Totally His Read online

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Copyright © 2017 by Erin Nicholas

  Excerpt from Completely Yours copyright © 2016 by Erin Nicholas

  Cover design by Elizabeth Turner. Cover illustration by Blake Morrow.

  Cover copyright © 2017 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  Hachette Book Group supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

  Forever

  Hachette Book Group

  1290 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10104

  forever-romance.com

  twitter.com/foreverromance

  First Edition: October 2017

  Forever is an imprint of Grand Central Publishing. The Forever name and logo are trademarks of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

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  ISBNs: 978-1-4555-3972-7 (mass market), 978-1-4555-3970-3 (ebook), 978-1-4789-1614-7 (audio downloadable)

  E3-20170726-DA-NF

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  An Excerpt from COMPLETELY YOURS

  About the Author

  Also by Erin Nicholas

  Acclaim for Erin Nicholas

  Fall in Love with Forever Romance

  Newsletters

  To my favorite “theater geek,” Nikoel. And to JH, who saw her light and put it up onstage for others to see.

  Acknowledgements

  Thank you to my favorite place to see a show, the Shot in the Dark Theater—which inadvertently served as inspiration for the Birch Community Playhouse.

  And special thanks for the “cop stuff” goes to David Cuffley and Clyde Lyndsay—the cops who make me want to come up with questions just because I love their answers!

  CHAPTER ONE

  Finn would have noticed her even if she hadn’t been wearing hot-pink lingerie. And nothing else.

  He really would have. She was totally his type—brunette and curvy and, apparently, a little crazy. As evidenced by the fact that she was trying to sneak into a burning building. He did seem to be attracted to crazy. No matter how hard he tried not to be.

  But maybe she wasn’t actually trying to get back into the building. All he knew for sure was that the building was definitely burning and she was definitely acting sneaky. As she pulled away from the crowd, she moved slowly, looking over her shoulder and from side to side, as if checking to see if anyone was watching. She obviously didn’t notice Finn. Because he was absolutely watching as she made her way across the street, now acting as if she were just casually strolling along. Toward a burning building. In nothing but a bra and panties.

  It made sense that he hadn’t seen her before now. For one, he’d been a little busy evacuating a hundred people, give or take, from the buildings on the block. For another, if she’d been huddled with the crowd, she could have easily been blocked by some of the other spectators. No one seemed inclined to leave, all choosing instead to stand around and watch the real-life drama unfold. She was short, and there were two women in enormous skirts that stood out several inches on each side, a woman dressed in a full-length fur coat and hat—in spite of it being a pleasantly warm September night—and a man dressed as a cow. He was on two legs, but otherwise he was clearly a cow. So there were plenty of big, distracting people to hide behind.

  Which might all have seemed peculiar at any other scene, but considering that the burning building was the Birch Community Playhouse and that the onlookers had been in the middle of a production when the alarms went off, it wasn’t so strange. Finn had no idea what the play was called or what it was about, but it explained the cow. He hoped.

  He watched the woman stop at the east corner of the building, the one farthest from where the firefighters were working. Then he frowned as she slipped into the shadows along the side of the building and out of sight.

  Dammit.

  He started after her.

  As one of the cops on scene, it was his job to keep the area clear for the firefighters and keep the crowd of onlookers safe. If one of them happened to have a great body and be dressed in nothing but a pink bra-and-panty set, well, he’d just call that a perk. And as he jogged across the street, Finn couldn’t help but wonder if she was in costume or if the alarm had caught her in the midst of a wardrobe change. If that was her outfit for the show, he might need to buy a ticket.

  His foot hit the sidewalk as his cell phone rang. He glanced at the display and then shook his head and answered, “What?”

  “You saw her too, you bastard.”

  The voice on the other end belonged to his best friend and partner, Tripp. Finn grinned. “Who?”

  “Seriously?”

  Finn laughed. Tripp had a radar for beautiful women. Finn shouldn’t have been surprised that he’d noticed the brunette too. “Do we need to flip a coin to see who checks her out?”

  “Nah. You go be the mean guy that says she can’t play by the burning building. I’ll be the good cop later. If you know what I mean.”

  Finn definitely knew what he meant. And he ignored it. Tripp was a notorious flirt and had plenty of women, but he was also a big talker.

  Finn rounded the corner of the building. The streetlights didn’t quite reach along the entire length of the building on this side, and it took his eyes a second to adjust. Just in time to see her duck around the back.

  Finn sighed. “You sure you don’t want to be the bad cop this one time?” he asked his friend, who was assigned to crowd control out front.

  “Why’s that?” Tripp sounded amused.

  “I think she’s trying to get back into the building.”

  “That’s perfect,” Tripp said.

  “Perfect?” Finn asked, heading toward the back of the building after her.

