Good Girl Gone Bad (14 page)

Scott laughed. He lunged and grabbed her with one arm in a viselike grip, and with the other hand he ripped her sweatshirt with a reddening tear. “That’s not what he told me.”

Mason’s mouth gaped open as he bent to her exposed breast. The thought of him putting his mouth on her was more repulsive than she could bear. Phil let her feet go out from under her and he couldn’t hold her up with one arm. He grabbed at her with his other arm as she hit the asphalt lot.

She rolled away as his grip loosened, then she was up and battle ready before he regained his momentum.

“You can’t win, Phil. I work out with pro ballplayers.”

“That makes you such a man.”

He inched closer. It would be the last offensive move he made. Phil jumped and in a roundhouse kick, she caught him by surprise and square in the chest with her right foot.

“You miserable piece of shit!” Ty roared.

Phil’s heartbeat roared in her ears as Ty grabbed the cretin up by the lapels of his jacket and punched him square in the face. The smashing sound of cartilage sickened Phil. As she winced, Ty drew back and landed another punch in the same place.

Mason screamed and a small crowd drew around the two men.

Ty hit him again. Mason flailed at the end of Ty’s long arms. Phil stiffened. If Ty kept at it, he’d kill him.

“Ty, stop!” Phil yelled. As if he were deaf, Ty landed another brutal punch to Mason’s face.

Ty’s arm cocked back for another blow. Phil rushed forward and grabbed it. “Enough!”

Ty looked at her, his eyes a haze of fury. “Enough, Ty,” she said softer. “You’ll kill him.”

Ty looked from her pleading eyes to Scott Mason’s bloody face. He let him go.

“Did he hurt you?” he asked, his voice a low husky whisper.

Emotion welled in Phil’s throat. “I’m fine.”

He reached out and brushed a strand of hair from her face. “I shouldn’t have left you alone.”

She wanted to thank him, to tell him no one had ever stepped up for her, not even her father. He’d just preached and chastised.

Ty looked down at Mason, who groaned as he struggled to get up. “I hope you like California penal orange, asshole,” Ty said.

Phil shook her head no.

Ty squinted, his eyes not understanding. Mason had money and no doubt influence among people in high places. The last thing they needed was a brutality charge to blow the case.

Ty’s eyes softened as realization dawned.

He knelt down and looked at the creep eye-to-eye. “If I ever see your face around here or near her again,” Ty said, his voice low and dangerous, “I’ll beat you so bad, the coroner will have to go to your dentist for an ID.” He shoved Mason to the asphalt. “Do you hear me?”

Blood ran down Mason’s face. He coughed, sputtering blood down his shirt and jacket. He spit a wad of blood on the ground. He eyed Ty warily, but nodded.

Ty towered over him. “Now get the hell out of here. You have two minutes before I come after you.”

Slowly Mason stood. Unsteadily, he walked away from them toward the back of the club.

“I need a jump start,” Phil said.

Ty glanced at her, his tension broken. She was smiling, her voice sounding as cool as the morning breeze. What the hell? He turned back to the gathered crowd. “Show’s over, folks. Go home.”

He followed Phil back to her car. He had a new respect for the proud set of her shoulders. Maybe he’d misjudged her. Then he remembered her sandwiched in between Jase’s girls. His blood surged. He’d be a liar if he admitted the sight of Phil pantomiming sex with the two women hadn’t turned him on so much, thinking about it gave him a hard-on again. She held up a set of jumper cables. “I need a jump start; you the man or do I call the three As?”

He wanted to tell her what he’d like to give her, but in light of what had just happened, he suspected the last thing she wanted was to get hit on again.

“Why don’t I just take you home?” That’s all he’d do, he told himself. Take her home.

She struck a pose, with the hand on her hip still holding the cables. “Why don’t you stop playing Tarzan and just give me the damn jump start?”

“I’ll bring my truck around.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

H
eadlights glowed in Phil’s rearview mirror. For the umpteenth time that night, her emotions collided. To Ty or not to Ty.

Her body demanded she toss uptight Phil out the window and take a walk on the wild side named Ty Jamerson. Her gut promised a good time. Her brain? Ah, that stoic practical brain of hers. To do Ty equaled heartache. Yeah, her body said, so what’s wrong with living a little?

