I can make it through one measly hangover.”
Ethan chucked her under the chin. “You’ve had it real tough, kid.”
Zoe kept up the smile. Her grief over her family had faded, or perhaps been buried under the glittering lie of her new lifestyle. Eventually the Aberdeen funds had slowed to a trickle. She’d been a spendthrift, and her “trustworthy” accountant had been overly liberal with his fees. The result was that she’d suddenly reached a point where it was either go broke or stop and take stock of her situation.
She took stock. Not a pretty sight.
Working her family connections and party-girl past, she’d landed the job at the Times, only to realize that she’d locked herself into a role she’d already been playing for too long. Fortunately she was good at it, even without the old trappings. Only Kathryn and a few close friends had an inkling that there was more to Zoe than her bright, flashy surface…and far less to her trust fund.
Today Zoe couldn’t keep up the facade. She put her head in her hands. “I ran across old family friends at the symphony benefit. We, uh, caught up over champagne.”
In fact, it had been the prospect of admitting to the couple that she’d spent the years since the elder Aberdeens’ deaths traveling, partying and running through the family money like gas through an SUV, that had sent her straight to the bubbly. She’d always lacked intestinal fortitude.
“That must have been nice.” Kathryn’s face said she knew otherwise.
“I’m certain you did well,” Ethan contributed to humor her along.
Zoe grimaced. What a disappointment she’d be to her beloved Mummy and Pop and pompous old Rags if they could see her now, employed as a second-rate gossip columnist and often flat broke because she’d pledged to make do on her meager salary to protect the remaining trust fund.
“I’m not quite the raging success they expected,” she admitted. The couple had been kind but noticeably taken aback by her chosen profession.
“Stuffy snobs,” Ethan said. “Never mind.” He dropped a hand on Zoe’s bare shoulder the way her pop used to, both encouraging and proud, while she’d bent over her textbooks as a dorky, bespectacled fifteen-year-old studying for her college entrance exams.
That version of Zoe Aberdeen was as long gone as her family.
Ethan, the incorrigible flirt, gave her a teasing brush of his fingers before moving off. “I ought to be on my way before we draw attention from the tower.”
The managing editor presided over the lesser columnists and reporters from a spacious second-floor corner glass office with a mezzanine that overlooked the newsroom. Editors like Kathryn had been granted similar but smaller offices on the exterior rim of the ground floor. Zoe’s space was at the approximate center of the room, a magnet for anyone in need of chocolate, a dirty joke or a bit of juicy gossip.
Kathryn gripped the steel edge of the cubicle wall. “What’s that you’ve got?”
Zoe looked down. Clasped to her chest was one of the many lucky charms that cluttered the desk, a folk art figurine. She must have picked it up for reassurance. “It’s that voodoo doll I bought in the Gaslamp Quarter weeks ago.”
“I remember. The day we discovered the lust potion.” Kathryn came around the partition, steering an unoccupied desk chair so she could sit knee to knee inside Zoe’s cubicle. “It’s an ugly old thing, isn’t it?”
“I kind of like her.” The pocket-size voodoo doll wasn’t as crude as some. Mayan symbols had been carved into the figure’s bulbous body.
Kathryn turned the doll over with long, deft fingers. “Solid ebony. Where do you stick the pins?”
Zoe raised her brows. “Thinking of cursing someone?”
The book editor shrugged. Her relationship with Coyote Sullivan had veered wildly between adversarial and erotic for the past month or so. But ever since her return from a recent vacation that was supposed to be solo, she’d been glowing, and not only because of the newly acquired tan.
Nope, Zoe knew a mama-got-sex glow when she saw one, even on such an uncharacteristic place as Kath’s face. Which made her wonder just how effective one small filched sample of lust potion could possibly be.
“I don’t believe this is a voodoo doll at all,” Kathryn said, handing it over. “With such massive breasts, perhaps it’s meant to be a fertility symbol?”
Zoe threw up her hands, refusing the doll. “Perish the thought.” She had a reputation to maintain, one where marriage and babies were the very last things she should desire.
“I don’t want it either.” Kathryn set the doll on the desk. “Especially after the lust potion turned out to be…” She shook her head, saying no more.
Zoe thought the purported lust potion was a fascinating topic. “Especially after the potion made you and Coyote do the horizontal rumba until you were both howling at the moon?”
“It didn’t make us. Or at least we don’t know for certain that it did.” Kathryn didn’t bother to hide a satisfied smile. “Nor were we always horizontal.”
Zoe chuckled. “So you’re saying that you made a conscious decision to engage in an affair so hot it’s capable of burning down the Times building?”
Kathryn’s eyes twinkled. “Please restrict the hyperbole to your column.”
“This isn’t for my column.” Zoe wrote about local celebrities, society debs and the forays of Hollywood bigwigs who’d drifted south to engage in San Diego’s laid-back lifestyle. In other words, fluff and flattery. “I’m thinking of doing an investigative piece.”
“On the potion?”
Zoe’s headache was subsiding, so she risked a nod. “Balam K’am-bi,” she intoned. “The lust potion of the gods.”
Kathryn chimed in. “From deep in the heart of the Yucatan…”
“Comes this elixir…”
“That brings the world’s greatest sexual experience…” Kathryn pinkened at the word sexual.
“To the person who dares to use it,” Zoe finished. Although they treated their belief in the lust potion as a joke, a folly, Kath had confessed that the effect on her had been too real to discount.
Zoe intended to find out why.
A while back, she, Kathryn and Ethan had been wandering the Gaslamp district during their lunch break, noshing and joshing, when they’d found a funky tourist trap called Jag’s on one of the side streets. They had heard rumors about a sleazy little man selling a knockoff lust potion to the tourists while dealing the genuine, very pricey concoction to a select upper-crust clientele. The shopkeeper had given them a spiel about the origins of Balam K’am-bi, promising hot sex, multiple orgasms, yada yada, which none of them had believed. Then.
A police cruiser had been pulling up to the shop as the trio was leaving. Later Zoe had discovered that a vial of Balam K’am-bi had been planted in her bag. Surmising that Jag had done so to remove the evidence from his possession, Ethan had volunteered to bring the lust potion to the cops for analysis. The official police response had been underwhelming.
The incident might have ended there if Kathryn hadn’t later admitted to retaining a small sample of the potion for her own experimentation. An explosive, completely out-of-character experimentation, judging by the bits and pieces Zoe had gleaned about Kathryn’s hot-cha-cha relationship with Coyote Sullivan.
Even so, Zoe remained doubtful. She’d sensed an attraction between Kathryn and Coyote long before the venture to Jag’s. Their affair was not unexpected.
Kath’s loss of inhibition could also be explained. The power of suggestion and all that.
But something was going on. Jag wouldn’t have slipped the potion into Zoe’s bag if the vial had contained a harmless liquid. Considering the heightening of physical sensation some users had reported, she suspected the potion contained an illegal extract. Perhaps one that produced a tingling warmth similar to those provided by certain intimate sexual lotions currently on the market.
“I wish I’d thought to keep my own sample of the lust potion,” Zoe mused. “You wouldn’t happen to have any left over?”
Kathryn shrugged. “Sorry.”
Zoe eyed her. “You used every drop?”
“I had a very small amount.”
“And it’s all gone?”
Kathryn mumbled under her breath, not letting Zoe pin her down.
