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Half-formed thoughts tumbled around in her head. She might’ve imagined it, but for an instant she thought his lips softened, coaxing the strength out of her the way they used to. He lifted his head, his dark gaze smoldering on her lips then lifting to her eyes.
She blinked, swaying. A breathy sound escaped her, and a flush darkened Rafe’s skin.
He leaned toward her, and she couldn’t form one rational thought. Just… Oh, yes.
Then his breath burned her ear, sent a shiver down her spine. “Don’t talk.”
Talk? She couldn’t breathe. Her hands curled into fists, nails biting into her palms.
He skimmed his lips up her temple, back down to her ear. She began to tremble. And reason kicked in. She pushed at his chest; his hands tightened on her upper arms.
Again he whispered, barely audible, “That’s a bug. Play along.”
Aloud, he said, “Ten years and you can still do this to me.”
His voice spilled over her like heated oil, torching a desire she’d buried too long. She knew it wasn’t real, knew he didn’t mean anything by it. Still her fingers curled into his T-shirt; she needed something to steady her legs.
His lips skimmed hers again. His hands smoothed down her back, flexed at her waist. Kit fought the urge to push away. She understood that he was playing for their unseen audience, but she shuddered anyway.
His lips came back to her ear, heat inching under her skin. “I found the camera, too. On the wall, four o’clock.”
Why was he talking about the time? Oh, he meant somewhere on the wall. A deep breath sawing out of her, she turned her head to the right.
Long fingers captured her jaw, gently forced her head to his. Black eyes seared hers, and he whispered against her lips, “Sorry, my four o’clock.”
She nodded dumbly, her body pulsing almost painfully.
His hands curved over her hips, and his voice rumbled out. “I am so ready for you.”
It was all an act for whoever was watching and listening, but it didn’t feel like acting to Kit. Still, she struggled to catch up, to be as cool as he was.
His eyes might be distant, but there was a flush beneath his skin. His breathing was slightly uneven.
He curled one knuckle under her chin, tilting her face toward his. “It’s been a long time,” he groaned. “Too long.”
To whoever watched, it probably appeared that they were kissing again. Kit lifted her head, her lips brushing his. Needles of heat slid under her skin. She forced herself to follow his gaze to the left, searching for the camera.
Rafe kissed her cheek, her temple. Her heart ached with a strange combination of sadness and anger as she struggled to pretend, the way he was.
This close there was no way he could miss the way her nipples had hardened and heat—of embarrassment, of arousal—flushed her body.
He breathed in her ear again. “The camera’s in the light knob.”
Her hands flexed involuntarily, bunching his shirt as her gaze shifted to the round knob on the wall that controlled the overhead light and ceiling fan. She tried to focus on what he said, but all she could think was she wanted him to kiss her again. For real, this time.
No, no, she desperately corrected. Where was her pride?
What pride? her conscience taunted. To even be here with him, she had to pretend she had none.
She could feel the power of his thighs bracketing hers, the flat, hard muscle of his belly, the lingering taste of his mint gum on her lips.
Tears stung her eyes, and Kit stiffened her spine. He felt it, trailed those wicked fingers up her back. His touch only fanned a languorous heat, and her irritation spiked. She didn’t like how he sent her pulse skyrocketing, didn’t like the way she ached to arch into him, wrap her body around his.
Resentment flared. Did he know how he was affecting her? Was he enjoying it? His voice was cool; his eyes weren’t. In a perverse need to find out if she could still affect him the way he did her, Kit slid her hands up his chest, around his neck and pressed full against him. She took a reckless satisfaction in seeing his eyes widen, feeling the sudden flex of his body against hers.
Going up on tiptoe, she whispered in his ear, “Now what?”
The satisfaction she felt was quickly squashed when he hauled her to him, one thigh insinuated between hers and pressing against the damp heat between her legs. Her hands clamped on to his shoulders for the sole purpose of support.
His gaze lasered into hers. He kissed her again, his mouth covering hers with ruthless purpose. Controlled deliberation. A warning to back off. Now.
It triggered something wild and angry inside her. Reacting on pure instinct, she slid one hand into his thick dark hair, curled the other around his strong, warm nape.
For a moment, he stiffened. Then his restraint snapped. His hands tunneled into her hair, gripping her head as he deepened the kiss, his tongue sweeping into her mouth, claiming every part of her. She couldn’t think, didn’t want to.
