Skin Deep (12 page)

“I get it,” she said, biting her tongue so she wouldn’t add that while she understood the technicalities, she also thought they sucked. “There are only so many cases we can pursue, and without concrete evidence, this one is a shot in the dark.”

“Listen, Moreno.” Sinclair paused, the edge that normally filled his blue-gray stare suspiciously absent. “I know calls like these are tough for you.”

“They’re tough for all of us.” She’d never met a cop who didn’t get jacked up over a case every now and then, particularly when the details were brutal.

But Sinclair didn’t let up. “Yes, but they’re particularly tough for you. I just don’t want us passing on this investigation to turn into a banana peel for you.”

“I’m sorry,” Isabella said, her confusion and shock merging together to form a great, big tangle of
what the fuck.
“I’m not really sure what that means.”

Lifting a hand, Sinclair gestured around the intelligence office, all the desks still and empty and dark except for hers. “It’s ten-thirty on a Wednesday night, and here you are working.”

“You’re not really going to rattle my trap because I’m doing my job, are you?” Isabella let go of a soft laugh in an effort to lighten the tension thickening the air, but Sinclair didn’t laugh back, or hell, even slow down.

“Actually, I am. You were here last night at the same time. Night before that, too. You’ve been triple-timing it for months.”

“I have cases, Sam.” They’d caught a brutal assault/robbery just this morning that she’d spent four hours doing background on while Maxwell and Hale had taken statements and worked with CSI.

“So do the rest of your team, and they manage not to live here.” Sinclair leaned forward over the metal backrest of the chair, and hell, Isabella hated every shred of the honesty she saw in his eyes. “Look, you’re dedicated as hell, and you’re a great detective. Fierce. Smart. But you take on a lot, and you hold a lot in. I’ll be honest. Sometimes I worry.”

Her chin hiked along with her pulse. “Are you questioning whether or not I can do my job?”

“No. I’m questioning whether or not you’re okay
after
you do your job. With everything that happened to Marisol, it’s understandable—”

She held up a hand to put a quick end to the subject. “What happened to Marisol was a long time ago, Sam.”

“What happened to Marisol was a tragedy,” he corrected. “Eleven years ago or not, it’s understandable that things like those photos might upset you.”

Isabella nearly laughed at the irony. She wasn’t upset. She couldn’t be upset. There were too many cases that needed to be solved, too many victims who needed help for her to let her emotions get in the way of anything other than her job. “I appreciate the concern, but really, I’m fine.”

The edges of Sinclair’s mouth lowered in a frown that said he was unconvinced. “Your cousin was kidnapped, Isabella. She was sexually assaulted and murdered, and the case was never solved.”

“I know exactly what happened to her,” Isabella snapped, her breath tightening her throat upon exit. God, she would give anything
not
to know, to un-hear the details and un-see the photos that were there every single time she closed her eyes, even just to blink.

“And I know you’re not fine.” Sinclair straightened, sending his gaze over her paper-strewn desk. “You’re working seventy, sometimes eighty hours a week.”

“So I don’t mind the overtime. I like my job.”

“No,” he argued. “You’re in love with your job.”

Her patience slipped another notch. “And what’s so wrong with that?”

“No matter how good you are or how many cases you solve, this job is never going to love you back. And it’s sure as hell not going to
have
your back unless you start trusting the people around you.”

The words forced the air from her lungs, stunning her into place behind her desk as Sinclair continued.

“You volunteer for extra cases outside of the unit.” Up went one hand, ticking off each point, finger by finger. “You’ve never turned down overtime. Not even on Christmas. You’re at the precinct when your partners are blowing off steam together, and even on the rare occasion you do go to the Crooked Angel with them, you’re always a step removed—even with Hollister, and he’s your partner. You think I don’t see that? That the rest of the unit doesn’t see it too? Hell, they don’t even know about Marisol. They don’t know a damned thing about you.”

Isabella’s shoulders met the back of her chair with a soft thump. “I’m private with everyone. It’s not personal.”

“Except this job
is
personal,” Sinclair said. “We do more than just punch the clock together. We have to trust each other in life and death situations every day. You keep Maxwell, Hale, Hollister, and Capelli at arm’s length, and they feel it.”

“So, what?” She managed to push the question past the shock bursting through her chest, but only just. “You think they don’t trust me?”

“No, Isabella.” Sinclair shook his head. “I think you don’t trust
them
.”

The words sent a good, sharp kick all the way through her, and oh, it hurt. But her defenses swiftly locked down over the ache, covering it up with the reminder of why she could not, under any circumstances, let her partners, her boss, or anyone else get too close. If they got close, Isabella would care about them, and they would care about her in return.

