That was going above and beyond the call of duty, she thought. n.o.body should have to buck New York traffic if they didn't have to.

"You don't have to go out of your way. I'm used to taking buses and trains," she told him. "Reminds me of home-Chicago," she elaborated.

Cole shook his head. "Is everything an argument with you?" he asked.

She hadn't meant it to sound like an argument. "No, I just didn't want to be any trouble."

"You're more trouble when you argue," he told her, beckoning her over. "Now, unless you live in Virginia, taking you to your apartment isn't going to be out of my way."

"No, it's not as far away as Virginia," she said, giving in. She did a quick mental review. "Actually, it's only about a little more than a mile away. On a nice day, I walk."

"So I take it you haven't done much walking, then," he quipped. Pointing his key at his vehicle, he pressed down on one of the indentations, releasing the security system. The locks popped open, accompanied by a beep. "If we're lucky, there're about two decent days in New York City, weather-wise. One day comes in the spring and the other day comes in the fall."

Nika opened the door on the pa.s.senger side. "You don't like New York?" she asked, getting in.

"I love New York," he contradicted, getting in on the driver's side, then closing the door. "It's the weather I hate. It's always either too humid, too rainy, too cold, too something." Cole glanced to see if she'd put on her seat belt. Satisfied that she had, Cole started up the car. "And your address?" he prodded.

She realized that she hadn't given it to him and rattled it off. With a nod of his head, he backed out of the s.p.a.ce.

And got all of about five feet before he queued his car into the slow drip of traffic. From what he could see, it appeared to be b.u.mper-to-b.u.mper. Probably was all the way from the restaurant to the building where she lived.

She made the same a.s.sessment. "I can get out and walk from here," Nika volunteered cheerfully.

"I said I was taking you home, so I'm taking you home," he told her. "Besides, I'm going to be stuck in this traffic whether you're in the car or not, so you might as well keep me company."

"If you put it that way-"

"I do."

"Then, okay." She studied his profile for a moment, her eyes drifting over the hard, rigid lines that comprised the planes and angles of the man's face.

It was a n.o.ble face, she decided. Not soft, but n.o.ble. The kind of face a victim of a crime could trust. While it was evident that he wasn't running the danger of having someone accuse him of being warmth personified, the detective did give off an aura of strength, of dedication and competence. That would be the kind of policeman she would want to turn to if she found herself ever needing one.

Cole could feel her eyes on him. Could feel her scrutinizing him as he was driving. Did he measure up? he wondered.

"What?" he finally asked. "Is there sauce on my face or something?" The next moment, since they were now at a complete standstill, Cole angled the rearview mirror so he could see his reflection for himself.

"No, I was just thinking. You're not nearly as hard-nosed as you initially came off," she told him. And before he could comment or deny her a.s.sessment, she added, "I'm glad."

She sounded positively cheerful as she made the p.r.o.nouncement. He hadn't thought that women like her existed. "Why?"

"Because it makes you easier to talk to." And then she got to the more important reason. "And because someone else might not have believed me when I said that I was innocent."

He wasn't about to take credit where none was due. "I already told you, you had an alibi for the time that Sergeant Kelly was killed. I'm not the kind of detective who ignores the facts just because they don't fit in with my theory."

"And," she continued, "you took it upon yourself to look into my alibi-an alibi I didn't even know I needed-before I ever said anything."

He shrugged away her grat.i.tude. "It's called being a good detective."

In her book, it was called more than that. He could have made her life miserable if he'd wanted to, putting the burden of proof on her shoulders. "All the same, I'm glad you're on my side."

"I don't take sides," he corrected her, "I follow the evidence."

She refused to accept that. Nika shook her head. "Too late to be Mr. Gruff-and-Cold," she informed him brightly. "I've seen your soft underbelly, Detective Baker, and I know who you are."

He cleared his throat and looked straight ahead at the clogged streets before him. Compliments had always made him uncomfortable. Especially undeserved ones. He knew what he was and it didn't involve being a saint, or a knight in shining armor. His armor had long since rusted.

