Читать книгу A Taste Of Temptation - Carrie Alexander - Страница 7

DONOVAN SHANE TENDED TO become overly absorbed by his work. He’d managed to ignore the annoying buzz of the intercom system, but he was forced out of his fog when Guillermo Reyes opened the door to the toxicology lab and cleared his throat.

“Dr. Shane, Mandy Rae says to tell you there’s a woman here to see you,” the intern announced in a tone of awe, as if he’d never seen such a creature. The kid was a senior in high school; he should have had girls crawling out of his locker.

Donovan squinted as he pinched the skin at the bridge of his nose. He’d been examining the peaks on the liquid chromatograph done on a sample from a murder case. “Whoever she is, she doesn’t have an appointment.”

“She’s…” At a loss for words, Guillermo gave an exceptionally gusty exhale. His sinuses tended to whistle when he got overexcited. “Damn, boss, you gotta see her.”

Boss. Donovan had never been a boss before. After earning his undergraduate degree, he’d been rejected by the police academy because of a preexisting condition—the heart murmur he’d had since childhood—and had taken a part-time lab technician’s job instead while advancing toward his Ph.D. Twelve years later, he was still working in the same facility, now as a toxicologist specializing in the typing and analysis of blood and other fluids. He told himself that he was satisfied to be left alone in the lab, quietly doing his job analyzing the minutiae of crime while others ran about like over-adrenalized superheroes, shooting at perps and risking their lives.

“Is she a kook?” he asked.

“I dunno. Maybe.” The intern gripped the doorknob. “She claims she knows you. Says she won’t leave until you see her.”

Shoulders hunched, Donovan returned to his study of the graph on the computer screen. He wasn’t keen to leave his work and make the trip to the reception desk in the lobby, where all visitors must check in before gaining admittance. He couldn’t imagine who this one-of-a-kind female might be.

Sadly he didn’t know many women. There was Mandy Rae, the pretty receptionist who tolerated him and the rest of the lab rats with unconcealed distaste. Lucilla, the facility’s cleaning lady, who griped at him for filling his wastebaskets and using all the paper towels. A small handful of female police officers, whom he spoke to mainly on the phone when they were anxious for urgent results of the evidence they’d couriered over. He supposed he had to include Dr. Victoria Eubanks, the comely optometrist he’d dated for five months until she’d told him, in the middle of his second eye exam that year, that she’d decided to go back to the ex-husband who’d cheated on her with his secretary.

Lastly, but never leastly, there was Zoe Aberdeen.

His neighbor.

His sworn nemesis.

His greatest fantasy.

Zoe? Could it be? Donovan’s head shot up so fast he lost his balance in the ensuing blood rush. Zoe. Of course. A wayward elbow knocked into a hydrometer jar that had been shifted from its appointed position. Zoe Aberdeen was exactly the type of woman who could make a goofus like Guillermo misplace his brain.

Donovan moved the jar back into place. Not to mention a goofus like himself.

“You didn’t answer Mandy Rae’s summons,” Guillermo explained, “so she sent me to tell you.” The intern was almost blithering as he peered out at the hallway, apparently expecting an invasion. “She said for you to come see because she’s not allowed to send unscheduled visitors to the lab with all the new protocols and—oh, jeezus, boss, here she is.”

Donovan shoved up his cuffs as he made for the door. He was betting the “she” wasn’t Mandy Rae, who turned up her nose at the pungent and occasionally gruesome smells wafting from the lab.

Sure enough, Zoe Aberdeen in all her glory sashayed up the staircase and through the hallway, as tricked out as a Mardi Gras celebrant. Most women would be overwhelmed by that particular combination of curly red hair, orange tank top and flared denim miniskirt, all of it topped off by bangles, chains and jewels swinging off every appendage.

But Zoe Aberdeen wasn’t most women.

Mandy Rae raced to catch up, waving a visitors’ badge. “Dr. Shane! I’m sorry. I got her to sign in, but she slipped past the door while I was making up the badge.”

