Starkly handsome, his features were etched in shadows and light. Deep hollows beneath sharp cheekbones; full lips and a long, straight nose; dark, thickly lashed eyes.
His body was nude and—except for the wings—just her type. Tall and leanly built. His pale skin shimmered as though lightly oiled. His chest was broad and hairless, his arms and shoulders deeply muscled. His belly, an appealing piece of real estate, was a series of ridged hills and valleys, without an ounce of softness. She couldn’t resist a quick glance at his cock.
Framed by short dark curls and the spread of his thick thighs, it too looked satiny-smooth…and substantial…even in its flaccid state.
“You’re not supposed to be here,” he said in a deep but surprisingly melodic voice.
“Where exactly is here?”
He shook his head. “I’m sending you back.” He stepped toward her, and she didn’t resist. She couldn’t, because she was still so shocked by his appearance. His wings flared behind him, rising so high they blocked the moonlight, and then his hands closed on the tops of her shoulders, and he shoved her backward.
She fell for the second time, back through the glimmering hole and onto hard tarmac—once again inside the narrow space with the height of the buildings closing off her view of the gleaming sky.
Rolling over, she came up on her hands and knees and dragged in deep breaths. Her knee nudged something solid beside her and glanced over to find a long, dark shadow, a body, stretched out on the ground. Her robber.
She reached to slide her fingers along the side his neck. No pulse. Fucking wonderful.
Dizzy and still gasping for breath, she turned slowly to look at the wall behind her but saw only flat, gray stucco peeling off darker gray concrete blocks. She ran her hands across the surface but felt no opening.
She’d run into the wall with the robber and knocked herself silly. No other explanation for what she’d seen made sense.
The pounding of feet filled the narrow channel. She raised her gun.
“It’s okay, Sin,” a voice called out. “Officer Martinez, here.” A flashlight clicked on, and he shined it at his face.
She let her arm sag at her side.
“See you got your suspect,” he said.
“He’s dead.”
“You shoot him?”
“I think he hit the wall.”
“Kinda looks like you did, too. You okay?”
She raised her chin and nodded then knelt again beside the dead man. “I suppose we should try to resuscitate.”
“You look ready to drop. I’ll breathe, you pump.”
Kneeling beside Beno Martinez, she began to work. But Sin knew it was already too late. What a hell of a way to begin her first day back.
Jake Chappa stood at the end of the narrow alley as the coroner wheeled away the body of the second robbery suspect. His own perp waited in the back seat of his squad car. Jake watched Sin as she spoke with the coroner’s people, gave them a brief, strained smile, and then headed toward him. He could tell she was tired and hurt, but she wouldn’t have appreciated his commenting on it.
The woman was too damn prickly for her own good. Still, he’d never been so relieved to hear Beno on the radio, letting the other units moving in know it was all over, and Sin’s runaway had slammed his head into a concrete wall.
Knowing Sin, she’d been on his tail until the very last moment. Looking at the stiff way she moved, she’d run ful
l-steam behind him, his body cushioning hers from worse injury. She never did anything by halves.
It was one of the reasons he’d loved having her in his bed—but the main reason they couldn’t work together. She scared him shitless.
Like tonight, taking off alone after the robber while she knew good and well his hands were full wrestling the bastard wriggling under his knees. He’d waited long, tense moments, his belly churning as he’d listened to her terse calls, following her in his mind until the radio had gone silent for far too long.
The moment he got back to the station, he’d march into Kalisek’s office and let him have a belly full. He couldn’t ride with her. One of them would get killed because he couldn’t stay focused when she sat a foot away from him, smelling fresh and womanly, her husky-toned voice scratching down his spine until he was so damn hard he couldn’t think straight.
He’d been a walking dead man since he’d gotten the news yesterday. He’d tried his damnedest to keep a professional distance but watching the slight limp in her leg had him wishing he could hurry her home and run a long hot shower and rub all the aches away.