One Hot Mess Read Online Free PDF Page A

called Rosewood. They were brown. “I thought you wanted that stuff melted.”
    Another chuckle as he dumped the butter into a pan. “Just wanted you to see your reflection.”
    “You been short of perps to torment at the station?”
    “Perps?” He glanced over his shoulder at me, and therewas something about the way he did it—with his mouth tilted up in beguiling mischief and his whiskey-dark eyes gleaming past the midnight fringe of his hair. It made me want to skip the meal and jump to the main course. “You been watching
CSI
again?”
    “Maybe I could send you some houseflies to torture.”
    “Came here instead,” he said, and twirled the butter in the pan with a knife. “Just to keep in practice.”
    “I'm not really in the mood right now.”
    He slid his gaze down my body.
    “For that, either,” I lied, and he laughed in that sexy way that makes my hair tingle.
    “Good thing I brought the makings for fettuccine, then?”
    Screw my ovaries. My stomach suddenly felt like it had been awakened by a wet dream. “With Alfredo sauce?”
    “Just because I'm a cop doesn't mean I'm stupid.”
    “What can I do?” I asked, and shouldered in beside him at my cracked little counter. From then on I didn't care that I looked like a lightning victim or that my shorts were practically nonexistent or that he had the sensitivity of a sledgehammer. Turns out, sledgehammers can cook like the devil. We did a kind of primitive dance around the kitchen, slicing, chopping, mixing. Eventually he stood behind me, his hand over mine, his crotch pressed to my backside, supposedly demonstrating the best way to sauté shrimp. In less than fifteen minutes he was feeding me Alfredo sauce from a wooden spoon.
    “How is it?” he asked.
    I refrained from swooning. “Not bad.”
    “Not bad as in ‘It'll do’ or not bad like ‘forget the damn sex, it's already too late’?”
    “I gotta tell you, Rivera…” I gave him a sleepy glance through my lashes. “You'll know if I come.”
    “If?”
he asked, cocky as hell, and fed me more sauce. Seeing his fingers against the spoon, broad and dark and masculine, almost really did make it too late. In fact, for a second I nearly forgot that I'd give my left lung for anything Italian.
    A drop of sauce plopped onto my chest just above my frayed neckline. He glanced down, eyes blazing. I held my breath, and then he reached out with ridiculous slowness and wiped it away with his pinky. The feel of his skin against my breast was almost more than I could handle. But he was already offering me the sauce. I took his finger in my mouth, sucking hard. His lids lowered dramatically, his face hardened. I smiled as I drew back and licked my lips.
    “Want to get some plates or should we just clear the table and have at it?” His voice was no more than a low growl.
    Estrogen was sluicing through my system like go-juice. I wanted nothing more than to ride him like an untamed bronc, but if the truth be known, there is nothing that makes a woman so attractive as her would-be partner's unsated desire. I turned away to get the plates, knowing how my legs looked from behind, and even though those same legs were a little unsteady, we were eating in a minute. In five I was done and leaning back to watch him finish up. He ate with careful deliberation, the muscles in his arms flexing impressively with each movement.
    “If you want help cleaning up, you might not want to look at me like that,” he said, and settled his fork onto the edge of my country-blue stoneware, abandoning eightnoodles and a quarter cup of sauce. That's what drives me crazy about him. It isn't the lightning-quick temper or the way the scar at the corner of his lips dances up with anger or humor. It's the control. Taut. Crisp. Until it lets loose.
    “You look tired,” I said.
    He shrugged, an economical lift of tight-packed shoulders. “Not too.”
    Was every line suggestive or was it just my hormones shouting lewd suggestions? I rose