Gabriel Is No Angel Read online

  She bothered him. A mane of red-brown hair, skin like creamy silk, tip-tilted eyes the color of warm sherry, a body as lush and curved as sin itself... His blood ran hot just thinking about her.

  She’d looked straight at him as she danced. For one brief, astonishing moment, something magical had sparked between them. She’d been his own private fantasy made flesh.

  Then he’d found her rolling around on the floor with Peter Smithfield.

  And his fantasy had turned to ash.

  It shouldn’t have made him angry. But it had. He didn’t even know her name. She’d clammed up on him the moment he’d put the handcuffs on her, and he’d booked her as a very defiant Jane Doe.

  “You don’t want to know her name, MacLaren,” he muttered.

  Sure. Right. He should have known better. As a vice cop, he saw the worst of human nature. Every night, every place he went. Men, women, kids doing things the average citizen couldn’t even imagine. He’d gotten used to it.

  The belly dancer had turned out to be only what he should have expected. The only surprise was his own disappointment.

  The sound of bells cut sharply through the everyday noise of the station. If he’d had one foot in his grave, he would have recognized that sound. His body tensed in a reaction as powerful as it was unwelcome. Scowling, he glanced over his shoulder.

  She looked as exotic as an orchid in this place. Curves everywhere, that mane of chestnut hair gleaming beneath the unrelenting fluorescent lights. Every man in the station watched her. Wanted her. Married, single, young or old, cops or lawbreakers, they wanted her.

  Gabriel scowled, possessed by a sudden, hot sweep of irritation. Crazy as it seemed, he had the irrational urge to grab her and lock her up where no other man could look at her.

  He studied her as she strode toward him. She was all woman, and his pulse stuttered and cranked into high gear.

  “It ought to be illegal for a woman to look that good,” one of the other detectives said. Loud enough for everyone to hear, of course.

  “It must be illegal,” somebody else called. “MacLaren arrested her.”

  Laughter rippled through the room as the belly dancer stopped in front of his desk. Gabriel abruptly realized that everyone else knew something he didn’t.

  Alarm bells went off in his head. He’d transferred to this precinct six months ago, and his fellow detectives hadn’t missed an opportunity to capitalize on that fact. This might be bad.

  “Hey, Boudreau!” a detective called. “How about a dance?”

  “In your dreams,” Rae retorted, without taking her gaze off Detective MacLaren.

  Gabriel’s alarm bells shrilled louder. Boudreau. He’d heard that name. Ray Boudreau was a private process server with the rep of being very smart and very effective. But a woman?

  His gaze dropped to her breasts, which were barely contained in the tiny costume top. Yup, he thought. Definitely a woman.

  An angry woman. Whom he’d just arrested for prostitution.

  She planted herself in front of his desk and stared down at him as though he were some particularly unsavory type of pond scum.

  Unfazed, he met her gaze levelly. She was even more beautiful close up, with her pale, creamy skin and those eyes that fairly sizzled with resentment and challenge. He liked a challenge. A faint, exotic scent teased his nostrils, distracting him. Some kind of flower, he thought.

  “Detective MacLaren.” she said.

  “Ma’am?”

  Rae studied him from beneath her lashes. He looked like a great cat lounging there in front of her. Impressive. Insolent. She felt at a distinct disadvantage. How could she deal with him when the very sight of him sent her nerves jangling with reaction?

  She opted to echo his attitude of cool detachment. She was not about to let him get to her. Uh-uh. He’d called her honey-child, for God’s sake.

  “So you’re Ray Boudreau,” he said.

  “Rae,” she replied. “R-A-E.”

  He ran his thumb along the angle of his jaw. “You told me your name was Jane Doe.”

  “Better that Jane Doe gets busted than Rae Ann Boudreau.”

  His brows rose. “Did it occur to you to maybe mention what you were doing there?”

  “I tried,” she said. “But you were more interested in flexing your handcuffs.”

