HIDING: Book 5, The Stranger Stand Alone Series, A Dark Romantic Suspense Read online

Am I even going to be able to do this?!

  I lift myself from the car, never breaking the heated look between us, and let him lead me to the door.

  He’s going to kiss me!

  The world is gone.

  Time has stopped.

  Every move he makes is precise and focused.

  He lifts his hands to tuck my hair behind my ears, then slowly traces his thumb across my cheek, down to my upper lip, and lightly glides it across the ridge.

  My lids dip.

  God, that feels so good. It’s been so long…

  His other hand cups my cheek and holds me firmly. An avalanche of emotions crashes down on me. The floodgates of all my pent-up desires are destroyed leaving me open and vulnerable. Open to whatever road this is going to take me.

  Yes…

  His hand moves behind my neck as he lowers his face a breath away from mine. He’s so close, I can almost feel his lips on mine. The first touch is light like a feather. Just a gentle brush over mine.

  I start to melt.

  The next one is tender, a soft kiss at the corner of my mouth.

  A heavy breath escapes me.

  His grip tightens at the back of my neck.

  I moan. Soft, but needy.

  Another gentle kiss at the other corner.

  My lips part asking for more.

  He glides his tongue over my lips.

  My body presses into his.

  All my reservations, all my fears and inhibitions, are gone.

  So good, so, so good…

  He closes his mouth over mine as his tongue sweeps against mine, stroking, caressing, dancing slowly, savoring. Tempting me with a promise for more.

  Fires burn inside me, instantly turning the tenderness into a raging inferno.

  I lift my arms and wrap them around his neck, pulling him closer, hungry and fierce. I need to feel him against me, I want him inside me, close is nowhere near close enough.

  He turns us and pushes my back against the brick wall.

  Yes, yes, YES. More, I need more…

  Savage.

  Desperate.

  Primal.

  He takes my bottom lip between his teeth and bites it, the sensation just shy of painful. I dig my nails into his scalp and grind his mouth into mine. A low rumble sounds from his chest and vibrates against my body as he pushes the entire length of his against me. My body answers his, rubbing against his hard shaft.

  I’m pushing him to his limits.

  He pushes me harder into the stone wall as his fist tangles tightly in my hair.

  I drag my nails down his back.

  He sucks my tongue deep into his mouth.

  I moan again, long and guttural.

  His mouth travels down my neck.

  “This is just a taste, kitten, of how you need to be kissed,” he whispers huskily against my neck.

  Yes, just like this!

  I’m panting, breathless, delirious and hungry for more.

  His hands slow their movements against my body. I try to rein in the need he’s unleashed from within me. We stand like that, pressed against each other for a long moment, coming down, pulling in our primitive beasts.

  “You should go in now…”

  “I should,” I whisper back.

  Both of us don’t move, unable to break the hold over us.

  Slowly we begin to separate.

  “Until our next date,” he kisses me lightly once more.

  I stare into his eyes. I could drown in their intensity. And come out renewed.

  As I straighten to unlock the door, he pushes my hair to the side and places one last kiss at the curve of my neck.

  My body trembles.

  I don’t want him to leave.

  As the door clicks shut behind me, I lean against it, and feel my heart beating inside me.

  Feeling.

  Alive.

  RICO

  CHAPTER 7

  “Rico,” the captain shouts from his office, “come in here a minute.”

  “Yeah, coming,” I push my chair back from the desk and head toward the captain’s open door.

  I should consider myself lucky. The precinct here is a lot nicer and newer than the ones up north. The furniture isn’t beat up and dinged, the chair cushions aren’t ripped, worn vinyl, and the wheels don’t creak every time you move. It’s a pretty sweet set-up.

