Frisk Me (5 page)

A
va, your mom’s calling.”

Ava groaned as she stepped into her yoga pants and hopped repeatedly to wiggle them up over her hips. “Ignore it!” she called from the bedroom.

Scooping her hair into a messy bun, she headed out into her tiny living room just in time to watch her best friend hit the Decline button on Ava’s phone.

Beth picked up her glass of wine and flopped back on Ava’s couch, her bright orange hair bouncing around her shoulders. “Is it wrong, how much I enjoyed doing that?”

“Nah,” Ava said, scooping her own wineglass off the coffee table and settling into the chair across from her friend, tucking her legs up beneath her. “It’s acceptable for you to not like her. She’s not
your
mother.”

“Thank God for that,” Beth muttered.

Ava grinned at her friend’s honesty. Beth’s no-BS policy was one of the many reasons the two women had been nearly inseparable since their first meeting.

Ava had met Beth Salvers, a Brooklyn native, her first months in the city.

It had been Ava’s twenty-third birthday, and she hadn’t known a soul, but that didn’t stop her from putting on a too-short sequin dress and hitting up one of the fancy bars a few blocks from her apartment.

She’d meant to treat herself to a drink or two before heading home for a thrilling night of
Friends
reruns.

The bartender had carded her, then insisted that the first drink was on him. The tiny blue-eyed redhead sitting next to Ava at the bar had insisted that the second drink was on
her
. Beth had just been stood up on a blind date and was looking for a man-bashing partner.

Ava didn’t have a man to bash…but she
was
in desperate need of a friend. The rest was history.

But the only man-bashing Beth was doing these days was when her fiancé didn’t sound properly enthused about thrilling topics like flower arrangements and venue and the weight of card stock for their save-the-date cards.

In a few months, Beth was marrying Christian Channing, and while Ava was wildly happy for her friend, she couldn’t help feeling a little…ditched.

Their single-girl anthem had been her and Beth’s jam for several years of friendship. All of that had changed when Beth met Christian at a charity event last year. And although the two women were closer than ever, Ava was also aware that she sometimes held back from Beth when it came to talking about men. Beth wasn’t one of those annoying friends that expected everyone to be happily coupled up because she was, but talking about a bad date wasn’t the same when you knew the other person had been cuddling the love of her life while
you’d
been stuck with a whopper of a dinner bill because the guy’d “forgotten” his wallet.

Still, there were some things Ava and Beth still had in common…

Griping over Ava’s mother was one of them.

Ava didn’t dislike her mom. Of course she didn’t. She loved her. But Viv Sims could be…difficult. Something Beth had gotten a close-up look at whenever Ava’s mom came to visit the city. Beth was a kindergarten teacher, which most people
melted
over, but Vivian Sims managed to find about a dozen different ways to belittle Beth’s chosen profession.

There’s not much challenge in that then, is there, dear?

Well I can see why you don’t bother much with your clothes. They must get positively ruined with grubby handprints.

It’s just as well. Having a face for the camera is as much a curse as it is a blessing, right, Ava?

Ava really couldn’t blame her best friend for disliking her mother. Still, while Beth had no reason to feel guilty about screening Viv’s calls, Ava did feel guilty. She tried to call her parents every Sunday, but she’d been avoiding them for two weeks now.

Ever since she found out about the
America’s Hero
segment.

Her parents would be thrilled, which would have most daughters diving for the phone.

But her parents’ excitement over the story was precisely the reason Ava
didn’t
want to tell them. Strange as it sounded, some gut-level part of Ava rebelled at the idea of doing what her parents expected of her. Which made no sense. Their goals had always been Ava’s goals. Sure, they were the ones who had nudged her toward the path of anchorwoman, but Ava had been the one to pursue it.

It was just…

She wasn’t ready to tell them. Wasn’t ready to listen to all of the “this is your big break!” enthusiasm until she was sure how she felt about it.