  She crossed her arms over her chest. Gabriel’s gaze dropped involuntarily. If he’d been a weaker man, his jaw would have dropped right onto his desk. Man, oh, man, but she was one fabulously sexy woman! Lush curves swelled almost to overflowing, and his hands itched with a sudden, powerful desire to touch her.

  They stared at each other silently for a moment. Rae felt as though he’d looked straight through to her soul. It was a very disturbing feeling.

  She needed boundaries, and his eyes didn’t allow any. With a sharp inhalation of breath, she started to turn away.

  “Hey,” he said.

  His voice was deep and dark, smoky with desire. It held her when she would much rather have moved away. A thrill ran up her spine, alarm or anticipation or perhaps both.

  “Hey?” she repeated, raising her brows. “Boy, you really have a way with women, Detective.”

  “Don’t know anything about ’em,” he replied too cheerfully. “Like every other guy on the planet. It’s a common failing.”

  Rae was not in the mood for clever repartee. “Did you have something else to say?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “Why were you following Peter Smith-field?”

  With elaborate casualness, Rae propped one hip on the corner of his desk. “Why don’t you want me following him?”

  “Because,” he said.

  Rae’s nostrils flared. “You want a lot without giving anything in return.”

  “It’s a man thing,” he countered.

  “Not at all,” she replied. “I expect that’s a personal trait of yours. Comes from being a cop too long.”

  “I’m perfectly willing to go down to the courthouse and look it up,” he said.

  She pushed a stray curl away from her face. Much as she’d like to continue baiting him, good sense dictated a truce.

  “All right,” she said. “We might as well get this thing straight.”

  Gabriel licked suddenly dry lips. With her scarves and veils disarranged the way they were now, a whole lot of skin was showing. She had more curves than the law ought to allow. Of course, he held a purely male admiration for a beautiful, sexy woman. Strangely, however, her eyes held more interest for him than her admittedly luscious body. They were good eyes, straightforward and honest. Intelligence and humor sparked those warm brown depths, and something more. He didn’t know what that something might be, but it appealed to him powerfully, drawing him to seek more of the woman within.

  He almost came out of his shoes when she started fooling with the girdle thing that rode low on her hips. She wasn’t going to take it off, was she? But she merely extracted a folded paper from beneath the coin-encrusted band.

  “Take a look,” she said, dropping the paper into his lap.

  Gabriel unfolded it and began to read. His brows went up at the familiar sight of a subpoena. Clipped to the top was a business card. It said Boudreau Professional Process Service.

  He pulled the card free and dropped it onto his desk. “Not many people would learn belly dancing just to serve a subpoena.”

  “I already knew how to dance,” she said, gazing at him along her straight, slim nose. “I just applied it to the situation at hand. Special circumstances require special solutions.”

  He stared at her for a moment. Then he began to laugh.

  “Special solutions...belly dancing process service. Oh, God, that’s rich!”

  Rae repressed the urge to shove him out of his chair. “Are you making fun of me?”

  “Making fun?” Still grinning, he shook his head. “Not at all. I’m impressed with your dedication. Not many people would have thought of that ploy, let alone have the guts to use it.”

>   He grinned at her. Rae found herself caught in the crystalline depths of his eyes, surrounded by heat born of desire and admiration. Drawn by something more powerful than herself, she leaned toward him.

  He slid his hand across the desk, until his fingertips barely grazed hers. At another time, with another man, the contact might have been innocent. But there was nothing innocent about Gabriel MacLaren. He made no effort to disguise the desire in those gorgeous blue eyes, and the sight of all that aggressive male need sent heat spiraling through Rae’s body.

  The line of his mouth softened, and she knew he wanted to kiss her. It was no surprise to Rae; she wanted him to kiss her. If they’d been alone, it would already have happened.

  Rae felt oddly disconnected to anything but him, as though the rest of the world had gone spinning away. It was a powerfully intimate moment. All those barriers she normally kept between herself and the world had been stripped away, leaving her exposed and vulnerable.