She damped down her urge to speed away from him. Knowing Ty, he’d chase her until she stopped or the car ran out of gas.

Damn him! Why couldn’t he leave her alone, stop pushing buttons she didn’t know she had, stop pushing her physically and emotionally? He had awakened a sleeping tigress in her and while it was easy to let her reign supreme as Kat in the club, she wasn’t anywhere near as comfortable allowing that bitch near Phil. Kat was insulated. Phil was vulnerable.

Phil closed her eyes for a moment at a stoplight. She wanted solitude, to figure out just what the hell had happened tonight. Too many mixed emotions swirled inside her. Pain, fury, and even a little humiliation when she remembered the sexual assault from years ago collided with the arousal and excitement of the dance room earlier. She’d buried the episode, its emotional impact and the fallout with her father afterward too much to bear. She thought she’d put it completely behind her, but with Mason’s presence and her reaction, she realized she hadn’t. What happened when she was sixteen was now stopping her from complete intimacy.

She opened her eyes and the light turned green. She shivered as she pressed the gas pedal. All these years she focused on everything else but a relationship, even at the most basic level with a man, because she knew it would lead to intimacy. Intimacy that terrified her. She glanced at the lights in her rearview mirror. And her skin warmed.

Was it time to take that step? With Ty?

She couldn’t fathom the idea. In an effort to get Ty off her brain and libido, Phil’s brain shifted to overdrive.

Tomorrow was Sunday and she had plenty to do. She’d head into the office and write a formal request to review her father’s sealed file. Now that she was out of IA, getting approval shouldn’t be a problem. Especially since Captain Dettmer had been her father’s best friend and his biggest champion when it all had gone down.

The headlights behind her blacked out as she pulled into her driveway. What the hell was she going to do with her lieutenant? Fuck him, her body screamed. You’ll live to regret it, her brain cautioned.

She rubbed her eyes and wished for once her brain would shut up.

Just as she reached the door and dug out her keys, she called to the man a few steps behind her. “I don’t need a baby-sitter, Lieutenant.”

“I don’t baby-sit, Officer Zorn.”

She turned around and couldn’t deny the man had presence. He walked with the sureness of a predator, his long fluid stride confident. His eyes glittered beneath the weak glow of her porch light. Her womb fluttered. Admit it, brain, you know you want him, too. But would he lose interest if he knew? Or worse, once the thrill of the chase had been brought home, would he walk? And she asked herself, would it matter?

She turned the last key in the door and pushed it open. Before she could close the door, he followed her in. “I don’t need a late-night visitor, either,” she said.

“Maybe not, but you need a few tips on lap dancing.”

After she threw her keys on the counter, she whirled on him. “I beg your pardon. I think I did just fine.”

He moved toward her, the gleam in his eyes rapacious. “It wasn’t bad, but I’ve seen better.”

Phil backed around the small kitchen table, putting it safely between them. “Jase didn’t seem to think so.” Her skin warmed as she remembered the passion in his eyes and the rise in his pants.

Ty paused for a millisecond, his features sharp. “Jase doesn’t have the experience I have.”

“Yes, I forget where you got your training.”

As pain flashed across his face, she winced.

“Always the bitch, Phil.”

“Always the bastard, Lieutenant.”

As she circled the table, he followed.

“Did Scott Mason rape you?”

She gasped at his directness. “No!”

“Who did?”

His intuition stunned her. Her mouth opened, then closed. She couldn’t tell him. She’d never told anyone what happened.

Ty moved in close to her but didn’t attempt to touch her. His eyes blazed. “Who hurt you?” The ferocity of his tone stunned her.

She shook her head and turned away from him. “Kyle Thompson. I wasn’t raped, not exactly. I was just stupid and naïve. Mason was a spectator.”

“There’s more to it than you’re telling me.”

Yes, but she didn’t want to relive it. She wanted to erase it, to make it have no impact ever again on her choices.

“Why wasn’t the episode in your psych report?”

Her heart rate increased and she turned to face him. “Because it has no bearing on my ability to do my job.”

“Not your decision to make.”

Phil had no comeback. He spoke the truth.

“You lied. That’s grounds for immediate dismissal.”

She smiled grimly. “Spirit of the law, Lieutenant. It hasn’t affected my job performance.”