“Uh oh,” Beth said, leaning forward to grab a handful of potato chips from the bag Ava’d set on the able. “You’re biting your nail.”

Ava dropped her hand to her lap. “Sorry.”

Beth rolled her eyes. “Don’t be sorry. Calls from my mom set me on edge sometimes too, and mine isn’t, um…”

“A nightmare?” Ava said with a knowing smile.

“Yeah. That. But seriously, do you want to call your mom back? Reservations aren’t until eight, so we have time.”

“Definitely not,” Ava said, taking a sip of her wine. “I’ll call her tomorrow.”

“To tell her about Officer McHotty?”

Ava lifted her eyebrows. “Is that what we’re calling him now?”

“Oh, come on,” Beth said, putting a hand over her chest and sighing dramatically. “I’ve seen the videos. And did you see that story in the
Times
? The one where they caught a picture of him laughing with his brothers? That whole family can frisk me any old time.”

Ava threw a chip at her. “Pull yourself together.”

“But he’s hot, right? In person?”

Ava pursed her lips and glanced at her wine. “He’s good-looking.”

Beth snorted. “From anyone else, that would be an epic understatement. But coming from you, it’s…something.”

“What do you mean,
coming from me
?”

“I mean,” Beth said around a chip, “that you’re overdue. Past ripe.”

Ava groaned. “That is
terrible
.”

“It’s true! I mean this with absolutely unabashed love, but I’ve started to wonder if your lady parts weren’t expiring from lack of use.”

“My lady parts are just fine, thank you very much.”

“So you admit it. Officer Moretti is hot.”

Ava laughed at her friend’s relentlessness. “Yes, okay, fine, I admit it. He’s hot.”

Beth’s eyes narrowed and she leaned forward. “You gave in way too easily. What’s the catch. Is he secretly a prick? Gay? Super short?”

“No, no, and no. He…” Ava broke off as she considered. “He seems like a nice guy.”

Beth flopped back with a groan. “Oh
no
.”

“What?”

“You’re writing him off before you’ve even started the story.”

“Okay, let’s hold it right there. I’m glad you realize that he is in fact a
story
, not a potential suitor.”

“Suitor? Easy there, your Oklahoma’s coming out.”

“You know what I mean. Quit pretending that Luc is a romantic prospect.”

“
Luc
, huh?” Beth’s eyebrows wiggled.

Whoops
.

Ava leaned forward and grabbed the wine bottle, topping her glass off. “I’m just saying…your upcoming trot down the aisle’s got you all match-makery, and I don’t want to have to spend the next two months having to explain that Officer Moretti is a part of my professional life, not my personal one.”

Even if he is the best-looking guy I’ve seen in a
long
time
.

“Good,” Beth said, holding out her hands and wiggling her fingers for the wine bottle.

Ava handed it over. “Good?”

That was so not the response she’d been expecting. Ava hadn’t been joking when she’d said that Beth’s upcoming marriage had gotten her in a matchmaking mind-set. They couldn’t so much as go out for happy hour without Beth trying to set Ava up with the bus boy.

“Yup! Now that I know that dark-haired, blue-eyed cops with broad shoulders and a rugged jaw line aren’t your type, you have no reason to say no when I invite you out to dinner with me and Christian next weekend…and one of Christian’s co-workers, who’s blond, brown-eyed, and lanky.”

Ava groaned as she realized she’d walked right into Beth’s trap.

“
Please
?
Gabe is really sweet. One of the good ones, I
swear
, and if it doesn’t work out, I won’t push, and you never have to see him again—”

Ava took a swallow of wine. A big one. “No.”

Beth stopped mid-rant, her blue eyes blinking in confusion. “No? That’s it?”

“I’m saying no, but saying it kindly. And not because I don’t trust you, but because I’m just not in a place to fall in love right now. Work is crazy.”

And actually, falling in love seems to be one thing I don’t seem capable of. Ever.

Beth sulked. “How about after you finish this big story?”