  She would have expected to see triumph in his eyes, but she saw only her own emotions mirrored in those ice blue depths. Rae was stunned by the realization that she’d experienced something with him she’d never shared with another human being, even her ex-husband.

  “I...” she began, then closed her mouth as she realized she didn’t have the slightest idea what she was going to say.

  Her voice broke whatever spell had been woven around them. His eyes changed as though a switch had been clicked off, shutting the emotions behind a featureless wall. Rae knew it for what it was: a cop’s disengagement. It was a more effective shield than the hunk of metal he carried in his wallet.

  She straightened. He leaned back in his chair, studying her from beneath thick, dark lashes.

  “Why did you let Smithfield go?” she asked. She knew the answer already, or most of it, but she felt compelled to fill the awkward moment with something other than too-swift breathing.

  Gabriel’s alarms went off again. He knew she’d figured out the deal the moment he’d told her he was a cop. So why ask now? Games, he thought. Get the most play from his reaction to her admittedly gorgeous self, then sling a question at him he didn’t want to answer.

  He didn’t like games. At least other people’s. Hell, hers was working all too well. It was all he could do to keep from sliding her across the desk and into his lap.

  Disappointment stabbed deep again. Why, he didn’t know. He only knew that she affected him in a way no other woman ever had, and that from the moment he’d met her, he’d wanted her to be something special.

  Damn.

  “You cost me my service tonight,” she said.

  He held his hands up, denying the charge. “Hey, that wasn’t my fault. You were lying on the floor with the guy on top of you. I only made the natural assumption, considering the circumstances.”

  Rae considered a number of responses, then discarded most of them as counterproductive. “The only reason you’d let a sleaze-ball like Smithfield slide out of a bust is that you want him for something else. Or need him.”

  “Um...”

  “He’s your snitch,” she said.

  Gabriel set his feet on the desk, trying to look a lot more casual than he felt. “I couldn’t tell you that if I wanted to.”

  “Look,” Rae said, “he owes two years in back child support, and his wife and kids are desperate. All I want to do is serve him that subpoena, and then I’ll be out of your hair.”

  Gabriel winced inwardly, but his duty had required harder things than this. “Sorry.”

  “Sorry?” she demanded. “Is that all you have to say?”

  “It’s all I can say.”

  “I’m not buying, Detective. If you can give me a reason to assume your case is more urgent than a woman and three kids...”

  “It is.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I said so,” he growled, testy because he didn’t want to feel guilty, and he did. Big time.

  “I want Peter Smithfield,” Rae said, equally testy.

  “You can’t have him.”

  Rae studied Gabriel from beneath her lashes. Given the circumstances, she should have written him off. But she saw something in his eyes that looked an awful lot like regret. It was unexpected, and more welcome than she would have believed.

  Until this moment, she hadn’t realized how much she’d wanted him to be more than the cynical cop she’d expected. That flicker of emotion had given her that. He did care. Way, way inside, where he thought no one could possibly see, beat a real heart.

  She let her gaze drift along his big, lean body. This was no indolent house cat. No, Gabriel MacLaren was a tiger, his power restrained but ready. Oh, Lord, she thought, not this man. He’d be nothing but trouble. Rugged, stubborn, sexy, blue-eyed trouble.

  She let her lashes drift downward, hiding her eyes. Oh, boy, she’d better watch herself. For that heart was deeply buried, so deeply that he might have forgotten how to use it.

  Get out while you can, the rational part of her mind urged.

  Logic dictated caution. But the brief flashes of emotion in his eyes had stirred her unbearably, and caution had never been her strong suit. What would it be like, she wondered, to be loved by such a man? Anticipation ran like wildfire through her veins.

  Simply, she was compelled. It was a new experience for her. Irresistible. Dangerous.

  “Ms. Boudreau.”

  She blinked. “Huh?”

  “Snappy comeback,” he said, slashing a grin at her.

  It was a decidedly cynical smile, and made her think she’d imagined those brief, stirring glimpses of emotion. He’d turned all cop, as hard and impenetrable as steel.

