Still the One

“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.