“Yes, sir, I won’t take my eyes off her,” he said in response to Camp’s final warning. Ric punched the off button on his cell phone and tossed it onto the sofa. The man Ric had tackled this morning had no previous record, and he wasn’t talking. Since he didn’t sport the usual shield tattoo on his right bicep, there was no way to know if SSU had sent him, or if he was somehow related to the gang series Piper was doing. Or, hell, he could just be a nut case trying to make the evening news. Whatever his motivation, the threat had been neutralized. Lucas was royally ticked that he couldn’t talk Piper into going into seclusion. Prior to calling Ric, he had apparently spent the last thirty minutes trying to convince her to take a leave of absence from her work.
“You’re one headstrong lady, querida,” Ric murmured distractedly as he unbuttoned his shirt. He’d ruined one of his favorite shirts this morning, and had to change before he got to the station. He shouldered out of his shirt and tossed it onto the back of the sofa, then started to unfasten his slacks when Piper’s face on the screen grabbed his attention. The segment lasted less than four minutes but it was very good. Ric gave himself a mental pat on the back for his videography. He unzipped his pants and headed for the bathroom. He supposed he could always be a cameraman if Lucas Camp got him fired from the Colby Agency for flirting with his niece. A vision, including her pretty face, especially those lush lips, instantly loomed large in his mind.
Ric needed a shower. If he couldn’t keep his thoughts away from the woman next door, it might be in his best interest to take a cold shower. The signal was set loudly enough that if Piper decided to leave her apartment while he was in the shower, Ric would hear the alarm. But she wasn’t scheduled to go anywhere for another hour. He had time. And since he couldn’t keep his eyes on her every waking moment without blowing his cover, he’d had to wire her apartment to ensure he knew her every move—or anyone else’s who might try to go through the Feds and enter the premises.
Considering his sore shoulder, he opted for the hot shower after all. The pavement had been hard, and his shoulder had taken the brunt of the fall when he’d slammed into the guy with the gun aimed at Piper. Ric scrubbed his hands through his hair and allowed the relaxing spray to flow over his tense muscles. The image of Piper Ryan, all five feet four curvy inches of her, filled his head once more. He had not expected the physical attraction between them to be so fierce. He’d thoroughly read her file. She’d grown up in the lap of luxury, was educated at a fancy private college and had all but been an overnight television success. Atlanta’s sweetheart.
The complete opposite in every way with Ric’s upbringing. He’d grown up in the Projects on the south side of Chicago. He’d had to fight his way out of that barrio, and only the kind of drive and fortitude borne of desperation and alien to the likes of Piper Ryan had saved him. In her world she stood head and shoulders above the rest when it came to determination and courage, but she wouldn’t last five minutes in the world he’d known as a kid.
Ric leaned against the cool tile wall and forced that old bitterness from his thoughts. He wasn’t envious of people like Piper, only impatient with their way of thinking. He knew what she probably thought about him. Though she was physically attracted to him, she saw him as a lesser person somehow because they hadn’t attended the same Ivy League schools, because he wasn’t the refined gentleman with whom she preferred to associate.
He swore at his foolish reverie and shut off the spray of water. It wasn’t Piper’s fault she’d had it all as a kid, no more than it was his that he hadn’t. And Ric had no intention of letting that old chip climb back onto his shoulder. He had a job to do. Protecting the princess next door. This was an up-close-and-personal assignment and he would simply have to get over the social differences between them. He could be judging her too harshly. He knew better than to fit her into the same mold with the types he’d been forced to tolerate in his youth. It was just as wrong as those who’d lumped him in with every bad boy in his neighborhood.
Ric shook his head. Hell, he thought he’d gotten over that inferiority complex long ago. The past was just that; he couldn’t change it…didn’t want to really. Those tough years had made him a better man. He didn’t like being judged based on how others from the barrio had failed, no more than he was certain Piper would want to be held accountable for what some of her royal crowd had turned into.
The high-pitched tone of the motion detector warned him that the subject of his contemplation had just opened her door. Ric hissed a curse and quickly wrapped a towel around his waist. She wasn’t supposed to make a move for at least another forty-five minutes. Piper’s neighbor had worried that he’d promised to attend some sort of charity function with her tonight. Camp had told him he would take care of informing Piper of the sudden change in plans. It would be just Ric’s luck that Piper had decided she needed a pair of panty hose or something, which would require her to leave early.
Before he could consider what the hell he would say to stop her from going anywhere without him, he had bounded to the door, unlocked it and jerked it open. To his surprise Piper stood directly in front of him wearing a tight little black dress that barely hit midthigh. Very sexy high-heeled shoes and definitely no panty hose. Whatever he’d decided to say left him the moment his brain assimilated all that he saw.
For the second time today, Piper stood gawking at Ric Martinez. Only, this time he wasn’t wearing that slick mix of silk and rayon attire. This time he was naked, save for the towel carelessly slung around his hips. Water droplets clung to his golden skin, some slipping down muscled terrain that did strange things to her insides. His hair was damp too, she noted, when at last she could tear her gaze away from that truly incredible bare chest.
The shower. He’d been in the shower. But she hadn’t even knocked on his door. Had she? Piper shook her head to clear the fog there.
Reality abruptly kicked in. What was he doing in Mr. Rizzoli’s apartment?
And why was he staring at her like that?
When his gaze finally connected with hers, desire flashed in his eyes. The bottom dropped out of her stomach, then flip-flopped when she considered that he must see the same thing in her eyes. Piper blinked and squared her shoulders in an attempt to mask her runaway response to the man.
“What are you doing here? Where’s Mr. Rizzoli?”
Why hadn’t she noticed before the perfect cut of Martinez’s nose in proportion with his chiseled jaw? Or that sexy cleft in his chin?
Her cameraman. They worked together. She wasn’t supposed to notice things like that about a co-worker. She wasn’t supposed to feel this way about a man she had absolutely nothing in common with, and didn’t even like for that matter. Especially one that infuriated her to the extent Martinez did. But those unbelievably wide shoulders and that amazing face…mercy, she was losing her perspective altogether. A plausible excuse bloomed in Piper’s mind, sending relief soaring through her.
Sex. It was about sex. She hadn’t…in, she concentrated hard, in almost a year. Her eyes widened. A whole year? Had it really been that long? No wonder she was drooling over Mr. Latin Lover here. It was nothing personal. Just hormones. She’d been too busy for a social life lately, and her body was simply overreacting to the first attractive man under fifty who got too close.
“Mr. Rizzoli’s in Hawaii on vacation,” Martinez finally responded, jumping into her strange reverie with both feet, his tone tense and slightly clipped as if he’d sensed her epiphany and realized he’d drawn the short straw in her opinion because of it.
Hawaii? A frown knitted its way across her forehead. “Mr. Rizzoli didn’t mention a vacation.”
“It was sudden,” Ric offered. “He won the trip and had to leave right
