He's the One Read online

  And that’s when she’d known. They weren’t rapists or murderers, but thieves. They’d been from the yacht company she’d been investigating for suspicious loss of property. Two separate multimillion-dollar boats had been sunk in the past sixteen months. Her company had found nothing suspicious with the first downed ship, and the insurance company had been forced to pay out. Just two weeks ago, in fact.

  Then the second boat had gone down for the count in Santa Barbara, and now Ella was closing in on why. Bad drug deals, and a greedy yacht owner wanting it all. She’d been watching their third yacht, the Valeska, all week, but had been unable to get aboard because there’d been activity on it.

  Now she was due to present her suspicions to the D.A.’s office, soon as she made one more trip to Santa Barbara, where she was going to get on the Valeska come hell or high water.

  Clearly, the suspects didn’t want her to get to the D.A.’s office, at least not before they skipped town with the money from the insurance from the first boat and any physical evidence. Chances were that had already happened, and they were long gone.

  Ella shook her head. She should have taken that job at Target out of college like her mother had wanted. Sure, she looked awful in red, but she’d be willing to bet no one would bother to break and enter her place because of that job, or handcuff her naked to her own towel rack.

  Unless she wanted them to.

  A slight breeze blew in the open window, breaking the brutal summer heat as the sun sank. Oh, God, the sun was sinking, and the severity of her situation sank in. It was Saturday evening. Next week was a long time away. God knew she wouldn’t starve, not with the five extra pounds she’d been carrying around since puberty—okay, ten, damn it. Still, the amount of time looming ahead felt long, and never having been big on self-discipline, she was already hungry.

  She could reach the shower and the toilet. The sink was across from her, a leg’s length away. Above it was the mirror that assured her she was as frightening-looking as she’d imagined, her hair air-dried and a complete frizz bomb, her face not wearing a lick of makeup. Ack. She decided not to look at herself again.

  Beneath the toilet was a cabinet which, if she stretched, she could just toe open. A box of tampons, two extra rolls of toilet paper, and a tube of toothpaste. Gee, yum.

  She looked out the window. The cottage was isolated, down a long, sinuous stretch of highway surrounded by bush-lined high desert hills, punctuated by dense groves of date palms and citrus trees and little else.

  The sun sank away, the daylight faded, and Ella felt anxiety pit in her stomach. But even stretching her leg out to bionic contortions, she couldn’t reach the light switch.

  And the dark came.

  She’d spent a good amount of her childhood chasing after her three older brothers, and feeling invincible because of them. She’d wear her blankie as a cape and pretend she was a superhero who could fly through wind and sleet and snow, who could do anything.

  She didn’t feel so invincible now.

  Then came a noise. The front door closing. When had it opened? Heart in her throat, she froze. Or rather her body froze. Her towel did not. It slipped yet again. She grabbed it with her left hand and hastily tucked the corner back between her breasts, her heart tattooing a crazy beat against her ribs.

  No other sound, but she could feel someone on the other side of the door.

  Listening.

  Breathing.

  Oh, God. She couldn’t scream, couldn’t even draw air into her lungs.

  The handle on the bathroom door began to turn.

  Ella stared at it, her life flashing before her eyes. She hadn’t watered her plants. She hadn’t tried skydiving. She hadn’t reconciled her checking account!

  The door creaked open.

  She stuffed her uncuffed hand against her mouth to hold back her panicked whimper at what was about to happen to her. What would they tell her family? No one had even known she was coming here, not her parents, her brothers, not even—

  “Ella?”

  At that low, husky, almost unbearably familiar voice, she squinted into the shadows of the opened door, thinking, Oh, no. No, no, no, no, no.

  But indeed, the form was tall, wide in the shoulders, narrow in the hip, the body built like the long-distance swimmer he used to be. “James?”

  The shadow stepped into the bathroom and came to an abrupt halt. Not a shadow at all but the one man she hadn’t wanted to see her like this, the one man she hadn’t wanted to see, period.

