Friction (Red Hot Private Eye, Novella, Vol. 2) Read Online Free PDF Page B

taking in the sleek slope of her back, then heading further south, admiring her firm, round ass. He flexed his hands before reaching out to grab her hips…
    “What floor?” a man’s deep voice came through the receiver, interrupting Mateo’s erotic daydream.
    Shit, he could not be doing that. He had to keep his head—the one on his shoulders—in the game.
    “Ten,” he heard Raiza reply with a sultry edge to her tone.
    Mateo didn’t like that. Not one bit.
    “Are you here on business?” the man who Mateo assumed was riding the elevator with her asked.
    “Well, it’s certainly not pleasure,” Raiza answered. Hmmm. A little too flirtatiously for Mateo’s liking.
    “That’s a shame. We should all have a little more pleasure in our lives.”
    Seriously. Mateo wished that he had visual so he could see this tool instead of just hearing him, but all he had was audio.
    The distinctive ding, the one that indicated they had arrived at a floor, rang out.
    “I’m on the seventeenth floor, the Penthouse,” the man’s voice dropped an octave, “If you’d like to have a drink, here’s my card.”
    Mateo waited. He didn’t hear Raiza respond audibly but he could just about guess the smile that Mr. Elevator Tool had just received from her. It was one of Mateo’s personal favorites. It started slowly, assessing, then built to a grin. The tilt of her lips conveying that she knew a sexy secret, one that if you were lucky – like win a trillion dollars in the lotto lucky – she might just tell you. It wasn’t a promise smile. It certainly wasn’t a guarantee smile. It was a sliver-of-hope smile.
    Actually, it may not even technically be classified in the ‘smile’ category. It was barely more than a smirk. Still it always made Mateo feel like a pimply teenage boy who was getting attention from hottest girl in the school. Not that he would know what that felt like. He had never been a pimply teenage boy. But still, he figured that must be what they felt like.
    “Hey.” Matteo heard another man’s voice. This one sounded young and the familiarity in his greeting led Mateo to assume that this was her contact.
    “Hi J,” Raiza’s voice sounded…soft. Very un-Raiza-like.
    “Here you go, Rizy. You have an hour tops,” the young man instructed.
    “Thanks.”
    Mateo heard the sound of rustling clothes. They were probably hugging. Then the contact continued, “Did you hear Tia Margie’s in the hospital?”
    “What?” The shock and alarm in Raiza’s voice surprised Mateo.
    He had so rarely heard her express those emotions that it made him want to rush into the hotel and… hug her. Damn, where had that come from? Over the years Mateo had gotten urges, desires to do all sorts of physical things to or with Raiza...but hugging? Where the hell had that come from?

Chapter Six
    “What happened? Why didn’t anyone call me?” Raiza could not believe that she was just hearing about this now.
    Her cousin Juan shrugged. “I don’t know. I found out because my mom called me this morning, when I saw I got a text from you, before I read it, I thought it was about Tia Margie. I guess she had a stroke, or something, I’m not sure. I just know that Tio Frank couldn’t wake her up and called an ambulance.”
    The hard edges of the keycard that Juan had just handed Raiza dug into her skin as she gripped it tightly. She needed to go and do her job but she also needed to find out if her aunt was okay. “Is she awake now?”
    “I don’t know,” Juan said, not seeming overly concerned.
    “Well what did the doctors say?” Raiza was quickly losing her patience for her young, frustrating , cousin.
    “I don’t know.” Juan shrugged his shoulders again.
    Okay, new tactic. “What exactly did your mom tell you, J?”
    “She said ‘Your Tia Margie wouldn’t wake up this morning so your Tio Frank took her to the hospital and now I have to make all the cookies for the bake sale at St. Anthony’s. Can you believe that? Aye