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“FBI! OPEN THE DOOR!”
There was no answer. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
He tried again, pounding louder. “FBI! Open up, or we’re coming in!”
She has to be here. Her car’s here. Her phone is here. No friends have seen her or spoken to her since early yesterday. She wasn’t at work.
He looked at Lance. The detective nodded. They had to go in.
Spencer took a big step back. Lance took his place. Spencer lifted his foot and kicked the door open. Lance went through first, his gun drawn. He went left, and Spencer went right. Spencer’s partner, Chris, and Lance’s partner, Moreno, were right behind them.
And… nothing.
There was no one in the living room. Or the kitchen, which they could see across the island that separated the room from the main living space.
Well… hell.
Spencer started down the hallway toward the bedroom as Lance went for the balcony. Chris and Moreno headed for the other bedrooms.
“Clear!” Lance shouted from the balcony.
“Clear,” Chris confirmed from the master bedroom.
“Clear,” Moreno called from the guest room.
But Spencer had stopped outside the closed bathroom door. The shower was running. And a woman was singing along with music playing from, he’d guess, her phone.
Well… fuck.
He couldn’t believe the relief that seeped through him. He braced a hand on the doorframe as his knees got weak.
“Okay?” Moreno asked.
“She’s inside,” Spencer said.
Moreno cocked his head toward the doorway. “Sounds okay.”
“Kitchen is clear too,” Lance said, holstering his weapon as he joined them in the hallway.
Spencer nodded and swallowed. Jesus. The adrenaline was still coursing, and he was having trouble getting his shit together.
“Damn, you okay, man?” Moreno clapped him on the shoulder. “You need me to go in?”
“Don’t even fucking think about it.” Spencer straightened and shoved the other man back.
“What the fu—” Chris came down the hall and stopped when he found the other three men gathered outside the bathroom. “What’s goin’ on?”
“We found her,” Lance said with a grin, pointing at the door.
“She okay?” Chris asked.
“Not sure,” Moreno said. “Haven't asked her yet. She's singing along to that new Hayden Ross song. She's pretty good. We probably shouldn't interrupt.”
“For fuck’s sake.” Chris strode forward, and Spencer knew he was going to pound on the door if Spencer didn't move his ass.
Spencer put up a hand. “I've got this.”
“We need to find out if she's all right. She’s just taking a fucking shower? Not answering her phone or reporting in? You don’t know what’s going on in there. Does she even know what happened?”
Spencer was going to guess no. But he'd find out. Without these guys around.
“Just give me some space.”
The three other men moved back, but not nearly far enough for Spencer's preference. He lifted a hand and knocked on the door.
He heard a scream on either side.
“Max, it's me!” Okay, she probably didn’t know his voice that well. “Spencer. Landry.” He felt like a dumbass.
“Spencer? Holy shit! What the fuck!”
He heard the sound of something that he hoped was only a shampoo bottle hitting the shower floor.
“What the hell are you doing?” she demanded.
“We need to talk.”
“Did you break into my apartment?” she shouted.
“No! I…” Well, fuck. Yes, he had. “We have to talk!”
“That's what phones are for!”
“You're not answering your phone.”
“So leave a message, and I’ll call you back!”
He sighed and glanced at his three co-workers. They were all watching, with intrigued and amused expressions. He did not need this. He’d lost at least two years of his life this morning, worrying if Max was all right and where she was. And now she was going to give him a hard time. Of course she was.
“Something's happened, Max. We need to talk.”
“Just get the fuck out of here, Spencer! I will call you later.”
“I can’t leave. Something’s happened.”
“Like what?”
“I’m…” He was not going to keep yelling this through a door. “I'm coming in.”
“The fuck you are.”
He heard the shower shut off and the sound of the rings of the shower curtain sliding along a metal rod.
He again looked at the three men accompanying him. So it was now very evident that he knew the woman they were here to check on. And that she wasn't happy to have him here. Great. He'd known all of that would be quite apparent to them at some point. But he hadn’t cared when he hadn’t known if she was dead or had been kidnapped or just what the hell was going on. Now he was so fucking relieved that she was all right that he couldn't work up much ire about her pissy mood.