  Her mouthwateringly sexy, break-her-heart-and-stomp-on-it husband.

  Make that almost ex-husband.

  Chapter Two

  Ella let out the pent-up breath she’d been holding and tried to look normal. As if being handcuffed in nothing but a slipping towel was anywhere close. But she couldn’t pull it off, so she sucked in a breath and went for calm, cool, and collected, or at least the appearance of it.

  And reminded herself that as far as the worst-case scenario went, this wasn’t it. Close, but not quite. After all, she hadn’t been raped, tortured, or killed before the goons had left her, right? She was still breathing, which was a good thing, so she kept that in front of her.

  James let out a sound that managed to perfectly convey his surprise and unhappiness at the sight of her.

  The fading light fell over him favorably, but any light fell over the man favorably. Then he flipped on the switch and the fluorescent bulbs had her blinking like an owl. “Hi,” she said.

  He just looked at her. His nearly black hair was cut short as always, but no matter the length, it had a mind of its own. His melt-me chocolate eyes could reveal everything in his heart, or nothing at all, depending on his mood. They were pretty stingy at the moment. He had his cop face on, allowing only his tough competence to show as he moved in closer to prop up the wall with a shoulder, his arms crossed casually over his chest. A deceptively relaxed pose. “I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t play sexual games with your boyfriend on my weekend for the house,” was all he said.

  She registered the urge to knock her head against the wall. He hadn’t actually yet signed the divorce papers she’d sent him, which technically made them only separated, but that he’d been the one who’d left still rankled. And that it had been her job to drive him away made explaining her current problem a tad bit difficult, because she really hated when he was right. “I don’t have a boyfriend.”

  He lifted a disbelieving brow but relaxed. It was a marginal lessening of the tension in his shoulders that no one else would have noticed, but she’d known him for a very long time and could read his body like a book.

  “If there’s no boyfriend, what’s this?” He gestured with a jerk of his chin to the way she was cuffed to the rack. “An early Christmas present?”

  “Ha, ha,” she said, and jangled the cuff. “A little help?”

  He took his gaze on a slow roll up her body, starting at her bare feet, past her legs, which she’d thankfully shaved—No. Just because he’d been the first, and the last, man to drive her to the edge of sanity with a debilitating combination of love and lust and like and more lust, she did not care if her legs were shaved for him. Damn, but he could still get to her like no one else, which really topped the cake.

  His gaze continued on its tour, landing on her breasts, which were spilling over the edge of the slipping towel, then her throat, and finally her face, his own impassive.

  She couldn’t blame him there. She’d taken that single, horrified glance in the mirror. She knew her long, curly, blond hair had long ago rioted, resembling an explosion in a mattress factory. She knew she looked like a ghost without blush and lip color. She was just surprised he hadn’t gone running for the hills.

  But then again, nothing scared James. He stood there in black jeans, black athletic shoes, black T-shirt well fitted to that mouthwatering body, looking like sin personified.

  “What the hell are you doing here, Ella?”

  Good question, she thought, and sin
ce she had no intention of telling him the truth, that she was a complete idiot, she racked her brain for a good excuse. “Me? Just . . . hanging.” She added a grin, and hoped he bought it.

  But he’d never bought the bullshit she’d been able to feed just about anyone else. He stepped closer, a mixed blessing for her. She felt a huge relief, because though he was a lot of things, including a rat bastard, he was incapable of leaving her here trapped and helpless. Or so she hoped.

  And then there was her panic, because now she could see him up close and personal: the dark day’s growth on his jaw, the way his eyes were like two fathomless pools she could drown in, his tight jaw . . . and then there was his scent, which made her want to press her nose to his throat and inhale. Pathetic.