“It’s all right,” he said. “I know her.”

“What a lot of fuss.” Zoe planted her heels and put her hands on her hips. “What’s going on back here, Shane? State secrets?”

“In a manner of speaking.” Donovan resettled his wire-frame glasses. You always had to squint and blink when Zoe arrived. “I’m afraid you can’t stay. The labs are off-limits to most civilians.”

Zoe took the laminated badge from Mandy Rae and clamped it to her spaghetti strap. “Civilians?” A gay laugh. “Do I appear civilized to you, Shane? How disappointing.” An incorrigible flirt, she looked at Guillermo with a moue of her full, glossy lips. There had to be a beauty product that made them look that way. No normal lips were quite so wet and plump and kissable. “I promise you, sweetcakes, I’m as wild as they come.”

She pointed a long red fingernail at Donovan. “And he should know. Remind me, Shane. How many times have you called the cops on me?”

He cleared his throat. “Twice.”

“Only twice? I thought it was at least a half dozen.” She lowered her sunglasses to the end of her nose and slinked toward him with the hippy, shoulder-rolling saunter that was often featured—nude—in his dreams. Mandy Rae watched, fascinated. “Have you been lying to me, Shane, honey, all those times you said I’d better shut down the party because you’d called the cops?”

He held his spot. “I said I would call the cops.”

“And twice you did.”

“My walls were shaking.”

She sent him an unapologetic grin as she brushed by him on her way into the lab. Waving off Mandy Rae, Donovan followed on Zoe’s heels, intending to stay nearby so she didn’t touch any of the sensitive evidence that he kept scrupulously labeled and filed.

He stood so close he could smell her. She was sweet, but not from perfume. Zoe’s scent carried the sweetness of sugar—jelly beans, cherry licorice sticks, birthday cakes, fluffy pink cotton candy. All the forbidden treats he hadn’t been allowed as a sickly child.

Looking around the room and his adjoining office with airy interest, she removed her sunglasses and hooked them in the neckline of the skimpy top. He kept pace, practically peering over her shoulder, his hands itching to grab hold and keep her still. He didn’t quite dare. Zoe was too light and fluttery. He was too clumsy. A butterfly net would do a better job of containing her.

Suddenly she stopped and whirled to face him. “So this is the big secret?” Her head tilted. Her eyes were bright. “Looks like every other lab I’ve seen. In another life, I was a geek, too.”

“You were not.” Not in a million years.

She abandoned the claim with a lift of her bare shoulders, regarding his dumbstruck face with a small, teasing smile. She moved an inch closer and stroked a finger downward from the knot of his tie. He’d tucked the ends in between his shirt buttons, so there wasn’t far to go.

Her polished nail lifted the edge of his shirt placket. She peered inside at the protected tie. Her narrow nose wrinkled. “You’re so prissy, Shane. Like an old maid.”

She always called him Shane. He liked that, though he couldn’t pinpoint why.

Old maid was less flattering. He felt himself becoming huffy and defensive, the way he often did around Zoe. She was far too unpredictable for his personal comfort zone. And he worried he’d give away some clue about how often he fantasized about her. “Precision is crucial to a scientist.”

Her frank stare ran over him. “I thought you’d be in a lab coat. I always picture you in a lab coat. Which is kind of funny since I’ve never seen you in one.” Her smile was wide and inexplicably charming. She knew it, too. Knew it and used it, in concert with a wide-eyed blink that was quite versatile. Innocent-sexy or devilish-sexy or sassy-sexy. But always sexy.

He’d never noticed that her eyes were the color of maple syrup, flecked with gold leaf. Always before, she’d been coming or going, shouting down the stairwell or waving at him from their shared backyard, where she liked to sunbathe topless. She wasn’t shy about turning over onto her back, either. He might not have known the color of her eyes, but he was well acquainted with her breasts. They were the proverbial martini-glass tits—small and pert. Lightly freckled. Her nipples were bubblegum-pink when they hardened.