Too modest to give details, Zoe wondered, or the opposite? She took a not-so-wild guess. “So that’s why you’re never around lately. Still keeping extra busy with Coyote, hmm?”
“Oh, well, you know how we were competing for the Crest of the Wave award,” Kathryn said, intentionally misunderstanding.
Excuses. She’d won the prestigious editors’ prize weeks ago, although the announcement had been eclipsed by the furor caused when Coyote broke the story of a pro football steroids scandal. Threats and pressure from all sides had resulted in his tendering his resignation to the newspaper.
Zoe pressed. “You are still together?”
“Not for publication.” Kath grinned. “But, yes.”
Before Zoe could ask more, her friend stood and made a quick adjustment of her skirt. Kathryn was clad in the usual dark business suit, though Zoe had caught a glimpse of a lacy bra when the loose neckline of Kathryn’s shell had gaped. Bronze-colored tendrils had escaped from the book editor’s hair clip. Her lips and cheeks were bright pink against the glowy tan.
All very suspicious.
I’ve got to find out what was in that bottle. Zoe was rarely so determined, but the humiliation of running into the Aberdeens’ family friends had convinced her to improve her situation in life. While the job at the Times had been a much-needed stopgap, it wasn’t too late to become a person of whom her family would have been proud.
Put in that light, staking her chances on a bogus lust potion didn’t seem to be the smartest move.
“‘Lust potion of the gods,’” she quoted. “Gimme a break.”
Kathryn delayed her departure. “Have you tried a Web search?”
“Of course. I found a few unsubstantiated reports of the potion’s effects and some references to the Mayan dialect. As we already knew, Balam K’am-bi roughly translates to sex of the jaguar.”
“Wild animal sex,” Kathryn said faintly, her eyes distant.
“Hot jungle lovin’,” Zoe teased.
Kathryn blinked. “You should ask Ethan. He’s the one with all the police connections.”
The women exchanged knowing smiles. Ethan’s connection to one police detective in particular—an attractive female named Nicole Arroyo—had become obvious despite his attempts at discretion. They’d even begun to speculate that the confirmed bachelor might have finally met his match.
“I tried,” Zoe said. “He claimed that Detective Arroyo had sent our sample to the crime lab but there were no results yet. I don’t suppose the case is considered urgent enough to warrant a rush job.”
“Keep me informed. I’d like to hear what that report says.” Kathryn returned the extra chair to the neighboring cubicle. “See you at lunch.” She strode away, clearly making an effort to appear as businesslike as ever but not quite able to restrain the sassy swing of her hips.
Zoe fingered the native doll. There was no doubt about it. Kathryn Walters was a changed woman.
Due to the lust potion?
Although titillated by the idea, Zoe’s primary interest wasn’t the personal benefits of the supposed aphrodisiac. This time, she preferred to be taken seriously.
If she could get the real story on the lust potion, she might gain a little respect at the newspaper, proving to Barbie the Editrix she could write about more than champagne fountains and oysters on the half shell. Or she might submit a feature article to a national magazine. She could do background research in Mexico, interview scientists, track down unlikely couples such as Kathryn and Coyote, maybe even turn the story into a book. Even gain interest from Hollywood.
Granted, none of that was likely to win her a Pulitzer, but at least she’d have some proof that she hadn’t completely wasted her potential.
But where to begin?
“Go to the source,” Zoe told herself.
Fortunately the ibuprofen had kicked in. She leaned down and picked up the leather Hermès carryall she’d dropped under her desk and started shoveling necessary items inside. The BlackBerry, her trusty notebook, a spare pair of sneakers in case she had to walk farther than heels allowed. She checked the contents of her wallet. A coupon for a facial, plus two dollars and change. Damn. Last time she’d gone to the cash machine, the printout of her balance had been so alarming she’d survived on tuna, crackers and olives ever since.
Plus hors d’oeuvres and champagne. No wonder she was feeling dizzy.
Ignoring her queasy stomach, Zoe counted out enough coins to buy a bag of potato chips from the vending machine. Her paycheck wasn’t due for a few days. After work, she’d hit Zanzibar’s happy-hour buffet for free Buffalo wings and jalapeño poppers.
In the meantime, making headway on her goal would give her mood a better boost than protein.
As funding a trip to the Yucatan wasn’t in the credit cards, she had only two immediate options. One was to acquire a copy of the crime-lab analysis of the lust potion. Luckily she had a great contact in that system—a nerdy neighbor across the hall in her apartment building. They didn’t exactly get along, but if necessary, she’d use her feminine wiles to beguile him into helping her out. The other immediate option was to return to Jag’s tourist trap and get the story from the lizard’s mouth, so to speak.
Zoe being Zoe, she chose to do both ASAP.
2
DONOVAN SHANE TENDED TO become overly absorbed by his work. He’d managed to ignore the annoying buzz of the intercom system, but he was forced out of his fog when Guillermo Reyes opened the door to the toxicology lab and cleared his throat.
“Dr. Shane, Mandy Rae says to tell you there’s a woman here to see you,” the intern announced in a tone of awe, as if he’d never seen such a creature. The kid was a senior in high school; he should have had girls crawling out of his locker.
Donovan squinted as he pinched the skin at the bridge of his nose. He’d been examining the peaks on the liquid chromatograph done on a sample from a murder case. “Whoever she is, she doesn’t have an appointment.”
“She’s…” At a loss for words, Guillermo gave an exceptionally gusty exhale. His sinuses tended to whistle when he got overexcited. “Damn, boss, you gotta see her.”
Boss. Donovan had never been a boss before. After earning his undergraduate degree, he’d been rejected by the police academy because of a preexisting condition—the heart murmur he’d had since childhood—and had taken a part-time lab technician’s job instead while advancing toward his Ph.D. Twelve years later, he was still working in the same facility, now as a toxicologist specializing in the typing and analysis of blood and other fluids. He told himself that he was satisfied to be left alone in the lab, quietly doing his job analyzing the minutiae of crime while others ran about like over-adrenalized superheroes, shooting at perps and risking their lives.
“Is she a kook?” he asked.
“I dunno. Maybe.” The intern gripped the doorknob. “She claims she knows you. Says she won’t leave until you see her.”
Shoulders hunched, Donovan returned to his study of the graph on the computer screen. He wasn’t keen to leave his work and make the trip to the reception desk in the lobby, where all visitors must check in before gaining admittance. He couldn’t imagine who this one-of-a-kind female might be.
Sadly he didn’t know many women. There was Mandy Rae, the pretty receptionist who tolerated him and the rest of the lab rats with unconcealed distaste. Lucilla, the facility’s cleaning lady, who griped at him for filling his wastebaskets and using all the paper towels. A small handful of female police officers, whom he spoke to mainly on the phone when they were anxious for urgent results of the evidence they’d couriered over. He supposed he had to include Dr. Victoria Eubanks, the comely optometrist he’d dated for five months until she’d told him, in the middle of his second eye exam that year, that she’d decided to go back to the ex-husband who’d cheated on her with his secretary.
Lastly, but never leastly, there was Zoe Aberdeen.
His neighbor.
His sworn nemesis.
His greatest fantasy.
Zoe? Could it be? Donovan’s head shot up so fast he lost his balance in the ensuing blood rush. Zoe. Of course. A wayward elbow knocked into a hydrometer jar that had been shifted from its appointed position. Zoe Aberdeen was exactly the type of woman who could make a goofus like Guillermo misplace his brain.