  Once upon a time he’d been everything to her, her greatest fantasy, her most amazing lover, her best friend, and she missed him, mourned him like a missing limb, and if he looked close enough he’d know it. Not wanting that to happen, she dropped her head down, but he only stepped even closer, and her forehead brushed his chest. He was warm and hard with strength, and beneath the shirt his heart beat steady. The waistband of his jeans were loose, low on his washboard abs. She had good reason to know his body looked just as perfect without the clothes, and that he knew exactly what to do with it to drive her insane with wanting.

  Why did he have to be so damned perfect?

  Why couldn’t he have love handles? Or bad breath? Okay, maybe not love handles or bad breath, but it’d be nice if he could screw up once in a while instead of it always being her.

  “Ella.”

  Right. He wanted answers. “It’s complicated,” she said demurely.

  “Uh-huh.” He tipped up her chin. “Keep going.”

  Her towel slipped another half inch. Before she could pull it back up, her left hand was in James’s, held above her head against the wall in a gentle but inexorable grip. “Look at me, Ella.”

  She stared at his Adam’s apple and hoped the towel was still covering her nipples. His thighs bumped her bare ones and said nipples hardened with hope because they knew exactly how good he could be to them. “Why?”

  “Because we both know you can’t look me straight in the eyes when you’re lying, Super Girl.”

  A nickname she’d acquired from her various escapades, usually nearly fatal. He kept his other hand on her jaw, holding her head, leaving her stretched and bound like an offering. “M-maybe I really am an early Christmas present.”

  He stared at her, his eyes no longer the flat, cool cop’s eyes. Now they were filled with frustration, temper, and a good amount of the heat and love that had always caught her breath. “It’s only June.”

  “Merry Half Christmas.” But he didn’t cave, he never caved. “Okay, fine,” she said, grumbling. “So I ran into a little problem with a case.”

  “Surprise, surprise. What was the problem?”

  “I found proof that a multimillion-dollar yacht we’d insured and lost this year was purposely destroyed. It didn’t click until their second, and more expensive, yacht was destroyed last week.”

  “Drug runners?”

  She nodded. “A few deals in a row went bad. They were hurting for money. Now we think they sank the boats for the insurance money.”

  “And?”

  “And I’m working on getting proof.”

  His eyes narrowed. “Let me guess. Your suspects are planning to hightail it out of town with the cash from the first boat, and you got in their way.”

  She bit her lip.

  “Jesus Christ, El.” Temper dropped, replaced by instant concern as his hands slid down to her arms. “Did they hurt you?”

  “No.”

  His expression was no longer a cool cop’s, but fierce and terrified. “Did they—”

  “Nothing. They did nothing but cuff me.” And okay, maybe they’d made a joke about her being a true blonde. “I’m fine.”

  He let out a low breath, fighting for control as the muscles bunched in his jaw.

  She knew it was more than this particular situation. Her job was the basis of any fight they’d ever had—her putting herself in danger, sometimes stupidly. Him hating it.

  He ran a finger over the cuffs on her wrist. “Hell of a mess you’ve got yourself into.”

  “Do you have a key or something?”

  “Or something,” he murmured, and looked her over again, slowly. “You sure do look like my idea of Christmas, all naked and . . .” He ran a callused finger over the edge of her towel, his knuckles brushing over the plumped-up curves of her breasts. “Restrained.” His melting eyes met hers and her knees nearly buckled at the memories his words caused.

  It’d been their first Christmas together, and she’d bought him two new silk ties, which he’d used not around his neck but for her wrists in his bed. He’d had his merry way with her, and then in return had let her bind him.

  The memories made her ache. “Can you just set me free?”

  Another slow pass of his finger over the edge of the slipping towel, and though she didn’t lower her gaze and look, he was helping the thing fall, damn him. “James.”

  “Yeah, I could set you free.”

  Relief rushed through her. Short-lived, as it turned out.

  “Soon as you tell me one thing.” His slow exhale fanned the hair at her temple, warming her ear, causing a delicious set of goose bumps to raise over her skin.

  Her eyes wanted to drift shut. In their marriage, one thing that had never wavered was this . . . this hunger, this unquenchable need.