  “Sure. ‘Hey, you can’t go in there’ is better than trying to come up with some charming line to start a conversation, right?” Tripp asked, sounding as if he was enjoying himself. “And maybe you’ll get to use your handcuffs.”

  Finn could practically hear Tripp’s eyebrows wagging. He turned the corner to the back of the building and looked around. He didn’t see her. She’d gone inside. Dammit. He climbed up the four steps that led to the back door of the theater.

  The theater was only one story and wasn’t very big. He’d never been inside it, the art studio next door, the trendy new bar on the other end of the block, or the twenty luxury apartments that occupied the upper two stories of the building that housed the bar. This was the artsy part of downtown, just a few blo
cks off the true theater district. Finn was more the type to hang out at sports bars and, better yet, the sporting complexes around the great city of Boston.

  Finn touched the back door and found it cool. It seemed that the flames were still contained to the wall on the other end of the theater, but it was a mistake to assume anything when fire was involved.

  Finn yanked the door open and paused.

  “You’re going in, right?” Tripp asked in his ear, suddenly more serious.

  “Yep.”

  “Okay, talk to me. What’s going on? Where are you?”

  Tripp was a good guy and a great partner. He was a smartass and a man-whore, but he was a hell of a cop and knew exactly when to be serious.

  “Back door. West end. No smoke. No noise,” Finn reported, referring to the lack of crackling or other sounds that would alert him to fire nearby.

  He stepped inside and pulled the flashlight from his belt, shining it back and forth. In the center of the room was a huge wooden table cluttered with tape measures, ribbon, lace, and other stuff. There were sewing machines, and the room was filled nearly to bursting with bolts of fabric, mannequins, racks of clothing, and shelves of hats, purses, shoes, gloves, and other accessories. “Looks like this is where they make and store costumes,” he told Tripp.

  Finn shined the flashlight around, located the door on the other side of the room, and started in that direction. His foot hit something as he rounded the table, and he stumbled. He gritted his teeth, his irritation growing.

  “You ever been in a play?” Tripp asked in his ear.

  “When I was, like, six,” Finn replied without thinking.

  “Yeah?” Tripp sounded delighted at the news. “What part?”

  “I don’t remember.” Finn totally remembered. He’d been a Dalmatian in his school production of 101 Dalmatians.

  “I bet Angie has pictures.”

  Finn could hear Tripp’s huge grin. And he knew his friend was right. His mother most definitely still had pictures. And she would happily show Tripp every damned one of them over roasted chicken and potatoes one night without Tripp needing to do anything more than mention the play.

  Damn. “You ask my mom about that play, and I might forget to block Duncan next time we play.” Tripp was the quarterback for their rec league football team, and Duncan was the huge lineman for the firefighters. Duncan had a tally on the inside of his locker of the number of times he’d sacked Tripp. The number was significantly lower than it would have been if Tripp hadn’t had Finn on his offensive line.

  “Yeah, well, my ass would tell you that you’re not as great at that as you’d like to think.”

  “Let’s find out how great I am,” Finn challenged as he reached the door, found it cool, and pushed it open. He stepped into a hallway. It was lit, which was helpful. It was also empty, which was not helpful. Fuck. Now which way? He looked up and down the hall. There were several doors. She could be anywhere.

  “Okay, okay, don’t get your panties in a wad,” Tripp said. “I’m just giving you shit.”

  Finn grinned. Tripp knew damned well that he needed Finn blocking for him. “I’m in a hallway with a bunch of doors,” he said. “These are probably dressing rooms and stuff. Maybe she came back in to get dressed.” That would make a little sense, even though it was stupid.

  “Or to get something,” Tripp said.

  Yeah, maybe. People always did shit like that.

  Dammit. She was one of those. Convinced that material possessions were worth risking her life for. Finn had no choice but to start searching. He moved up and down the hallway, throwing doors open. “Nothing. And yeah, these are dressing rooms,” he reported to Tripp. The lights were all on, and there was clothing scattered everywhere in all of them. “Looks like a tornado hit.”

  “Well, they were in the middle of a show,” Tripp said.

  “Yeah, at least everyone bailed and left their stuff behind.” That was incredibly intelligent. With the one exception who’d come back in, of course.

  After he’d opened every door to every dressing room, a storeroom, and a bathroom, Finn swore. No woman in pink panties. Or any other color of panty.

  “Where the fuck is she?” he muttered out loud.

  “Keep going,” Tripp said. “I haven’t seen her come back out.”

  “I’m heading south. There’s an exit sign up here.” He headed down the hallway for the door at the end.

  “You’re at the front?” Tripp asked.

  “No. There’s no way this door opens to the outside.” A moment later, he stepped into the outer lobby of the theater. The empty outer lobby.

  “Box office to my left, doors into the theater to my right,” he told Tripp.

