I got in. With just the tiniest bit of reluctance, I settled into his passenger seat.
I know, I know, just minutes ago I’d been hoping he’d be here to pick me up and here he was. Wish granted. Only in Maddie’s perfect world I’d envisioned him giving me a big hug, a tender kiss on the lips with maybe even a little tongue action. (Tender tongue action. You know, like, I-missed-you-and-worried-about-you-every-second-you-were-in-jail tongue.) But instead, I’d gotten a barked order. Get in. Not exactly the words of endearment every girl longs to hear. Which left me wondering, was I a girlfriend? A suspect? Or just a girly blonde who kept messing up his case?
But, like I said, I didn’t argue.
I buckled my seatbelt silently as Ramirez pulled away from the curb.
“Thanks for getting me out,” I finally said, as he rounded the block.
“You’re welcome.” Then added as an afterthought, “Just don’t make me regret it.”
“Who me?” I asked in mock innocence.
He pinned me with a look. Right. Not in the mood for prison humor.
“Um, so where are we going?” I asked instead as he navigated the darkened streets.
“Back to my place.”
Despite the totally unsexy day I’d had, I felt my hormones zing to attention. “Your place?”
“Uh huh.” He nodded. “The only reason you’re not sitting in front of a judge right now is that I convinced him to release you into my custody. So,” he said, giving me a dark look, “I want you where I can keep an eye on you.”
“You mean you don’t trust me?”
He smiled a slow, crooked smile. “Nope.”
I should have taken offense, but honestly, I couldn’t say I blamed him.
I sat in silence as Ramirez wound us through downtown, ending up two streets from Las Vegas Boulevard in a neighborhood populated with motor inns, convention centers, and low cost buffets. Amazing how just two blocks from the Strip the price of prime rib plummeted to $3.99 a plate.
Ramirez pulled his SUV into the parking lot of the Lucky Seven Lodge, a twenty-unit motel done in peeling turquoise paint and rusted wrought iron. A kidneyshaped swimming pool, drained of water, sat next to the street while a neon sign over the front office advertised free HBO. Or rather “Free H O.” Their B was on the fritz.
“This is your place?” I asked as he parked and shut off the engine.
“What can I say? Bruno doesn’t get paid a whole lot.”
“Yeah but you’re not really Bruno.”
He shrugged. “Okay, I don’t get paid a whole lot either.”
We got out of the car and Ramirez led the way up to unit 13, a room on the second story that overlooked the parking lot. I could hear Metallica pounding from the room next door and a group of college kids yelling and drinking two doors down. Not exactly what I’d call homey, but it beat sleeping on sheets stamped “Property of the Clark County Jail.”
Ramirez plopped down on a double bed, done in a pastel desert motif, that took up most of the room, then proceeded to whip out his cell phone. “Checking in,” he explained, keying in his pin number.
I followed his lead, digging my cell out of my purse. The little battery symbol was flashing a “low” sign, but I hoped it would be enough to let Dana know where I was. Luckily she picked up on the first ring.
“Hey, it’s me,” I said.
“Ohmigod Maddie! Are you okaaaaaaaaaay?” she shrieked into the phone.
I held it away from my ear, sure that tiny dogs all the way from here to San Bernardino were yapping in protest. “Yes. I’m fine.” Sort of.
“Ohmigod, after they took you in Marco and I went straight to the Victoria and told Ramirez about your arrest, but we’ve both been worried sick about you. What happened?”
I quickly filled her in on my brush with the law, the discovery of Bobbi’s body and my theory about Larry’s frame up. She made the appropriate shrieks and gasps (especially when I told her how they’d confiscated my shoes), and when I’d finished asked, “So, what do we do now?”
“I don’t know.” And I honestly didn’t. I was fresh out of ideas, good or otherwise.
“Tell me where you are now and we’ll come pick you up.”
“Oh, well, I, uh…” I looked over at Ramirez, jotting notes down on a pad of motel stationery as he listened to his messages. “I’m actually kind of still in police custody.”
Ramirez turned his head and raised an eyebrow at me.