Donovan moved the jar back into place. Not to mention a goofus like himself.
“You didn’t answer Mandy Rae’s summons,” Guillermo explained, “so she sent me to tell you.” The intern was almost blithering as he peered out at the hallway, apparently expecting an invasion. “She said for you to come see because she’s not allowed to send unscheduled visitors to the lab with all the new protocols and—oh, jeezus, boss, here she is.”
Donovan shoved up his cuffs as he made for the door. He was betting the “she” wasn’t Mandy Rae, who turned up her nose at the pungent and occasionally gruesome smells wafting from the lab.
Sure enough, Zoe Aberdeen in all her glory sashayed up the staircase and through the hallway, as tricked out as a Mardi Gras celebrant. Most women would be overwhelmed by that particular combination of curly red hair, orange tank top and flared denim miniskirt, all of it topped off by bangles, chains and jewels swinging off every appendage.
But Zoe Aberdeen wasn’t most women.
Mandy Rae raced to catch up, waving a visitors’ badge. “Dr. Shane! I’m sorry. I got her to sign in, but she slipped past the door while I was making up the badge.”
“It’s all right,” he said. “I know her.”
“What a lot of fuss.” Zoe planted her heels and put her hands on her hips. “What’s going on back here, Shane? State secrets?”
“In a manner of speaking.” Donovan resettled his wire-frame glasses. You always had to squint and blink when Zoe arrived. “I’m afraid you can’t stay. The labs are off-limits to most civilians.”
Zoe took the laminated badge from Mandy Rae and clamped it to her spaghetti strap. “Civilians?” A gay laugh. “Do I appear civilized to you, Shane? How disappointing.” An incorrigible flirt, she looked at Guillermo with a moue of her full, glossy lips. There had to be a beauty product that made them look that way. No normal lips were quite so wet and plump and kissable. “I promise you, sweetcakes, I’m as wild as they come.”
She pointed a long red fingernail at Donovan. “And he should know. Remind me, Shane. How many times have you called the cops on me?”
He cleared his throat. “Twice.”
“Only twice? I thought it was at least a half dozen.” She lowered her sunglasses to the end of her nose and slinked toward him with the hippy, shoulder-rolling saunter that was often featured—nude—in his dreams. Mandy Rae watched, fascinated. “Have you been lying to me, Shane, honey, all those times you said I’d better shut down the party because you’d called the cops?”
He held his spot. “I said I would call the cops.”
“And twice you did.”
“My walls were shaking.”
She sent him an unapologetic grin as she brushed by him on her way into the lab. Waving off Mandy Rae, Donovan followed on Zoe’s heels, intending to stay nearby so she didn’t touch any of the sensitive evidence that he kept scrupulously labeled and filed.
He stood so close he could smell her. She was sweet, but not from perfume. Zoe’s scent carried the sweetness of sugar—jelly beans, cherry licorice sticks, birthday cakes, fluffy pink cotton candy. All the forbidden treats he hadn’t been allowed as a sickly child.
Looking around the room and his adjoining office with airy interest, she removed her sunglasses and hooked them in the neckline of the skimpy top. He kept pace, practically peering over her shoulder, his hands itching to grab hold and keep her still. He didn’t quite dare. Zoe was too light and fluttery. He was too clumsy. A butterfly net would do a better job of containing her.
Suddenly she stopped and whirled to face him. “So this is the big secret?” Her head tilted. Her eyes were bright. “Looks like every other lab I’ve seen. In another life, I was a geek, too.”
“You were not.” Not in a million years.
She abandoned the claim with a lift of her bare shoulders, regarding his dumbstruck face with a small, teasing smile. She moved an inch closer and stroked a finger downward from the knot of his tie. He’d tucked the ends in between his shirt buttons, so there wasn’t far to go.
Her polished nail lifted the edge of his shirt placket. She peered inside at the protected tie. Her narrow nose wrinkled. “You’re so prissy, Shane. Like an old maid.”
She always called him Shane. He liked that, though he couldn’t pinpoint why.
Old maid was less flattering. He felt himself becoming huffy and defensive, the way he often did around Zoe. She was far too unpredictable for his personal comfort zone. And he worried he’d give away some clue about how often he fantasized about her. “Precision is crucial to a scientist.”
Her frank stare ran over him. “I thought you’d be in a lab coat. I always picture you in a lab coat. Which is kind of funny since I’ve never seen you in one.” Her smile was wide and inexplicably charming. She knew it, too. Knew it and used it, in concert with a wide-eyed blink that was quite versatile. Innocent-sexy or devilish-sexy or sassy-sexy. But always sexy.
He’d never noticed that her eyes were the color of maple syrup, flecked with gold leaf. Always before, she’d been coming or going, shouting down the stairwell or waving at him from their shared backyard, where she liked to sunbathe topless. She wasn’t shy about turning over onto her back, either. He might not have known the color of her eyes, but he was well acquainted with her breasts. They were the proverbial martini-glass tits—small and pert. Lightly freckled. Her nipples were bubblegum-pink when they hardened.
“I have a lab coat,” he blurted. “Over there.”
“So I see.” Her steep platform clogs clacked on the floor as she crossed the room to the row of pegs where black rubber aprons, safety goggles and lab coats hung. “Can I try it on? Or is that like trying on a cowboy’s hat?”
“What?”
“You know. Wear my hat, try me on.” She winked and slipped into the shapeless white coat.
Except it wasn’t shapeless on her, even though her slender figure was swallowed by the starched white cotton folds. The coat completely covered her own clothing. There was something erotic about seeing her bare legs beneath the crisp hem, especially when he glimpsed a thigh in the unbuttoned gap. As if she might be naked underneath.
Add the notion she’d put in his head that he could have allowance to slip as easily into her and—
Brain freeze.
But fever everywhere else. He tugged at his collar, then an ear. Other areas needed more intimate adjustment. He was thirty-three years old, for crying out loud. He hadn’t had such a swift and awkward boner since high school. No, make that since his one and only spring-break trip to Mexico, when he’d learned that alcohol magically untied the bikini straps of cute college coeds.
Zoe twirled, kicking up a heel. “What do you think?”
“Nice,” Donovan croaked. That was all he could think of to say, because her twirl had lifted the edge of the coat and the ruffle on her flirty little skirt, flashing him a glimpse of a taut bottom clad in a pair of zebra-stripe bikini panties. Boing.
Guillermo’s jaw hung slack.
“This has been fun, but I came to ask for a favor,” Zoe said when neither of the men spoke. Her voice had taken on an unusual gravitas.
Donovan was both intrigued and disappointed. How many times had cute females like Zoe flirted with him, only to ask for something two seconds later, from copying his chemistry homework to requesting overnight lab results?
She shrugged out of the coat as she walked toward the lab bench, the solid table they worked on. Her sharp eyes made a quick survey of the contents. “I’m writing a story for the Times.”
“But you’re a gossip columnist.” Donovan read her twice-a-week columns even though most of the names and faces meant nothing to him, not unlike the details of what they wore and where they partied. “Excuse me. I should introduce you to my intern. Zoe Aberdeen, Guillermo Reyes. She works for the San Diego Times.”
The boy nodded with glazed eyes. He was six inches taller than Zoe and almost twice her weight, but he was thrown for such a loop by her presence that she could have hog-tied him without a squeak of protest. Donovan knew the feeling.
