At least they got Ortega and it was looking more like he put the hit on Peter as well. It was too soon to jump to conclusions, though. She’d rarely stepped inside Peter’s Beverly Hills mansion so it might be difficult to positively ID any of the items in the crime lord’s possession. She’d hate to bring Theo into this, so she’d let Nadia do her magic first. And if that laptop was confirmed to be Peter’s? She closed her eyes as the synapses in her brain fired wildly. She was off the case and she had plenty on her plate to manage. First of all, sleep. The shower relaxed her muscles and she could almost fall asleep on her feet.
After toweling herself dry and donning a robe, she wrapped a towel around her head and exited the bathroom.
And stopped in her tracks.
Declan was sitting on her bed, back against the headboard. His hair was wet and he was wearing a tee and athletic shorts. How long had she been in the shower?
“Glad to see you didn’t drown.”
“Ha ha,” Gabby said with more candor than she intended. She glanced at her door. “Did you just break into my room?”
He nodded at the set of keys by the nightstand. “Not a break in if I have those.”
“Having the keys doesn’t give you the right to go through a locked door without permission.” She instinctively tightened the belt of her robe, drawing Declan’s intent gaze to the action. “What do you want?”
“Thought you wanted to talk. Explain my presence at the raid.”
“You bring all kinds of trouble, don’t you, Declan Roarke?”
He swung his legs to the floor, surged up and stalked toward her, erasing any smidgen of personal space. “And you take too many risks.”
“You make it sound as if I was reckless. I wasn’t. I was simply investigating the clinic. I had backup.”
“And the cartel guys just happened to drive up?”
Despite her resolve not to mention his suspicious appearance at the clinic, she blurted out. “How about you? How do you explain your presence there?”
“I was in the neighborhood.”
This pissed her off. “Damn you, Roarke. You get to know my business, but you get to keep all yours?”
“Don’t turn this back on me.” His voice became deceptively low, a sign that he was about to lose his temper, but Gabby had already gone through several cycles of that emotion on her own and she was beyond caring.
“It has everything to do with you!” she fumed. “You interfered in a police operation. The captain could have you arrested.”
“After I helped you guys beat back the cartel soldiers?” Declan’s head reared back incredulously.
“That’s not the point!”
“Well, kindly explain the point.”
“If you got hurt, can you imagine what hell Division would answer for?”
“Fucking hell, Gab, glad to know that your division’s welfare is more important than my damned life,” he derided.
“That’s not fair. Stop twisting my words!” God! He was infuriating, and she had the strongest compulsion to stomp her foot. “Clearly this is not the time to discuss this.”
“This is the perfect time to discuss this.” His face darkened to the color of rosewood, the vein in his neck apparent.
“I don’t think so.” Gabby pivoted away, indicating the end of this discussion. “Kindly leave and lock the door behind you,” she threw over her shoulder.
She didn’t manage one step toward the bathroom when fingers gripped her bicep and swung her back. Somehow, she expected this and something inside her snapped.
Yes, she was prepared as she gripped the wrist of the hand that was holding her, but she’d underestimated her ex-husband. Declan quickly had both her wrists manacled behind her back, and her breasts were slammed into a wall of muscle.
“I’m not some damned patrol officer you can order about,” he said, eyes glittering ominously.
“Let me go,” she gritted out.
“Or what, Detective?” he taunted. “You gonna arrest me?”
She struggled. But when it came to brute force, Declan was superior in strength, and he was holding her in a way that limited her movements and that angered her even more. They wrestled against each other, tightly entwined. Gabby thought she heard him groan as she strained against his body, her robe coming loose, one flap falling off her shoulder. The towel fell off her head, hair spilling out in wet curls around her face.
Suddenly he let go, stepping back, taking her in. The fury in his eyes morphed into that familiar heated lust and the area between her legs pulsed wet