Free Take Me Tonight by Roxanne St. Claire

still feeling victorious in the elevator, holding the laminated pass she’d just earned. This would give her access to lots of people who had known Keisha very well. People who had been close to Keisha when she died, during a month when Sage was in Texas trying to track down dirt on the former governor of Massachusetts, which she never even got.
    The lobby bell rang, and when the elevator doors opened, every coherent thought evaporated at the sight of a man in blistering black leather, leaning against a marble post.
    He’d followed her there. He’d followed her again .
    Somewhere in her brain, a warning bell rang. She ignored it.
    Johnny levered off the column and approached her. “Hey, hot stuff.”
    “You’ve turned tailing me into an art form.”
    He tipped her chin with his knuckle. “I just used my powers of deduction.” He turned her face to the building directory on the wall. “ Boston Living, fourth floor.”
    Either he was the world’s best listener or he’d bugged her apartment. “And here I thought you were just another pretty face.”
    He laughed and slipped his arm around her shoulder. “I’m the whole package, baby. So, what was the meeting about?”
    “I got a story contract.”
    “A story on the website?”
    She shook her head. “I couldn’t sell him that one. But I’m going to do a story on the New England Blizzard dance team.”
    He held open the door, a rush of chilly air mixed with a blast of Cleveland Circle traffic. “So, since you couldn’t get the story you wanted, you’re using this as a back door.”
    Definitely not just a pretty face. “I want to find out why my perfectly happy, sane, confident friend would kill herself. I’m going to do whatever I have the power to do to find out.” She held up the press pass. “This gives me a little power.”
    “You have me, too. More power.”
    “More distraction, you mean.”
    “Don’t do this alone, Sage. Let me help you.”
    She should say no. She should run from the male prostitute.
    “You’ll need a car, right?” He held out the keys with the Hertz tag dangling.
    “Don’t you have to work? Aren’t there women to rescue and…”
    He tucked her arm under his, pulling her close. “I’m all yours.” He dipped his head low and whispered in her ear, “If you want me.”
    The problem was…she did.

Chapter
Six

    “K elley’s!” Johnny hit the steering wheel with a victorious tap as the name came back to him. “That’s the place up here I like.”
    “The seafood shack in Revere Beach?” Amusement and the late-morning light made Sage’s pretty eyes look more green than brown as they twinkled at him. “Seriously?”
    “There’s a bunch of those shacks up here, but that one has unbelievable fried clams. I remember the last time I was here….” He’d been on a security detail with an ex-CEO of General Electric who’d been, happily and coincidentally, a true foodie. “The clams were really good,” he finished.
    “It’s always crowded there.”
    “I know,” he said with the air of a regular. “A couple of years ago, it was the highest-grossing restaurant in the country. That’s a lot of clams, baby.” He glanced at her to see if she got his joke, but she was looking strangely at him.
    “How long have you lived here?” she asked.
    He could hear the undercover master’s voice. Stay as close to the truth as you can , Danny G would say. “Not that long.”
    “Did you move here from New York?”
    Before he arrived in Boston, he’d been in L.A. on an assignment. Before that, Vancouver, and before that…he had to think. Oh, of course, that fun month in Jakarta. Before that, a couple of gigs in California. Then…“Yeah. New York.”
    “Where? In the city?”
    “All over,” he said vaguely, frowning at the traffic. “I guess I have to stay on Route One to get to the arena, huh?”
    “It’s just past Revere. Where do you live? Or…” She repositioned herself to face the front again. “Don’t you