Unmanned Read online

  “Uh-huh. What the hell am I doing with this gun?”

  “You are protecting yourself.”

  “From…?”

  “Me. And every man who might wish to take advantage of a beautiful woman. Do you feel safe traveling to my house with me now?”

  I blinked, but the gun remained, real and heavy and earnest. “Maybe…” I swallowed and tried not to pee in my pants. “…maybe I should just go home.”

  He stared at me for a second, then nodded solemnly and shifted back into drive. “How shall I get there?”

  He didn’t know my address after all. I thought that was refreshing and kind of a good sign. I believe everyone who’d tried to kill me thus far had had my address locked into their GPS systems.

  I told him the directions, then stared down at the gun, turning it in my hand. “What kind is it?” It seemed like it should say on the product, like Doritos or Virginia Slims or other things that are likely to kill you.

  “It is a Glock.”

  “Is that good?”

  He shrugged. “It will discharge a bullet. That is very nearly all I know. That and the fact that you must have protection.”

  “Why do you think that is?”

  He glanced at me, eyes fuck-me sober. “So that you remain safe.”

  “I mean…” I pried my gaze from his, feeling a little bit sorry for myself. People kept trying to kill me, and I still couldn’t have sex with this guy. “Why me? Why do you think these things keep happening to me?”

  He thought about that for a moment. Maybe he was afraid that if he gave the wrong answer I might toss myself out of the car, but it was unlikely. The gun looked so much more expedient.

  “I believe it is because you are too good,” he said finally.

  Here was a theory I hadn’t previously considered.

  “You spend your days helping those who are deeply troubled. Do you not think it likely that these same troubles would come to rest on your own weary head now and again?”

  I blinked, then thought about his theory as we rolled along the 210. Maybe the interstate was as hair-tearingly horrible as usual, but I didn’t notice. “David Hawkins was my mentor,” I said. “And my friend. I trusted him. Told him things….” My voice faded off. I pointed to my exit. He took it without question.

  “I do not know this David Hawkins.”

  “He was—is…” I cleared my throat, then gave him a few directions, until he finally pulled the Porsche onto the side of the little street I called home. “…a world renowned psychiatrist. And the first man who tried to kill me.”

  He stared at me an instant, then got out of the car and came around to my side. Pulling open my door, he reached for my hand.

  “Come,” he said. “We shall speak of these things inside.” Perhaps I hesitated a moment, because he added, “You may bring the gun.”

  Harlequin met us at the door, bounding and panting. He seemed to have gotten over Swanson’s untimely death pretty well. Julio stroked the dog’s ears and said something sexy in Spanish. Harlequin grinned like a clown. Better him than me.

  “I did not know you had a dog.”

  I nodded numbly. “Can I get you something to drink?”

  “No,” he said, and taking my arm led me firmly into the family room. Turning me at the couch, he pushed me gently down. “Today, you think of none but yourself. Consider me your servant,” he said, and raised his arms slightly. “What is your command?”

  I stared at the width of his shoulders, his lover’s eyes, and cleared my throat.

  “You must be hungry,” he said.

  “A little,” I admitted, and set the gun on the cushion beside me.

  “Good. Unfortunately, I am a terrible cook. I am not so bad at the ordering, however.”

  I kept my gaze firmly on his. I wasn’t some oversexed, tuba-playing, cocktail waitress. “A valuable skill.”

  “I think I will place a call to Melisse if that is satisfactory to you. Then I shall mix you a drink.”

  I gave him the okay and told him where to find my unspectacular liquor cabinet. He turned away. The view was very nice from behind.

  In a few minutes, he returned. The view wasn’t bad in that direction, either, especially now that I knew he wasn’t going to shoot me. I took the drink he offered. It was amber-colored.

  “What is it?”

  “Taste it.”

  I did. As you know, I can’t even hold my Nyquil, so I generally avoid liquor, but this was good stuff. Sweet and rich and strangely satisfying. “How’d you make it?”

  He shrugged and sat beside me on the couch. “I am good at only a few things. That is one of them.”

  I drank again, impressed. “What are the others?”

  He smiled.