“Tell me what happened.”

Why did he care? She backed away.

“No.”

“I don’t want to pull rank on you, but I will,” Ty said.

She glared at him. “Why can’t you leave it alone?”

“Because this is impeding your job performance.”

“Bullshit!”

He stepped closer. “Bullshit is right. If you want to be effective you need to loosen up, and that means lose some of your inhibitions.”

“I did fine!”

“No, Phil, you didn’t.”

“You’re a liar. I saw how you watched. I know you were aroused.”

“Aroused is one thing, on the edge is another. I’m beginning to doubt you have what it takes to see this through.”

Her fighting Irish surfaced. “I have what it takes, Lieutenant. If I can survive what those high school imbeciles did, I can lap dance a man to orgasm.”

He smiled. “I bet you can’t.”

Her skin flushed warm. “I bet I can.”

“Prove it.” His smile widened to a grin. “I’ll be happy to be your test dummy.”

She laughed. What more did she need to prove to herself she was capable of intimacy? She was out of the club, out of Kat’s skin, alone in the safety of her own house with a man who turned her on and inside out. “I bet you would, sir. But I’m sure there is something in the GOs about a subordinate lap dancing for a superior.”

“I told you, Zorn, there are no GOs in undercover. Do what you have to.”

“All right, Lieutenant Jamerson. I bet you I can make you come just by dancing. Not touching.”

“I bet you can’t.”

“Let’s make this interesting, sir. I’ll dance for you, here and now. If I make you come, you keep my little failure to disclose traumatic incidents to the shrink our little secret.”

“If you don’t, I follow you into your bedroom, where you’ll make it happen on my terms.”

Phil shivered at the thought, the excitement at the prospect stuttering her breath pattern. Either way, for her it was a win-win. The excitement turned into anxiety. What if she couldn’t go through with it? What if her self-imposed celibacy and fear of intimacy had become so ingrained, she couldn’t loosen up enough? It was different at the club, which was just a job, a means to an end. Here, now, it was about want. She glanced at Ty beneath her lashes. He kept his distance, almost gentlemanly, giving her the space she needed. She lost some of her anxiety.
If
she were capable of overcoming her fear of intimacy, it would be with Ty.

“A few ground rules.”

Ty smiled. “I would expect nothing less.”

“You will do what I say. No touching, not even once during the dance. Give me your word.”

“You have it.”

She knew in her heart if she lost the bet, all she had to do was tell Ty no and he would respect it. He would sneer, he would entice, but in the end he would back off.

Question of the night was: Would she?

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

“G
ive me a few minutes to shower, cowboy.”

Phil hurried back to her room and Ty smiled as he walked into the family room and settled into the comfortable recliner. He might be one horny dog, but he was a master of control. His self-control was one reason he’d managed to stay alive so many years undercover. He never,
ever
allowed his impulses or emotions to direct his decisions.

What Phil didn’t know was he had no intention of narcing on her. Her secrets were safe with him. His smile changed to a scowl. Her pain had been apparent when he questioned her about Mason. If the prick was here or his fucking friend Kyle Thompson, he’d give them both a taste of some real pain. Ty Jamerson style.

He realized now just how sexually vulnerable Phil was. She had some issues, and for that reason alone he’d do his damnest to go slow and not push. He’d let her set the pace, and what happened, happened.

He grinned. Patience was his friend and he knew he’d need a lot of it if he was going to get the sexy Philamina Zorn between the sheets.

Like a kid getting ready to raid a candy shop, Ty rubbed his hands together and settled back into the supple leather chair. He’d wanted in her pants the minute Phil Zorn walked into the interrogation room three years ago, and tonight, at least part of his recurring dream was about to come true.

The slow sultry beat of a jazz riff drifted out from hidden speakers, the lights dimmed. His blood surged. He rearranged himself in the chair. He was already hard and he’d yet to lay eyes on her.

“Close your eyes,” Phil commanded from the shadows.

“What’s the point of your seducing me if my eyes are closed?”

“Do it, now.”

Playing hardball was she? He closed his eyes and his dick throbbed.

He smiled at the sound of a match being struck. He smelled sulfur and listened to the music flow. After a moment, he sniffed the subtle scent of vanilla and cream. Candles.