She left her room, swinging her purse in her hand as she headed for the kitchen to grab a glass of water and go. Ten minutes until he’d be downstairs waiting for her. As she drank the cool liquid, she dialed the valet service in her building and asked them to bring her car around.

The sound of a lock in the door caught her attention. John walked in with the weariest look on his face, but the second he spotted Sophie in the kitchen, his tired eyes lit up. “Hey Soph,” he said.

“Hey you. Long day?”

He nodded, dropped his keys on the table by the door, and headed to the kitchen. “Too long a day. Got the run-around from everyone.”

“The life of a detective,” she said, then held up a finger in the air. “But I have just the cure for a long day.”

He arched an eyebrow, as she walked over to a black marble table at the edge of her kitchen and held up a sturdy glass bottle. She removed the stopper and poured some amber liquid. She grabbed an ice cube from the freezer, dropped it in, and handed him the glass. “There’s never been a long day in the history of the whole world that Macallan can’t make better.”

John raised the glass and knocked half of it back. “Ah,” he said with a satisfied sigh as he set the drink on the counter. “That does make my day suddenly shorter.”

She laughed. “See? I told you. Are you still working on that case?”

He nodded. “That one and a few others. Today was like a goddamn puzzle. You know the math problems you can’t solve? If a train is going at the speed of—” Then he stopped and shook his head, bemused. “Look who I’m talking to. You never had problems solving math puzzles.”

She laughed. “True. So if you ever run into any math or code-breaking with your cases, just let me know.”

He took another drink. “And this was over addresses. Fucking addresses from years ago.”

“Sounds more like cartography than math,” Sophie said.

“Well, both are vexing my partner and me,” he said, then furrowed his brow as he glanced at her outfit. “What’s with the dress? Wait. You’re probably just going grocery shopping like that. Am I right?”

She made a funny face. “Ha ha. And yes, I would wear this grocery shopping. But if you must know, I have a hot date.”

He covered his ears. “La la la. I don’t want to hear it.” He took his hands off his ears.

“Why’d you ask then?”

“Like I said, long day. It fries my brain. Who’s the date with?”

“As a matter of fact, it’s someone I met—”

But her words were cut off when his phone bleated loudly from his back pocket. “Manny,” he said. Manny was his partner. “Got to take it.”

She waggled her fingers. “Toodle-loo. Don’t wait up for little old me.”

He rolled his eyes then pressed the phone to his ear. “What’s the latest?”

Sophie left for the elevators, headed to the lobby, and walked out the front door into the hot July evening that had coasted into Vegas.

Her breath fled her chest when she saw Ryan leaning against one of the stone columns in the portico, his sunglasses on, a tailored shirt tucked into crisp pants, and a suit jacket tossed over his shoulder. The second he saw her, he strode over and surveyed her from head to toe.

She waited for him to speak first.

“You,” he began, and his voice sounded dry. “Are you?”

“Am I what?”

“Are you wearing them?”

She leaned closer, her lips mere millimeters from his as she grasped his hand and pressed her keys into his palm. “Take me somewhere and find out.”

Chapter Fourteen

The car hummed. Adrenaline surged through him as he drove into the dusk, heading for the mountains southwest of the city. There was still unchartered land in that area. Building had just begun, which meant miles upon miles of roads were still bare.

As he shifted on an uphill stretch, the engine roared. The feel of the luxury automobile she owned was absolutely extraordinary, blurring into some kind of gorgeous harmony between car and driver and road.

Not to mention the incredible woman in the passenger seat.

As he accelerated, his chest vibrated with a purpose—find some place and fuck her.

He stole glances at Sophie during the drive, wishing it were possible to stare at her and keep his eyes on the road at the same time.

“Have I mentioned you look good enough to eat?”

“It’s the oranges, isn’t it?” she asked, running her fingers along the pattern on her dress.

“You had cherries on your dress when I met you. Now oranges. What will it be next time?”

“Do you like peaches?”

“I love peaches. I love peach ice cream. I especially love peach pie.”

“Then maybe I’ll have peaches on me next time,” she said with a sly look in her eyes.

He laughed then tapped the steering wheel as he turned onto a two-lane road at the base of the mountains. “So what’s the deal with you and this car?”

“What do you mean?”

“Is this like a James Bond thing you have going on?”

She laughed and shook her head. “He doesn’t drive this model. Lately he’s been driving the DBS. This is a Vantage GT.”

“I know. It just seems very Bond.”

“Maybe I’m a spy,” she whispered in a sultry voice, winking as she spoke.

“Are you a good spy or a bad spy?”

“I’m whatever kind you want me to be,” she said, and the innuendo in her words heated him up. The notion that she’d play whatever role he wanted intoxicated him.

But then, everything she did turned him on, it seemed. His attraction to her ran red-hot, and burrowed deep into his body. It operated on some kind of elemental level that at times he felt powerless to resist or deny. His fingers gripped the wheel harder as lust thrummed through him.

But even so, he remained curious about her. The woman who generated all this heat in his blood. He wanted to understand her. “What I mean is,” he said, trying again, “what’s the story with you and this fancy car, and the gorgeous building you live in, and the way you dress like you stepped off the pages of a magazine?”

“The answers are simple. I give a lot of my money away, and I give all my time away. But I still like having nice things. And I like to reward myself for hitting milestones in charitable fundraising. Like this car—it was a gift I gave myself after my first big event. And this dress I picked up when I started working with the children’s wing. Besides, I like dressing nice. Is that a crime?”

He shook his head. “Hell, no. You wear it all well. Do you like being pretty?”

She laughed lightly. “I’m glad you think that about me.”

“Answer the question,” he said firmly, since she’d just danced around what he considered an immutable truth of the universe—she was beautiful.

“Ryan,” she said, and he heard her embarrassment in her tone. He was having none of that.

“Sophie,” he said in a firm voice. “You’re gorgeous. Don’t deny it. Now tell me, do you like being so gorgeous?”

“To you—yes,” she said, managing once again not to answer completely. But her answer was completely satisfying.

Briefly, he ran his thumb over her bottom lip. “Stunning. You are fucking stunning.” He turned his eyes back to the road that curved up into the hills. “Even in that hoodie and hat picture you sent me.”

“I told you I was a nerd in college. I mean, total nerd,” she said, slicing her hands through the air for emphasis. “I had a weird haircut. I died my bangs blue. I was bent over a desk coding all the time.”

“I wouldn’t mind seeing you bent over a desk.”

She shot him a naughty grin. “Why does that not surprise me?”

“Did you like having blue hair?”

She shrugged. “I did it to fit in. There’s a certain geek culture, and I had to work hard to conform to it. Already I had a strike against me being a woman, so I tried to at least look the part of a computer nerd.”