She placed her hands on her hips and scowled at him.
“I don’t think so, buddy. Maybe those cute dimples and sexy body get into women’s pants in a snap, but it takes more than that to bed me. Good night!” she exclaimed in a huff and tried to turn away from him. He caught her hand, and she stopped but wouldn’t turn toward him.
“I’m sorry it came out that way. I was teasing you and I wasn’t trying to ‘bed’ you,” he told her then chuckled. It was a mental workout just talking with the woman.
“Fine. Whatever,” she replied, looking over her shoulder at him.
“I can’t leave with you upset like this. I really didn’t mean anything dishonorable by my comment.” He couldn’t believe that he was groveling for forgiveness from a flirty comment.
“I forgive you, now will you let go of my hand and leave?”
“On one condition,” he stated, and she let out an annoyed breath.
“You don’t climb that ladder and go up on the roof on your own tomorrow.”
“What? No, I’m not listening to you. I’m a big girl and I can handle it.”
He pulled her to him and wrapped his arms around her waist. She held his forearms, but she didn’t scream for release. Maybe he was making progress.
“You’re going to listen to me, Stacy. I don’t want anything to happen to you. If I find out that you climbed that ladder and didn’t wait for me or Max to get over here, I swear I’m going to tan this pretty little ass of yours.” He lightly tapped her rear, and she stirred against him. He held her gaze and gave her one of his looks that meant business. Let’s see what the little tough girl thinks about this.
“Let me get this straight. You’re telling me that if I climb a ladder to fix my roof and gutter tomorrow and not wait for you and Max, then you’re going to spank me?”
He nodded and squeezed her a little tighter.
“There’s no need for you to take any unnecessary chances. I don’t want to see you get hurt, Stacy. You’re perfect, and we want to keep you this way,” he whispered, and she stared at him as if he were crazy.
“I think you should let me go. You’re making me feel uncomfortable.” Stacy pushed against him as if she were frightened about Eric holding her. Her body tensed in his arms as if she were on guard.
He slowly released her and took a few steps back and she was appeared grateful.
“We’ll see you tomorrow then.”
“I don’t need your help,” she stated abruptly, and Eric could hear the intensity of her tone.
He raised his eyebrows, and she clenched her fists by her side.
“I will not be ordered around. I don’t need your help or your brother’s help.” She turned around, walked into the house, and slammed the door shut.
She was going to be a handful.
Chapter 5
District Attorney’s Office, New York City
“So, Detective Belogio, please tell m
e more about this Stacy Porter. I understand that you were the responding detective to a break in at her home after numerous threatening calls were made to her cell phone,” Investigator Sam Pellot asked. He had been investigating Barry Weiner for months now on allegations of sexual harassment, rape, and assault. The four women who were ready to press charges either turned up dead or dropped their charges.
“Yeah, I was in charge of her case. I looked into it and came up with nothing.”
Sam raised his eyebrows. “This woman receives numerous threatening phone calls, strange packages containing everything from lingerie to dildos, and then has someone break into her apartment and rearrange her place, and you don’t find any possible suspects, not even her boss who she claims is responsible?”
“She was fired from the job and wanted someone easy to blame. The boss turned out to have an alibi, and he seemed like a straight-up fellow,” Detective Belogio replied sarcastically as he chewed his wad of gum and sat sideways in the chair. He acted like a typical wiseass except he also had a badge of authority. Sam thought the combination meant bad news.
“If you did a thorough job investigating Miss Porter’s allegations, then you would have seen the other charges against Barry Weiner. Two of those charges were rape and assault and the other two sexual harassment.”
“Those cases were dropped.”