Chapter 8
CHAPTER EIGHT
Sydney’s peak hour traffic turned the roads to sludge. Metal sludge. People sweated behind their wheels, hammered at their horns, hurled abuse out their windows and generally went nowhere.
Peter’s grip on his own steering wheel tightened.
The urge to activate the hidden red and blues on his unmarked car and part the gridlock like Moses parting the Red Sea made his fingers itch.
One flick of a switch and he’d be moving.
No closer to finding Reggie, but moving.
If he were moving he’d be focusing on the road.
Not the confusing, alluring and far too distracting female beside him.
“This is going to be a very poor partnership if you never speak to me again, Detective.”
“I’ll speak to you, Yolanda. Once I figure you out.”
A throaty chuckle filled the cabin of his car. “Not until then? Then I guess we will never speak. A pity, really.”
Irritation made him scowl. “Are you playing me for a fool, Vischka?”
“What do you mean?”
He glared at the traffic, muscles tense. “Nothing.”
“Do you mean the attraction between us?”
His pulse kicked up a notch. “Drop it, Detective.” Anger rolled through him. At her unexpected statement and his physical reaction to it.
“If I tell you I was immediately attracted to you?”
“I said drop it.”
“Why? Because you feel the same way?”
He shook his head. “What are you after, Yolanda?”
“After?”
“Call me suspicious, but I still have a problem with you becoming my partner the day my sister goes missing.”
“And I had something to do with that?” She chuckled, low and throaty as always, the sound making his jaw clench and his balls throb. “You have seen too many movies, Detective.”
He didn’t respond.
“You need to trust me.” Yolanda’s warm hand smoothed over his thigh and her voice grew husky.
“How can we work as partners if you do not trust me? Verdammt, Peter. You can feel the chemistry between us. I see it in your eyes, I feel it in your muscles. Imagine what it would be like if you only trusted me?”
He dropped a glance at her hand on his tense thigh before lifting his gaze to give her a level look. “Who are you, Yolanda?”
She blinked at him. “I am your new partner.”
“No. I mean who are you? And the shit about transferring from Sydney West because your Area Command wanted to screw you doesn’t cut it.
I find it far too convenient my old partner breaks his shoulder on the very day my sister is abducted.
And, apart from making my dick stand at attention with just a look, all you’ve done since we’ve met is ask questions about her. ”
A horn suddenly blasted. And again. Followed by a venomous shout from behind, “Pull your fuckin’ finger out, mate!”
“The traffic is moving, Detective.” Yolanda pointed at the growing space on the road before them, a languid smirk playing with her lips.
Peter turned his attention to his rearview mirror, scowling at the bird-flipping teenager in the lowered hatch behind him.
The urge to open his door, walk back to the youth, flash his badge and teach the unsocial lout a painful lesson in patience was strong.
But he couldn’t. His cock—that traitorous, fervent organ—was growing stiffer with each passing second.
He wasn’t teaching anyone anything with a bulge in his pants.
Self-disgust curdled in his mouth and he pressed his foot to the accelerator, stomach lurching as his car roared forward. “I’m taking you back to Command.”
“Why? Where are you going?”
The irritation in her voice made him want to smile. It was about time he got to her the way she was getting to him. “I have work to do.”
“Without your partner?”
He pushed the car into a narrow gap. “Yes.”
“You think I am involved with your sister’s abduction, yes?” Yolanda’s soft question filled the terse silence in the car. “You think I somehow had your partner injured so I could take his place? That I am using you to get to her?”
Peter turned his head, giving her a steady, silent look.
“And I am seducing you for the same reasons?”
He clenched his fists around the steering wheel. Refusing to answer.
For a split second, Yolanda’s eyes seemed to shine with something dark and painful, before it disappeared behind a coolly poised glare. She lifted her chin. “You can not believe I find you attractive, even though I know partners should never feel that way about each other?”
“No. I can’t.”
She removed her hand from his thigh. “Very well. What if I tell you my life has been one bad choice after another? One shattered dream to the next? What if I tell you, the first time I met you, I thought maybe, just maybe, you were a man governed by his heart, not his fists, seeing the caring way you scratched the lizard perched on your shoulder? What if I tell you every time I see the worry in your eyes when you talk about your sister, I fill with hope? Hope fate has finally dealt me a hand I might win with? Can you believe that?” She tilted her chin. “Or am I playing you for a fool?”