Zoe twiddled her fingers at Guillermo. “Ciao.” To Donovan, she said with a highly arched brow, “I may be a gossipmonger, but I’m also a journalist.”
“Oh. Yes, of course. Did you study journalism?”
“I have a master’s in literature. Before everything changed, I was planning to find a nice, cozy position as a teaching assistant so I could expand on my thesis, but, uh—” She broke off and, oddly tongue-tied, looked down at the material her hands were wadding.
Donovan waited, so curious about her claims that he didn’t even consider taking the coat from her to shake out the wrinkles.
“But that’s not relevant,” she continued with a frown. “My degree isn’t in journalism anyway.” Her eyes rose to Donovan, narrowing as she threw out one of her typically unexpected remarks. “Do you only answer the questions of those with the proper pedigree?”
“Of course not.” He was still trying to absorb the news that Zoe had an advanced degree of any sort. From what he knew of her, with the string of boyfriends and the loud parties and the comings and goings at all hours, she was strictly the Holly Go-lightly of the West Coast, dedicated to burning her candle at both ends.
“That’s good, because I need—”
He interrupted her request. “Sorry. I turn everyone away, regardless of their credentials. This lab’s test results aren’t for public consumption.”
“What about if it’s a case of the public good? Like something dangerously contagious?”
“In that case, I suspect the Times wouldn’t send a gossip columnist to investigate.”
Her pointy chin jutted at him. “But what if they did?”
“Doesn’t matter. I don’t make those decisions. You can get in touch with the police department’s press liaison and ask your questions there.”
Zoe flung his coat at the table. It hit the edge and slid to the floor. Spots of color had flared in her cheeks. “Why do you work so hard at making me dislike you, Donovan Shane? I’ve tried to be friendly, but you’re distant and implacable. Dry as dust. You have no—” Her hands flew up in the air. “No zest!”
“I’m not an orange.”
She blew out a sigh. “You’re also too literal.”
“I was making a joke. A bad one, granted.”
Her gaze zeroed in on him and she was silent for several seconds—an eternity for Zoe. He feared what might come next, but she asked mildly, “Do you always frown when you’re trying to be humorous?”
His answering frown was automatic. “I don’t know.”
“Interesting. I’ve never known you to crack a joke.” Her lips puckered. “It appears that you have unplumbed depths, Shane.”
“Likewise, Aberdeen.”
She took another moment to evaluate him. The gradual, sensual lowering of her coppery lashes was only slightly less distracting than the pouty lips. His blood thickened.
“Sooo, Shane, what can I do to get you to give me a peek at a substance-analysis report?”
“Nothing.” He shook his head. Or at least he thought he did. There was very little feeling left in his body outside of the blast furnace that had developed in his groin. For propriety’s sake, he shifted until he’d put the lab bench between them.
“There’s got to be something. Tickets for the Chargers. Uncensored candids of the Ocean Beach women’s volleyball tournament. A backstage pass to Shakira in concert.”
A soft, bubbling groan came from Guillermo’s direction. Although twenty pounds overweight and prone to sloppiness, he was a well-meaning kid who worked a couple of hours several mornings a week, washing beakers, labeling files and losing track of hydrometer jars. He planned to major in chemistry when he went to San Diego State next fall.
Donovan remained stalwart. “I won’t be bribed.”
Zoe glanced at the intern.
“Don’t even think about it, Gil.”
She laughed. “I was only wondering if I could speak to you in, um…” She put her hands flat on the bench top and leaned toward Donovan. A few of the cascading curls fell into her eyes. Her voice lowered. “In private.”
His gaze flicked to the spot where the weight of her sunglasses dragged at the orange tank top. Her freckled cleavage was modest compared to the silicone valleys that populated the city. But powerful nevertheless. “Gil…”
“I’m out of here.”
Donovan had meant to ask the intern to stay, but he let the words die on his tongue.
While Guillermo hastily departed, Zoe leaned farther over the table to push at a file folder with one finger, flicking it open.
Donovan suspected he was supposed to be mesmerized by her feminine wiles, but he wasn’t quite that far a goner. He whisked the stack of files away, then rescued his clipboard, no longer certain that she couldn’t understand the forms it held. That possibility was almost as tantalizing as her cleavage.
She lifted her chin to stare broodingly at him. “Tell me the truth now. Did you send Gil away so we could be alone?”
Surely she was joking. “What?” he said, feeling awkward and shy. High school all over again.
Her smile became mischievous. “You’re cute when you’re worried. I’m only curious about how the lab operates. Do others work here?”
She’d managed to put him off center again. He collected his thoughts. “This is the toxicology lab. Today I was alone except when Gil came by for an hour. I do have a colleague who’s out on maternity leave. And there are plenty of other employees in the building, working in other labs or offices, technicians with different specialties. We share some of the equipment.” He paused. “They can pop in at any time.”
“My goodness. That was a thorough answer. You’d think I was suggesting something naughtier than giving me a peek at an analysis.”
He wouldn’t let himself think about what he wanted a peek at. “I’m not relenting,” he said, “but what’s this about, this result you’re so eager to read?”
She straightened, giving him a provocative look. “It’s about sexual enhancement.” Her voice had taken on the rough velvet of a cat’s purr.
He gaped. “What?”
“I want to know if the lust potion works.” Her brows arched wickedly. “And you are the only man who can help me.”
3
“WHAT’S WRONG, SHANE? Cat got your tongue?”
He continued staring.
Zoe waved a hand in front of his face, feeling fine and sassy. She could wrap Donovan Shane, nerd scientist, around her pinkie with very little effort. Amazing how the adrenaline of female power had cured the lingering effects of her hangover.
He brushed her away. “How do you know about the lust—” Suddenly he had to clear his throat. “How do you know about the alleged lust potion?”
“It’s not a secret. Jag’s been selling it to the tourists for months.”
“Jag?”
“I presume. We don’t know his real name. He runs this seedy little shop in the Gaslamp that sells the lust potion. Along with voodoo dolls, cheap beads, amulets and charms, carved tchotchkes—whatever.” She shrugged. “I’ve been there. I was the one who—”
“Not that.” Shane dismissed her in that autocratic way of his. The man really did make her hackles rise. He was so rigid, even when she’d “discombobulated” him. “I meant how did you know I was testing a lust potion?”
“If you’d let me finish…” She fished out another deliberate smile, remembering that she needed a favor from him no matter how irritating he was. “I was the one who turned the potion over to the police.”
“You?” Shane’s eyes flickered behind his wire-framed glasses. “Then you’ve already tried the potion?”
She’d love to tell him that, yes, the loud activity he’d recently heard coming from her apartment had been the result of headboard-banging hot monkey love and not the installation of a shelf in her closet after an overloaded one had collapsed. But that would be dishonest.
She didn’t have any problem with telling white lies. It was only that she preferred to do so to gain an advantage.
And Shane already believed she was a sex-crazed party girl.
Zoe drew herself up. So what if the assumption wasn’t completely wrong? She’d rather have too much fun than none at all.
She aimed another sultry gaze his way. “If I’d tried it, Shane, I would know if it worked.”
He cranked his head back, as if looking at her required a distance between them. He’d probably slide her under a microscope if he could. “Maybe it worked and you couldn’t tell a difference?”
Was that another joke?
She tossed her curls. “Maybe. I do like to have a good time.”