"I suggest you stop getting into the pharmacy supply closet," he told her matter-of-factly.

Nika nodded as if he'd said something serious. "I'll put it on my 'not to do' list," she promised.

He could hear the smile in her voice and, for some reason, although he was determined not to let it, it still managed to seep in under his skin and spill out to his very core.

"You don't have to get out," Nika told him when they were finally within view of her apartment building. She pointed out the structure on the right. At the same time, she got the feeling he wasn't about to listen to her. "You'll lose your spot in the flow of traffic," she warned.

Cole angled the vehicle's way out of the line of traffic and drove toward the building's underground parking structure.

"That isn't flow," he said with a touch of disgust. "That doesn't even qualify as a drip. Maybe it'll get better when I get back." Although he didn't hold out too much hope.

"Back from where?" she asked.

Driving into the structure, Cole glanced up to see if there were any signs pointing out the way to guest parking. Finding them, he drove his car toward the designated area.

Several s.p.a.ces were unoccupied. He took the first he came to. He'd never been one to see the point of jockeying for a position that amounted to being just a few feet closer to his destination. He liked walking. He liked leaving his car dent-free even more.

"Back from bringing you up to your door," he told her as he slipped into the s.p.a.ce.

She didn't know whether to be amused or a little nervous. She realized that she was both. "You are taking the D-word seriously, aren't you?" she asked, unbuckling her seat belt.

"I'm taking the city seriously," he countered. Getting out, he rounded the trunk and was at her door in time to open it for her. "Single women shouldn't be roaming around by themselves at night. Especially if they're young and attractive."

He said it so matter-of-factly, she almost missed the compliment. But it echoed back to her in her mind, causing her to smile.

Whether he realized it or not, he'd just told her he thought she was attractive. Nika grinned.

"Really not as gruff as you want people to think you are," she repeated.

Hiking her purse strap onto her shoulder, she led the way to the elevator.

"Just carrying out the protect portion of my job description," he told her. Reaching the elevator a step before she did, he pressed for the car.

This was above and beyond the call of duty, as far as she was concerned, but if he didn't want any attention drawn to that, it was fine with her. "Whatever you say."

Cole raised an eyebrow as he heard the amus.e.m.e.nt in her voice. He realized that she wasn't buying into his story any more than he was. He'd been trying to tell himself that he was just bringing a potential witness home, nothing more. And that she wasn't a woman who had somehow managed, in an unbelievably short amount of time, to work her way under his skin when he wasn't looking. Moreover, she'd also managed to make him start wondering what it would be like to relate to another human being on some level other than as a cop working a case.

Dangerous ground, he warned himself.

None of the words, silent though they were, were making any sort of an impression on him.

This wasn't good, he thought.

They got on the elevator and, for the moment, they had it to themselves. As soon as the doors closed, the inside of the car began to fill up with a scent that was vaguely familiar and teased his less than lucid memory banks, challenging them to recall what it was.

Vanilla? Lavender?

He couldn't quite place the scent but he did know that it was familiar. And that he liked it. It stirred things on some semi-faraway region in his soul that hadn't been functioning lately-or, more truthfully, hadn't been functioning for a very, very long time.

The elevator, for once, turned out to be an express, taking them from the bas.e.m.e.nt straight to her floor.

The doors slid open on five.

"This way," Nika told him, getting off the elevator. She turned to the right immediately, taking him down a long, modernly decorated hallway.

Cole walked beside her until she stopped before 5E. The apartment next to hers, 5F, was still empty, she thought absently. Alyx had told her all about the murder that had taken place there before she'd arrived in the city.

She did her best not to think about it.

Apparently the superintendent was having trouble renting it out now. n.o.body wanted to live in a place where someone had been killed. The supposed "vibrations," coupled with vivid imaginations, were just too much to handle for the potential renters who'd come to look the apartment over so far. She had to admit she couldn't say she blamed them.

