Naked In His Arms. Sandra Marton

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      Getting into her apartment was child’s play. A credit card slipped between the jamb and the lock did the job.

      His estimation of the Prescott woman’s street-smarts went down a notch, then zoomed up again when bells went off over his head.

      Literally.

      She’d tacked a strip of them right over the door.

      Alex grabbed the bells, silenced them and waited. Nothing happened. Evidently, whoever else occupied the building had learned the primary New York rule of survival.

      If something went bump in the night and you weren’t the one being bumped, you ignored it.

      He shut the door carefully. The lady might have other booby traps around. He waited again, until his eyes adjusted to the gloom. Then he took out his flashlight, turned it on and swept the area with its narrow beam.

      The apartment was one enormous room. No walls, just yawning space filled with shadows. There was a minuscule kitchen and bathroom at one end, a stack of cardboard boxes at the other. Whatever else he’d expected of a woman who slept with a killer—gilt, fringe, cherubs—wasn’t there.

      So much for that stereotype.

      There was no furniture to speak of, either, just a narrow bed, a chest, a couple of small tables and chairs that might have come from the Salvation Army.

      He made his way through the place slowly, opening drawers and carefully poking inside without disturbing the contents. He found only the stuff most women had: sweaters, jeans, lingerie.

      Lace lingerie. Bras that would cup her breasts like an offering. Panties that would ride high on her long legs and dip low enough so they barely covered what he knew would be gold-tipped, feminine curls.

      Alex shifted his weight. He had an instant erection, one that strained at the taut denim of his jeans. He hadn’t been with a woman for a while. Was he that desperate that handling this one’s lingerie, thinking about how it would look on her, was enough to give him a hard-on?

      Any man with enough money could have Cara Prescott. A woman had the right to do what she wanted with her body but if she chose to auction it to the highest bidder, she wasn’t a woman he’d want in his bed.

      He wandered into the bathroom. The sink was chipped and stained; an equally battered shelf above it held small vials and bottles. He opened one at random and brought it to his nose. Lilacs? He wasn’t up on flowers or on perfume: he liked a woman to smell like a woman, especially when she was aroused and eager for his possession, but as perfumes went, this wasn’t bad.

      A narrow closet was crammed between the bathroom and the kitchen. He opened it, poked through a sparse lineup of drab skirts, sweaters and dresses. Half a dozen pairs of shoes were stacked neatly on the floor: this morning’s sneakers, sensible heels. Not a pair of stilettos in sight.

      Too bad.

      The lady’s endless legs would look sexy as hell in strappy sandals with heels high enough to give a nosebleed to the lucky man she wore them for. Heels, one of those lace bras, a pair of the matching panties, and her chestnut hair wild and curling over her shoulders would—would—

      Alex scowled as he shut the closet door. This was pathetic. Who gave a damn what she’d look like dressed in next to nothing? Nobody but her lover, her ex-lover, and whatever attracted Tony G would never attract—

      Click.

      Alex froze.

      Someone had just turned a key in the front-door lock.

      He switched off the flashlight and looked around for a place to hide. The closet was it. It was deep, even if it was narrow as a coffin. Besides, he didn’t have a hell of a lot of choice.

      Quickly, he stepped inside, pulled the door toward him but didn’t quite shut it. He slipped the gun from the small of his back and held it down against his thigh.

      The front door swung open; the jingle of Cara Prescott’s improvised security alarm told him he had company.

      The lady of the house was at work. The feds had been called off. There were only two possibilities.

      His guest was either a very unlucky burglar…

      Or a killer on Tony Gennaro’s payroll.