“You don’t have to tell me. We share a bedroom wall.” Zoe thought he was about to smile, but he shook his head instead, scoffing at her. “Don’t tell me you actually believe in this hokum about a lust potion?”
“I didn’t. Until I heard the stories.”
“Stories? Gossip, I suppose.”
Annoying man. She crossed her arms, glaring at him even though she should be flirting. Whenever they got near each other, he bristled at her teasing and she ended up wishing she could take the starch out of him by any means necessary. “You have a problem with my job?”
“Why should I?” He peered at her, making her squirm. “It suits you.”
Counting to ten, she stopped at four. “I doubt you mean that as a compliment.”
“What do you think?”
“That if you consider me mere window dressing, you shouldn’t have a problem sharing what you know about the potion.”
He took off his glasses and polished them with the end of the tie he’d liberated from his shirtfront. His forehead had creased. Without the glasses, he seemed more vulnerable and rather boyishly awkward in his confusion over how to deal with her. She realized that his huffiness was a defense mechanism. And that he had thick lashes, a well-shaped mouth and might be rather sexy if he’d stop acting like a prude.
“I’m sorry if I gave you the wrong impression.” He glanced at her with softened eyes, his brows turning up in the middle. “I’m sure you give pleasure to many people. Your columns, I mean.” His gaze dropped to her body, then bounced back up as he turned a dull shade of red. “It’s just that you have this way of, um—” He put on the glasses and ran his fingers through a short crop of brown hair as he looked away. “You get under my skin.”
“Because I’m so loud and outlandish?”
“You are, but no.”
This time when he looked at her, she saw the naked desire he’d suppressed. A sexual hunger seethed in him so viscerally that she felt it melting into her, too.
But he wasn’t her type! He was quiet and conventional and brainy and dull—
A hot spike of inexplicable emotion went straight through her. “Don’t look at me that way,” she blurted, confused by her reaction. The idea of having sex with Shane should have been laughable instead of disconcerting. “I’m not who you think I am.”
“That sounds like a warning.” He scowled. “So when you said I was the only man who could help you with the lust potion…?”
“Oh!” She blinked a couple of times, trying to resist studying his face as if she’d never seen him before. There’d always been a sort of unpolished manliness about him. A well-hidden potential. Even so, she’d never considered him in that way, at least not seriously.
This time she couldn’t help herself. She looked. And the heat in his dark eyes flowed through her. She could feel her cheeks coloring to match his. “You thought I wanted…”
He thought I was offering to participate in a very intimate lab experiment.
Zoe couldn’t decide whether to be amused or aroused. Objectively, with his lean, rangy body and a face that was all nose and high cheekbones, Donovan Shane was not unappealing. Under the right circumstances, he could melt her like butter. But he was always so stiff around her, verging on antagonistic. Even if that was only a defense, a front to hide his insecurities—and, boy, she knew all about those—there was still no reason for her to be flustered by his hoping she’d give him a jump.
Of course, she’d suspected all along that secretly he thought she was sexy. The signals were obvious no matter how hard he tried to conceal them. She’d simply assumed that he’d go on fighting the attraction to a woman who was obviously not his type.
Apparently he was willing to lose the battle.
To test a lust potion he didn’t believe in?
Which meant his motivation was her.
Zoe was uncomfortable. While she was willing to charm her way in and out of sticky situations, she didn’t want to be responsible for Shane’s interests that way.
And yet…
And yet the way he was watching her made her nerves jangle. She felt like a top that had been spinning tightly in its place and was now wobbling out of control as it slowed.
She set her fists on top of the table. Giving over control wasn’t her strong suit. What she couldn’t manage, she avoided, starting with the day she’d run away from her duties as the last of the Aberdeens.
“I’m looking into the validity of the lust potion,” she said, her voice thick in her throat as she restated her objective to skim by the past few moments of sheer lunacy that might be a mutual attraction, even a potent one. “And I would very much appreciate it if you’d do me this one tiny, little favor and share the results of your tests.”
Shane opened his mouth, but she overrode him. “I know you have the sample. My friend Ethan Ramsey, the newspaper’s crime reporter, was the one who turned the potion over to Detective Arroyo when we first became suspicious.”
“I can’t—”
“But it was mine.” She skipped past the detail that Jag had planted the vial in her purse. “I did the responsible thing by seeing that the potion went to the authorities. Don’t I deserve special consideration?” She brought the tips of two fingers together. “Just a little?”
Shane remained unmoved. “You should have retained a sample. Then you could have taken it to a commercial lab for your own analysis.”
“We didn’t think of that.” She shrugged. “At the time, my friends and I didn’t seriously believe that the potion might be real.”
“You said you had suspicions.”
“That was only because of the officers that swarmed the shop as we were leaving. I guess there had been complaints about the product being a rip-off, so they were checking out the story.” She ground her teeth. She had to persuade him to help her out. “There have been actual symptoms since then, symptoms we can’t explain.”
“Symptoms of lust.” Shane crossed his arms. “Uh-huh. I’ll bet those are hard to come by in your world.”
“I’ve seen it with my own eyes.” If she counted Kathryn and Coyote as evidence.
Shane’s jaw, already firm, clenched even more. “But you haven’t experienced the effect yourself?”
“No.”
He waved a dismissal. “Then it’s all hearsay. That doesn’t cut it for me. Or a court of law.”
“No one’s being prosecuted.” Yet, she added silently, thinking of the cruiser arriving at Jag’s shop. She made a mental note to interview Detective Arroyo about the progress of the investigation.
“Doesn’t matter,” Shane said. “The lust potion is still in police custody. There may be charges pending.”
“The case can’t be very important if you haven’t analyzed the potion yet.”
“Who says I haven’t?”
She narrowed her eyes. “Me.” She glanced around the organized yet crowded room. The tables, desks and shelves were jammed with scientific accoutrements, including computers, microscopes, scales, a centrifuge and several impressive machines that were far more advanced than her knowledge. A large industrial waste can was labeled with a biohazard sign. She was most interested in the racks of beakers and test tubes that sat near a humming industrial steel freezer. “Where is the potion? On ice? Can I see it at least?”
His eyes went straight to one of the racks. He’d be a lousy poker player. “You’ve already seen it, so how would that help?”
She strolled past the central lab table. “Never mind. I can look for it myself. I’m sure it’s labeled.”
Shane moved with a swift athleticism she hadn’t expected out of him but should have, considering how often he went bicycling. If she’d looked past the dorky helmet and knee pads, she’d have noticed the muscles in his long legs and tight butt.
“Keep away,” he said. “Don’t touch. I have a chain of evidence to protect.”
He put his hands on her shoulders. She instantly froze. The warmth and strength of his grip was also surprising. A soft, gloppy weakness dropped through her, buckling her knees before she caught herself and snapped back to her center of balance.
“I won’t touch,” she promised, sounding less certain than she intended because she’d gone slightly breathless. She gestured at a vial at random. “Is that it? Have you smelled it?”
“I’ve already freeze-dried the samples. I used the chemical fume hood, although I was told the substance has no scent.” Reaching past her, he picked up a labeled beaker and pried off the top. “This is the excess of the second sample, the one that you claim was yours before your reporter friend turned it in.”
Zoe barely withheld her shiver. For a brief moment, Shane’s chest had pressed against the back of her shoulders. Not a particularly erogenous zone of hers—until now. She was accustomed to men brushing against her, trying to get familiar, even copping a feel. This was the first time an inadvertent touch had cut through her nervous system like the screech of feedback from a microphone.