And the last person who’d been close, who’d cared for her and trusted her, had been tortured and murdered, lost in the blink of an eye even though the pain would last until she took her dying breath.

Going through that again wasn’t an option.

Which meant letting anyone in—letting them close enough to really know her, to know them in return—simply couldn’t happen.

Folding her hands over the forms on her desk, she tucked her shoulders in tight and opened her mouth to kill this conversation, once and for all. “If I didn’t trust the people in this unit, I wouldn’t so much as direct traffic with any of them. Just because I don’t want to sit around the campfire and share all my feelings and hug it out with my partners doesn’t mean I don’t trust them, or that I’m not a good cop.”

Just like that, the chilly edges of Sinclair’s stare came winging back as he pushed himself out of the chair to stand in front of her, his stance just as unyielding as her own.

“It doesn’t mean you’re okay, either. Now do me a favor and go home. And take that box back to the evidence locker on your way out.”

I
sabella took
a deep breath of crisp nighttime air, sending a glance over the shadowed city block in front of her. The four-inch heels she’d had to buy specifically for this party pinched at her toes, but she anchored them into place on the sidewalk. Using her throwaway cell phone as a guise, she did a covert scan of her surroundings while she pretended to check her voicemail messages.

No people on either side of the street. No suspicious sounds raising her hackles.

Nothing standing between her and the intel she needed except for two city blocks and the word of a drug-dealing john.

Isabella tucked her cell phone into the miniscule clutch designed to hold it and little else, forcing her feet into a steady stride. She’d quadruple-checked her reflection in the tiny pop-down mirror on the Mustang’s visor, the gold-tinged light doing damn little to soften the smoky gray eyeliner and shimmery copper-colored lipstick that had taken her far too much time and energy to apply. Everything was in place, from her micro-mini halter dress to the small but lethal two-inch ceramic blade she’d tucked behind the lining of the belt around her waist. She had to admit, she’d been a little surprised not to have gotten a last-minute “you’re not still thinking of doing this, are you?” phone call from Kellan. But since she also hadn’t gotten a last-minute “get your ass in my office right now” demand from Sinclair, Isabella had to assume Walker had washed his hands of both her and her recon mission.

Which was really for the best, because between the reluctant drug dealer she was going to have to rely on and the high-level security she was going to have to get past in order to talk to one of these girls, she had one hell of a task in front of her tonight.

Isabella’s heels clipped out a smooth rhythm over the concrete as she walked the pair of city blocks to her meet-up spot with Marcus. Although she had come up with an airtight plan before she’d even cut him loose from his park bench last Friday night, there were still variables that couldn’t be predicted, the first of which was whether or not he’d make good on his end of the deal. Just because she’d promised Marcus she wouldn’t sleep, eat, or stop relentlessly searching for him in addition to making that nine-one-one call if he ditched her didn’t mean he’d actually do the smart thing and show up.

The sight of him standing beneath the street light across from the glittering high rise of the Metropolitan was enough to make her pulse pitch with relief.

“Marcus.” Isabella kept her voice utterly neutral, her first cover-up of what would probably be hundreds tonight. “Good of you to show.”

“Damn, girl.” Danny’s brows shot up, an appreciative leer mixing in with the unease that lurked in his expression. “You look—”

“Don’t finish that sentence,” she said, stabbing an index finger at him to hammer the point all the way into place. “Because then I will have to harm you, and as much as the idea has its merits on some level, I need you to get me into this party. Speaking of which”—she softened her words, trying on the coy smile from her bag of distraction tricks—“You need to relax. Nothing sends off warning flares like a jumpy drug dealer.”

Marcus jammed his hands into the pockets of his dress pants and sent a withering frown in her direction. “Coulda mentioned that last fucking week before I ended up zip-tied to a park bench.”

“And ruin all the fun? Not a chance. You remember the drill?”

“Yeah,” he mumbled, but they had zero margin for error.

So she said, “Run it through for me one more time, just for grins.”

“Same story you gave Danny last Friday night,” he said, and okay, at least he was relaxing enough to keep with his usual personal quirks. “You moved here from Charlotte and we hooked up in the park a couple of weeks ago. You like to party and you’re looking for a girl to spice things up, so I invited you upstairs to find you a good time.”

Isabella nodded her approval, a wisp of hair breaking free from the loose up-do she’d pinned to the crown of her head. “Once you get me in the door, we can part ways. It’ll be less distracting for both of us, and easier for me to slip out once I get what I’m looking for. But Danny.” She leaned in to look at him. “Don’t do anything you’re going to regret.”