Ava sighed. Her best friend was like a dog with a bone. “Maybe. Maybe then.”

Beth grinned happily. “Yay!”

“Yeah,” Ava mumbled. “Yay.”

She didn’t have the heart to tell her friend, but Ava would bet serious money on the fact that she wouldn’t be falling for any of these guys that Beth seemed determined to set her up with. Not because they wouldn’t be perfectly nice.

In fact, sometimes
nice
was the problem. The nice ones never said it out loud on a first date, but they were the ones who were angling toward marriage and babies and things that Ava just wasn’t at all sure she was ready for. Or would
ever
be ready for.

Ava knew there was supposed to be some deep, dark secret…some festering
reason
why she didn’t want to get married, didn’t want to commit…but the truth was, it just didn’t appeal. It had never appealed. Maybe it was her parents’ stable, but symbiotic, relationship that had turned her off, or just one too many boring boyfriends over the years, but lately Ava had been finding the prospect of marriage more and more unappealing.

And the more she thought she was supposed to want it, the less she did.

She leaned forward and grabbed a handful of chips. “Beth, do you think I’m completely screwed up?”

“Well, if you are, nobody can blame you,” Beth said without hesitation. “Your family’s a piece of work.”

“So true,” Ava agreed as she munched on the chips.

“But,” Beth said, pointing a finger. “You are fabulous. You have to forget the crazy fam. Do what
you
want to do.”

Ava ran a finger around the rim of her glass. “Yeah, that’s kind of the problem.”

“Meaning?”

Meaning, what if I don’t
know
what I want to do?

But she wasn’t ready to say it. Not out loud. Not even to Beth.

So instead she changed the subject to the one and only thing that could deter Beth from her fix-Ava campaign…“Hey, what did you find out about that band Christian liked for the reception? Are they still available?”

As expected, Beth was only too happy to have the chance to talk wedding, and for the next hour, Ava was able to let herself forget, just for a little while, that despite her life looking pretty perfect on paper, she felt utterly and totally
lost
.

L
uc crossed his arms over his chest and glared.

Ava Sims glared right back.

“No cameras,” Luc said. “That’s nonnegotiable.”

She narrowed her eyes as though to say
everything’s negotiable
.

And for a woman who looked like Ava, everything probably was.

She was wearing a pantsuit today. It was light gray and should have been dull as hell, but the way it hugged her slim body was anything but subdued. And the strawberry-red of her high heels was distracting as all get-out.

“Perhaps we should get your supervisor.” Her snooty tone made it clear that she expected to out-gun him, but this was one area where Luc knew that Captain Brinker, power-tripping as he was, would have his back.

“By all means,” Luc replied with an easy smile and a sweeping of his arm toward Brinker’s office. “May I show you the way?”

Ava moved forward, as did her sulky-looking cameraman, and Luc held up a hand to stop the lanky blond from getting in the front doors.

“Not you. Her.”

Ava rolled her eyes. “Wait here, Mihail. I’m sure Captain Brinker will clear this up.”

Five minutes later, Luc didn’t even bother to hide the smug grin as Ava regretfully told her cameraman that while the NYPD had every intention of cooperating as best they could, they simply couldn’t allow a camera inside a building where sensitive documents were piled high on every desk.

As it was, Ava herself had a mound of confidentiality-agreement paperwork to get through, and Brinker set her up in one of the conference rooms.

Luc decided to take his last few moments of peace to catch up on his own paperwork.

His partner had other ideas.

“Dude. You never said she was hot.”

“Who’s hot?” Luc asked.

Lopez threw a paperclip at Luc, hitting him squarely in the chest. “Don’t insult our friendship.”

Luc grunted. It was bad enough that he had to put up with Ava Sims for the next few weeks; he drew the line at discussing her almost painfully good looks with Sawyer.

Lopez was a damned good partner, but it was times like this that Luc missed Mike most acutely.