“I shouldn’t do this, but…” He took a whiff. “Nothing. No smell.”
“May I?”
He held the beaker before her face. The liquid inside appeared clear at first glance, but there was a very faint pink shimmer, almost a sparkle, when she tilted her nose toward it. She sniffed.
And smelled nothing, as Shane had said.
“Wait.” She placed her hand over his when he attempted to withdraw the beaker. She tried again, inhaling long and deep. Even with no actual scent, the potion was indefinably alluring.
Her eyes closed. There seemed to be a significance, but the substance of it remained frustratingly out of reach, like a distant mist in the jungle.
Her nostrils tingled. Her lips became soft, full, as if awaiting a kiss. The longing for contact throbbed at her pulse points, and she tightened her hold on Shane’s hand, drawing him into herself.
“Zoe.” His voice was deliciously rough in her ear as he pressed against her to set down the beaker. “Tell me about these symptoms of lust.”
Her eyes widened. He didn’t feel it!
How could he not feel it?
His fingers moved against her bare shoulder. Almost stroking. The gust of his healthy exhale stirred her hair.
Perhaps he did feel it.
She licked her lips. “My friend Kathryn tried the potion. She said it gave her an actual physical reaction.”
Shane’s fingertips grazed her shoulder blades, creating a trail of sizzling sensation that danced across her skin before his hands fell away. “Which was?”
“Warmth, escalating to intense heat. Tingling. She said her brain got kind of foggy. She lost her reason.”
“Not unusual feelings.” He adjusted his glasses. “In an intimate situation.”
Her lips curled into a teasing grin as she turned to face him. “Especially when you’re with the right person.”
Or with an entirely unexpected person.
Neither moved. Heat radiated between them. A blush colored the jut of Shane’s cheekbones. Very faintly, but an honest-to-goodness blush, which didn’t go with his severe man-of-science persona but did fit the geeky boyishness she’d glimpsed when he’d taken off his glasses.
“I think Kath even tasted the potion,” Zoe heard herself saying. “She didn’t give me the more carnal details, but apparently the effect was astounding. And immediate.” She considered. “Maybe I’ll volunteer to be your guinea pig. Just a tiny taste, do you think? I’m sure nothing too alarming will happen. You can observe me. In a detached, scientific way, of course.”
Speaking all those words had limbered her numb tongue. She curled it against the back of her teeth, barely able to resist the desire to flick it across Shane’s firm lips. Would he be surprised if she kissed him?
Once, perhaps. No more. You’d have to be made of stone not to feel what was going on here. Granted, she had accused him of just that. But she’d been wrong. Shane was human. Very human. As prone to temptation as a fat man with a cupcake, judging by the devouring hunger of his stare.
Her body temperature kicked up another degree. The air was so tense she expected it to crackle when she stroked a palm over his pinstriped shirtfront. Alas, he fell short of true nerd-dom. There weren’t even any pockets for protectors.
She poked at his chest. “No protection.”
“Pardon?” The look on his face said that he was thinking condom while she was thinking Revenge of the Nerds.
She bit her lip, stopping the silly giggle that tickled her throat.
What was wrong with her? She reveled in silly giggles. Could it be that, despite the lust potion, she wanted him to be impressed by her smarts instead of dazzled by her body?
“Zoe.” Shane’s face showed the struggle to stay detached. “Experimenting without, um, safeguards is not a good idea.”
“What’s the fun in that? Don’t you ever try something that you know is a bad idea, just for the adventure of it?” She pressed a knuckle on the knot of his tie and flicked at his chin with one finger. “Do you always behave?”
He jerked his head out of reach, but he didn’t retreat. “Yes, I do. That’s the way I was raised.”
“Oh, how sad.” She didn’t admit she’d grown up the same way, with schoolbooks for companions and flash cards for fun. Why spoil the illusion when she was unsure about where she wanted this to go? “I should teach you how to misbehave.”
“Starting with the lust potion I suppose.” He inhaled, his chest rising beneath her arm. “You’re trying to distract me again, aren’t you?”
“Is it working?”
“More than it should. I know better.”
The intense feeling of needing to touch him had ebbed slightly. “Let’s start here,” she said, loosening the tie with a few quick movements. She stepped away, dragging out the knot until the tie dangled freely against his chest. “There. Now you can breathe without choking.”
He stroked the tie, because she had. A poor substitute for touching her, but Donovan couldn’t allow himself any more leeway. With her beguiling ways and sexy little body, Zoe was the drug—not the lust potion.
He’d come within a hair’s breadth of handing over the remaining sample. Not because he believed the potion was legitimate. The odds were that she could have poured it over his head without consequence.
Some other time, she could have.
Right now, his lust was already off the charts.
Hers, however, could use some encouraging in his direction. While her flirtation had been well played, he hadn’t been fooled into believing that she truly wanted him.
But if he gave her the potion…
Where the hell had that idea come from? He never broke the rules of the lab.
He lurched away from her, rubbing a hand across his forehead. Think, man. Anything to get her out of here before you turn into a complete buffoon.
“I suppose I can give you a—a tip. After the results come in.” That was safe, since there’d be nothing to report except that there was nothing to report.
“Thanks.” She beamed. “When they print my article and I’m famous, I’ll call you an anonymous source.”
“If that makes you happy.” He shrugged. “Be warned—I’m not putting a rush job on this for your benefit.”
“We’ll see.” Zoe winked as if she believed he’d be chugging the potion like Dr. Jekyll the instant she departed. With a waggle of her red fingernails, she flounced out of the lab. “Ciao, handsome. I’ll be in touch.”
Donovan leaned his fists against the lab table. The muscles in his shoulders had bunched at the thought of what being in touch with Zoe Aberdeen meant. She was the type of woman who made a man lose his common sense but gain a thousand physical sensations that more than compensated.
“Yeah, we’ll be in touch,” he said hoarsely even though she was gone.
His eyes went to the beaker. He didn’t believe in lust potions for one second, but he was tantalized by her invitation to misbehave.
Besides, she’d called him handsome. He was tickled. Absurdly tickled. Even if she was only teasing, no woman had ever flirted with him quite so effectively.
4
LATER THAT DAY, Zoe rapped lightly on the open door of an office at the area precinct. “Detective Arroyo?” She walked into the detective’s office with her hand out. “I’m Zoe Aberdeen. Ethan’s friend from the paper.”
“Yes, of course. He’s mentioned you.” Nicole Arroyo pushed aside her paperwork and sprang up from her desk chair. Her handshake was vigorous, making Zoe’s bracelets clink together. “Good to meet you, Zoe. Call me Nicole.”
“I will, if you promise not to believe anything Ethan has said about me.” Zoe laughed. “Lies! All of it lies.”
Nicole didn’t respond with a riposte about the flirtatious Englishman as expected. She frowned and distractedly pushed a loose hank of dark hair behind her ear as she lowered herself into the swivel chair.
“Have a seat.” Nicole waved at a hard wooden chair set in front of her desk. The small office was crowded with a utilitarian desk, a bookshelf and an overflowing trash can. Several commendations hung on the walls, but Zoe couldn’t read them, even when she squinted. Her prescription sunglasses were perched jauntily at the top of her head because she’d been making googly eyes at the clerk who guarded the squad room. She should have sprung for laser surgery when her trust fund was flush. Another opportunity missed.