  “Oh,” I said, and he laughed. The sound was rich and sexy, a bit like the drink.

  “Put your feet here.” He patted his thigh. “And I will show you.”

  “I don’t think—”

  “Christina, please, let me pamper you this once,” he said, and stared at me with those sexy, soulful eyes.

  I turned slowly about and settled my feet cautiously onto the couch.

  “Perhaps I should tell you—” I began, but in that moment he took my left foot in his hands. Now, here’s the thing, I’m an American. A Midwesterner by birth, in fact, and Midwesterners don’t touch except to copulate and give purple nerples. Hell, they barely talk. So the feel of his hands against my arch was shocking. His smile, on the other hand, was just short of celestial, and when he pressed his thumb up the middle of my sole, I felt myself go into a full-body swoon.

  “What were you about to say?” he asked, and massaged again.

  “Ummm. Oh, yes.” I’m sure I wasn’t panting. Damn noisy dog. “Rivera and I…Jack Rivera…we’re—”

  He massaged my little toe. Holy fuck, who knew the little piglet was the center of all things erotic? “You are what?”

  My neck had gone rubbery and my mind was about to follow suit.

  “We’re…friends.”

  He smiled and moved on to the next toe. Lightning zinged straight from my digit to every sex organ in my body. “It is good to have friends.”

  “Of course, that doesn’t mean that we can’t be…” He pressed his thumb slowly up my sole again. I stifled a moan. “Friends,” I added.

  “That is good, Christina, for I wish to make you happy.” His thigh felt hard beneath my heel. It made me wonder about other parts of his anatomy. “I believe you will enjoy the lobster.”

  “The…” My gaze zipped nervously to his crotch.

  “Melisse is renowned for its bolognese.”

  “Oh.” I snapped my hot attention back to his eyes. “The…the…restaurant.”

  “Yes.”

  I couldn’t decide if he looked amused or bemused.

  I nodded spastically and took a drink. “Where…ummm…where is this Melisse exactly?”

  “On Wilshire. In Santa Monica.”

  I stared. “Are you kidding? That’s half a state from here.”

  He laughed. “I have friends, too, Christina.”

  “Did you give them foot massages or something?”

  He laughed. “Or something,” he said, and sobered. “Tell me of this David Hawkins.”

  I scowled. I was just beginning to relax and didn’t want to think about anything but the sunshiny feel of his hands against my skin. Besides, it was kind of embarrassing to admit that the man who’d been my hero was now doing life in a California state pen.

  “It may help you to talk about it,” he said.

  I scowled, drank, took a deep breath. “David helped me out when I first arrived in L.A.”

  “Arrived from where?” he asked, and flexed my toes with the palm of his hand. I let my eyes drift closed for a second.

  “Chicago. That’s where I grew up.”

  “I bet you were a beautiful child.”

  “You kidding?” Was my diction slipping a little? “They barely made a tuba big enoug
h for me.”

  He smiled. “Well, you are just the right size now.”

  “For a tuba?”

  He laughed. “For a man.”

  I felt myself blush down to my freshly massaged toes.

  “I did not mean to embarrass you, Christina,” he said, watching me. “Tell me more of your childhood.”

  I considered refusing, even thought about pulling my feet from his lap, but just then he slipped his hand under my pant leg and massaged my calf. I thanked God I had shaved just that morning.

  Happy feelings shimmied up my leg to my groin. I stifled a moan.

  “Do you have siblings?” he asked.

  “Not unless you count brothers,” I said.

  “Boys can be cruel,” he said, voice soft.

  I shrugged.

  “So this is why you became a therapist.”

  “Cocktail waitresses are on their feet too much.”

  “And such lovely feet they are,” he said, sketching a circle in my sole. “You are tense, Christina. You should hire a masseuse to help you relax.”

  “Yeah? What do you charge?”

  He had a laugh sexy enough to make a lesser woman cry. I just sniffled a little and felt my inhibitions waver.

  “For you it is free,” he said.

  Good God, he was pretty.

  I cleared my throat. “And what if I wanted more?”

  He frowned, stared at me, absolutely still. “I beg your pardon?”