Luc had never had to worry about these sorts of things with his former partner. Mike Jensen had been happily married to a school nurse. They’d had a six-year-old son who’d had a
serious
case of hero worship for his dad…

Luc’s fingers clenched around his pen. The last thing he needed on his mind right now was his former partner. Not with the fucking paparazzi sitting twenty feet away with an all-sanctioned pass to pry into his life and share his secrets with the world.

Not that he had any intentions of sharing his secrets with a reporter. Especially the one currently sitting down the hall.

But Ava Sims was smart and driven as hell. His instincts told him that if she wanted to find the story—the real story—she would.

Fuck.

Luc considered himself a
don’t-stress-about-it
kind of guy, but from the second he’d heard the words
America’s Hero
and
TV series
, he felt like he had a ball of tension permanently lodged in his chest.

Luc’s eyes fell on his partner who was not-so-subtly doing the occasional 360 spin in his chair in hopes of catching  sight of Ava when she finished up with her paperwork.

Inspiration struck, and Luc leaned back in his chair, trying to look at Lopez from Ava’s point of view. His partner was good with women. Luc already knew that. But Sawyer tended toward the bubbly cheerful kind.

Not smooth-talking career women with just a substantial layer of
chill
.

Still…it was worth a shot.

Luc stifled the smile, letting his former scowl resettle on his face. If Lopez thought he was being played, there was no way he’d go for it.

“Hey, so Cap said the hot reporter would be doing ride-alongs with us. That’ll be cool,” Lopez said.

“Seriously? You hate ride-alongs,” Luc said.

Lopez held up a finger. “No, I hate the dippy,
I-wanna-be-a-cop-someday
type of ride-alongs. Those stupid kids are always offering advice when they don’t know shit about shit. But Ms. Sims will be a nice kind of ride-along. Just sitting, observing…looking fine…”

Luc withheld the snort. If Lopez thought Ava wouldn’t be offering
plenty
of unsolicited advice, he had an unpleasant surprise. He doubted
mind your own business
was in her DNA, not to mention it was a blatant contradiction of her job description.

“Hot or not, same rules apply,” Luc said, just to set the record straight. “She can come on the
tame
ride-alongs. That’s it.”

“Shit, and here I was planning to bring her to a shoot-out,” Lopez mused.

Luc flung the paperclip back at his partner, nailing him in the forehead. “Hey. So, I need you to be my wingman.”

Lopez rubbed the red spot to the right of his temple with a knowing grin. “Ah, so you
do
want a piece of Miss Media.”

Yes
.

No!

Damn it.

“Let me rephrase,” Luc said, sitting back in his chair. “I need you to be my
reverse
wingman. Do whatever you need to keep that plastic, nosy diva away from me.”

There was a light tap on his shoulder before a female voice spoke up. “Gonna be hard when this nosy diva is hell-bent on getting
all
up in your business.”

Whoops.

“Nice job,
Wingman
,” Luc said with a glare at Lopez, whose grin indicated that he’d definitely seen Ava approaching and had opted not to mention it.

Luc pivoted around in his chair so he faced Ava. Only he was sitting, and she was standing, which put him exactly at eye level with Ava’s slim hips.

Generally speaking, Luc liked a little more curve to his women, but apparently his preferences were shifting, because he couldn’t help his sex-starved brain from thinking that Ava Sims’s hips were the perfect size for his hands to wrap around, his fingers holding her still as he prepared to plunge into her…

The fantasy dissolved into a million pieces when she opened her sassy mouth again.

“You know…” her voice was considering, her finger tapping idly against her lips. “I’d always heard that the whole man-in-uniform thing was supposed to be a turn-on. Guess it’s an acquired taste.”

Luc’s eyes narrowed just slightly. “See, here I am having a similar revelation. Always thought you TV people were supposed to be likable. Guess that’s subjective too.”

Lopez snickered behind them. “Doesn’t look like you need that reverse-wingman, Moretti. This one’s not exactly throwing herself at you, now is she?”

