Hard Days Night (The Firsts Book 8) Read Online Free PDF Page B

think you can get it up for a cop?”
    “I got a hard-on for you already, doll.  You’ve been a pain in my ass, but you are fucking hot.”
    “Ah, you say the nicest things.”
    She knew he wanted to hit her.  Badly .  She knew that whoever stopped him must have some power for him to be that worried about him.  Mal heard the elevator door swish open again.  Looks like she was about to meet the boss.
    His footsteps were heavy, with a slight lag on one step. It was apparent to Mal, he had a limp.
    Then he came into view.  She did not know him, but he seemed to know her, since his smile widened and he actually looked delighted.  Like a kid might when you hand him a big candy bar.
    “Hey, there’s my little darling,” the man said, his voice gravelly, as if he’d been a heavy smoker all of his life.
    Mal looked him over, a cop thing, taking details into memory.  Tall, stocky, a full face with a scruffy beard, might have been handsome twenty years and fifty pounds ago.  He wore a business suit that definitely cost some serious money, shoes she couldn’t have afforded with ten years of wages.  Receding hairline, but it bothered him, since he’d tried to comb the rest forward.
    “How they treat you, Mahalo?”
    Shit!   That wasn’t good.  This wasn’t random, the guy knew her given name, and no one did.  Her mom’s fascination with the Hawaiian greeting had culminated in Mal’s first name, but she’d never used it. Even as a little girl, Mal and her father had laughed about the weird name, and always defaulted to the shortened version.  Mom still called her Mahalo until the day she died, but that was fifteen years ago.  So this man had investigated her and this abduction had a purpose.
    “They did okay, but I didn’t quite feel like a treasured guest,” she answered, well aware she needed to play along until she could figure out what the fuck was really going on.
    “Well…” he said, his hands spread out, as he perched on the edge of the desk.  “I guess that’s going to be up to you from now on, my pretty policewoman.”
    The entire time she was speaking with him, Mal was scanning the room, the position of the other men, every nuance of detail she could, before she looked right into the newly arrived man’s eyes.
    “Why am I here?  What do you want with me?  Obviously, you know me, but I don’t know you, so, clue me in, all right?”
    “In good time. Right now, let me see about removing those handcuffs,” he said.  And then he started laughing, so much, that he slipped off the desk, wiping his eyes.
    “I’m sorry,” he said, between gulps of air as he finished his laughs.
    Mal just sat there, shocked, an expression of complete confusion on her face.
    Moments later, the man wiped his eyes and pulled a handkerchief from his pocket to blow his nose.  “I’m sorry, but that was just…  Well, there isn’t a chance in hell I’d let your hands free.  You’re too good, you’d beat the shit out of all three of us and grind us into the floor before you left.  I just couldn’t resist yanking at you.”  He sat back down on the desk and his expression changed.
    “You’re digging in my sandbox, detective. No, you don’t know me, and believe me, it would be a mistake if you did.  I don’t want to kill you, but you mess with my business, I don’t give a fuck how cute you are, it doesn’t matter to me that you’re a cop. You understand?”
    She did.  This man was one of the two men connected to Berenstein.  The dock shipments she had been aggressively investigating and watching, she’d already guessed, they must be his.
    No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t remember the names of those two men.  Could be that since she was in serious danger of dying in a few minutes, her memory might be a little scrambled.  All Mal thought was that, if this asshole thought he was going to force her to do what he wanted her to do, he might as well kill her now.  She would never be in