Heated (Most Wanted 2)

"First of all, we don't have a thing to hide at Destiny, so it's not really an inconvenience having you inside."

"At Destiny," I repeated.

"Second," Tyler said, as if I hadn't even spoken, "it occurred to me that I have a few social obligations coming up where it will be handy to have a woman on my arm. And even handier if that woman is a cop."

"Oh, really? Like what?"

"Like you'll find out tomorrow night. Did you bring an evening gown to Chicago?"

"Sure," I said. "I packed it with the diamonds and furs."

"We'll shop tomorrow." His mouth curved up in a slow, lazy smile. "That may be the highlight of my day. At any rate, those were my practical reasons."

"And the impractical ones?"

"Mostly, Detective, I just want to fuck you. When I want, how I want, and where I want."

"I see."

"Sore loser, Detective?"

I regarded him for a moment, then slid across the bench and put the car in park. Then, before he could react, I took his face in my hands and claimed his mouth with my own in a long, deep, sensual kiss.

When I pulled back, he stared at me, and I almost laughed at the pleased surprise I saw in those brilliant eyes.

"I'm not a sore loser at all," I said. "And if we're playing this game, I'm damn well going to enjoy it."

Chapter Seventeen

I was expecting to go straight back to The Drake, but Tyler surprised me by pulling up in front of a bright yellow building with a red and white awning.

"Hungry?"

"Ravenous," I said, then smiled. "You helped me work up quite an appetite."

"I'll remember to re-stock the fridge. In the meantime, Jim's will do just fine."

I peered out the window. It was right around midnight and the place was hopping. "Doesn't look like fine dining to me."

"That depends on your definition of fine," he said. "Amazing hotdogs twenty-four hours a day. You've never been before?"

I shook my head, my mouth already watering. "French fries?"

"Even cheese fries, if you want them."

"You do know how to seduce a lady."

He brushed a quick kiss over my lips before sliding out. When he returned, he handed me a bag with six hotdogs, along with French fries, cheese fries, and two Diet Cokes. "What?" he asked when he saw my amused expression.

"Hotdogs in The Drake hotel," I said. "Talk about a contrast."

"Ah, but we're not going to The Drake."

"Where are we going?" I asked warily. "Because, hello?" I gestured to the jacket of his I still wore. A jacket under which I wore no panties. Or anything else. "Not exactly up to most dress codes."

"An interesting point," he agreed. "Probably wouldn't matter, but better to be safe." He nodded toward the backseat. "Check my gym bag. Should be a T-shirt and sweatpants in there."

I gaped at him. "Unless they belong to your petite lover--in which case, we're going to have another problem--any clothes I find in that bag will swallow me."

"The T-shirt will cover you," he said. "And the pants have a drawstring. Don't worry. There won't be any fashion police around. We're going on a picnic."

"A picnic?"

"It seems like a good night for it," he said. "There's a full moon, after all. Go on. Change."

"What the hell?" I laughed and turned to rummage for his gym bag, then dragged it back into the front with me.

As he'd said, I found a black T-shirt with the Destiny logo and a pair of plain, gray athletic pants. I put the pants on first, then tied them as tight as possible. Even then, I had to roll the waist over a couple of times, and then do the same to the legs, so that I wouldn't trip when we walked.

"I don't have shoes," I pointed out.

"More's the adventure," he said, and I rolled my eyes.

I shrugged out of his jacket, then raised an eyebrow when I saw Tyler paying more attention to me than the road.

He focused on driving as I tugged his T-shirt on over my head, breathing deep of his familiar, woody scent.

"Just for the record," he said, casting a sideways glance in my direction as he broke the silence. "I haven't had a lover in a very long time. A lot of women I've fucked, but no lovers." He turned his head and held my eyes. "In case you were curious."

"Oh. Okay." I glanced down at the bags of food at my feet, and realized that I couldn't quite suppress the smile that was blooming.

I cleared my throat. "So, you do pick some interesting surprises. First the, um, place," I said, and had him chuckling. "Now hotdogs. I haven't had a picnic with hotdogs since I helped my dad move to Texas a few years ago."

"They're big on hotdogs in the Lone Star State?"

"Probably," I said. "But Daddy moved to Galveston--it's an island. And there was a festival with a bonfire. So hotdogs and marshmallows were the thing. It was fun. The kind of thing we used to do all the time, but now ..." I trailed off with a shrug.

"Texas is a long way from home," he said.

"Yeah." I flashed a quick smile. "Sorry. A brief moment of melancholy. I miss him."

"Your mom not big on hotdogs?"

"My mom died a few years ago." The words hung flat, and I turned to look out the window. I really didn't need her in my head. Not right now.

He reached over and gently took my hand. "No one else?"

I thought about it, but there really wasn't. I loved my partner, Hernandez, but picnicking with him and his wife wasn't exactly the same. And Candy would rather scrub toilets than sit outside if she wasn't in an amphitheater with a hot band playing on stage.

"I guess not," I said, turning to look at him. "Tough break, huh? No one to picnic with."

He took his eyes off the road long enough to meet mine. "There's someone now," he said, making my heart melt just a little.

We rode in silence, through the darkened city dotted with lights, until he finally pulled over near the intersection of Michigan Avenue and Roosevelt, then killed the engine.

"Can you park here?" I asked, but he only grinned.

"Let's walk," he said.

I recognized Michigan Avenue and I knew we were near the museum campus, so I assumed this was Grant Park. But it wasn't any place I'd been before, and I squinted at the odd shapes that rose up in the distance as we crossed over the grass.

"All right," I finally said as the forms became clearer in the moonlight. "Why are we walking toward a crowd of headless men?"

"I'm not entirely sure they are men," Tyler said. "They're the Agora. You haven't seen them before?"

"Indiana, remember? I've been to Chicago a few times, but mostly for work. Once for tea at the Palm Court with my dad for my sixteenth birthday. A few times to the museums. Other than that, no tourist stuff."

"One hundred and six headless and armless men," Tyler said. "The city brought them here just shy of a decade ago."

I cocked my head to look at them. They were interesting, I thought. Interesting, and maybe a little scary, what with the moonlight and their height and the shadows.

I shivered, and focused on Tyler rather than the creatures.

"So you would have been what? Twenty?"

"Not quite," he said, reminding me how close we were in age. And making me remember how young he was to have already acquired so much. "I used to come here at night with Cole and Evan."

"Okay." I frowned. "Why?"

"One, it's a little spooky in the dark, which we thought was fun."

"On the spooky, we're in total agreement. And?"

"And something about the statues drew us, I think. Kind of summed up our view of the world--most people aren't thinking. They're not using their heads. They're not doing, thus the lack of arms. And that means that those of us who do think, who do act, can make our way through the world while the rest stumble along."

I'd stopped walking to look at him. "I'm not sure if that's cynical, astute, or simply the mind-set of a man who'd easily slide into a shady kind of lifestyle."

"I'm a pillar of the community, Detective," he said with a broad, charming grin. "If you've heard otherwise, you've been talking to the wrong people."

"Maybe so," I agreed, because that was a subject best left alone. "So is that what the artist actually meant?"

"I don't know. Cole might--art's his thing. But I never wanted to find out. As far as I'm concerned, art is what you make of it. How it reflects back on you."

I considered his words. "Doesn't that make the artist irrelevant?"

"I don't think so. I think it makes him a mirror. It's one of the reasons art is often spoken of in the same tone and with the same vocabulary as music or poetry or love. Or even sex."

"What do you mean?"

"Passion, Sloane," he said, and there was a heat to his voice now that hadn't been there before. "There's no way to experience it without discovering something about yourself, too."