“Danny Marcus ain’t stupid, baby.” He focused his stare on the halo of streetlight at their feet for just a split second before lifting his chin to look Isabella in the eye. “I don’t take you upstairs, you haul me to the clink along with everyone in that penthouse. But if I tell anyone I breathed a word of this to a cop, let alone brought one all the way upstairs with me, Mr. DuPree will lose his shit, and…well, there’s worse things that could happen to Danny Marcus than prison.”

God, he so wasn’t wrong, and wasn’t that all the more reason to get up to that penthouse, stat. “No one’s going to find out I’m a cop, Marcus. This whole thing is going to play out just like we planned. Now let’s go.”

Isabella smoothed a hand over her skirt and crossed the street, making sure Marcus remained relaxed and right by her side as they made their way to the Metropolitan’s front entrance by way of the neatly paved sidewalk. Taking one last deep breath, she smiled at the uniformed doorman as he pulled open the gleaming, brass-handled door leading into the lobby.

And found herself face to stormy blue stare with Kellan Walker.

K
ellan had known
that as soon as Isabella saw him standing there on the Italian marble floor tiles of the Metropolitan’s lushly appointed two-story lobby, she was going to be mad enough to spit fire. What he hadn’t counted on, however, was that she would look so ridiculously hot that he’d lose the element of surprise to the independent thinking of his dick.

Moreno strode over to him, her heels working up a riot of sound that echoed off the frescoed ceilings of the lobby. “What the hell are you doing here?” she hissed, and although she’d dropped the words into the tight sliver of space between their bodies to keep them private, the anger bleeding through her tone hit him like a shout.

Focus. Breathe
. “Is that any way to greet your date?” Kellan asked, pairing the question with a smile in an effort to take the edge off her supreme irritation.

If his tactic worked, it was only by the tiniest margin. “Marcus is my date,” Isabella said. Kellan knew she wasn’t going to like what came next, but truly, she’d given him no choice.

“Not anymore.”

Realization had her chocolate-colored eyes springing wide. “Oh my God, you’re
serious
.”

He nodded, spinning a lightning-fast glance around the lobby to make sure the elegant space was still empty of anyone other than Marcus, who was still a few steps behind them and just out of earshot. “I’m afraid so.”

“You aren’t going upstairs with me, Walker. This isn’t up for debate.” She flashed a quick give-me-a-second look at Marcus—who had remained impressively reaction-free at the obvious monkey wrench Kellan had just tossed into the party-of-two plan—linking her arm through Kellan’s to lead him farther into the lobby. To anyone passing by, they might look like a couple meeting up for a late-night outing to a bar or an upscale club, her game face was that good. But Kellan could feel the tension in Moreno’s body all the way through his suit jacket and shirt sleeve, which meant he had to proceed with extreme caution if he wanted to get anywhere with her.

But he still wasn’t backing down on the truth. She wasn’t going upstairs without someone on her hip.

And if that someone had to be him, then so be it.

“You’re absolutely right,” Kellan said, murmuring quietly in her ear as they pretended to admire an ornately framed painting on the lobby wall. “It’s not up for debate. I’m here, and I want to help you. You’re taking me upstairs as your date.”

“You knew,” she whispered, understanding parting her lips into a tawny O even though her gaze never left the painting. “You knew this whole time that you were going to show up tonight and give me no choice but to take you to this party, didn’t you?”

Kellan nodded. No point in lying, and even if he did, she’d only call him out and get even madder. Not necessarily in that order. “Coming up with your plan right in front of me before you cut Marcus loose last Friday probably wasn’t your best move,” he admitted. Before she could jump in with a renewed protest, he tacked on, “Yes, this has been my plan all week, and yes, I knew you’d be this pissed off. But I also know there are a lot of things in that penthouse that you can’t control, and tonight is your only shot to get what you’re looking for. Let me help you, Moreno.”

She didn’t agree, but she didn’t balk out loud either, so he took the momentary win and continued.

“This is no different than the other night in the park. I know how to work recon, and I want to help you help those girls. Just trust me to do that, okay? Just trust me to have your back for tonight.”

For a minute, she said nothing. Then the minute slid into another, then another, Kellan’s heart beating faster and faster against his sternum until finally, Isabella turned toward him.

“Listen to me very carefully.” Her fingers moved softly over his chest, stopping to straighten the black wool of his suit jacket in an oddly intimate gesture. “Nothing about the plan changes, except now you and I are a couple who want a third for a good time. Danny will get us in the door, and you’ll follow my lead to the letter. Do you understand?”