“I have a lab coat,” he blurted. “Over there.”

“So I see.” Her steep platform clogs clacked on the floor as she crossed the room to the row of pegs where black rubber aprons, safety goggles and lab coats hung. “Can I try it on? Or is that like trying on a cowboy’s hat?”

“What?”

“You know. Wear my hat, try me on.” She winked and slipped into the shapeless white coat.

Except it wasn’t shapeless on her, even though her slender figure was swallowed by the starched white cotton folds. The coat completely covered her own clothing. There was something erotic about seeing her bare legs beneath the crisp hem, especially when he glimpsed a thigh in the unbuttoned gap. As if she might be naked underneath.

Add the notion she’d put in his head that he could have allowance to slip as easily into her and—

Brain freeze.

But fever everywhere else. He tugged at his collar, then an ear. Other areas needed more intimate adjustment. He was thirty-three years old, for crying out loud. He hadn’t had such a swift and awkward boner since high school. No, make that since his one and only spring-break trip to Mexico, when he’d learned that alcohol magically untied the bikini straps of cute college coeds.

Zoe twirled, kicking up a heel. “What do you think?”

“Nice,” Donovan croaked. That was all he could think of to say, because her twirl had lifted the edge of the coat and the ruffle on her flirty little skirt, flashing him a glimpse of a taut bottom clad in a pair of zebra-stripe bikini panties. Boing.

Guillermo’s jaw hung slack.

“This has been fun, but I came to ask for a favor,” Zoe said when neither of the men spoke. Her voice had taken on an unusual gravitas.

Donovan was both intrigued and disappointed. How many times had cute females like Zoe flirted with him, only to ask for something two seconds later, from copying his chemistry homework to requesting overnight lab results?

She shrugged out of the coat as she walked toward the lab bench, the solid table they worked on. Her sharp eyes made a quick survey of the contents. “I’m writing a story for the Times.”

“But you’re a gossip columnist.” Donovan read her twice-a-week columns even though most of the names and faces meant nothing to him, not unlike the details of what they wore and where they partied. “Excuse me. I should introduce you to my intern. Zoe Aberdeen, Guillermo Reyes. She works for the San Diego Times.”

The boy nodded with glazed eyes. He was six inches taller than Zoe and almost twice her weight, but he was thrown for such a loop by her presence that she could have hog-tied him without a squeak of protest. Donovan knew the feeling.

Zoe twiddled her fingers at Guillermo. “Ciao.” To Donovan, she said with a highly arched brow, “I may be a gossipmonger, but I’m also a journalist.”

“Oh. Yes, of course. Did you study journalism?”

“I have a master’s in literature. Before everything changed, I was planning to find a nice, cozy position as a teaching assistant so I could expand on my thesis, but, uh—” She broke off and, oddly tongue-tied, looked down at the material her hands were wadding.

Donovan waited, so curious about her claims that he didn’t even consider taking the coat from her to shake out the wrinkles.

“But that’s not relevant,” she continued with a frown. “My degree isn’t in journalism anyway.” Her eyes rose to Donovan, narrowing as she threw out one of her typically unexpected remarks. “Do you only answer the questions of those with the proper pedigree?”

“Of course not.” He was still trying to absorb the news that Zoe had an advanced degree of any sort. From what he knew of her, with the string of boyfriends and the loud parties and the comings and goings at all hours, she was strictly the Holly Go-lightly of the West Coast, dedicated to burning her candle at both ends.

“That’s good, because I need—”

He interrupted her request. “Sorry. I turn everyone away, regardless of their credentials. This lab’s test results aren’t for public consumption.”

“What about if it’s a case of the public good? Like something dangerously contagious?”

“In that case, I suspect the Times wouldn’t send a gossip columnist to investigate.”

Her pointy chin jutted at him. “But what if they did?”