  Holy shit! I’d read him entirely wrong. “I’ll have more,” I sputtered, and lifted my empty glass, covering for my smutty mouth. If I had still been thinking, I would have crawled under the couch at that point, but I’m pretty much toast after one drink. Add a foot massage and you might just as well use me for plant food. “If…if you don’t mind.”

  “Of course not.” He set my legs carefully aside, rose to his feet, and took my glass with a slight bow. “It is an honor to service you.”

  My mouth dropped open, but he had already turned away. Oh, crap! Service me? Service…

  But he had returned before I could figure out if “service” meant the same thing in his native language that it meant in mine.

  I took the new drink and considered dumping it into my lap. “Thank you.” He sat back down and pulled my feet onto his thigh once again. “Is this your specialty…”

  He slid his hand up my shin, massaging gently. I barely retained consciousness.

  “…drink?” I finished, flushed and stupid and so damned horny I thought I might burst into spontaneous flames.

  “Specially for you,” he said.

  Was he trying to seduce me? I wondered hazily. But that was ridiculous. If he’d been trying, he’d already be calling a cab and I’d be lighting up a cigarette.

  “So you…just guessed what I would like?” I asked.

  “I understand women quite well, Christina. It is my job.”

  I remembered back to the first time I’d met him. He had had close ties to Salina Martinez, Rivera’s ex-fiancée. Really close ties, maybe literally. “How well do you know men?”

  He shook his head and kneaded my arch. I held the orgasm at bay. “Men are animals.”

  “Yeah.” I nodded. “But why do you suppose they keep trying to kill me?”

  His expression was sad as he smoothed his hand up my heel and along my ankle. Yikes. “How are you certain that this Will Swanson wanted you dead?”

  “He was a hired killer. Rivera said so.”

  “But is there any reason to believe he wished to kill you?”

  “He was here.”

  “As am I?”

  Was that a warning? A come-on? A threat? The gun felt hard and cool against my thigh. “He didn’t give me a foot massage,” I said.

  His smile was slow and sweet. “Maybe he hoped to.”

  I blinked.

  “I said men are animals, Christina,” he said. “Not all animals kill. But they all survive on their instincts.”

  Should it worry me that a male stripper/prostitute was stretching my philosophical sensibilities? “What?”

  “Perhaps…” He rolled my calf between both his palms. “…perhaps this Will Swanson wanted nothing more than to spend a bit of time with a beautiful woman.”

  “Beautiful—Oh.” I forced my gaze from his dark, magical hands. “You mean me.”

  He laughed and slid closer, pulling my legs across his lap. My knee bumped his chest. My heart did a funny little flopping motion. His lips were mere inches from mine, but just then my front door opened and Lieutenant Jack Rivera stalked into view.

  7

  Apparently it takes, like, forty-seven muscles to frown. Flippin’ the bird’s a hell of a lot easier.

  —Amanda May Newton, aka the Magnificent Mandy

  “DON’T YOU EVER LOCK your damn—” Rivera’s words jerked to a halt.

  I’m not sure why I felt the need to snap my legs off Mr. Manderos’s lap. It wasn’t as if I was doing anything wrong. Nevertheless, I yanked away like a puppet on crack.

  “Rivera!” I said. My voice sounded kind of sandpapery. I cleared my throat, reprimanded myself for my childish demeanor, and tried again, setting my feet primly on the floor and smoothing my slacks around my thighs. Classy as hell. “Rivera,” I said, tone sophisticated, mind screaming bloody hell, “you remember Mr. Manderos.”

  The lieutenant remained silent. Something ticked in his jaw as he shifted his dynamite glare from Julio to me.

  I cleared my throat again, then cursed myself for the weak-assed gesture. Rivera had no claim on me, hadn’t even said he wanted a claim.

  Julio rose to his feet with a dancer’s grace and extended his hand, Spanish gaze earnest and level. “I have not had the pleasure of making your acquaintance,” he said, “but I would know the good senator’s son by reputation alone.”