  In my opinion, though, it only adds fuel to the cocky and self-deserving attitudes of those who think they’re either above the law, or better than everybody else. Those son-of-a-bitches need a good ass kicking every once in a while from somebody who grew up on the streets, the ones who’ve had to fight their whole lives for everything they’ve got. Let those holier-than-thou-mother-fuckers spend a week in the concrete jungle without their badges to hide behind, then let’s see how big and bad they are. The streets would eat them up, and shit them out, grind their complacent asses to a goddam pulp.

  It’s tough for me every time I start at a new precinct in a new city down south. Me, a Puerto Rican from New Jersey, a prick from the streets. What I am represents everything they hate.

  And I fucking love it.

  No matter how much training, how much experience is crammed down your throat, your lifelong programming ALWAYS wins, each and every time. No exceptions. You will be judged, you will be stereotyped, and you will have to kick some serious ass to prove otherwise.

  That’s why I’m a good detective.

  It’s because of what I am. I’m not a good ole boy who grew up hunting squirrels and fly fishing. The street spit me out of its big fat twat and gave birth to me in the middle of the hood. I sucked on my mother’s tit, her highness herself, the grandest motherfucking city in the world, and she gave me life, made me her own. That blood flows in my veins. I am she and she is me.

  You can’t buy that shit. You can’t learn how to be her child. You either are or you aren’t. My birthright of ill repute has saved my ass more times than I can count.

  The problem right now is the local boys are finding themselves at a disadvantage, not just here, but in every damn small town USA. As the gangs and illegitimates sneak in at night and set-up house next door in the cul-de-sacs and neighborhoods, the boys in blue have found themselves right fucking smack in the middle of a whole new ball game.

  A game they have no training for, with no rules, and no clear identities.

  It’s like dodge ball with bombs.

  There’s a new breed of criminals. With military training, armed with militia equipment, and absolutely no code of ethics.

  The streets, neighborhoods, offices, and stores are clear battlegrounds for war, a war that no one had any idea was coming. They don’t want to take prisoners. There’s no fucking ransom. It’s sick and absolute.

  They’re not coming.

  They’re already here.

  “Good morning, Captain,” I lower into the comfortable chair in front of his dark artificial mahogany desk.

  “How’re things going with the ID?” he sips his Port City Java skinny whatever the fuck it is. The wife’s got him on a low-fat, sugar free can’t eat anything program.

  His cholesterol was through the roof, a damn heart attack waiting to pop the cork.

  I sit back in the chair and rest an ankle on my knee.

  “I’ve got a hunch.”

  “Oh?” he sits back in his chair and grins.

  He looks as happy as if I’d told him he was getting his cherry popped.

  “Please go on, Detective Santiago, I’m all ears,” he sips his fancy coffee.

  “Mr. No Name hasn’t come up in our usual lists,” I begin.

  Hour after hour with our databases and there’s nothing to show for it. When I saw that scumbag step off the bus, something had been nagging me about him.

  I think I finally figured out what that is.

  “No, he hasn’t,” the captain agrees.

  “What if he isn’t Mexican like the driver and the bus occupants?” I lean forward and get closer. “Wh
at if this guy is part of a different organization all together?”

  “It’s highly possible. What’s your hunch?”

  “We know we have two unidentified males, one we know is Latin, but not coming up with the known Mexican rings. The other we assume is as well from the partial photos we’ve gotten of him.” I slide to the edge of my chair and draw two invisible rings with my fingertip on the captain’s desk. “Here is the human trafficking ring with identified perps,” I point to one spot. “Over here,” I point to the other, “is Mr. No Name and his sidekick representing…” my words trail off as I look up at the captain.

  “That’s the million-dollar question, Santiago.”

  “Questions, Cap.” I smirk. He hates that name. “Maybe he’s using the busload and the farm as a front for something else. Maybe the Mexicans have gone into business with another group.” I sit back in my chair again. “I’m going to make some phone calls, send the photos to some friends in New York and Jersey. People who know the kind of guys who like to remain anonymous.”