Peter felt his heart hammer in his chest. Christ. What the fuck did he think now?
Yolanda scowled at his silence and turned to look out the window. “You have been a cop too long, Detective.”
Unease twisted in his gut. Something didn’t ring true.
Didn’t feel right. He’d listened to his instincts his whole life.
Why was he not doing so now? What was it about Yolanda Vischka that threw him so far for a loop?
“So, it’s all a coincidence?” he asked, unable to keep the skepticism from his voice.
She turned back to him, eyes direct. “Yes.”
“Prove it. Call your old Command.”
“Now?”
Peter nodded.
Wordlessly, Yolanda removed her cell phone from her jacket pocket, dialed in a number and handed it to Peter. “Penrith Local Area Command,” an indifferent voice said on the other end, the familiar sounds of a busy police station humming in the background.
“This is Detective Peter Thomas from Sydney City Homicide. Can I speak to your Chief Inspector, please?”
There was a slight clunk, followed by: “This is Inspector Wallis, Detective Thomas. How can I help you?”
“I just wanted to ask you a question about one of your detectives, Inspector. Yolanda Vischka. She was transferred—”
“To your command area,” Wallis cut in. “And I’m bloody pissed off about it. Told her months ago I wasn’t going to let her go. Too bloody good at her job to lose her. Pisses me off. I shoulda tore up the transfer papers when she put them on my desk. She started yet?”
Peter’s chest grew tight. “Yes, Inspector. Today.” He cast Yolanda a sideward glance. “When was her transfer approved, may I ask?”
“Three months ago. I refused to let her go until she’d closed off her cases.” There was a heavy pause. “The place isn’t anywhere near as enjoyable now she’s gone.”
Peter disconnected. He passed the phone back to Yolanda, unable to miss the smug expression on her face.
“Well?”
Her smooth and somehow throaty voice caressed his ears. Made his prick twitch with contemptuous attention.
“You want to say something to me, yes?”
“Your old Inspector says Hi.”
“That is not what I mean, Detective.”
He stared at the taillights of the car in front of his, sweat trickling down his temple. “You’ve got me so fucking mixed-up, Yolanda. I don’t know which way is up. When I should be thinking about Reggie I’m wondering what it would be like to…”
He faltered, knuckles turning white on the wheel.
“To what? Kiss me?”
Self-contempt gnawed at him. “Drop it, Yolanda.”
The hand returned to his leg. Caressed his knee. His thigh. “I can show you. If you let me.”
Peter clenched the wheel, his balls beginning to swell with base interest at the lazy strokes Yolanda’s fingers played over his leg.
Resisting the urge to squirm, he studied her from the corner of his eye, knowing all too well she felt the tension in his body.
Jesus. Everything in his gut told him she was wrong, that the whole situation was wrong, but with one touch of her fingers he was ready to fuck her senseless.
What does she really want? Get her to answer that at least. Maybe then you can get your focus back on the hunt for Reggie.
“Tell me straight, Yolanda,” he said, keeping his stare firmly on the road. “Are you fucking with me?”
Her responding chuckle—somehow both dirty and innocent—made his groin throb with hunger. “No. But I would like to.”
He cast her a quick look, pulse pounding. “Do you seduce all your partners like this?”
“No.”
“Why don’t I believe a word you’re saying, Vischka?”
The hand on his thigh inched high, making his blood run hot and his mouth dry. “Because you are broken.”
Peter swallowed, the building tension in his lower body stealing his concentration. Remove her hand, Thomas! For Christsake, remove her hand. “Broken?” he repeated instead.
“Broken,” Yolanda whispered.
He pulled in a ragged breath through flaring nostrils. “How do you know that?”
“It is in your eyes. And the way you react and recoil from my touch. Like a man who finally tastes life after deprived of it for far too long. A man who hungers what he tastes yet fears it all the same, yes?”
Ravenous blood pumped through his veins at the thought of touching her. Touching her in ways partners never should. “Damn it, Yolanda. I don’t need this now!”
“I’m not trying to deceive you, Peter.”
He snorted, the sound sharp and scornful.