07 Uncorked - Chrissy McMullen Mystery Read Online Free PDF Page A

him whole.
    “How many times do I have to tell you I’m not interested?” I asked, but my fingers seemed to have become twisted in the hair at the back of his head.
    “Nameless have you that enamored, does he?” he asked, and sliding his hands lower, he effectively displaced my sloppy shorts.
    “He has a name."
    “I don’t believe you.”
    “That’s because you’re a psychotic narcissistic with sadistic tendencies.”
    “Quit talking dirty,” he warned.
    “You’re sick.”
    “You’re horny,” he said, and dropping his head to my left nipple, sucked it through my shirt.
    I shrieked. He snarled. Harlequin howled at the door.
    Maybe it was the thought of our erstwhile love child finding us fornicating on the kitchen floor that broke me from the spell. Whatever the case, I found my head and scrambled away, bouncing along the wall like a skittering virgin. “Marc!” I yelped. “His name’s Marc.”
    Rivera followed me with smoldering eyes. A dozen emotions burned in them. None looked safe. Several looked as naughty as hell. “Marc what?” I eased around the kitchen table. “I’m not going to tell you.” He followed me slowly. One may have been able to call it stalking. “Mark Wahlberg?”
    Good God! I wished. “I’m not making him up, Rivera.”
    “Mark Harmon?”
    Harmon was a hottie, but I kept strictly to reality. “He’s a doctor.” He stopped in his tracks. His expression changed from hot-charged horniness to anger in the drop of a pair of boxers. “Not another nutcase psychiatrist.” I blinked at him. “What are you talking about?”
    “If I remember correctly, your last psychiatrist friend tried to kill you with a hunting knife.”
    “That’s not true.”
    “He was in this house, planning to kill you with a—”
    “Fillet knife.” It felt good to correct him.
    He raised a brow.
    “It was a…" I began, then realized the stupidity of our current argument. “Marcus is a very capable doctor.”
    “Capable,” he said, and laughed out loud. “Is that what you’re settling for these days?”
    “Screw you!”
    “I’m game if you are.” He took another step closer.
    I tried to move away, but my legs were stuck on the screwing idea.
    It was then that my phone rang from inches away. I jumped, squawked, then grabbed it like a lifeline, knowing it was Elaine even before it reached my ear.
    “What’s wrong?” She spoke before I had the chance to say hello.
    “Laney!” My tone was desperate. My throat ached with need. “Rivera’s here.” I don’t know what I expected her to do about it. I don’t even know what I wanted her to do about it, but she didn’t hesitate an instant.
    “Let me talk to him.”
    I removed the phone from my ear and handed it to him, hands shaking like a heroine addict’s.
    He deepened his scowl, eyes steady and onyx dark, but he took it. “Yeah?” I could hear Elaine’s voice on the far end but couldn’t make out the words.
    Rivera stood in silence for several seconds, listening, brows lowered, then, “I know.” Laney’s voice could be heard again, slow and reasonable.
    “I didn’t plan it.”
    His body was taut. His lips twitched. He closed his eyes.
    “All right,” he said finally and handed me the phone. “Arm your fucking alarm,” he said, and after one last smoldering glance, stalked out of my life.

Chapter 4
    A true friend is one who’s happy when you do good and is ready to plan a kick-ass prank when someone else does.
    —Chrissy’s brother Pete, while in high school…though the ensuing years haven’t changed his philanthropic philosophy much
    I stared after him for several seconds, then dropped into the nearest chair, exhausted and numb.
    “Mac?” I could vaguely hear Laney’s voice through the phone that drooped in my right hand.
    I did a little more staring and blinking before I managed the Herculean task of pressing the phone back to my ear. “Yeah?”
    “You okay?”
    I shrugged, though I was pretty sure she