  His lips tighten into a thin line. “Santiago, you’re a good detective…”

  “I’m the best,” I smirk again, “and I know what you’re going to say. The sources are reliable, Captain. When I was in New York, they helped solved the kidnapping I was there for that led to the Russian Mafia. Without them, the woman would have been dead and at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.”

  He takes a heavy breath and considers this as he draws his brows together.

  “Alright, but if we have to call them to stand trial, I don’t want it thrown out on some bullshit technicality.”

  “Captain, with all due respect, the game as you know it changed while everybody was sleeping. Nothing works the same anymore. This is a whole lot bigger than some drug addict selling a couple of dime bags on the corner in front of the liquor store.”

  “I know that Santiago,” the captain’s voice rings with a warning I might just be crossing a line.

  “Do you remember the story of the kingpin Harlem drug dealer back in the seventies who was shipping in heroin from Asia in the caskets of dead soldiers?”

  “What does that have to do with it?”

  I cock my head at him. “We don’t know how big this damn ball of yarn is going to be once we start unraveling it.”

  “Which is precisely why we’re bringing in someone from DEA. His name is Scott Edwards, retired and former Army, but we persuaded him to come back in lieu of the surge of drugs in our area.”

  I don’t believe it.

  “Big guy, shaved head, built like a brick shit house?” I ask.

  He rolls his eyes at me. “You could say that, yes.”

  “I’ll be damned, we go to the same gym. Good guy. It’ll be a pleasure working with him.”

  Fucking Scott from Evolutions.

  “Alright, go on and get to work. Let me know what you find out from your contacts up north.” He sets the coffee down on his desk and turns his attention to the computer. “I probably don’t want to know too much about these guys, do I?”

  “Probably not. Need to know. If you need to, then you’ll know.”

  He shakes his head. “And I probably don’t want to know how you know them.”

  I laugh. “Definitely not.”

  “Go on then, get out. And if there are any damn donuts in the squad room, throw them in the trash, would you please?”

  “They had some good looking Krispy Kreme. You sure you don’t want a couple of glazed?”

  “One of these days I’m going to use you for target practice, Santiago!” I hear him yell on my way outside to call the boys back home.

  In the parking lot, I close myself in my department issued car, the Charger.

  Within the quiet of the metal box, the only light I’ve had in years in my life of rules and boundaries burns inside me again. The only one that’s blasted apart my ability to adhere to my strict regimen.

  Maria.

  What a goddam kiss.

  A close my eyes at the memory of how she felt pressed against my body.

  Fucking perfect. Absolutely. Fucking. Perfect.

  My heart pounds and my blood heats up.

  Her taste was poison. And cure.

  Before I know I what I’m doing, I’m searching the restaurant on my phone and calling her.

  “La Cocina, how can I help you?”

  Her voice strokes me like her tongue along my flesh.

  What the fuck am I doing?

  “Hi.”

  I hear her quick intake of breath. “Hi.”

  “Time for our second date. Get the night off. I’ll pick you up. Seven o’clock.”

  Demanding. No. Possessive.

  What the fuck?

  I remember the hint of pain I saw in her eyes, and how, just for a little while, it was gone. Fuck me, I hated it. I can’t deny it, I want to protect her, take care of her.

  I want to make her happy.

  Am I out of my goddam mind?!

  “Rico, I can’t…”

  “Yes, you can, and you will. Even if I’ve got to go there, throw you over my shoulder and take you.”

  Jesus Christ, who AM I?

  She pauses.

  I can picture her skin flush and her chest rise and fall as her breath catches.

  “You wouldn’t dare,” her words are hushed.

  THAT makes me smirk.

  “Try me, kitten. And Maria?”

  “Yes?” she answers hesitantly.

  “I’m going to show you more than how you should be kissed.”

  Fuck it, might as well break all the damn rules.

  Another quick intake of breath.

  “Rico….”

  “I want you to think about that all day, Maria. I’ll see you at seven.”

