CHAPTER1
Normally, Sienna Parker wouldn’t mind a gorgeous, 210-pound muscular male straddling her hips.
Except this guy wasn’t a lover and he had her pinned flat on her back. His arm was across her throat and Sienna could barely breathe. When she looked up into his face, he looked back with a pair of narrowed electric blue eyes, fringed by long, dark lashes. Thick black, temple-cut hair hung around his forehead, grazing his ears. For a moment, just a tiny moment, she lost herself in the look of him.
She blinked, realizing that the only opportunity she had was to go for the groin. Normally, that wouldn’t bother her, either, but in this case, she expected to do some damage. Her knee came up, but the guy was quick. As quick as he’d been when she’d approached David Buckner’s apartment, found the door ajar and suspicious rustlings going on inside. It had made her worried enough to pick up her radio and call for backup.
“Who are you and what are you doing here?” His voice rasped out.
“Detective Sienna Parker, San Diego Police Department,” she whispered around the pressure on her throat.
She should have waited for her backup, instead of worrying about losing a lead. She couldn’t follow any leads if she was dead—all the more reason to never go against the rule book again.
He immediately eased up on her neck. Surprise, then wariness, showed on his handsome face. “You’re a cop?”
Now and forever! Detective Sienna Parker always played by the rule book. Her friends said that if she could, she’d have No Buts tattooed on her behind.
Keenly aware of the chokehold on her neck and the heat radiating from his body, she regained some of her equilibrium. After all, she was a decorated cop, young, smart and even though he had the drop on her right now, things could change fast. She threatened, “You got it, and just so you know, you’re facing arrest charges for assaulting an officer.”
And he’d been very good at assault.
Even though she’d been off duty, she’d followed procedure, reached back and pulled out her 9mm Smith & Wesson, and thumbed off the safety. Gently, she’d pushed the door open and slipped inside, the gun pointed straight out in front of her. She’d walked into the living room and discovered a man at Buckner’s desk, looking through the contents. As stealthily as possible, she’d approached the man from behind. But before she could say, “Freeze, police!” he moved faster than any man she’d ever seen before.
Her gun was gone. Kicked out of her hands, numbing her fingers and her wrist in an exceptional kick that he performed with ease and grace. Then he was on her, bearing her to the rug, his forearm across her throat. She looked up at him, realizing he could snap her neck like a twig.
“Let me see your badge.”
Sienna reached down between their bodies, the back of her hand sliding along hard-packed muscle until she reached her blazer pocket. She pulled the leather jacket free, brought it up to his face, and flipped it open.
He studied the oblong shield and then looked into her eyes. “I didn’t know you were a cop. I don’t like people sneaking up behind me with guns. Makes me testy.” His shoulders blocked out the desk and the window beyond. All she could see was part of the curtains. But she could hear a siren getting closer. Her backup was on the way, and if they found her like this, she’d never live it down. Her fellow officers loved to rib her, first because she was a woman and second because she’d sped through the patrol ranks and made detective faster than any man in her graduating class at the academy.
“You know what makes me testy, mister? Being restrained by some guy who’s just committed a B and E. Who the hell are you?”
She felt his powerful stomach muscles clench in an effort to rise. “Lieutenant A.J. Camacho of the United States Navy.”
“Well, Lieutenant A.J. Camacho of the United States Navy…get off me!” She wasn’t shouting, but there was a core of steel accompanying every word.
A.J. got off her and reached out his hand to help her up. Sienna felt it the moment she placed her hand in his—electricity, heat, chemistry. Whatever one wanted to call it. It was there in the air crackling between them.
With a swift pull, he had her on her feet. He stood at ease; his unzipped leather bomber jacket revealed a blue chambray shirt open at the collar, exposing a strong neck. She could see a glint of his dog tags along with some kind of gold medallion around his throat that she immediately recognized as a Saint Christopher medal. Standing, he was impressively built and had muscles that were exquisitely honed. Snug jeans molded down long muscular legs and ended at scuffed black boots.
He walked over to retrieve her gun. Sienna moved fast, kicking his leg out from under him and sending him down on one knee. She snatched up her gun.
She pointed the weapon at him and said, “Put your hands behind your head and don’t move.”
“I told you I’m with the Navy.”
“So you say.”
“Not the trusting type?”
“Not when some guy who claims to be with the Navy just had me pinned to the floor in an apartment that belongs to a man I need to question.”
“Like hell!” he bellowed, still on bent knee as he turned toward her. “For what?”
“I don’t have to explain anything to you.”
“Can I rise?”