Alec took pleasure in the sure movement of her fingers up and down his spine
His sides. His hips.
Heâd never met a woman so certain of herself and ready to claim what she wanted. When her fingers strayed below his belt line, his satisfaction increased tenfold.
That is, until she reached even lower. And lower.
What the hell?
Thrusting her away, he gripped her shoulders with both hands, his anger back with a vengeance.
âIf youâre trying to frisk me now, woman, let me spare you the trouble.â Yanking her wrist forward, he steered her palm to rest on the only weapon he carried.
âThanks to you, Iâm damn well armed.â
Dear Reader,
Brace yourselves! I took a dive into darker terrain for the second book in my WEST SIDE CONFIDENTIAL series, as detective Vanessa Torres (remember her from Silk Confessions, Harlequin Blaze #171?) takes center stage. Who knew the tough-talking detective had so many secrets up her sleeve? I hope you enjoy my most suspensefulâand possibly hottestâHarlequin Blaze release yet. I fell for Alec right along with Vanessa, even though heâs hardly a charmer. What is it about those brooding alpha males that can turn a girlâs head? Even Vanessa had to pay attentionâ¦once she brought him down a notch or two!
Thereâs more to come in WEST SIDE CONFIDENTIAL, which will be an ongoing Harlequin Blaze miniseries. You can look for the next release in the series at eHarlequin.com, or visit me at www.JoanneRock.com to learn more. Until then, please keep an eye out for Love Me Tender, an anthology of Elvis-themed stories with offerings from Stephanie Bond, Jo Leigh and me, coming to Harlequin Signature Select in August 2005.
Happy reading,
Joanne Rock
VANESSA TORRES didnât need to click the heels of her ruby slippers together to remember there was no place like home.
Nope, her shoesâsize ten black leather Converse sneakers that had seen better daysâbeat the streets of the South Bronx with the same mixture of wariness and attitude that had carried her through twelve years of public school in New Yorkâs toughest borough. So what if the neighborhood had undergone some revitalization? The sun might be shining on an old menâs chess game in front of a new antique shop on 172nd, and the girls skipping double Dutch looked harmless enough, but Vanessa would lay odds the geezers were packing heat beneath their game board and the preteen jump ropers had probably already been recruited by local gangs who still haunted the playgrounds.
Damn straight there was no place like home when you grew up in the Bronx.
Scavenging what peace of mind she could from the 9 mm tucked in the waistband of her jeans, Vanessa gladly endured the late spring heat through the extra layer of a linen blazer since it covered the NYPD-issued weapon. Five years of training in kendo had given her confidence in her ability to fight hand to hand, but sometimes it took a gun to even up unfair oddsâa lesson sheâd once learned the hard way on this very same street corner.
Shrugging off old ghosts, she studied the buildings around one of the housing projects and searched for the address an informant had given her. God knows she wouldnât be walking this block if she werenât here on business, even if this particular piece of police business was still on the q.t.
âHey baby, you new in town?â The male shout emanated from a construction-worker type wearing an orange fluorescent vest and a hard hat. The guy lounged on the tailgate of an oversize truck while a fire hydrant leaked copious amounts of water two feet from his toolbox.
Why was it so many men possessed all the right equipment and not a clue how to use it? But then, it had been a long time since sheâd had a positive disposition in regard to the male species.
Squinting at the guyâs features, Vanessa placed his face. âHell no, Iâm not new here, Tony. Donât you have anything better to do than toss out tired old pickup lines?â
She stared pointedly at the leaking fire hydrant.
âDamn, Vanessa. I didnât recognize you.â Lifting a paper cup from a fast-food joint, he toasted her. âLooking good, girl.â
âYou bet your pipe wrench.â Having grown up with the worldâs biggest buckteeth and hand-me-down Coke-bottle glasses, she now considered her hard-won good looks as much a part of her personal armor as the Smith & Wesson. Her life now at twenty-seven was a carefully erected facade, a slick exterior to hide an inside long grown cold. âDo you know where thereâs a new rec center down here?â