“So.” The detective rested her hands atop the stack of paperwork. “You want to know about the lust potion.”
“The clerk—” Zoe motioned toward the lobby of the police station “—laughed at me.”
Nicole picked up a pen. “I’m not surprised. The investigation is quite a source of comedy around here.”
“Yeah, I can imagine.” The atmosphere in the squad room was ripe with machismo. Blatantly admiring eyes had followed Zoe across the room as she’d made her way to the detective’s office. She’d enjoyed the attention, even put a little extra boom into her wacka-boom-boom, but dealing with the scrutiny on a daily basis would soon become a bore.
Perhaps that was why Nicole had adopted the severe look and no-nonsense attitude. Zoe considered the other woman for a moment. Nope. Not even a tight ponytail and the unflattering cut of a mannish blouse could completely hide Nicole Arroyo’s exotic, curvaceous appeal. No wonder Ethan was gaga. In his own subdued and composed British way, of course.
“And I really do mean that I can imagine.” Zoe smacked her lips as a hunky male detective passed by the open door. His massive shoulders were strapped by a leather shoulder holster with a vaguely S and M appeal. “In fact, I’d be imagining all sorts of fantasies if I worked here.”
Nicole’s gaze touched on Zoe’s clingy tank top. “Not if you wanted to be taken seriously.”
“Seriously?” Zoe said with a flippant air. “What’s that?”
Nicole’s eyes widened. “You’re exactly as Ethan described.”
“Ah—Ethan. Dear Ethan. I love him like a brother. Well, maybe a cousin. The kind of cousin who comes for a visit the summer you’re thirteen and ugly and leaves you with a nagging longing for blue eyes and disheveled hair that not even Hugh Grant movie marathons can cure.”
Nicole had been clicking the pen rapidly, over and over. With a little grin, she tossed it aside. “I know what you mean. He’s very…distracting.”
Shane’s image popped into Zoe’s head—serious, brooding, smoking-hot even when she’d made him steaming-mad. “A girl’s got to have distractions.”
Nicole leaned forward. “So what’s your interest in the lust potion?”
Zoe took out her notebook. She flicked through several pages filled with chicken scratches about designer dresses and drunken hookups. “What can you tell me about the investigation?”
“Not much.”
“Because it’s high security or because nothing’s happening?”
The corners of Nicole’s mouth twitched. “The latter.”
“Is there an investigation?”
The detective swiveled to her computer and tapped at the keyboard. Zoe squinted as data flashed across the screen. Useless. If she was going to be an investigative reporter, she’d have to learn tricks like upside down speed reading. They hadn’t taught a class like that at Amherst.
“Approximately six weeks ago, we sent a couple of officers to look into the allegations that this Jag person was ripping off tourists with a counterfeit lust potion while dealing the real stuff on the side. They returned with a sample, which we had analyzed.”
“Oh, really?” Zoe tightened her lips. Why had Shane shoveled so much bull crap when he’d already done the analysis? “Can you tell me what the results were?”
Nicole hesitated briefly. “I don’t see why not. The lab recently sent over their report.” She struck another key. “The potion is harmless, ninety-four percent water thickened with an emulsifier, plus minor percentages of plant extracts—essential oils. There were also trace amounts of ephedrine, which would explain the minor tingling sensations reported by the dissatisfied customers.”
Zoe’s high hopes landed with a thud. She wanted to tell herself she hadn’t expected otherwise, except that she had. “What about this tingling?” Kathryn had never called it minor. “Ephedrine is an amphetamine.”
“Yes, but the lab report assures that because of the small amount present, the effects should be almost negligible.”
“Nothing illegal, then? I guess that ends that.”
Nicole nodded. “Basically Jag is selling doctored-up tap water for fifty bucks a pop. He’s guilty of brazen huckstering, at best. The officers gave him a warning about the ephedrine and told him to cease and desist with the ‘lust potion’ claims. We haven’t been able to nail down the allegations about a genuine potion. If he’s dealing a second version, he’s being very careful about it.”
Zoe shrugged. “So much for Balam K’am-bi, the lust potion of the gods.”
Nicole had pushed away from the computer. She made no response, simply studied the paperwork on her desk as if it contained the secrets of the Holy Grail.
Zoe knew she was missing something obvious. After a few seconds, she snapped to it.
“But there is the second sample,” she said slowly. “The one that Jag planted in my bag. The analysis you’ve got there is of the sample taken by the officers when they raided the shop. Isn’t that correct?”
Nicole went still. She said nothing.
“So my sample has yet to be analyzed. Furthermore, it seems that the anecdotal evidence about that particular potion is quite convincing.”
The detective raised her eyes. “Anecdotal?”
Zoe leaned forward with a naughty smile, being a girlfriend telling tales. “My friend Kathryn says that Balam K’am-bi works magnificently.”
A rather unprofessional squeak flew from Nicole’s mouth. “She’s used it, too?”
Zoe only smiled.
Briefly Nicole threaded her fingers over her face. “What has Ethan told you?”
“He’s been absolutely discreet. But I can read by your expression how you feel about him.”
“My, uh—” Nicole swallowed, staring down at her lowered hands. “Any feelings I might have for Ethan bear no connection to the lust potion.”
Zoe didn’t believe her for a second. But she did believe that Nicole and Ethan’s relationship had developed beyond the gotta-have-you-naked stage. Kathryn and Coyote were on the same path.
“Hmm.” Zoe tapped a fingernail on the edge of the desk. “There’s an interesting question for my article. Does the lust potion elicit feelings of romantic love or is it strictly about sex?” She straightened, holding her pen poised above the notepad. “What’s your opinion, Detective?”
Nicole glanced at the squad room. Despite the knowledge that glinted in her dark eyes, she shook her head with unalterable vehemence. “No comment.”
“ZOE,” DONOVAN SAID WITH a moan. Sleep had eluded him after he’d settled into bed for the night. Now the sounds of his pesky neighbor’s arrival home had permanently chased away his chance at the usual solid eight hours.
He stared up at the ceiling. The residual irritation about her disruption was no match for the redheaded fantasies that had danced in his head since their encounter in his lab. If he got the chance to do it over again, he’d sworn to himself that he’d kiss her. He’d sweep her into his arms and kiss her as though it were the last frame of a movie. Only with no fade to the credits.
It was time to find out where kissing Zoe led.
He listened intently, having become fairly proficient at discerning the various levels and origins of her misadventures. There was the low-level annoyance of her typical evening at home—loud music or TV, ringing phones, pizza delivery, running in the stairwell, the shrieking laughter of friends stopping by. There were her parties—one long blast of noise pollution, frequently culminating in music and dancing in the street. Sometimes damage to the building, the landscaping, or even his car.
But worst of all were the quieter times, when she’d brought a man home. From the balcony that adjoined both apartments, Donovan had seen the flicker of candlelight through her curtains. Through their shared walls he’d heard the low music—when he was weak, he imagined Zoe doing a striptease. That was followed by the long silences—surely the wet, smacking sounds were also his imagination—then the masculine groans, the feminine sighs, the thumps of a headboard knocking against the wall.
Those were the nights that Donovan slept with a pillow over his head. Or didn’t sleep at all. A couple of times, when she’d been seeing a long-haired marine biologist who yelped like a seal at the crucial moment, he’d even taken to going for bike rides along the Embarcadero at three in the morning.