The vise-like grip on his lungs released on a completely silent exhale. “I do,” he said, but Moreno’s hands didn’t budge.

“Be sure you can do this. Because once we get into that elevator, there’s no going back.”

He didn’t hesitate. “I’m sure, Isabella.”

“Good. And Walker?” Although a smile played on her lips, her words arrived on a dead-serious promise. “Don’t think that just because I agreed to this, I’m not furious with you. When we get out of here, you and I are going to have an argument you won’t win.”

Without so much as a blink, she lowered her hands from his slamming chest, looping her arm through the bend in his elbow and walking back toward the spot where Marcus had been waiting just a few paces away.

“Slight change in plans,” Moreno said. She fixed Marcus with a stunner of a smile, likely to water down any panic that might go with the news, and man, she was good. But where her smile was concerned, Kellan had seen the genuine product, and as subtle as the difference was, this one was just the slightest bit off from the unfettered expression she’d given up the other night at the Crooked Angel.

“What do you mean, a change in plans?” Marcus darted a glance from Isabella to Kellan, but she stepped in closer, recovering his attention in one long-legged swoop.

“Relax, Danny. I’m just your friend looking for a good time, remember? Only now, my boyfriend wants to watch.”

Kellan sucked in an involuntary breath. But he’d promised to follow her lead to the letter and they had to get over the threshold somehow, so he nodded and said, “I’m sure that’s not an unusual request for a party like this, is it, Danny? No big deal for a boyfriend to watch.”

The point seemed to hit its mark. Thank fuck. “Oh. Well, there aren’t usually a lot of women at these parties other than the ones working for DuPree, but yeah. Most of the clients do like to watch,” Marcus agreed, his shoulders loosening from around the collar of his dress shirt. “I guess it won’t be any different to sell it with two of you. But I can still, uh, go, though, right? As soon as you two get past the door, Danny Marcus is done?”

“Like I said. Everything else stands.” Isabella shifted back on one glossy black high heel, gesturing toward the bank of mirror-paneled elevators behind them. “Now what do you say we get to work?”

Marcus nodded, his black curls springing up and down. “Alright, yeah. Let’s get this over with.”

Leading the way to the elevators, Marcus pulled an electronic key card from his back pocket and inserted it into the slot above the elevator control buttons. At Isabella’s raised brows, he said, “The code to get up to the penthouse level changes every week, and there’s a new key for each party. They’re couriered to people who have been approved for the guest list to keep things exclusive.”

Now it was Kellan’s turn to send his brows on a one-way trip up. “Nice security.”

“Yeah. Just wait.”

A soft ding signaled the elevator’s arrival seconds later, and the three of them stepped onto the empty car. The space was lined with black lacquered paneling from the waist down and mirrors the rest of the way up, and didn’t that just offer about a thousand opportunities for security cameras. From here on in, they were going to have to assume they were being watched.

A fact that wasn’t lost on Isabella, apparently. Tightening her grasp on his arm, she leaned in toward him. The curve of her breast brushed over the outside of his biceps, sending a bolt of want deep between his legs, and hell, this was going to take all the restraint on the goddamn planet.

But Kellan steeled himself against her touch. The whole thing was for show, and there was no denying the anger-fueled tension still thrumming through her body. He’d promised Moreno he could stay on the level and do whatever it took to help her.

There was no turning back now. No room for error or impulse or emotion of any kind.

Focus. Thirty-eighth floor. Thirty-nine. Forty. Breathe.

On another muted chime, the elevator doors slid open to reveal a small alcove leading to a set of intricately carved double doors. The stark white walls were offset by the glow spilling down from regularly spaced sleek gold light fixtures that Kellan recognized as more places for cameras to hide, but being watched seemed the least of their worries since the path to the doors was being blocked by the biggest man he’d ever seen.

And between the three years he’d spent with the fire department and the seven he’d clocked in the Army, that was fucking
saying
something. But as daunting as the roadblock was, this had to be their wrestler guy, which meant they were on the right track. Provided they could get past him, anyway.

Marcus took point, probably in an effort to rip off the Band-Aid of getting everybody over the threshold as promised to save his skinny ass. “Hey, Rampage! How you been?”

The guy didn’t move a millimeter from his post in front of the doors leading into the penthouse as he gave Marcus a slow, flat stare. “Missed you last week, Danny Boy. Mr. DuPree’s parties starting to bore you?”