  For a moment I thought Rivera might drop the flimsy veneer of propriety and pop him in the face just for spite, but he took a step forward and shook the other’s hand, almost as if he were civilized. “You own the strip club,” he said. There was a buttload of feeling in that statement, but I wasn’t sure exactly how to interpret it.

  “Sí,” Julio said. “The Strip Please. And you are a lieutenant for the Los Angeles Police Department. Your father is very proud.”

  The corner of Rivera’s mouth jerked, then, “Impersonating the senator doesn’t mean you know him, I see,” he said.

  The two measured each other in silence. There was an odd history between them even though they’d never met. As I’ve said, Julio had, on occasion, spent time with Rivera’s ex-fiancée, who was, for a spell, Rivera’s father’s current fiancée.

  This is L.A. We couldn’t recognize normal if it bit us on the ass. But then, why would normal bite you on the ass? Unless…Shit, was I drunk?

  “You are correct,” Julio said. “I am being…pretentious. I do not know your father well.”

  Rivera was still scowling. No surprise there.

  “And yet I am certain he has great pride in you.” Julio nodded once, eyes narrowed. “Though he may not know how best to show it. It is the same with many great men.”

  Rivera puffed an almost silent snort. “You think my father’s great?”

  Julio was silent for a moment, studying him, then: “He has been that and more to me, Lieutenant. But in truth…” He canted his head, thinking. “…I was speaking of you.”

  A flicker of uncertainty raced across Rivera’s hard-ass features. I soaked it in. Rivera is rarely uncertain. He’s often wrong. But he’s usually emphatically wrong.

  “I didn’t see a car outside,” he said finally. “You take a cab here, Manderos?”

  I tensed, but Julio didn’t seem the least concerned.

  Maybe he spent every day giving women foot rubs and nobody had taken umbrage so far. Maybe he’d never met a man like Rivera, who took umbrage at sunshine.

  “No. I felt Christina should not drive, thus I took the liberty of escorting her home.”

  I could
feel my pulse beating in my left eyeball. I could see Rivera’s in his.

  “From where?” he asked.

  “I stopped at her office. She seemed…distraught. Thus I thought it best that she have some time to relax rather than seeing to others’ problems.”

  There was a two-beat silence, during which I fortified my defenses before Rivera inevitably turned on me. “You went to work?” he asked finally.

  “I do serious work at my office, Lieutenant Rivera,” I said. It was sort of a preemptive excuse.

  “Yeah?” His tone was stiff. “Lepinski still can’t decide about luncheon options?”

  “Listen—” I said, but Julio interrupted.

  “She is a very brave woman, Lieutenant.”

  Rivera shifted his thunderbolt gaze back to his father’s look-alike. Gone was that moment of tender anger. Now all-out rage flashed across his features. “Are you aware that someone tried to kill her last night, Manderos?”

  Julio hesitated an instant, then, “I was told that a man named Will died while visiting her.”

  “Shot between the eyes,” Rivera said, “while, or shortly after, she was standing directly in front of him.”

  Julio shook his head, his expression troubled. “This is a terrible thing indeed, but surely no one would wish our Christina harm.”

  Rivera snarled a smile. “Hit men are funny.”

  Manderos considered that a moment, then shook his head. “I do not believe that was his intent.”

  “Really?” The lieutenant’s eyes were narrow. “Maybe you were a friend of Mr. Swanson’s?”

  If Julio was getting tired of Rivera’s shitty attitude, he didn’t show it. “No, I knew no one by that name, but look at her,” he said. His tone almost seemed reverent. “Is she not beauty itself?”

  My gaze skipped from one to the other. Julio’s eyes were soft and earnest. Rivera’s looked like they could scorch your shorts. “What the hell are you getting at?” he asked, shifting his glare to Julio.

  Manderos shook his head sadly. “Surely you have not walked so long amidst evil that you cannot think of an innocent reason a man might wish to spend an evening with a lady of Christina’s caliber.”

  Rivera turned his black eyes back toward me. His nostrils actually flared. I considered scrambling over the coffee table and out the front door like a shrieking virgin. “Nothing too innocent,” he said, then looked back at Julio, expression closed, eyes flinty. “Where were you last night, Manderos?”