What? It was mostly the truth. And to be honest, I was tired. I mean really tired. I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d had a full night’s sleep. And between Marco’s snoring, the rollaway neck cramps, and Dana’s middle-of-the-night beatings, that big double bed in the middle of the room was looking nice. Really nice. (And, I’ll admit, the sexy cop lounging on it didn’t look so bad either.)
“Oh, okay,” Dana replied, though I could hear the question in her voice. “Well, I talked Slim Jim into giving Marco and me a discounted room for the night, so call me in the morning. Oh, and by the way, did you know I have a date to see Bette Midler with him tomorrow night?”
Oops. “Sorry. I forgot about that. I thought we’d be long gone by then.”
“No prob,” she replied. “Actually, it might be kind of fun.”
I paused. “Seriously?”
“What?” she asked, her tone defensive. “I think he kind of likes me.”
Or more accurately, certain parts of her anatomy. But, considering I wasn’t one to be giving dating advice, I let it go, instead promising to call her in the morning.
I hung up and turned around to find Ramirez watching me. He’d abandoned his phone and was lying on the bed, one elbow propped up beneath him. His eyes were dark and intent with a predatory look to them. Like any minute he might pounce on the blonde in the miniskirt.
I cleared my throat, my mouth going total Sahara on me.
“Come here,” he commanded, cocking one finger at me.
Well, who was I to argue with a cop? I sat down on the bed facing him.
His eyes did a slow sweep of my face, roving over each inch until I was sure I was blushing like a virgin. He lifted one hand to my cheek and softly tucked a strand of hair behind my ear.
“What am I going do with you?” he whispered, his mouth so close to mine I could taste the coffee and Dentyne on his breath.
At the moment I could think of about a hundred things he could do with me. All of them naked.
But he didn’t wait for a reply, instead leaning in closer and brushing his lips softly over mine. I melted on contact. I swear this guy could apply for a PhD in kissing. He was that good. So good, I was seconds away from being that “Free H O” myself.
His hands slid up to the nape of my neck, burrowing into my hair as his five o’clock shadow scratched against my cheek, leaving a tingling sensation that spread clear down my spine.
Then settled somewhere south of my belly button.
He wrapped his arms around my middle and laid me back on the pillows, his six-days-a-week-at-the-gym body pressing against mine. Hard chest, long legs, thickly muscled arms. I closed my eyes and said a silent thank you to the saint of totally ripped bodies, reminded of how long it had been since I’d been with a man. Never mind a man as rock solid as Ramirez. (And I wasn’t just talking about his pecs here.)
He broke away from my lips and dragged a wet trail of kisses down my throat. I arched my back and bit my lip to keep from laughing as his lips tickled my supersensitized skin. One warm hand came down on my knee, then slowly slid up my thigh, flirting with the hem of my skirt.
My eyes popped open. Oh crud, had I put on those ugly high-cut hipsters this morning? They were great for preventing leather miniskirt chafing, but the stretched-out elastic and faded blue horizontal stripes didn’t exactly scream “sexy mama.”
“Um, could we turn off the lights?” I asked.
Ramirez paused. “Sure.” He leaned over and switched off the lamp on the nightstand. The room plunged into semi-darkness, the lights from the Free H O sign casting a pinkish hue through the thin curtains.
Much better. Ramirez leaned in close again, his hands resuming their upward decent on my hipsters. I prayed he couldn’t feel how full-coverage they were in the dark. Something, as it turned out, I didn’t have to worry about. With one quick flick of his wrist, he had them off and across the room before you could say Hanes Her Way.
The sudden cool breeze in my hoo-ha region left me panting just a little. Something that multiplied exponentially as Ramirez lowered his lips to the inside of my thigh. He made a low, growling sort of sound in the back of his throat, doing butterfly light kisses along my inner thigh. His hands slid up to my waist, lifting my leather skirt until it could double as a belt.
I suddenly realized he was wearing way more clothes than I was. I made short work of his T-shirt, pulling it up and over his head, revealing that Budweiser-worthy six pack. I tried not to drool as I ran my hands over his stomach. Okay, I admit, I didn’t try very hard. I was goo, absolute putty in his hands. I’d never seen a body like this outside of a Brad Pitt movie.