“Oh. Ah, of course not.” He stiffened, and Kellan’s gut slid south. At least the dirtbag was quick on the upswing. “Sorry I missed out,” Marcus said, his smile turning appropriately sleazy as he turned toward Moreno. “I was spending a little time with my girl Isabella, here. She and her boyfriend like to party, and they’re looking for a pretty young thing to keep them company. Thought I’d bring them along tonight. Show ’em a good time.”

Thankfully, the human boulder didn’t seem to notice Marcus’s hiccup. “Hmm.” Rampage’s beady stare slithered over Isabella, making Kellan grind his molars hard enough to test their integrity. “We don’t get a lot of chicks looking to join in. Girl on girl
is
pretty fucking hot.” He didn’t even bother with subtlety as his gaze lingered on Moreno’s breasts. “But she and her boyfriend aren’t on the list.”

Marcus’s eyes flared, although only for a second. “They’re cool, man. Looking for Mr. DuPree’s kind of fun, you know what I mean? Would Danny Marcus steer you wrong?” he asked with a smile, but Rampage’s bulldog status remained unchanged.

“They’re still not on the list.”

Isabella unwound her arm from Kellan’s, her hips swaying provocatively as she stepped around Marcus on her shiny black stilettos. “Okay, Rampage. It is Rampage, right?” She pulled just enough of her bottom lip between her teeth to make Kellan’s pulse spike, and Jesus, he didn’t know which he wanted more—to kiss her or kill her. “My boyfriend and I really want to play. What do we need to do to get on the list?”

Rampage’s stare stayed fixed on her mouth for a full three seconds before he answered. “Mr. DuPree has a strict no-hands rule, so unfortunately, you can’t earn your way in with me. But if you want a taste of what his parties offer, you’re still going to have to show me you want it.”

The protest burned on Kellan’s tongue, but Moreno’s catlike smile kept the guy’s attention. “What’d you have in mind?”

“You said you came to play, right?” His upper lip lifted in a filthy leer, but Moreno held steady.

Her fingers tightened ever so slightly over Kellan’s forearm as if to say
easy
. “Among other things.”

“Then prove it,” Rampage said, jerking his brick-end chin at Marcus. “Put your mouth on him. I’ll even let you pick your spot, but you’d better make it good.”

Kellan’s composure slammed to a complete halt. The heavy bassline of some song thumped from behind the doors, lifting the hair on the back of his neck and pulsing along with the white-hot anger in his veins.

“No.” The protest was out before he could trap it between his teeth, making Marcus flinch and Rampage take a step forward. But Isabella slipped into the hairsbreadth of testosterone-soaked space between all three of them, flattening one palm over Kellan’s chest as she turned to face Rampage.

“My boyfriend’s just a little territorial when it comes to other men, but don’t worry,” Isabella said. “If proof is what you’re after, I can show you how bad I want it.”

Before Kellan could speak or move or even think, her mouth was on his.

For a split second, he was paralyzed, too thrown by surprise to respond. But then the feel of Isabella’s lips, hungry and insistent, registered all at once, and Kellan lost all thought, answering instead with pure, raw instinct.

Cupping her chin with a single hand, he spread his fingers over one side of her face while his thumb found the other, anchoring her mouth under his. He pushed past her lips without pleasantries, coaxing her mouth open with his hand and his tongue. She opened for him readily, letting him delve deep again and again until—
fuck
—a moan drifted up from her chest, vibrating a path from his lips all the way to his cock.

Rather than giving in and letting him keep the lead he’d claimed, though, Isabella began to meet the brash invasion of his tongue with pressure of her own. Hot fists formed over his jacket right where his shoulders met his arms, pulling their bodies into a full-frontal connection that did nothing to slow the blind, reckless need building in Kellan’s gut.

Faster. Harder. More.

Now
.

Another greedy sweep of Isabella’s tongue was all it took to break him. Crushing his chest against hers, he thrust roughly into the cradle of her hips, impulse daring him not to stop until he’d yanked her dress up and her panties down, burying his cock in the warm, wet heat of her pussy. He broke from her mouth just long enough to reach for the hem of her dress, and the sight of her through his shuttered eyes forced a moan past his lips.

Back arched. Nipples tight and hard, pressing provocatively against the thin red fabric covering them. Mouth parted in wordless desire with heat in her stare to match.

Holy shit. Isabella genuinely wanted him. As badly as he wanted her.

And he’d been two seconds away from doing his level best to make her come in public.

The thought brought him smashing back to the alcove, to the reality of what he’d been doing—to the even harsher reality of what he’d
almost
done—and Jesus Christ, was he out of his goddamn mind?