"Well, this is it," she told him, nodding toward the door as she turned around to face him. Without looking into the yawning abyss that was her purse, Nika began to rummage through it with her hand, searching for the familiar shape of her house keys. "You've brought me to my door, so you are now officially relieved of duty," she teased.

He had to get going, Cole thought. Nika had already told him that she was going to see about filling in some of the information he'd requested earlier. But that didn't mean he couldn't put someone at the precinct to work on the project as well. There was a chance that the com puter wizard he used would come up with more data than Nika had at her disposal. At the very least, one set of information could wind up augmenting the other.

It only made sense.

What didn't make sense was why he wasn't moving away. He should be taking his leave and just going. Instead, he stood there, looking at her, thinking that he'd looked down into prettier faces, more symmetric faces, even-maybe-more animated faces.

So what was it about this one that kept pulling him in, as if he was nothing more than just some loose iron filing and she was this large, compelling and d.a.m.n s.e.xy magnet?

Move, d.a.m.n it, Baker! Move! Get the h.e.l.l out of here!

Go!

And yet, he didn't.

What he did do was place his hands on either side of her shoulders, anchoring her in place ever so lightly. And then, in the next heartbeat, he found himself lowering his face to hers.

Lowering his lips to hers.

And then, just like that, there was no more lowering, no more mental skirmishes with small, annoying inner voices telling him to get the h.e.l.l out of there before he got in over his head.

He was already in over his head.

He knew that from the first second his mouth touched hers.

But it didn't keep him from savoring the taste he'd discovered. Didn't keep him, for one insanely head-spinning second, from losing himself in her.

Chapter 10.

Time stretched out as one second fed on another.

One taste begged for a second.

And then a third.

Cole's hands slipped from her shoulders and framed Nika's face. He gathered her to him as he deepened a kiss that was already far too deep for him to safely tread water.

He was swimming for his life.

And coming perilously close to going down for the third time.

d.a.m.n, he hadn't expected this. Hadn't expected something so insignificant as a mere kiss to open up a door that released something wild and raw within him. Never in a million years would he have said that someone as innocent looking as this woman could have elicited this sort of a reaction from him.

And yet, she was.

Big-time.

Oh G.o.d, this was it. This was what she had resigned herself to believe didn't exist in the world. She'd once prayed with every fiber of her being that something like this would find her, but as she grew older, Nika began to realize that things like this just didn't happen. That the feel of lightning striking in your veins was the stuff that movies and books and dreams were made out of, but as far as reality went, well, it just didn't happen. Reality promised to be a letdown, and she'd made her peace with that.

Until this moment, she'd been content to be the doctor, the daughter, the niece, the friend that she was to the various people in her life. What she hadn't been-and it had been all right with her until just this moment-was a woman. A woman with a woman's desires and needs. That part of her had somehow gotten buried, lost in the shuffle to be all those other things, and be them to the utmost of her ability. And consequently, she'd never been in love. Never made love.

But at this moment, all she wanted was to be a woman. To be with him.

To be a lover. His lover.

She wanted to follow this racing feeling that pulsated through her to its natural conclusion. Ached to follow it to its natural conclusion. She knew there'd be consequences, and ultimately, there'd be pain. Men like Cole Baker didn't stay put, didn't settle down.

But that was something she'd think about later. Right now, all that mattered was this untamed excitement she was feeling.

"Do you want to come inside for a minute?" she whispered against Cole's mouth.

The next moment, she felt that mouth form a single word.

"Yes."

Nika was still clutching the key to her apartment in her hand. Her heart pounding, she moved over only enough to be able to somehow insert the key into the lock and turn it. Grasping the doork.n.o.b, her mouth still very much sealed to Cole's, Nika managed to twist it and get the door open.

Holding on to her tightly, Cole moved into her apartment, bringing her with him.

And then Cole's cell phone began to ring.