It had been so long. He felt so good. Hard, hot male against her, his kiss seducing the strength from her legs. Her hands splayed across his back, pressing closer.
He pulled away, his breathing ragged, the muscles in his neck taut and straining. Surprise flickered in his eyes, then disappeared. “Get your things,” he rasped. “Let’s finish this at my place.”
She nodded, barely aware of moving down the hallway and into her room. With sweat-slicked palms, she dragged an overnight bag from the top of her closet and threw in a change of clothes, underwear. Heartbeat thundering against her ribs, she managed to remember her toothbrush and makeup.
Away from him, she could think. Yes, she needed to be away from him, she thought desperately as she dragged the back of her hand across her lips, still burning from his.
That kiss hadn’t felt like playacting to her. It had felt vividly, painfully real. Reminded her of what she’d thrown away.
When she returned to the front room, he reached for her, planting another kiss on her lips. But she felt the difference this time. This kiss was constrained, like the first one. Studied.
She tried to corral the sensations raging through her body. With one hot hand at her waist, Rafe guided her outside. She turned to lock the door, and he pressed close.
His chest felt like tempered steel against her shoulder blades. His body heat seared through the fabric of her dress. Throat tight, breasts tingling, she shut her eyes.
Only when she turned did she see that he wasn’t paying attention to her at all. He was checking out her porch light, studying the doorbell for signs of other bugs or another camera. Resentment shot through her, and she squashed the urge to knock him flat on his butt. He was doing a job, she ruthlessly reminded herself. He was here for Liz, not her. Not them. There was no them.
Still, how could he be so calm? She felt shaky, ready to shatter, and he looked fully in control. He was no longer flushed. His pulse beat slow and steady at the side of his neck whereas hers fluttered so rapidly she felt it in her throat.
He walked down the sidewalk and turned, waiting for her. Looking as unaffected as if he didn’t even know her, as if she hadn’t felt the hard swell of his arousal against her belly moments ago. It had meant nothing. It had been only for the people listening in on them.
Kit reminded herself of that at least twenty times on her way to his car. Trying to steady her thundering pulse, she walked to the opposite side of the Corvette. Across the car’s top, their eyes met.
“Sorry about that. The kiss, I mean.” He gestured toward the house with irritating nonchalance. “It was the quickest way I could think to stop you from announcing we’d found their bug and tipping them off about the camera.”
What was she supposed to say? Oh, it’s all right that you kissed the breath out of me. It wasn’t. She wondered if it was going to be.
“Sure. No problem.” Her voice caught, and she fought the urge to hide her face in her hands. “What do we do now?”
“You’re coming home with me.”
“But…” Panic clawed at her. “Is that a good idea?”
“You have a better one?”
“How about anywhere but there?” she drawled.
The glint of male satisfaction in his eyes had her clenching her jaw. “Wouldn’t it be better, safer if we—I went to a hotel?”
He slid her a look. “We can, but I can’t guarantee the security of a place like that the way I can my own house.”
“Of course.” The only thing she understood was that she needed to be away from him, and that wasn’t going to happen tonight.
His house. A dull throb built at the back of her head.
“Like it or not,” he said brusquely, “we’re stuck together.”
He obviously didn’t like it.
“And we both might as well get used to it. I’m not letting you out of my sight until we find that ditzy sister of yours.”
“You never did understand Liz,” she snapped. “Well, you don’t have to. You just have to find her.”
“That’s the plan,” he said through clenched teeth.
“Fine.”
“Fine.”
Her glare went unremarked. Panic closed across her chest as she got into the Corvette. She told herself that finding Liz would be worth risking her heart again. Worth anything, but after that staged seduction scene, she wasn’t sure she was up for even five more minutes with Rafe Blackstock.
Chapter 4
Want clawed through him. As Kit ducked into the passenger side of his car, Rafe went down on all fours, then slid under the ’Vette. If there was a bug in her house, there was possibly something on his car or hers. At first glance, he saw nothing so he stretched his arm up and felt the undercarriage.
Blast her, she’d gotten him all hot and bothered in there, plastering her lush bod against his and issuing that silent but unmistakable challenge—I can make you want me, too.
That had never been the damn issue between them, just as it hadn’t been his real intent to fire her engines in there a minute ago. It had been instinct that had fueled the way he’d hauled her to him and silenced her with a kiss, instinct to keep her from announcing to their unseen audience that they’d found the bug and camera. Now he was paying the price because it had been pure want that exploded in his veins when she’d retaliated. Pure desire that had him pulling her to him, wanting to wrap both those long legs around his waist and say to hell with caution.
