Florida Knight Read Online Free PDF

head.
    “You’re not . . . you can’t be . . .” Michael stammered to a halt.
    Wide-eyed, Kate looked up at him. “What?” she inquired, managing an innocent flutter of her long lashes.
    Halt! Stop and think. Michael considered everything that had happened since he walked through the door into Barbara Falk’s office. He’d been intent on his purpose, the classic example of a cop with tunnel-vision focus on his objective. Until he’d caught sight of Kate Knight. There was no way the sexual tension they’d struck from each other was one-sided. He didn’t believe it. Therefore . . .
    “No, you’re not,” Michael declared, answering his own question. “So what’s the story?”
    Kate seemed to deflate, her chin descending, eyes wandering toward a large framed photo on the wall of Golden Beach when it was little more than a gleam in an early developer’s eyes. “I—I just don’t ah–date,” she murmured.
    “You’re celibate ?” Michael didn’t know if he wanted to shout ‘Hallelujah’ or mourn. An infinitesimal nod of her head was all the answer he got. “Jesus, what a waste,” he breathed.
    The heightened awareness of male and female, the aura of pure sex that filled the small office, was not a figment of his imagination. And he’d been right, it wasn’t one-sided. Kate Knight bristled with awareness of him. Which was why she was running scared.
    Michael repressed a sudden flare of purely masculine satisfaction. Business. This was business. “Okay,” he announced, “we’ve got that straight. “You’re smart enough and tough enough to deal with the flak. Afterwards, you can tell everyone your foray into the world of sex didn’t work out. You can say you’re off it for life, for all I care. But as of now you’ve got a real live, living, breathing boyfriend. And, don’t worry, unless you decide to slip me Viagra, I’m tough enough to keep my hands off. We just won’t tell anybody. Well?” Michael demanded as Kate continued to stare at the 1920s-era photo on the wall.
    “It means a lot to you, doesn’t it?” Kate sighed. So did her job.
    “If I’m willing to wear a damn costume, believe me, it means a lot to me.”
    “And you’ll really keep your hands off?”
    Instead of an instant affirmative, Michael considered that one carefully. “Unless you change your mind,” he offered.
    Kate swung round to face him squarely. “I won’t.”
    Michael didn’t want to be attracted to her. Hell, he didn’t even want to like her. Lords and Ladies of Chivalry, that was the name of the game. He was probably going to have to remind himself of that nearly every moment he was with Kate Knight. Inwardly, he groaned. Investigating the members of LALOC was going to be more hazardous than he’d expected.
    “Then we have a deal,” Michael said, holding out his hand.
    For a moment Kate studied his rugged features before grasping his hand in hers. It took all her will power not to pull away, not to show what his touch did to her. This was wrong. It wasn’t going to work. It was going to upset all her carefully laid plans, ruin her life. If fate had decreed she had to do this, why with this particular man? Why someone who turned her emotions inside out, made a mockery of the nun-like woman she had made of herself?
    Kate was still sitting with her chair hard against the table with the copier and the fax machine long after Lieutenant Michael Turco left the office, softly closing the door behind him.
     
    Kate usually bounded up the steep cement steps that led to the door of her elderly mobile home. Today, the steps seemed like Mount Everest . Kate Knight, LALOC warrior who prided herself on her physical strength and steady nerves, was nothing but a shattered hulk.
    The man was impossible! Kate fumbled for her key, threw open the lightweight aluminum door. As she slumped along the narrow hallway, her hand automatically switched on the air conditioning before she threw herself into one of the two chairs