A Dangerously Sexy Christmas

The traffic was as thick as soup, but Rose’s bright car was easy to track even as she weaved from lane to lane, no doubt to irritate him. New York driving was something else. If it wasn’t for the fact that his job often required him to travel all over the state, he wouldn’t have bothered with a car. Driving in New York was kind of like trying to befriend a criminal...pointless and risky. The incessant honking of the taxis—or cabsas they liked to call them here—sounded over the top of his music, causing his shoulders to bunch around his neck.

Some days he really missed Australia, but he tamped down the useless sentimentality and the inevitable torment that followed when he thought of home.

Eventually they crossed the Brooklyn Bridge and shortly after she pulled up outside a string of town houses. His car rolled to a stop behind hers. The street was lined with trees, their bare branches decorated with colored fairy lights. The area wasn’t in the least bit flashy or what he’d expected from a princess. The buildings looked clean, yet modest. Several had Christmas wreaths on the front doors.

Snow crunched beneath his boots as he stepped out of his car and followed her up the path to the front door. He folded his arms across his chest, bracing himself against the chill.

As Rose fished in her bag for her house keys, a warning tingled his senses. A deep intuition that had been honed over years of being a cop. The crisp air blew around him, but there was something else. A distant noise that caught his attention for a fleeting moment and made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.

“Wait.” He put a hand over hers as she was about to push her key into the lock.

He turned, assessing the area in front of the house. At first nothing seemed out of place, but then he noticed it—a cigarette butt by her door.

Max stepped in front of her and tested the front door. Locked. He leaned out and checked the window next to the door. Also locked.

“What are you doing?” she asked and he silenced her with a look.

“Do you smoke?”

She shook her head, brows raised. “It’s terrible for your skin. Why?”

Someone who was smoking on the street would not have purposefully flicked it all the way up to her front door. No, the smoker had been standing right there.

Rose huffed at his lack of response and shoved her key into the lock, holding her coat tight around her neck with her other hand. “You’re all wound up for nothing.”

But Max’s senses remained on high alert. Years on the force had taught him never to ignore his gut. In fact, he’d earned the nickname Spider-Man for how reliable his “Spidey senses” were in the line of duty.

And the one time he had ignored those senses, he’d paid. Dearly.

She opened the door and stepped into the entrance of the apartment, her heels sharp against the dark polished boards. She tapped a number into her alarm pin pad and dropped her keys into a crystal bowl, the sound echoing through the empty apartment.

“I told you nothing was wrong,” Rose continued, shrugging out of her coat and stepping out of her heels. “I don’t need pro—”

The last word died on her lips as she glanced around. Cushions were scattered across the living room. The drawers of her coffee table had been opened, their contents spilled like blood across the floorboards. A floor lamp lay on its side, surrounded by glinting glass from a smashed photo frame.

“Oh, my God.” Rose’s breath hitched as she surveyed the damage, her hands fluttering uselessly at her sides.

She bent down and picked up the silver frame. The photo had a scratch on it from where the glass had broken, marring the face of the young girl standing with an older woman. She traced the jagged line with her fingertip.

Paper filled with jewelry sketches littered the floor like oversize snow. A bookcase had been overturned, its contents scattered. He tested the weight of the bookcase. Someone strong had done this.

Red shards glinted on the floor—an ornament had been knocked off her Christmas tree and shattered beyond repair. Two more baubles sat on the floor, unbroken, and the angel on top of the tree hovered at a precarious angle.

“Stay close while I check the rest of the house,” Max said, his voice level.

He knew the drill. Clear the area. Don’t leave the victim alone in case the intruder was still in the house. Since it was just the two of them, there was no one to stay behind and watch Rose while he did the clearing.

He reached into his leather jacket and drew the pistol from his holster. “We need to make sure whoever did this is gone.”

She pressed her lips together and nodded, drawing nearer to him without argument. They moved together through the dining area and into the kitchen. More cupboards were open there, more glass smashed. A door leading out to a tiny courtyard remained closed.

It was unlocked.

“Did you check this today before you left the house?”

She sucked on her lower lip. “I honestly can’t remember.”

Max was careful to move slowly so Rose could follow. But his blood pumped fiercely through his veins, his senses tuned to notice the slightest noise or change in atmosphere. A near-silent footstep. A breath.

He felt her presence at every step, her body close to his as they checked every nook, every corner. Her bedroom was by the front door. It, too, had been ransacked.

The drawers of her bureau were open, colorful scraps of lace flung everywhere. A purple bra hung from the handle of the drawer and a pile of panties had been dumped nearby like a crumpled rainbow. The head-spinning scent of flowers filled the room. Max spied an overturned perfume bottle, its contents dripping down the drawers to form a puddle on the ground.

Rose picked up the bottle, her mouth pressed into a thin line. She touched her fingertip to the chipped neck. “This was my mother’s. She brought it with her when we left America.”

The ink on the label had run, the leaked perfume smearing the words together. Her hand shook and Max reached out, taking the bottle from her so she wouldn’t cut herself. He placed it back on the bureau.

“We’ll find out who did this, Rose. But you have to believe me when I say this doesn’t feel like an isolated incident.”

She nodded mutely, her face set into a hard mask. Unemotional. Contained.

They walked to the living room. “Can you get upstairs from inside the building?”

Rose shook her head. “It’s a totally separate apartment. The guy who lives there uses the stairs out front.”

“He might have seen something.”

“I’m pretty sure he does shift work. He’s hardly ever home in the evenings.” She shrugged, her eyes unfocused. “But you could try.”

They hovered by the front door, Rose huddled close to him. Her hands were shoved into the pockets of her black jeans as though she didn’t want to risk touching anything. But her eyes revealed what the nonchalant pose was trying to hide. Fear.

The robbers had struck the jewelry store first, but hadn’t taken anything. And now they’d targeted Rose’s home. They were looking for something specific.

“Is anything missing?” Max asked as softly as he could. It was hard not to sound like a cop when it was all he’d ever known.

“Not that I can tell.” Her yellow-green eyes clouded over, dark brows pinched together above her pert nose. It was cruel that a women could look so beautiful with a face full of storm clouds.

He listened intently, but only Rose’s quickening breath broke the silence. He holstered his pistol and watched her for a moment.

Max turned to inspect the closet by the entrance. It wasn’t built into the wall, but it appeared to be bolted against it for stability. The door was ajar.

Inside, a black coat hung beside its gray twin. A pair of snow boots and two pairs of black high heels sat on the floor. He bent down to inspect a storage box that had been opened.

“Do you keep anything valuable in here?” He turned, expecting to see her behind him. But she wasn’t there. “Rose?”

A crash in the kitchen sent a jolt of adrenaline through him. He sprang up and raced through the apartment, his boots heavy and loud on the wooden floor. Each sense was focused, his eyes capturing and assessing every detail.

“Rose!” He drew his pistol.