  Her temper kicked in, goaded perhaps by disappointment as much as by anger. “Are you going to tell me where Peter Smithfield is?”

  “Nope.”

  “Thanks for nothing, Detective,” she snarled.

  “My friends call me MacLaren.”

  “What do your enemies call you?”

  “Lots of things.”

  “I bet.” She studied him from beneath her lashes, awash with resentment for her own helpless attraction to him. “All right. Keep your smelly little bureaucratic secret. But don’t blame me for messing up plans I don’t know exist.”

  Gabriel pushed aside the irrational urge to apologize to her. This was business, nothing more, nothing less. And she was pushing too hard. Still, he couldn’t keep his gaze from straying. It was worth it, he thought, noting every satiny curve, every luscious inch of skin.

  Then he grinned. “You lost your jewel,” he said.

  Rae stared at him in astonishment. Then, in yet another sally at clever repartee, she replied, “Huh?”

  Lightly, he slid his fingertip across her navel, where she’d worn the big sapphire stone earlier. “Your jewel. Must’ve gotten stuck on Smithfield while you were rolling on the floor.”

  It took an effort of will for Rae to keep from gasping. His tone might have been playful, but his touch was anything but. Neither was her reaction. A flooding wave of arousal started at that small point of contact and spread like heat lightning through her body.

  She lifted her chin, denying it. “You’ve got your mind up and locked,” she said. “But we’ll talk again when I find Smithfield.”

  His eyes narrowed. “If you interfere in police business, I’ll have to arrest you.”

  “So what’s new, Detective?” she retorted.

  She slid off the desk and walked away, moving with a fluid grace that drew every gaze in the station.

  Gabriel sighed in pure male reaction. As she disappeared through the door with a shimmy of satin hips and a flutter of gauzy fabric, he had the strange feeling that she’d taken something of his with her.

  Absently, he picked the business card up and held it to his nose. It smelled like her. Wildflowers and woman. He inhaled deeply, savoring the scent.

  “MacLaren!”

  He glanced over his shoulder to see Captain Petrosky beckoning him from the door of h
is office. Gabriel swung his feet off his desk and strode across the room.

  “Close the door,” the captain said.

  Flinging himself into his battered executive chair, Petrosky propped his feet up on the desk. His shaved head gleamed in the bright overhead light.

  “So that was Ray Boudreau,” he said.

  “Rae,” Gabriel said. “R-a-e. She wants to serve a summons on Peter Smithfield. Child support.”

  The captain snorted. “We’ve got somebody high up in the city government involved with an illegal gambling business. He’s smart, and he’s got power. This guy has used political office to set himself above the law. I’m going to be real unhappy if some overzealous process server screws this case up.”

  Gabriel smiled. “We don’t want you unhappy, sir. But she’s a pro, and very determined. If we explained the situation—”

  “No. Any leaks, we can throw this case in the trash. You don’t tell Boudreau. You don’t tell anyone.”

  “She’ll interfere.”

  Petrosky’s grizzled brows swept downward. “So I’m making her your responsibility. Keep her out of it if you can, use her to find him if you can’t. You’ve got the smarts to handle it.”

  A feeling of impending doom settled on Gabriel’s shoulders. “Yes, sir.”

  Cursing silently under his breath, he left the office. It would have been hard enough to get her out of his mind; now he was probably going to drive himself crazy with wanting her. Wanting to know her. Wanting to find out if the promise in her eyes was as good as it seemed, and if the unfamiliar new feelings he had for her were as powerful as he thought.

  He gave himself an inward shake. “She’s nothing but trouble, MacLaren,” he muttered. “Big trouble.”

  Still, an undercurrent of anticipation edged his annoyance. He’d see her again. The thought tugged at something inside him, something he hadn’t been aware existed. But there it was, undoubtedly and exclusively hers.

  It bothered him. It bothered him a lot. He was thirty-five years old, and had been convinced that he knew himself inside and out. But a few minutes in Rae’s company, and his insides had somehow become turned inside out and upside down, and he had no idea how to get them back to normal again.