Still the One. Debra Cowan

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.