  “You’re impossible. I can’t.”

  That’s right, fight me, kitten.

  “I know what I want. And yes, you will. Seven.”

  Just once.

  “Bye.” She hangs up.

  The fiery woman still owns my thoughts. Her smell, her taste, the way she felt pressed against me all come rushing back as I look up Carlos’ number.

  My old friend from New Jersey. Isabelle’s brother. And a gang member who works for our friend, Alexander Black, the number one prick in the international business world. The man who was with me when Isabelle was killed.

  Carlos is still affiliated with the gang. So is Alex, with his empire, a tiny piece of his business acquisitions. Alexander Black cleverly manipulated business negotiations with gangs and the mafia within his mecca of international business. It was a brilliant move.

  “Rico, que pasa? How are things down south?” Carlos answers the phone.

  “It’s good. You keeping Black out of trouble?”

  “Nah, Gemma keeps his ass in line. He’s so damn pussy whipped, I wonder if he’s still got a pecker,” Carlos laughs.

  Women, our weakness. And strength.

  “Man, that’s cold.” It’s good to hear his voice. It was really great to see him while I was home.

  Gemma was kidnapped by the Russians in an attempt to get at Alexander and a coupe to destroy him and his businesses. I went up north to help with the search, it was a race against the clock. We found her, thank God, before it was too late.

  None of the bad guys walked out.

  “Listen, I’m going to text you a picture. I haven’t been able to put a name to his face. He’s not in any of my systems. See if you can find something for me.”

  “Yeah man.”

  While he’s talking I text him the photo.

  “I just sent it. Let me know what you find out as soon as you can.”

  “No problem. I’m guessing it’s not someone you want to invite to watch the Knicks play.”

  “Not unless I can wrap the fucking net around his neck.”

  How the piece of shit threw that poor girl to the ground makes me want to smash his fucking skull against a brick wall. After she undoubtedly sucked him off on a bus full of
people.

  What a worthless coward.

  “Maybe you’ll get the chance. Sounds like he deserves it.”

  “Yeah, maybe I’ll get lucky.”

  Carlos laughs. If he were me, he’d make sure it was slow and painful too.

  “When are you coming home?”

  I sigh.

  Home.

  There’s still too much pain there, too many damn ghosts alive in my secrets.

  “I don’t know. This case is kicking my ass.”

  It’s not a lie, but I’ve been making excuses for twenty years. The only time I’ve been back is when Alex called me. He needed me. I went. No questions, no excuses.

  “Alright hermano, I’ll be in touch.”

  After hanging up, I head back inside the station and go through more leads and hit more dead-ends.

  My mind is filled with Maria. Her body, her taste, how she smells, the way her voice gets deep and heavy with lust. No woman has grabbed me by the balls like she has.

  Except one.

  Anger and guilt come barreling through me, just like they always do.

  I don’t get attached, I’ve never wanted to. I’m not able to.

  That’s why I have rules, boundaries.

  But I want to.

  With her.

  I have to remember she’s only a challenge, a puzzle, she has secrets I want to know.

  Somehow, I, or what I am, fits in with them.

  I despise questions without answers, things left unfinished, loose ends trailing to nowhere.

  I need to get what I want from her. Fast.

  I’ve let myself get in this far.

  I can let myself indulge in her one time. Just once. Her barriers are coming down; I can feel it. She’s close to letting her guard drop. Then I’ll have my answers.

  Then it’ll be over.

  Then I can walk away.

  My cellphone rips through my inner battle.

  “Yeah, you’ve got something already?” It’s Carlos.

  I lean back in my chair at my desk, grateful for the interruption. And not having to waste anymore fucking time.

  “Man, this dude is one sick mother fucker.”

  I sit up, all my senses are on full alert.

  I knew this scumbag was bad.

  “Just tell me,” I bark at him.

  “Ivan Rodriquez, Cuban. They call him Ivan The Terrible.”

  My gut twists.