He also had to make sure she stayed all right. That was probably going to take a little more talking and possibly more charm than he was capable of. So he needed at least Chris to stick around.
But this wasn’t the FBI’s jurisdiction. So as NOLA PD detectives, Peter Lance and Ricky Moreno had to be here. This was going to be their investigation.
Dammit.
He was not going to turn Max over to them right away. He just wasn’t. Not until he had a moment—or forty-five—with her.
He heard the sound of footsteps approaching, and the door in front of him suddenly swung open, revealing a wet, mad redhead wrapped in only a single piece of light blue terrycloth.
His body reacted immediately. It didn't care that there'd been a bomb threat, that he'd spent the past nearly two hours wondering if she was dead or alive, that she was definitely not his type, that she thought he was kind of an asshole, or that they had an audience. He immediately flashed back to the last time he'd been in
this apartment when she'd been wearing much less than that towel.
She stared up at him. “I cannot believe that you're here. What do you—” In the periphery of her vision, she apparently caught sight of the three other men. She turned toward them, frowning. “What in the hell is going on?”
She either noticed their badges or figured they could be trusted if they were with him.
He'd like to think it was the latter but was pretty sure it was the former.
“Guys, we need some space.” No matter what else was going on, Spencer was very aware that the three other men were getting quite an eyeful.
Sure, she was basically covered. But the amount of skin she was showing—creamy, smooth, pale skin that he could personally attest had no freckles—was a much more significant percentage than the amount of skin she was covering.
Threat to her life or not, she looked hot as hell, and he stupidly didn't want any other guys seeing her like this.
“Ma'am, are you sure you want to deal with Agent Landry? One of us would be happy to help you instead,” Moreno said with a shit-eating grin.
“We'll be in the living room.” Chris grabbed each of the younger men by the collar and turned them before shoving them down the hallway.
Spencer listened to Moreno and Lance chuckle as they headed for Max's living room.
But his gaze was focused entirely on her.
She was in one piece. Alive and well. Seemingly oblivious to what had been going on that morning.
“Why aren’t you at work?”
Her eyes widened. “I'm getting ready for work. I had a late night last night.”
Do not ask about her late night.
She narrowed her eyes. “Do not ask me about my late night.”
He sucked a breath in through his nose and let it out. “There was a bomb threat at the newsroom.”
Her eyes widened again. “A bomb threat?”
“Yes. Considered credible enough to have us bring the bomb squad in. No one could find you. Hadn't heard from you. Caroline says she hasn't talked to you in over twenty-four hours. You weren’t answering your phone. I was… we… were worried.”
The hand clutching the towel against her breasts tightened slightly. “I… Thank you. I'm sorry I wasn't answering the phone. I woke up, went to work out—which makes it hard to hear my phone—and then came home and got in the shower. I wasn't expected at work until later today. I wasn’t expecting anyone to call or text, so I wasn’t looking.”
“No one knew that you weren’t coming in until late.”
She frowned. “My editor, Paul, knew that.”
“Paul wasn't in either. We haven’t talked to him.”
“Yeah, he's in Baton Rouge covering a story. But generally, the reporters don't report to one another. We don't worry about one another coming and going.”
Spencer scrubbed a hand over his face. “Yeah, that's what they said. Doesn’t make it easy for law enforcement when things like this happen, though.”
“Sorry. I'm okay, though.”
He studied her. She was okay. Fucking gorgeous, too. “You need to get dressed.”
“Yeah. Okay.”
“We have some questions. And… some more information.”
She frowned. “Something else I need to know?”
“Yes. I assume you want more details about the threat.”
Of course she would want more details. She was a reporter and one of the most curious women he knew. But there was more she needed to know as well.
“What are you not telling me?”
“I'm gonna tell you everything. Just put some clothes on.”
“Spencer, tell me now. You're freaking me out.”
