LITMIR.BIZ

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yours if you want it. Job starts Friday. Six o’clock sharp.”

      “Great! I’ll be here!”

      She finally tossed Xavier a wink and he nearly made a fool of himself, too, by gushing all over her. “Then we’ll see you Friday.”

      Chapter 2

      Lord have mercy.

      Cheryl had never seen three finer men in all her life. When she first walked in and they turned toward her, she honestly felt like she was the winner of some kind of man-fantasy lottery. But the one who was seriously buttering her toast was the one she could barely look at. And when she finally did toss him a wink, his smile turned predatory. How on earth was she going to manage working for this man without suffering through endless fantasies of ripping his clothes off and having her way with him?

      Hell, even now she wasn’t sure that she was walking a straight line toward the front door. It had a lot to do with knowing that there were three pairs of eyes following the sway of her hips and the jiggle of her ass. Of course, when she turned around at the glass door to give them a final wave, they all played it off and exchanged innocent smiles with her.

      “Thanks again.” She rushed out into the parking lot to her old blue Ford Taurus, pretending that her heart wasn’t racing a mile a minute. As she climbed behind the wheel, she saw the three of them walk out of the club, as well. They looked like GQ models, laughing and joking with one another.

      Cheryl’s gaze zoomed in on the tallest of the group, Xavier King, as she felt the muscles in her stomach quiver. When was the last time something like that had happened to her—junior high? She fumbled with the keys, trying to insert them into the ignition, while she took in his close-cropped hair, handsome chiseled features, smooth, milk-chocolate skin and a muscled body that was just screaming her name.

      Even though he wore a bright white dress shirt and a pair of black jeans, Cheryl had no trouble picturing him stripped down to his birthday suit. How could she not? Broad chest, trim waist and powerful thighs—this was a man who hadn’t let himself go since his days of earning money in the boxing ring. He was beyond fine, but the problem was that he knew it.

      She had no problem imagining women tripping over their bottom lips trying to get his attention, and no doubt he had his pick. Shoot, under the right circumstances… “Shake it off, girl. Shake it off.” Cheryl finally slipped the key into the ignition and started the car.

      The men glanced in her direction and she exchanged a polite wave as she pulled out of the parking lot and headed out onto the street. No sooner had she taken a left onto the main road did her cell phone ring. “Hello.”

      “Well, how did it go?” Johnnie asked.

      “I got the job,” Cheryl said, unable to stop herself from sounding cocky.

      “It was the Got Milk T-shirt, wasn’t it?”

      “Are you insinuating that my body got me a job at a strip club instead of my amazing bartending skills?”

      Johnnie laughed. “That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

      Cheryl smiled. “Well…maybe it was more like a one-two punch.”

      “Uh-huh. You keep telling yourself that. How far are you from the station?”

      Cheryl glanced down at the clock on the console. “Be there in ten.” She disconnected the call. During the ten-minute drive, Cheryl had a hard time keeping her mind on the road and off Xavier King. How many hours did a man have to put in at the gym to get a body like that? Two hours a day—three?

      She was sure that if she had a magnifying glass or a jeweler’s loupe, she wouldn’t have been able to find a single ounce of fat anywhere on his body. And Lawd have mercy, that chest. Not only was it wide, but he had just the right kind of muscles that didn’t make him look like a steroid freak. They looked like the perfect place for a woman to lay her head down on every night.

      Before Cheryl knew it, she was getting herself so hot and worked up that she had to turn on the air conditioner to try and cool off. By the time she reached the police station, she was reasonably composed, but she wouldn’t have turned down a cold shower if the opportunity presented itself.

      She parked, cut off the engine and reached over to the glove compartment to retrieve her badge and police-issue Glock before climbing out of the car. But the minute she walked into the precinct, she drew more than her fair share of stares from her male colleagues.

      “Yo, Grier. I got some milk for you,” Officer Daniel Banks hollered with his arms outstretched. “What’s my prize?”

      There was a ripple of laughter across the precinct floor.

      Cheryl gave his ignorant ass the bird and kept it moving toward her department.

      Her partner, Officer Johnnie Walsh, hung up the phone on her desk and then glanced over at the ridiculously large clock on the wall. “Eight minutes. Not bad.”

      “I aim to please,” Cheryl said, plopping down into the chair beside her partner’s desk. “Have I missed anything?”

      Johnnie leaned her five-foot-four frame back in her chair and exhaled a long breath. “Nothing that has anything to do with our case, if that’s what you mean. But the mayor and the chief of police are in the lieutenant’s office right now giving him a dressing-down over that botched armored-car robbery yesterday. Two cops down and the perpetrators getting away means the lieutenant isn’t going to have much ass left to sit on for the rest of the year.”

      Cheryl glanced at the lieutenant’s closed door and shook her head. “It couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.”

      Johnnie laughed. “I take it that means you and the big man haven’t kissed and made up yet?”

      “That is never going to happen.”

      Johnnie shrugged and gave her the “I told you so” look a couple of seconds before it tumbled out her mouth. “I told you not to get involved in an office romance. Let alone with someone you work for.”

      Cheryl performed her customary head bob and eye roll. What else could she do? Johnnie had warned her repeatedly and she had ignored her repeatedly. Mainly because as far as Cheryl was concerned, her mother had been right: she had to learn to do things the hard way. It was one of the unfortunate side effects of never taking no for an answer, wanting to do things her way and having issues with authority figures. Combine all of those traits and it meant that Cheryl almost always stayed in trouble.

      Johnnie’s phone rang and she quickly picked it up.

      Cheryl started to turn her head away from the door when it suddenly jerked open and the mayor and chief of police strode out like twin tornadoes ripping through the office. All eyes followed them until they were out of sight before looking back at Lieutenant Jason Mackey, who was last to exit his office.

      To Cheryl’s inquisitive eye, it looked like Jason Mackey’s superiors had done more than just chew his butt off. They had beaten every ounce of confidence out of his usually cocky demeanor. “Aww,” Cheryl said, low enough for Johnnie’s ears only. “I almost feel sorry for him.”

      Johnnie placed a hand over the mouthpiece. “The keyword is almost.”

      Cheryl turned back around and flashed a smile. “Good ear.”

      Johnnie removed her hand and said into the line, “We’re on our way.” She hung up and climbed out of her seat. “Let’s go.”

      Drawing in a deep breath, Cheryl pitched herself out of the chair and followed her partner into the department’s smallest conference room. On a corkboard were photos and diagrams of how the police department believed Operation Striptease broke down. As Cheryl took her seat in one of the metal folding chairs, she stared at pictures of the suspected mules, Mario and Alejandro Gutierrez, hauling everything from marijuana, cocaine and heroine out of Mexico to the runners, Kendrick Hodges and Jermaine Wallace. From there, things tended to get a little

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