reaction. How the hell long had it been since he’d had a woman in his bed if he was getting turned on at work?
He would have made a mental note to call his girlfriend of the month, except that this was one of the many months he didn’t happen to have one. In fact, if memory served, he’d only managed to accomplish the girlfriend-of-the-month feat twice in the last year and a half. Hell of a track record.
Since he’d always sucked at relationships—something he sorely regretted telling his new partner—Vanessa liked to hassle him about one month being the longest he could keep a woman in his life. Damned if she hadn’t been dead-on accurate. Wes didn’t bother to inform her that he’d had a long-term interlude back in the day—before his first partner went undercover and never came back out. His job and his personal life had both pretty much fizzled since then. Even more so after they’d finally found Steve’s body in the East River last fall.
Rogue thoughts of the sexy socialite now firmly under control, Wes dropped onto the small pullout sofa a few feet away from her. Too late he realized the open studio apartment contained no bed, meaning she must sleep here. Right on this very piece of furniture where he’d parked himself.
Eager to maintain focus on his case, Wes redirected.
“Is that your dog out front?”
“Eloise?” She peered around the apartment as if she’d only just remembered she had a dog. Inserting two fingers between her lips, she blew a piercing note.
Wes barely heard it since his eyes were glued to her full mouth, her bottom lip still damp from her whistle.
The dog came padding through the rubble of the apartment, its presence seeming to relax Tempest. “Yes, she’s mine. I would never bring a shepherd into the city since they really like to run. But I found her in a Dumpster on the way to work one morning and what else could I do? I figured living with me—even if I don’t have a few acres for her to romp around—had to be better than the fate she was looking at.”
Wes watched her scratch the dog’s neck, her shiny red manicure disappearing into the animal’s thick ruff. There was no doubt in his mind the mutt had it made.
“She looks pretty well-adjusted.” He didn’t mention his St. Bernard was twice the size of Eloise and managed to keep entertained in Wes’s shoebox of an apartment on Roosevelt Island. “Can you tell me what happened here today?”
“I was coming home from a meeting and I noticed the front door was unlocked.” Her fingers buried deeper into the dog’s fur. “Eloise went in first because I was a little unnerved by the open door. I had safety measures drilled into my head at an early age, and I can assure you, I’ve never forgotten to bolt a door in my life.”
“Is anything missing?”
“I honestly haven’t looked around. I called the police as soon as I saw the mess.” Her eyes drifted over the debris. “I’m not sure I’d know where to start looking for missing items.”
Wes followed her gaze, his eyes slowing on a haphazard pile of lacy undergarments spilling out of a tall armoire. Black ribbons mingled with pink straps, bright blue satin billowed over yellow see-through netting. He’d have to be a dead man not to notice the distinctly feminine intimate apparel, but he refused to envision Tempest wearing any of the slinky outfits.
Although the thought tempted him. Mightily.
As a compromise, he told himself he would not only work on finding another girlfriend in the very near future, but he would also seek out one who had a taste for lingerie. Of all the times for his libido to make a comeback after staying in hiding for months.
“Consider if you have anything here that someone else really wants. Something with monetary value? Something with significant value to a particular person?” He studied her face for hints of guilt or subterfuge, but only found deep thought. “The level of destruction in the apartment indicates that the perpetrator conducted a thorough search for something specific, or else the person responsible holds a personal grudge.”
His thoughts ran to the old lady neighbor he’d seen peering out her apartment door earlier. Had she been monitoring the goings-on in the hallway for reasons beyond general nosiness? Maybe some of Tempest’s neighbors didn’t appreciate the inevitable media frenzy that followed young, beautiful socialites around New York.
Wes found himself wondering if she brought a lot of men back to this apartment. Was the unassuming address her rendezvous point for booty calls she hid from her ritzy family?
“Obviously my intruder didn’t think my sculptures were worth a damn.” She clutched the smoky crystal at her neck and Wes spied the rapid beating of her pulse there.
What would it be like to make this woman’s heart pound faster?
“You collect statues?” Of naked men?
Perhaps Tempest’s snooping neighbor was an old prude who resented anyone with such an obvious interest in male nudity.
“I am the artist.” She lifted her chin with vaguely injured pride. “I had been hoping to convince a local gallery to do a showing once I had enough of a collection, but now…”
Certain a wealthy heiress whose face frequently graced the social pages could buy her way into any gallery she chose, Wes wasn’t too concerned. He needed answers from Tempest Boucher and he certainly wasn’t getting them by being subtle.
Time to be a bit more relentless with his questions.
“Did you keep valuables here? Jewelry? Other artwork besides your own?”
TEMPEST STARED BACK at Detective Heartless Shaw and assured herself he must not have a creative bone in his body. How else could he ask her something so insensitive as whether or not she owned any artwork that was actually worth something?
Of all the damn nerve.
“As a matter of fact, my statues were the most valuable items here. I don’t keep much at the apartment besides the tools for my sculpting.” And a few pictures for inspiration. Could she help it if she liked to mold male bodies? Judging by what her first few pieces had sold for, she wasn’t the only woman who appreciated a naked masculine torso around the house.
Detective Shaw might actually make for great male inspiration himself if he didn’t have such abrupt crime-scene manners. With his close-cropped dark hair and classic Roman features, he possessed a timeless appeal women would have found irresistible in any era, though his dove-gray eyes and the hint of a dark tattoo curling around one wrist gave him a uniqueness she wouldn’t confuse with any other classically handsome male. He wore a vintage suit that had probably cost a fortune in its prime, but the threads had seen better days, settling into softer lines around angular shoulders.
Definitely the sort of shoulders a woman wouldn’t mind molding. In clay, of course.
He peered around her apartment as if to test the truth of her assertion that she only came here to work. Curse the man and his unwanted sex appeal. Wasn’t she the victim here? Shouldn’t he make a passing effort to ask her if she was okay? She’d never been a paranoid woman, but it seemed as if even the toughest of chicks would be shaken by the sight of their personal lives churned through a giant blender and spit out like an aftertaste all over the floor.
“As soon as we’ve finished collecting evidence, we need to do a