“And you're standing in front of me dripping wet, in a towel. I’m having a little trouble being professional.”
That seemed to stun her for a moment. She sucked in a little breath and just stared at him for three heartbeats. “That’s a you problem. Tell me what you have to tell me.”
She was so difficult. God, why did the sex with her have to be so good? Fuck, he was a professional. He was damned good at his job. He took what he did seriously. He could not be distracted by the fact that the sight of her bare skin, the smell of her, and the memories of her in this apartment were clawing through his brain and making his entire body tight and hard.
“The threat was directed at you specifically.”
She didn't react to that. She just stared at him.
“Max? Did you hear me?”
He wasn’t sure she had. She didn’t say anything or even move.
Yeah, he didn't want to deal with her going into shock or having some kind of emotional reaction when she was wrapped in a towel. He wanted to be able to touch her, help her, and do whatever she needed him to do. But he really needed her to not be naked for that.
He took her by the upper arms. “Time to get dressed,” he said firmly.
He turned her and nudged her down the hall. She took one hesitant step. Then stopped. He sighed. He nudged her again. She took two steps that time. Then stopped. And, with a deep breath, Spencer accepted his fate. He walked her into her bedroom and sat her on the edge of her bed. He crossed to her closet first.
She had dresses. He was actually surprised by that. But that was stupid. He thought of her as a black hoodie, sweatpants, and possibly a ripped black jeans kind of girl. But he'd seen her in more. When he first met her, she'd been wearing a skirt. The night they'd done their crazy stakeout of the guys who were illegally buying and selling big cats in a black-market scheme, she'd also worn a skirt. She looked fucking great in skirts.
He reached for a sundress that was bright yellow. If he had to put money on it, he'd guess she'd worn this thing about once. He turned toward her and tossed it on the bed next to her. She hadn't moved or said anything. She had her bottom lip pulled between her teeth and was staring at the floor.
Spencer knew the wheels in her head were turning fast. He didn't think she was actually in shock. No doubt she was going over a list of people who might have the motivation and means to bomb the building where she worked. At least he could count on her to take this seriously. She knew that people actually did build and deploy bombs.
He crossed to her dresser and went through her top two drawers, not bothering to feel creepy about it. Every single bra, however, was either black or tan. Not that he had a problem with either, but why did this woman have no other colors? Not even one? Sighing, he pulled out a flesh-colored bra—though, as he well knew, her skin tone was about two shades lighter than this—and opened her panty drawer. More black and tan. But wait, what was this?
With a grin, he pulled out a pair from the back right corner that was leopard print. Well, that was a little interesting, at least.
Of course, the general black and tan were the same. But then something caught his eye. A flash of pink. Okay, now they were talking. He snagged the pair of hot pink bikini panties quickly and was pleased to find not just a pair of cherry red panties under it but a matching red bra.
Alrighty then.
He crossed to the bed with the panties and tan bra and held them out.
“Please tell me I get to help you put these on.”
That seemed to snap her out of her daze. She looked at the hot pink silk, then up at him. “These?”
He grinned. “Oh yes, these.”
She rolled her eyes, then over at the dress. “Not wearing that.”
“It looks nice, and it's hot outside.”
“I'm going to work, Spencer. I can't wear a sundress to work.”
He scowled. “You're not going to work.”
“Of course I am. What else am I going to do?”
“Max, a guy threatened to blow up the building where you work because of you. You are not going to work. In fact, you're not going anywhere until we get this straightened out.”
She stood up from the bed and crossed her arms. The towel slipped a little, but she didn't seem to notice. Spencer did.
“What does ‘straightened out’ mean exactly?”
“It means finding out who did this.”
“So I can't go anywhere until you find this guy? How long is that going to take?”
“You know I don’t know that. Hopefully not long. But you're in danger.”