He leaned into my touch, his fingertips flirting with my thighs as he did a low growl into my ear. I suppressed a giggle, his hot breath on my earlobe sending shivers down my spine. I felt goose bumps raise the hairs on my arms.
And legs.
Damn! I hadn’t shaved my legs this morning. Had I even shaved them yesterday? I couldn’t remember. I self-consciously wiggled out of his grasp, gently nudging his hand away from my bare, stubbly thighs.
Okay, so as long as the lights stayed off and he didn’t touch my legs, I’d be fine. I tried to reassure myself and relax back into his touch as his lips broke from my earlobe and began nibbling their way south. Down my neck, across my collarbone, into the deep V of my blouse. I closed my eyes again and sighed out loud, arching my back as his warm breath penetrated the thin fabric of my shirt.
He slid one large hand beneath the hem, moving upward until he reached the lacy edges of my Vicky’s Secret. I couldn’t help wriggling beneath him like a schoolgirl as his fingertips pulled the lacy fabric away and closed possessively over my barely B’s. You know, I was beginning to think that being arrested wasn’t all that bad. There were the perks of being patted down by the LAPD’s resident sex god. A status that Ramirez sealed for himself as I heard the zipper on his jeans give way and got a firsthand glimpse of what a lacy Vicky’s Secret could do to a man.
Oh. My. God.
My throat did that Sahara thing again, and I wouldn’t be surprised if a little drool traveled down my chin.
This so beat an evening with my battery-powered rabbit.
Ramirez seemed oblivious to my stares of admiration, fully consumed with popping the clasp on my bra. Not that I was complaining. The rasp of his warm hands against my bare skin was enough to make a girl forget her own name. I was seriously two seconds away from ripping the thing off myself when I finally felt the clasp give way and Ramirez gave another satisfied moan against my neck.
“This has got to go,” he mumbled, tugging at my blouse.
And then he started to undo the buttons. With his teeth. Did this guy have moves or what? Not that I was complaining. I was in heaven. I was one touch away from being a puddle of melted hormones in his hands.
I felt the first button release, then the second, Ramirez’s hot breath tingling against my bare skin. Button number three gave way and I braced for the feel of his warm wet kisses along my breasts. Only I didn’t feel any. In fact, he shifted, pulling away from me.
I opened my eyes and looked up to find him propped up on one elbow, picking something out of his teeth.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
His eyebrows hunched together as he blew air out through his lips in a spitting motion. “I think I just got grass stuck in my teeth.”
I looked down at my shirt. Sure enough, there were little bits of dirt and grass from my lawn dive stuck in the grooves of my formerly white buttons.
I let out a big sigh. Fine. I give up. Fate obviously had it in for me.
“This is so not working.”
“What’s not?” Ramirez asked, running his tongue over his teeth.
“This!” I sat up and gestured from his spitting form to my stubbly legs. “This isn’t the way this is supposed to happen. I smell like a jail cell, my legs aren’t shaved, I’m wearing day-old underwear, and I’m in desperate need of a lip wax. Look at me,” I gestured down at the lawn on my shirt and busted Cavallis dangling off my feet. “I’m a mess. I can’t have sex with you looking like this.”
Ramirez stared at me, blinking. “I think you look fine?” he said. Only it came out more of a question.
I narrowed my eyes. “Was that a statement or a question?”
Ramirez bit the inside of his cheek. “Which is the answer that will get us back to the kissing part?”
“Don’t you care that this is our first time?” I asked, doing a hands-on-hips pose. “Our first time is supposed to be special. It’s supposed to be at your place with scented candles from Illuminations and Enya playing in the background. I’m supposed to be wearing a cute little lace camisole and matching panties from Frederick’s of Hollywood. I’m supposed to look sexy. This,” I gestured to my ruined outfit again, “is not sexy.”
Ramirez rolled over onto his back and blew a long breath up toward the ceiling. “You’re killing me here; you are aware of this, right?”
I bit my lip. “Sorry.” And as I stared at his six pack abs, I was. Very, very sorry. Sigh.