That was stupid, and he wouldn’t do it. Not just because he needed a clear mind in order to ascertain the danger Kit faced, if indeed there was danger, but also because he wasn’t giving her another chance to stomp all over his heart.
His mouth twisting, he tried to forget how she felt against him, how she’d surrendered to his kiss for just that one beat of time. There had never been any question of the sexual chemistry between them. Their problem—her problem—had been that she couldn’t commit. Her accusation that he was too controlling had been true at the time, but that hadn’t been the whole issue.
Sliding his hands along the lip of the car’s frame, he cursed the way his gut jumped at the remembered feel of her full breasts pressed against him, the wicked slide of her tongue against his, the deep wine taste of her.
More memories crowded through his mind, memories of their days together at OU, their nights, that time in the car on the way back from his parents’ place. Rafe slammed a mental door on those thoughts, ruthlessly turned his mind to the task at hand. Around one side of the car, then to the back and around the passenger side. His fingers grazed something. Aha.
He lay on his back and scooted under the car as far as he could. There it was, a little black box with a flashing red light. The bastards. Well, this proved someone was following her. Not that he needed more convincing after finding that bug and camera in her house. How serious these bad guys were had yet to be determined.
Rafe moved out from under the car and stood, walking up to Kit’s car. Her house was relatively old and didn’t have a garage. He’d probably find a tracking device on hers, too. Sure enough, he did.
She rolled down the window. “What are you doing?”
“Looking for tracking devices.”
“And?”
“There’s one on my car.” He knelt, felt around the wheel well, up along the lip of her frame, then moved around to the front of her car. “And there’s one on yours.”
He stood, dusting his hands. He’d been right to insist she come to his house tonight. Now all he had to do was keep his hands off her.
After easing into the driver’s seat, he took the tissue Kit offered and cleaned his hands as best he could.
“What do we do now?”
“Leave the device on your car. You won’t be using it.”
“What about the one on yours?” In the fading sunlight, she looked wan and worried.
He grinned. “We’ll dump it somewhere.”
She nodded, her blue-gray eyes searching his.
“It’ll be all right,” he said, compelled to reassure her.
“I hope Liz is, too.”
Rafe had no answer for that so he started the engine and backed the ’Vette out of Kit’s drive. He turned north on May Avenue and headed toward his house in Quail Creek. Amazing how close they lived to each other. Amazing they’d steered clear of each other until now.
She sat on her side of the car, arms crossed tightly. He figured she was probably still mad about his comments concerning Dizzy Lizzy. That was for the best. The more distance between them, the better.
Still, as he slid a look at her pale golden skin, the finely sculpted profile, his whole body tightened. In all fairness, their breakup hadn’t been entirely her fault. He’d blamed her all these years for not speaking up, but back then he had been too controlling, too insistent on his own way.
Even when he’d proposed, he hadn’t asked her to marry him; he’d simply told her she would and how they would live. The realization jolted him, and he jerked his gaze to the road. That had been a valid reason to turn him down. Besides her keen sense of family responsibility, had his control played a part in why she couldn’t commit to him? The only excuse he had for his domineering behavior was that he’d been young and stupid.
As she looked out the window at passing scenery, holding herself away from him, he realized it didn’t matter now. They’d gone their separate ways.
Spying a police cruiser up ahead, he changed lanes and pulled into the small parking lot of an all-night doughnut shop. She sent him a questioning look and he grinned, slid out of the car and moved around to remove the tracking device from the belly of the ’Vette.
He walked to the black and white, slapped it on the underside of the bumper and got back in his car.
Kit laughed. “That was good.”
“It’ll keep them busy for a while.”
“Until we get to your house?”
“Yeah.”
Her smile faded, and he recognized the shadows in her eyes as memories from the past. Memories she was fighting as much as he was. The silence stretched between them, stilted and unfinished. Regret pricked at him. He was swept with a sudden urge to touch her, reassure her, but about what? The past was past. Best to leave it alone.
He put the car in gear, reversed and pulled onto May Avenue. They drove in silence to his house. His life was markedly different from what he’d planned, even aside from Kit. She, on the other hand, still appeared to be her sister’s self-appointed rescuer.