Spencer was working on being professional here, but later, he might just admit how fucking scared he’d been that morning when he’d heard the call that the bomb threat had been at New Orleans News. He always worried, of course. He always got that dump of adrenaline when big stuff happened. And a bomb threat was always big stuff. But he didn’t get scared. This was his job. He had to expect shit like this to happen. And then he went out and dealt with it.
When he’d thought about Max being the target today, he’d been scared.
Fuck.
She frowned, apparently processing that. “Was there any bomb found? Or was it just a threat?”
He knew where this was going. He propped his hands on both hips and gave her his menacing FBI-guy look. “No bomb. But that doesn’t matter.”
“Is everyone all right?”
“Yes. Basically. Shook up, as you can imagine.”
She nodded. “So he doesn’t know where I live. Or who I am.”
He scowled. “You don’t know that.”
“If it was a personal attack, as you say, then why not threaten me at home? Put a note on my car. Email me or call me personally? The closest he could get was work.”
“Maybe he wanted your boss to shut your stories and investigation down.”
She nodded. “Yeah. Maybe.”
“Which he’s going to do.”
She nodded again. She wasn’t looking at him. And seemed oblivious to the fact she was mostly naked.
Spencer was able to admit he was struggling. This woman made him nuts, on many levels, and her standing there in only a towel, after having her life threatened, was stretching his very thin thread of patience to a near breaking point.
“So I need to let him know that I’m not at work,” she said after a moment.
“You’re not going to be at work.”
She huffed out a breath. “But I need to let him know that. So if he tries again, he won’t target the News.”
Spencer closed his eyes and counted to ten. It wasn’t her fault this had happened. It wasn’t her fault that it was true that the guy might try again. It was her fault that she didn’t seem rattled enough for Spencer.
How rattled would that be?
Yeah, well, launching herself into his arms and asking him to hold her would be a good start.
He shoved a hand through his hair. Max in his arms wasn’t going to make anything easier. And now he had to think about how tiny the chances of her ever being in his arms again actually were.
Fuck.
“How are you going to do that?” Spencer managed to ask. He hated this plan, and he didn’t even know what the plan was.
“Post about it.” Her eyes came back to his. “Social media. My own. I mean, it’s still my pen name, but I have accounts that are
mine and not officially linked to the company. I’ll post about the threat and that some coward decided to threaten all of my co-workers and bully me in an attempt to shut me up.”
Spencer took a step forward. “You will not do that.”
“Of course I will.”
“You will not taunt and insult the man who threatened to blow you up this morning.”
“I’m not going to let him think he scared me,” she said with a lift of her chin. “I’ll let him know that I won’t be at work. But that if he wants to shut me up, it’s not going to work.”
“Max, Jesus.” Spencer realized she was serious and a cold shiver went down his spine.
“I’m not going to stop. Guys like this think they can throw their power and money around and get away with anything. That’s not how it works. But you’re right. I can’t put other people at risk. I’ll do this on my own, away from the newsroom and everyone.”
“So, just sitting here in your apartment?”
She shrugged. “I guess so.”
“What if he knows where you live?”
“Why wouldn’t the threat have come here?”
“Because threatening your co-workers is a bigger move than just threatening you.”
She pulled her bottom lip between her teeth again, which Spencer found madly distracting. God, he loved her lips. He could remember everything about them, from the taste, to the feel of them under his, to the feel of them around his cock.
They’d definitely not gotten a lot of sleep the night he’d spent here.
In the bed right behind her.
“I’ll stay at a hotel.”
He blinked. For fuck’s sake. He needed to focus. “No.”
“Excuse me?”
“If he knows who you are, he’ll follow you there. That could put a lot of people at risk.”
“Then the people here in my building are at risk too,” she pointed out.
He nodded. She lived in a townhouse with two more on one side and three on the other.
She broke eye contact, staring instead at the top button on his shirt. He could tell that her wheels were spinning again.
Then she dropped her towel, and his wheels completely stopped spinning.
She reached for the panties and started to pull them on.
He coughed. “Max.”
She looked up at him, wiggling the pink silk into place. The move, of course, made her perfect tits bounce enticingly. ...