“Fine,” he said. “If you want to wait, we’ll wait.”
“Thank you.”
He raised one eyebrow at me. “You are sure you want to wait?”
No. “Yes.”
Ramirez blew out another sigh. “Okay. In that case, I’m taking a shower.” He stood up and crossed the room in one long stride. “A very cold shower,” he added, sending me a look that was all heat before closing the bathroom door behind him.
I flopped my head back on the pillows again.
I was so gonna get Fate for this.
I spent the night tossing and turning and trying really hard not to let my stubbly legs come in contact with Ramirez’s. Was there any worse torture in the world for a woman who’s gone this long without sex to be sleeping next a man like that? If there was, we should be using it on the terrorists because by the time the sun finally peeked through the paper-thin curtains, I was ready to tear my hair out.
Ramirez got up first and I could hear him getting dressed though I steadfastly refused to open my eyes. One look at that body and I knew I’d be a goner. Hairy legs or no hairy legs, I’d jump him. By the time I felt it was safe to look, I heard the door to the room shut and popped my head out of the sheets to find him gone. There was a little note on the nightstand written on the back of a KFC napkin: Went for coffee, be right back. R
Okay, so maybe he didn’t sign it with a heart or an XOXO, but the man was going for coffee. Gotta love that.
I took the opportunity to drag my tired self into the shower and in lieu of my usual mousse and blow-dry routine, twisted my wet hair up into a French braid. I scavenged in the closet and found a T-shirt and pair of sweats and plopped back down on the bed. I’d just flipped on The View when Ramirez came back in with two Starbucks cups in one hand and a bakery box in the other.
“Bless you,” I said, taking one of the steamy cups. I sipped it. A tall mocha latte with whipped cream. Oh, I liked this guy.
“I thought you might be hungry.” He lifted the lid on the bakery box. Krispy Kremes. I really liked this guy.
“So,” he said as we sat on the bed eating the doughnuts picnic style, “do you want the good news or the bad news first?”
“Hmmm…always the good news,” I said around a bite of crispy, sugary dough and oozing cherry filling. This so beat Dana’s box o’ bran breakfasts.
“Okay.” Ramirez swallowed a bite. “I talked to Detective Romanowsky. They did an autopsy on Bob last night and it turns out he did not die yesterday. The ME found signs of freezer burn.”
“He was frozen?” I asked, amazed that even talk of a dead body wasn’t making these doughnuts any less delicious.
Ramirez nodded. “Which makes it a little harder to pinpoint actual time of death, but taking into account the condition of the body and the last time anyone saw him, Romanowsky thinks we’re looking at sometime on the twelfth.”
I did some mental calculations. Today was the twenty-first, so counting backwards that would make the twelfth…last Wednesday. I perked up as I realized the significance. “That was before I was even in Vegas!”
He nodded again as he licked a bit of jelly off his fingers. “Exactly. So he says you’re cleared to go home as long as you make yourself available for further questioning.”
Which should have made me happy. I was in the clear, right? Only the idea of going home didn’t fill me with a whole lot of good feelings. Now that I knew not only had both of my dad’s friends been murdered, but also that the Mob was trying to frame Larry, I knew he needed help more than ever. I wasn’t sure what I could actually do, but I knew leaving town wasn’t it.
“Does the good detective have any idea who bumped off Bobbi?” I asked, hoping all signs pointed to Monaldo.
Ramirez shook his head. “Nothing concrete. At least not that he would share with me.”
I took another bite, letting the gooey cherry goodness ooze onto my tongue. Last Wednesday. Why did that date ring a bell with me? I racked my little brain as I took a steamy sip of mocha latte. Then it hit me. The eBay auction I’d swiped from Monaldo’s office. BobEDoll had listed his pair of Pradas the same day our Bobbi had bit the dust. I wasn’t totally sure what one thing had to do with the other, but it was quite a coincidence.
“I have something to show you, but I don’t want you to get mad,” I said, setting my doughnut down and wiping my fingers.