Just like that, Ava’s bourbon-colored eyes left Luc’s and landed on his partner. She apparently liked what she saw, because the tension around her mouth eased and she actually smiled. Not one of those forced shark smiles either. A real one.

Apparently she wasn’t so immune to the man-in-uniform thing after all.

She was just immune to
Luc
. Exactly as he wanted it.

Riiiiight.

Luc watched as Ava moved around Luc’s desk to Lopez’s. “Ava Sims. You’re a colleague of Luc’s?”

“Give the woman a medal,” Luc muttered. “What was it that gave it away, the uniform or the badge?”

Ava didn’t bother to turn around, but her right arm curled around behind her small waist to present him with a lone middle finger.

Nice.

Luc tried not to pay attention as Lopez and Ava chatted it up like old friends.

Just like he tried to ignore the fact that her new position meant he was free from looking at her hips, but now had her perfect ass in view.

Once again, this woman’s body sent his mind directly to the gutter, and even as he wanted her to stop yapping, he also wanted to bend her over this very desk, inch those nice-girl slacks down her thighs to reveal naughty-girl panties.

Jesus.
Luc rubbed a hand over his face.
Get it together, Moretti.

It didn’t help that her perfume exuded spicy and sweet at the same time.

The spice he could see. But the sweet…
ha
. Talk about a fucking red herring.

“Yo, Lopez, Moretti!”

Thank God. An interruption. He hoped it was something bloody and gritty as hell to free him from Ava Sims–inspired fantasies.

Both he and Lopez looked up to see Sergeant Anders standing up to get their attention. “Ten-fifty over at Chelsea Pier. You want?”

“On it,” Luc said, standing up so quickly his chair nearly tipped backward.

Lopez grumbled but stood as well.

“What’s a ten-fifty?” Ava asked.

Lopez met Luc’s eyes. “We taking her?”

“Yes,” Ava said, just as Luc said
hell no.

She’d already whipped out one of those annoying little reporter notebooks with the spiral on top—really, they actually used those?—and looked up at him defiantly.

And a little bit smugly too, because she knew what he knew:

He was
supposed
to take her with him. The only reason she was here sending him into a daytime wet dream was because she wanted to shadow his every move and then blast his every secret to the entire country.

Luc longed to put an end to it here and now. To tell Ava Sims he wasn’t going to sell out as some sort of hero because he did the same job that thousands of first-responders did every day.

He wanted to tell her to go harass one of those officers who
hadn’t
been unlucky enough to get caught on camera.

Anders ambled over glancing at his notes. “Mid-thirties, white male. Witness reports range from hefty to huge. Last seen at Pier thirty-one, although seems to be roaming.”

“What’s a ten-fifty?” Ava asked again.

“Disorderly conduct,” Luc said, already moving toward the door.

“Intoxicated?” Lopez asked Anders, following Luc.

Anders shrugged. “Undetermined.”

Ava was hitching her bag over her shoulder, trotting along beside them. “I’m coming.”

Luc halted and turned, putting a hand against her chest to stop her forward movement.

A mistake.

His hand was high enough to keep his fingers out of reach from her more interesting parts, but he could still feel her heart hammering against his palm all the same.

It was…

Shit, she
really
couldn’t come with them. He couldn’t be near her and think straight.

Luc jerked his hand back. “You. Stay.”

“Which would defeat the purpose of me being here, wouldn’t it? I’m your shadow.” She pushed his wrist aside. “Learn how to deal with it.”

“I need to do my job, Sims,” he said as she moved past him to follow.

Her spine straighter. “And I need to do mine.”

“Luc, we need to move,” Lopez called from the door. “She can wait in the car if the guy’s out of hand.”

Luc opened his mouth to protest, when Anders broke in with one more detail. “There are also reports of ID.”

Luc and Lopez groaned at the same time, both heading toward the door.

Ava followed, and this time Luc let her. Maybe he could use her nosiness against her.

It was time to let Sims see just how unsexy this job could be.