  “Got you.”

  Finn looked to his left again. “The box office,” he repeated. Where the money would be. And the computers.

  “You think she’s looting the place?” Tripp asked.

  “Money or clothes,” Finn said. “People also go back in for scrapbooks and photographs, but she wouldn’t have any of that here. Why else would she come back in?”

  “Check it out,” Tripp agreed.

  “How are things going out there?” he asked Tripp.

  Finn didn’t see or smell anything that made him worry right now, but he had no way of knowing if the flames were, at that very moment, licking along the rafters or crawling through the other walls. Finn scowled as he stomped toward the front office. He might be making an arrest here. If nothing else, he was going to chew this lady’s ass but good. The ass in the hot-pink…

  Fuck. He shoved the office door open, but as it banged against an interior wall, he realized the room was empty. The lights were on, the computer was still running, but there was no one in sight. He also smelled smoke.

  Definitely fuck.

  He turned a full circle, not sure where to go next. It was a typical office, and there was a safe under the desk in front of him. So she hadn’t come for the money. Well, what the hell?

  “She’s not here.”

  “She’s in there somewhere.”

  Just then Finn heard a door slam somewhere behind him. He swung toward the sound. “Hang on.” He moved back into the lobby just in time to see the woman step out from a room behind the coffee machine.

  Her eyes went wide when she saw him.

  “Boston PD! Stop!” Finn shouted.

  She had covered up. Kind of. She now wore a robe, short, sheer, and unbelted. Which really did nothing to cover his view of her panties and bra. Or all that skin.

  And maybe that was why she suddenly took off at a run.

  Finn stared after her for a moment, a little stunned. She was actually running from him?

  “She’s running,” he told Tripp grimly.

  “You need backup?” Tripp still sounded amused. The bastard.

  “Maybe. You know anyone good?” Finn asked, starting after her.

  “Ha ha. You need to hang up so you can run? If you huff and puff into the phone, I’ll make fun of you.”

  “If you make fun of me, I’ll kick your ass on our next run. Again.”

  “Go get the girl,” Tripp said.

  Finn disconnected, mentally calling his friend names. But nothing he hadn’t called him out loud and in person.

  The woman made it to the other end of the lobby and through one of the doors leading into the main theater before Finn got to her. He grabbed the door as it was swinging shut, nearly smashing his fingers. The lights were off in the inner theater but, as he plunged into the darkness, he got a big whiff of whatever body spray or perfume she wore. He took a deep breath. It was nice. Lemony. Sweet and…

  Jesus. Finn scowled and turned his flashlight back on. He was thinking about how she smelled? How about the smell of smoke that was going to be chasing them both pretty soon?

  “Hey!” he called into the theater. “You can’t be in here. Just come out with me now. No problem. You’re not in trouble.”

  He heard what sounded like papers rustlin
g behind him, and he swung around. He had to lift the beam of light above his eye level. The sound was coming from the room up above the rows of theater seats, where the lighting and sound equipment were. The door to the booth was hanging open, and he heard muttered swearing in addition to the papers.

  He started in that direction, but suddenly the door slammed shut.

  He strode to the door and banged his fist against it. “You have to come out, ma’am. It’s not safe for you to stay in the building.”

  “Just give me a damned minute!” she shouted through the door.

  “I’m sorry, ma’am, I can’t do that,” Finn said.

  “I have to find something. Then I’m coming right out.”

  “Ma’am, the fire could be spreading. You need to evacuate the building.” Finn shined his flashlight on the door, wondering if he could break it down.

  “I will!” she called back. “I promise.”

  “Ma’am, I will have to remove you myself if you don’t come out immediately.”

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake!” he heard her exclaim. Something in the room banged—a file cabinet closing, if he had to guess. Then it sounded like she slid something across the floor. Like a chair or a table.

  As something heavy thumped against the other side of the door, Finn frowned and grabbed the doorknob, turning it easily. It wasn’t locked. He started to push it open and realized that, yes, she’d slid something across the floor—and put whatever it was in front of the door. He shoved hard, moving whatever it was several inches. He could see now that she was bent over a table, a small flashlight held in her teeth as she rifled through a stack folders frantically.

  Maybe she wasn’t going for the safe in the front office, but she was clearly messing with the theater’s stuff. The theater that belonged to his mother’s friend Sophia. “Ma’am, this is your last warning. Stop what you’re doing and come with me.”

  She took the flashlight from her teeth and glanced over, her eyes meeting his. She didn’t look scared. She looked irritated. Her dark hair lay against her cheek, her mouth was a grim line, and the beam from his flashlight easily penetrated the sheer fabric of her robe, highlighting the curves of her right breast and hip. They stared at one another for several beats, and Finn felt heat sweep through him. Damn, that was stupid. And careless. He was working here.