The Hotshot. Jule McBride

      

      “You’ve never slept with anybody till me, Trudy?”

      Tru thought the self-satisfied grin tugging her lips was heart stopping, and when she lowered her head to his chest once more, he felt the curve of her smile on his bare skin. “Does heavy petting count?”

      He shook his head. “No. Are you really telling me that before tonight, you’d never…”

      “Now I have.” With that Trudy traced a heart on his chest and drew an arrow through it.

      He loved that she did that. She was amazing. She meshed with him on an intellectual level, and in bed she was insatiable. Now she was as cuddlesome as a kitten. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

      “Are you grilling me, Truman Steele?” she teased, squinting playfully as she fished around her ankles, pulling up a sheet to cover their naked bodies. “If so, I warn you I’m a force to be reckoned with.”

      “So I’ve discovered.”

      “Maybe you should call for backup,” she quipped.

      He kissed her lightly, affection that surprised him swelling his heart and spreading warmth through his limbs. “No backup,” he warned. “I want you all to myself. I’m not sharing.”

      Dear Reader,

      Ever since my miniseries BIG APPLE BABIES was released a few years ago by Harlequin American Romance, I’ve received letters from you, asking for another New York-set trilogy. And where better to introduce these sexy BIG APPLE BACHELORS than in Harlequin Temptation, where brothers Truman, Rex and Sullivan Steele can take a stand with Harlequin’s hottest heroes?

      The men you’re about to meet are New York’s finest. They hail from a great city with legendary heart that I love, and which I called home for many years. Because books are written long before publication, this fun-filled trilogy was completed before September 11, 2001, but I hope it pays tribute to those who serve and protect. Every other month this summer you’ll meet a man from the NYPD, who I hope will deliver the Temptation promise: loving fantasies, pleasurable escape, sizzling sex and a happy ending!

      With best wishes,

      Jule McBride

      Meet all of New York’s finest in the BIG APPLE BACHELORS miniseries!

      Truman is The Hotshot

      Rex is The Seducer

      Sullivan is The Protector

      The Hotshot

      Jule McBride

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

      To all those who serve and protect, especially those in Manhattan on September 11

      Contents

       Chapter 1

       Chapter 2

       Chapter 3

       Chapter 4

       Chapter 5

       Chapter 6

       Chapter 7

       Chapter 8

       Chapter 9

       Chapter 10

       Chapter 11

      1

      “MA WON THE LOTTERY?” Truman Steele was still unable to believe it. The jackpot had been growing for weeks, and because it was June first and another hot, steamy New York summer was right around the corner, people had been amusing themselves by speculating about the lucky winner on subways, street corners, and around office watercoolers. Every day, the TV news depicted long lines outside delis and street kiosks where people waited to buy tickets, and the New York News had been running man-in-the-street interviews, asking people what they’d do if they won the huge windfall.

      Truman had told himself he’d buy a fishing boat, maybe vacation in Vegas and invest in blue-chip stocks, but now that he might actually get a third of the money, he wasn’t so sure. He needed to rethink his game plan. Wearing the NYPD’s standard-issue navy uniform, he stretched his long legs, then put one hand on his holster and paced to and fro in his oldest sibling’s childhood bedroom. Sullivan’s room was where the three brothers had retreated to mull over family crises since time immemorial.

      Not that winning fifteen million dollars was a crisis, exactly. At least not yet, thought Truman, releasing a throaty whistle. “I must have bought thirty tickets.”

      “Me, too,” confessed Rex, who’d kicked off dirty sneakers so he could lie on a neatly made twin bed so small it was hard to imagine Sullivan Steele ever occupying it. The only brother to work undercover, Rex was a master of disguises. He’d come from a stakeout looking homeless, sporting a scraggly black beard, baggy, oil-stained jeans and a questionably perfumed trench coat, which he’d thankfully left outside.

      “You buy any tickets, Sully?” asked Rex.

      Sullivan shook his head. “Waste of money,” said the oldest, thrusting his hands into the pockets of gray suit trousers. “At least I thought so.”

      “What were you going to do if you won, Rex?” asked Truman.

      Vanish and start a whole new life, thought Rex, picturing himself wearing white, rolled-up trousers while combing a beach for shells. His throat constricted as he glanced away. Unlike his brothers, Rex had never wanted to be a cop, although he rarely admitted it, even to himself. Rex was still haunted by how scared he’d been as a kid every morning when their father holstered his gun and left for work. He’d always waited for the evening Augustus Steele wouldn’t make it home for dinner, and because Rex wouldn’t put another kid through that worry, he’d long ago decided that having a family and working for the NYPD didn’t mix. He finally shrugged. “I don’t know. Fifteen million’s a lot of dough, little brother.”

      “Sure is,” agreed Truman, staring through a window into the courtyard, admiring a leafy jungle of trees, bushes and ferns. Before Sheila Steele had been blessed with one of the biggest lottery wins in New York history, she’d also been the more modest recipient of a green thumb and a brownstone. Situated on Bank Street in the West Village, the Steeles’ home had been handed down through Sheila’s family, and because of the expense of maintaining it in Manhattan, the upper two floors were rented to tenants. From the front, despite cheerful green shutters, the place remained somewhat gloomy, a massive stone edifice on a gray street, banked by gray sidewalks and equally gray parking meters. Tourists would never guess at the bright, cozy interior, or the sprawling riot of plants and flowers Sheila kept thriving in the courtyard in back.

      “Fifteen million,” Truman said again. “Five each.”

      Sully shook his head, the same wary suspicion in his eyes that had made him, at thirty-six, the youngest cop in New York to become captain of a precinct. “If Ma hadn’t shown us the letter from the lottery board, I wouldn’t have believed her.”

      Rex chuckled. “Don’t be so suspicious, Sully. This is Ma we’re talking about. Not a criminal.”

      “Beg to differ,” countered