Perilously Fun Fiction: A Bundle by Pauline Jones (best fiction novels of all time .TXT) 📕

the Uzi and released the safety, his finger tightening on the trigger.

Luci placed her order for a starter, then turned and leaned against the counter. “This shouldn’t take too long—he seems to have a good grasp of his doohickeys and thingamajigs.”

“So do you,” Mickey said, his voice wry. “Sure you’re not a mechanic in your other life?”

“What I am in my other life would surprise you.”

“What you are in this life surprises me.”

Luci couldn’t stop the surprise, the delight or the smile that spread across her mouth. Dang, he was good. It would be wise to limit her contact with Detective Mickey Ross. She broke eye contact with an effort, her gaze bouncing to the car moving past the shop. Absently, she noted the window was down, the ominous barrel slightly protruding.

Barrel? It was an effective distraction.

No time to think or speak. Only time to act—

She hit Mickey hard. It felt good, but there was no time to enjoy it as bullets smashed through the plate glass window, shattering it into hundreds of deadly missiles. The line of fire traced across the counter toward Mickey at chest height as Mickey staggered once, then went down with Luci attached to his chest.

The sound, the fury, the smell of cordite mingling with the smell of auto shop in the enclosed space was overwhelming. She felt Mickey grope for his gun. The cold metal brushed chillingly against her bare thigh, then he rolled, reversing their positions. His gun flared and she couldn’t control a flinch. Funny, she thought as she stared at the column of his throat inches from her eyes, smelled his aftershave mingling with the smell of dust. She thought she’d been broke to the sound of a gun.

“Damn!” Mickey looked down at her, his face grim. “Are you all right?”

Luci fought against the adrenaline surging in her body, even as she felt the adrenal beat of Mickey’s body working against her good intentions.

“We’ve really got to stop meeting like this.” Was that her voice, so throaty, so breathless? She saw the change of focus in his eyes first, then felt it in his body. But there wasn’t anything she could do about it. He was on top.

“No, we’ve got to stop meeting like this,” he said and bent his head. In the distance, a siren began to wail, the sound getting louder and closer.

His mouth tasted as good as it had looked, maybe better. So this was what all the shouting was about. No wonder people didn’t want to stop. No wonder her mother didn’t stop. Dimly, on the other side of pleasure, Luci heard the shop owner beating a frantic tattoo on the counter above them.

“You see that, man? They just blew hell outta my store! That’s what I get for not paying protect! That’s what I get! I tole him I weren’t gonna pay no protect and now he try to kill me! Damn it to hell! This no time to be suckin’ face, man!”

Mickey quit sucking face. Luci tried not to smile as he looked up and snapped, “Call 911!”

“I don’t want no police! They try to kill me again! I didn’t see nothing! I don’t know nothing! Beside, cain’t you hear? They coming! Oh, man, I’m dead!”

“You are the police.” Luci felt impelled to point this out, since it appeared to have slipped his mind. “Shouldn’t you do something?”

So he did something. He kissed her again. Not what she meant. But not bad. The second kiss was better than the first one—though that didn’t seem possible.

“What the hell—Mickey?” A shrill voice, rising in disbelief, cut between them. Mickey looked up.

“Caroline?”

Through the dust—and the lust—Luci looked up, too. It was immediately obvious that Caroline was having a non-business response to the intimate arrangement of Luci and Mickey’s bodies. Her nostrils were flaring and her eyes were shooting glare bullets.

“Is she your girlfriend?” Interestedly, she made note of the stocky well-endowed figure. She let her gaze linger deliberately on how well Caroline filled out her uniform and felt Mickey tense. Her gaze found the drawn weapon. In a semi-undertone, Luci asked, “Is it a good idea to cheat on someone who has her own gun and carte blanche to use it?”

On one side, Caroline glared at Mickey while snapping questions at Luci. She ignored him while an EMT attempted to determine who was bleeding and who was merely bled upon.

After a period of probing and poking while the ache in Mickey’s head got worse and the pain in his side built, the EMT patted Luci’s knee and said, “Well, doll, you lucked out. Minimal damage.”

The EMT taped a final bandage over a gash in her arm, grinning in a way that made Mickey want to smash in the guy’s teeth. Not because he was jealous. He just wanted to hit someone. To vent a little.

Luci’s smile was too sunny, too friendly. She was getting back at him, and for what? A couple of kisses that were little enough recompense for all the pain and suffering she’d caused him? She wasn’t that good. Well, yeah, she was. Who’d have thought a mouth that straight could taste that good?

“It’s amazing,” her mouth said now. “After the week I’ve had, I should be dead. This is my second drive-by shooting this week, not to mention the nosedive off that escalator. And almost getting hit by that car back in Butt Had.”

Caroline’s whole face twitched and Mickey bit back a grin. Luci was right about one thing. Caroline wasn’t a good person to piss off.

The EMT turned with obvious reluctance to Mickey.

Caroline turned to Luci with even more obvious reluctance. “You saw the car first?”

Luci nodded. The EMT poked around in Mickey’s gash with cheerful callousness.

“What did you do?” Caroline asked through gritted teeth.

“I jumped on Mickey—”

“What?” Caroline’s voice rose to an ear-painful pitch.

The EMT poked harder, eager to finish his work.

“Only to save his life,” Luci said reassuringly.

“Nasty, painful, but not serious. You’re gonna need a few stitches plus