He rose up on his elbows, straining to discern the sounds from the hallway outside his front door. A normal person didn’t make that much noise unless they were moving in, but this was Zoe, the traveling circus.
And she was speaking to someone. Did she have a new lover?
Unbearable. Donovan gritted his teeth against the jealousy.
He had to know. He vaulted out of bed, so hell-bent he disregarded his robe and slippers and crossed the living room in nothing but a pair of cotton pajama bottoms.
Zoe’s soprano rang out clearly when he pressed his ear to the front door. “I know you love me,” she said in a kissy-kissy voice, turning her keys in the lock. “But don’t be so eager. Let me get inside.”
Donovan butted his head against the door, then winced at the resulting thud. Crap. If she’d heard, she’d know he was spying.
He put his eye to the peephole. Zoe had heard. She was standing in her doorway, holding the half-open door tight against herself while staring toward Donovan’s apartment. “Shhh.” She made a motion to her companion, who’d apparently entered the apartment before her. “It’s Mr. Cranky. We have to be quiet.”
Then she didn’t move or speak. Only watched his door.
Mr. Cranky stopped breathing. He pulled his eye away from the peephole. He lifted his left foot and widened his stance so she wouldn’t see a shadow through the narrow crack at the bottom of the door.
Mr. Cranky was acting like a child, not a grown man. If he wanted to talk to Zoe, he should damn well open the door and—
Bing-bong.
He didn’t wait a decent interval, only threw open the door before she rang again. “Good evening, Zoe.” He glanced at his wrist. Bare. His watch was laid out on the bureau, with his wallet and keys. “Or morning, as the case may be.”
Her open mouth snapped shut. She swallowed and said only a thin “Hello, Shane,” while staring at his naked chest.
His nipples beaded. He resisted the urge to flex, wishing that he’d taken up sunbathing like Zoe, except that everyone knew sun wasn’t good for your skin. Especially as a redhead, Zoe should—
Her chin poked out. “You’re spying on me?”
“You woke me up, arriving with so much clatter.”
“That’s Santa, isn’t it?”
“The reindeer, I think.”
Zoe waved her hand. “So I dropped the dog dish. It’s not even midnight.”
“It’s past one o’clock.” Donovan checked his wrist again. Habit. “A dog dish?” he asked, distracted.
“I’m taking care of Falcon for the Valentines.”
“They have a falcon?” he said in disbelief. At the same moment he realized that the scratching and whimpering behind Zoe’s door was the Valentines’ pet, not an eager suitor. Her men tended to thump and yodel like Tarzan.
“Falcon is a dog. A Maltese. I didn’t want him staying alone, so I brought his stuff upstairs.”
“But he’s been alone the entire evening.” Zoe hadn’t come home after work. Not that he’d been paying attention, even though he’d skipped going out for beer with the usual gang of lab rats so he could get home early. In case she happened to be around.
“Shows what you know. I stopped by this afternoon after my appointment at the police station and picked up Falcon. He’s been riding shotgun all evening—and loving it.”
The police station. A qualm niggled deep inside Donovan. “I could have let him outside, if I’d known the Valentines weren’t home.”
Zoe looked at him accusingly. “You’d have known if you’d come to my barbecue last Sunday. That was when Sara got the call that her dad had a heart attack.”
Sara and Hailey Valentine were the mother-daughter pair who rented one of the ground-floor apartments. Nice people, even though the mother was always trying to fix him up with her divorced girlfriends, and the girl’s teenage friends couldn’t speak for giggling.
Donovan flushed. “About that. I—I was working.”
He’d declined the backyard barbecue invitation because he’d felt embarrassed about the previous incident with the police. He’d imagined that Zoe would needle him for once again spoiling her party. Hiding out from his neighbors had been curmudgeonly, but he had too many memories of being the boy left out of the fun to put himself in similar situations even now.
Though Zoe wasn’t one to nurse a grudge, she couldn’t resist the chance to tease him. “Working on a Sunday, hmm? I suppose you were busy conducting chemistry experiments in the bathroom.”
“I know how to make a stink bomb.”
“Is that a threat?” Zoe laughed. “I bet you were the kind of boy who got only educational toys for Christmas.”
She was right again, even if the only chemistry experiment he wanted to conduct these days included Zoe as the active ingredient. “How is Sara’s dad?”
“Doing well after an emergency angioplasty. I talked to both her and Hailey a couple of hours ago. They’ll be driving home from Palm Springs tomorrow. I want to do the neighborly thing and make them a casserole so they can have a hot meal when they get in. I just have to find a recipe. And some groceries.”
Donovan was impressed by Zoe’s thoughtfulness. Maybe she wasn’t as flighty as she seemed. He briefly tried to imagine what kind of casserole she would concoct before deciding he’d rather not know. The cooking smells that came from her kitchen were unusual, but at least they were infrequent. At her backyard barbecues, she grilled anything that didn’t move. Her standing pizza order was pineapple-jalapeño.
Sweet and hot and unconventional, that was Zoe Aberdeen. His complete opposite.
“Speaking of nourishment…” She leaned toward his door. “Do you have any food in your house?”
“Of course.”
“My fridge is bare.” She looked up at him, blinking hopefully. “And that sound you hear isn’t the distant rumble of thunder,” she added when he continued to hesitate. She pointed to her abdomen.
He looked down at the strip of flat stomach visible between her tank and the hip-bone-level waistband of her skirt. She was growling. “Not the dog either?”
“Connie doesn’t growl. He’s a sweetie pie.”
“I’ve heard him barking when I take out my bike.” Donovan widened the door. “I can warm up some leftover Chinese if you want to come—”
“Love to!” Zoe darted back across the hall to collect the dog. Nestled in her arms, Falcon was small, white, decked out in a pink rhinestone collar—poor little guy—and twitching his whiskers at Donovan. She nudged the dog higher with her arm. “Go ahead, give him a pat. Make friends.”
“I’m not an animal person.” Donovan extended his hand.
“How come? Allergic?”
The dog’s tongue flicked out, tickling Donovan’s fingers. “No, I just never had a pet. They’re a lot of fuss and bother, aren’t they?” Full of germs, he was thinking, but he found himself scratching behind Connie’s ears.
“Sure they are, but the unconditional love is worth it. I wish I could keep a pet, but at this point it’s a challenge taking care of myself.” Zoe snuggled with the little Maltese, her gaze slanting at Donovan. “But you seem like the responsible type. Want me to take you to the animal shelter and help you pick out a pooch?”
He withdrew. “I’ll think about it.”
Zoe spoke to the dog. “He says he’ll think about it.” She put Connie down, and the animal trotted over to sniff Donovan’s feet. “Do you ever do anything without thinking about it first?”
He wriggled his toes. “I suppose not.”
“Like grabbing a girl and kissing her?”
“What?” She’d startled him again. Had she been reading his mind? “Who? You?”
Her arms windmilled. “Anyone. Me, if you must.”
His arms were leaden. He couldn’t lift them. “That wouldn’t be an impulse. I’ve thought about it too much.”
“Logic rears its nitpicking head.” Not at all put off by his confession, Zoe glanced around. His living room was furnished in a midcentury modern style of low couches and drum lampshades. He supposed all those rerun episodes of The Dick Van Dyke Show and Leave It to Beaver that his mother used to watch in the afternoons had had an unconscious influence on him when he’d gone to the furniture store.
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