“Doesn’t matter. I don’t make those decisions. You can get in touch with the police department’s press liaison and ask your questions there.”

Zoe flung his coat at the table. It hit the edge and slid to the floor. Spots of color had flared in her cheeks. “Why do you work so hard at making me dislike you, Donovan Shane? I’ve tried to be friendly, but you’re distant and implacable. Dry as dust. You have no—” Her hands flew up in the air. “No zest!”

“I’m not an orange.”

She blew out a sigh. “You’re also too literal.”

“I was making a joke. A bad one, granted.”

Her gaze zeroed in on him and she was silent for several seconds—an eternity for Zoe. He feared what might come next, but she asked mildly, “Do you always frown when you’re trying to be humorous?”

His answering frown was automatic. “I don’t know.”

“Interesting. I’ve never known you to crack a joke.” Her lips puckered. “It appears that you have unplumbed depths, Shane.”

“Likewise, Aberdeen.”

She took another moment to evaluate him. The gradual, sensual lowering of her coppery lashes was only slightly less distracting than the pouty lips. His blood thickened.

“Sooo, Shane, what can I do to get you to give me a peek at a substance-analysis report?”

“Nothing.” He shook his head. Or at least he thought he did. There was very little feeling left in his body outside of the blast furnace that had developed in his groin. For propriety’s sake, he shifted until he’d put the lab bench between them.

“There’s got to be something. Tickets for the Chargers. Uncensored candids of the Ocean Beach women’s volleyball tournament. A backstage pass to Shakira in concert.”

A soft, bubbling groan came from Guillermo’s direction. Although twenty pounds overweight and prone to sloppiness, he was a well-meaning kid who worked a couple of hours several mornings a week, washing beakers, labeling files and losing track of hydrometer jars. He planned to major in chemistry when he went to San Diego State next fall.

Donovan remained stalwart. “I won’t be bribed.”

Zoe glanced at the intern.

“Don’t even think about it, Gil.”

She laughed. “I was only wondering if I could speak to you in, um…” She put her hands flat on the bench top and leaned toward Donovan. A few of the cascading curls fell into her eyes. Her voice lowered. “In private.”

His gaze flicked to the spot where the weight of her sunglasses dragged at the orange tank top. Her freckled cleavage was modest compared to the silicone valleys that populated the city. But powerful nevertheless. “Gil…”

“I’m out of here.”

Donovan had meant to ask the intern to stay, but he let the words die on his tongue.

While Guillermo hastily departed, Zoe leaned farther over the table to push at a file folder with one finger, flicking it open.

Donovan suspected he was supposed to be mesmerized by her feminine wiles, but he wasn’t quite that far a goner. He whisked the stack of files away, then rescued his clipboard, no longer certain that she couldn’t understand the forms it held. That possibility was almost as tantalizing as her cleavage.

She lifted her chin to stare broodingly at him. “Tell me the truth now. Did you send Gil away so we could be alone?”

Surely she was joking. “What?” he said, feeling awkward and shy. High school all over again.

Her smile became mischievous. “You’re cute when you’re worried. I’m only curious about how the lab operates. Do others work here?”

She’d managed to put him off center again. He collected his thoughts. “This is the toxicology lab. Today I was alone except when Gil came by for an hour. I do have a colleague who’s out on maternity leave. And there are plenty of other employees in the building, working in other labs or offices, technicians with different specialties. We share some of the equipment.” He paused. “They can pop in at any time.”

“My goodness. That was a thorough answer. You’d think I was suggesting something naughtier than giving me a peek at an analysis.”

He wouldn’t let himself think about what he wanted a peek at. “I’m not relenting,” he said, “but what’s this about, this result you’re so eager to read?”

She straightened, giving him a provocative look. “It’s about sexual enhancement.” Her voice had taken on the rough velvet of a cat’s purr.

He gaped. “What?”

“I want to know if the lust potion works.” Her brows arched wickedly. “And you are the only man who can help me.”