Still the One. Debra Cowan

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