  Truth was, she missed his arms around her at night; she missed his big, solid presence in their bed. He had a way of making her forget everything but what he could make her feel, and what he made her feel was like a walking orgasm. The man oozed sex appeal, and that hadn’t changed. “Um . . . what do you want me to tell you?”

  He ran his hand up her free arm, once again lifting hers over her head, entwining their fingers. His thighs bumped hers, and it took every ounce of self-control she had—which wasn’t much on a good day—not to rub against him like a cat.

  “Tell me that you really don’t want to be married anymore,” he murmured, and curved his fingers into hers now so that they were holding hands rather than him restraining her. “Tell me you really want me to sign those divorce papers you had sent to my work.”

  That was so far from what she expected, she blinked. “You were the one who left me.”

  “Mmm,” he said noncommittally, tracing the pads of his rough fingers over her skin. Just that small touch and her world spun. Her free hand automatically went to his arm for stability, even though she couldn’t have fallen if she’d wanted to. Her fingers dug his ropey, satiny shoulders. She was close enough to see into his dark, dark eyes, and what she saw there made her go still and quivery at the same time.

  “El.”

  Just that, just her name on his lips, and everything faded away except the excitement that always shimmered between them no matter what they were dealing with. He tipped her face up and their mouths were only a breath apart. With a soft sigh, she leaned into him. A sound escaped him, one of frustration, of need, and then he hauled her close, wrapping his arms tight to her body. “This is crazy,” he muttered, and rubbed his jaw to hers. “Stupid crazy.”

  She nodded. She knew it, knew also if he dipped his head a fraction of an inch and kissed her, it’d be a mistake. It’d taken her this whole time to even begin to get over him, she couldn’t do it again, she just couldn’t—

  “Damn,” he whispered, and then his mouth touched the very corner of hers.

  She let out a helpless little murmur and strained even closer, wanting more, so much more, but he pulled back. Stared at her as the corner of her towel slipped entirely free from between her breasts.

  The only thing holding it in place was James’s body, and they both knew it. “Uncuff me,” she whispered.

  “Tell me that you don’t want me anymore,” he whispered back.

  Damn it
. If she said the words, they’d be a lie, and he’d know that, too. He always knew. But here she was, literally trapped, and a complete wreck from just one tiny kiss, ready to toss all pride to the wind and beg him for whatever scrap he had left to give her.

  Six months ago, he’d told her all bets were off, that he couldn’t love her as wildly and fully as he did and watch her destroy herself with the job. In her stubbornness, all she’d heard was the ultimatum, him or her dangerous job, and she’d reacted. Badly.

  He’d left their L.A. condo and she’d hit rock bottom, or so she’d thought.

  But she’d been wrong. Today was rock bottom. Being forced to admit still wanting him . . . it was too much. “I don’t—” But the lie caught on her tongue.

  “Tell me,” he insisted in a rough whisper, his length bumping hers.

  She had to close her eyes in an attempt to deny what he could make her feel with just that barely there touch of his hot, tough bod.

  “Tell me.”

  God, it’d be so easy to do just that, but then they’d be back at square one, with her loving him ridiculously, and him wanting her to be someone she wasn’t.

  No.

  She was stronger than this, and to prove it, she lifted her chin, staring at a spot just over his shoulder. “I don’t want to be married anymore.”

  He studied her for a long beat, his gaze burning a hole in her heart.

  Not for the first time, either . . .

  “That’s not what I asked you,” he finally said.

  “I want you to sign those papers at your office, James.”

  “And what about me, Ella?” He nudged even closer, slipping a muscled thigh between hers.

  She nearly melted into a pool of longing on the floor.

  “You don’t want me?” he asked softly, silkily.

  She closed her eyes, gathered her strength, then opened them again. I don’t want you, she tried to say, but he shifted again, that thigh moving between hers, rubbing against her, and all that came out was a whimper.