Ramirez paused, coffee halfway to his lips. “Great. What now?”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “Well if you’re going to be like that, maybe I won’t show it to you.”
He put down his cup and relieved a little more neck tension. “Okay. Fine. I promise not to get mad.”
“Swear?”
“I swear.”
“Double pinky swear not to get mad?”
“Jesus,” he muttered. “Fine, I double pinky swear.” He held up his little finger. “Now what is it?”
“I kind of took something from Monaldo’s office.”
“Jesus, Maddie!” he yelled, his pinky clenching into a fist. “What the hell were you thinking?”
“Hey, you promised you wouldn’t be mad.”
He ran a hand through his hair. “I’m not mad.”
“That mad vein in your neck is bulging.”
He gritted his teeth together. “What did you take?”
I crossed the room to my purse and pulled out the listing, handing it to Ramirez. “I found this in Monaldo’s trash can.”
He stared at it. Then looked back up at me as if not comprehending. “An eBay listing?”
“Not just any listing,” I pointed out. “One for Prada. And the seller is going by the name BobEDoll. Get it? Bobbi, Bob-e-doll. And,” I said, pointing to the listing date, “same day Bobbi died. Kind of a coincidence, right?”
He looked at the paper a minute longer, then folded it and put it in his pocket. “Coincidence? Yes.”
“Significant?” I asked hopefully.
He did a noncommittal shrug. “Maybe. Proof,” he added before I could question, “definitely not.”
I pouted.
Ramirez smiled and leaned in, planting a little kiss on my protruding bottom lip. “You know, you’re kind of cute when you do that.”
“I’m wearing your sweats and my hair is in a wet braid.”
He cocked one eyebrow up. “Which means?”
“This is not sexy either.”
“You know,” Ramirez said, pulling away. “A person can only take so much.”
Tell me about it.
“So what’s the bad news?” I asked, reaching for a second doughnut. Hey, if I wasn’t going to have sex I was damn well going to load up on fat and sugar.
“The bad news is Monaldo wants Bruno back at the club this morning. He’s got a meeting with a vendor and he wants his muscle there while he negotiates. Which means I want you to stay here until I get back.”
“But-” I started.
“No, no buts. For once, please just humor me and do what I say? Don’t make me come bail you out of jail again.”
“You’re not going to let me live that one down, are you?”
He grinned. “Nope.”
After he downed the last of his coffee, Ramirez left, promising he’d be back in a couple of hours and making me double pinky swear that I’d be here. I finished off the last of the doughnuts while I watched the end of The View. I was halfway into Maury’s surprise paternity show when my eyes strayed to my empty Starbucks cup sitting on the table.
The thing is, that latte had been good. Really good. And between sexual frustration torture and lack of sleep I really wanted another one. More than that, I really wanted a fresh pair of underwear. I know Ramirez had said to stay right here, but I was sure he wouldn’t mind if I made a teeny tiny little trip to the hotel for a change of clothes and a mocha whipped cream latte. Besides, it was only a couple of blocks away; I’d be back before he even knew I was gone.
So convincing was my logic that ten minutes later I was in a yellow cab pulling up to the front doors of the New York, New York. I crossed the casino floor to the elevators and pushed the up button, waiting with a family wearing matching shirts that read WHEELER’S VEGAS VACATION ’07. Finally the doors slid open and the Wheelers got in. I was one step behind them when someone barreled out of the elevator straight into me.
“Uhn.”
“Ohmigod, Maddie!” I looked up to see the someone was Dana, her strawberry blonde brows pulled together in a tight line as her voice went into dog-whistle territory again. “I am so freaking glad you’re here. We’ve got to go!” She grabbed my hand, steering me away from the elevators.
“Wait-what? Go where?”
“It’s your mom, dahling,” Marco said, hot on Dana’s heels.
I groaned. I’d almost forgotten about the post menopausal Bobbsey Twins to the rescue. “On no. Mom’s here?”
“No, that’s just it,” Dana said, her voice twinged with hysteria as she hustled us back out of the casino. “She’s not here.”
She paused, putting both hands on my shoulders and spinning me around to face her. “Maddie, she’s gone after Monaldo!”