He imagined Danni in the tiny skirt with her legs stretched across his lap as he slowly untied the boots. Every cell pulsated with lust. Heat flamed through him. He was burning up, and it wasn’t due to the warm LA day or the long-sleeved shirt he wore to cover his concealed weapon. He had to pull his shit together. He was in the middle of LA with a conspicuous hard-on.
Danni went headlong into the crush of shoppers. He waited a few seconds before joining. She was easy to track with her three-inch boots adding to her already almost six-foot height. She was a lot of woman but nothing he couldn’t handle. And fantasies flashed again of how exactly he wanted to handle Danni.
He followed her as she pushed and shoved. He had tracked a lot of people in his career, but this was his most erotic pursuit. Not the blazing heat, the crazy shoppers, nor the throbbing in his leg fazed him. Chasing after Danni on her wild-ass adventure fed his soul. It would never be boring with this woman.
He forced his way closer when it looked like she stumbled. She righted herself and turned quickly to find the culprit. Lars dashed into a lingerie store to avoid being discovered. Danni was sharp and most likely would recognize him despite the cap and sunglasses. A few of the women stopped their rummaging through the racks to stare at his clumsy entrance.
He had to suppress his laugh as he watched Danni from the window. The look Danni gave the tiny woman who had shoved her was the same death stare she leveled at him regularly and had the same effect on the unfazed shopper that it had on him. Growing up with four older brothers where fists flew every hour, dirty looks were not a deterrent but a signal to bring it on. She might not know it, but her stares were part of their mating dance. And he was ready to get to the mating.
He searched the crowd for any threat before he again joined the flow of sales-driven humanity. Danni, a woman on a mission, marched ahead. Her tenacity was one of the many things he admired about her.
He glanced down so as not to ram into the couple with a toddler who had stopped abruptly in front of him to adjust the baby’s hat. When he looked up, Danni had disappeared. He searched the crowd and couldn’t see her black wig. He moved swiftly to find her. She couldn’t have gone far in the less than thirty seconds that he’d taken his eyes off of her.
He turned in a full circle, gaining him deadly looks from the mob of people he blocked. He didn’t see Danni. She had to have gone into one of the two shops on the right side since he would have spotted her moving across the crowd.
The first store was a health food and nutrition store, and the next was a jewelry store. All bets were on the jewelry store. He slowly ambled by the empty nutrition store. His Columbo had taken a pause in her detecting to shop. Not exactly mission-driven, but this wasn’t a lethal mission.
He rejoined the wave of shoppers to catch a glimpse of her bent over the counter before he took cover behind the store directory across from the jewelry store.
Less than five minutes later, she came out admiring the bracelet on her wrist. Mission accomplished. He was impressed with her decisiveness in shopping. Another trait he admired.
He reentered the throng behind her.
She quickly turned back. Did she sense him? Within a minute, she ducked into a perfume store. He combed the crowd for possible suspects who had heightened her awareness. No one stood out.
Was this part of her strategy—to make shopping stops to make sure she wasn’t followed? And who did she think might follow her? And was that why she was in the ridiculously sexy as hell disguise?
He gave her credit for her forethought, but he couldn’t get past the fact that she came alone to look for an obsessed whack job.
He purchased a smoothie from the stand across from the perfume store to give him a perfect view of the door. She came out empty-handed. He scanned the crowd again. No one set off his radar.
She made her way to the end of the alley and crossed the streets to the T-Shirt and Sports Emporium. He had to duck behind another food kiosk since she did a quick turnaround at the crosswalk. She was dogged and smart.
She searched the store’s window before entering. Now that she was in the store, he was able to get into position behind a parked tour bus across from the entrance.
He couldn’t see into the window since the displays hampered the view. He checked his phone. He’d give her five minutes, and then he’d have to decide a course of action. The risks to her while in the shop were low, and he had a perfect sight line on the door. He’d see everyone who entered and exited the store.
He had time to call Reeves.
“Is she okay?”
“Yes, but she’s alone. I thought she was coming with Hardy.”
There was an audible intake of breath over the cell. “She let me believe Hardy and his security would be with her. Thank God you’re there.”
Lars couldn’t pretend to himself that she was in actual danger and needed his skills guarding her. He just wanted to be close to her, and he used Reeves’s worry as an excuse.
“Why is she dressed in a BDSM outfit?”
The image of Danni bending over the car flashed in neon-bright light across his brain as his heated blood thrummed through him.
“What?” A usually verbose Reeves was awful quiet.
“I’ve never seen her in anything like this outfit. She has her hair covered in a black wig and hat, and I swear she has a nose piercing since I saw her last night.”
“She didn’t say a word. Why would she need to be in disguise? Do you think there’s been some sort of threat against Danni that she needed a disguise?”
“She’s acting pretty paranoid as if she thinks someone might be following her. The only person who potentially may be following her would be the woman who’s obsessed with Hardy. She didn’t tell you anything?”
“Nothing.”
One word answers from Reeves were disturbing. “You don’t have to worry. I can see if anyone goes into the store.” Lars’s skin prickled with a heightened sense of caution. Was he allowing Reeves’s anxiety to get to him? “She’s not in danger, but I’ll go into the store in five if she’s not out. And look, man, I’m going to have to tell her that you gave me the info about what she was up to.”
“I don’t care. She lied to me by omission. I’m mad too.”
The store door flew open as Danni ran out.
“What the hell?”
Chapter Seven
Danni climbed out of the shared car at the entrance to Santee Alley. Her crappy mood began to lighten with the prospect of shopping. Nothing like a bit of retail therapy to ease the pain of Sophie’s departure. Her mood had nothing to do with the fact that Lars hadn’t tried to see her last night or this morning despite the blaring fact that she had been clear that she didn’t want him to. She had dodged a bullet and needed to celebrate her singledom. Once she was done with crime-fighting, she’d do serious damage to her credit card.
She stared down the long alley brimming with crowds of shoppers enjoying the Sunday sunshine and the prospect of hunting down a deal. Danni usually liked to arrive early since the alley was always jammed on the weekends when the designers put their clothes at wholesale prices.
The T-shirt store wasn’t in the actual alley but across two streets at the south end of the street. The T-Shirt and Sports Emporium was one of the shops on the edge of the alley that paid less than prime retail price. Wishing she could avoid the people-to-people throng, she wouldn’t take the circuitous street route even without Reeves’s warning. She already knew not to walk alone on the surrounding streets among the drug dealers and homeless encampments.