Hot Rocks

to get out of the rain for a few minutes. It was a nasty day.”
    “Tell me about it. I was driving in it. Seems I got into town only a couple hours after it happened. Heard different versions of it every place I stopped the rest of the day. In one of them, I think it was at the gas pump, he was an international jewel thief on the lam.”
    Her eyes softened with what he could only judge as affection. “International jewel thief,” she murmured. “No, he certainly wasn’t that. People say the oddest things, don’t they?”
    “I guess they do.” For the first time since he’d taken the job, he believed that Laine Tavish aka Elaine O’Hara had absolutely no clue what her father, William Young and a so far unidentified third party had pulled off six weeks before.
    He walked her out to her car and tried to think how he could, and might have to, use her as a lever. What he could tell her, and what he wouldn’t if and when the time came.
    It wasn’t what he wanted to think about with the chill of the early spring evening blowing at her hair, sending her scent around him.
    “Chilly yet,” he commented.
    “It can stay cool at night right up into June, or turn on a dime and bake you before May’s out.” He’d be gone before the nights grew warm. It would be smart to remember that. It would be sensible.
    She was so damn tired of being sensible.
    “I had a nice time. Thanks.” She turned, slid her hands up his chest, linked them around his neck and pulled his mouth down to hers.
    That’s what she wanted, and screw being sensible. She wanted that punch, that rush, that immediate flash in the blood that comes from a single dangerous act. She lived safe. The second half of her life had been nothing if not safe.
    This was better. This hot and shocking clash of lips, of tongue, of teeth was better than safe. It pumped life into her, and made her remember what it was to just take.
    How could she have forgotten what a thrill it was to leap and look later?
    He’d known she’d surprise him. The minute he’d clamped eyes on her, he’d known. But he hadn’t expected her to stagger him. It wasn’t a come-on kiss, or a silky flirtation, but a full-on, sexual blast that rocked him back and shot the libido into overdrive.
    One minute she had that compact and curvy body plastered to his like they were a couple of shipwreck survivors, then there was a little cat-in-cream purr in her throat and she was pulling away slowly—an elastic and endless move that he was too dazed to stop.
    She rubbed her lips together. Sexy, wet lips. And smiled.
    “Good night, Max.”
    “Hold it, hold it, hold it.” He slapped a hand on her car door before she could open it. Then just left it there as he wasn’t confident of his balance.
    She was still smiling—soft lips, sleepy eyes. She had the power now, all of it, and they both knew it. How the hell had that happened?
    “You’re going to send me up there.” He nodded toward the hotel, the general direction of his room. “Alone? That’s just mean.”
    “I know.” Her head angled a bit to the side as she studied him. “I don’t want to, but I have to. That’s just going to have to hold us both.”
    “Let’s have breakfast. No, a midnight snack. Screw it, let’s go have a brandy now.”
    She laughed. “You don’t want a brandy.”
    “No. It was a thinly disguised euphemism for wild and crazy sex. Come inside, Laine.” He ran a hand over her hair. “Where it’s warm.”
    “I really, really can’t, and it’s a damn shame.” She opened the car door, glancing over her shoulder, deliberately provocative, as she slid inside. “Henry’s waiting for me.”
    His head snapped back as if she’d sucker punched him. “Whoa.”
    Suppressing a bubble of laughter, she slammed the door, waited just a beat, then rolled down the window. “Henry’s my dog. Thanks for dinner, Max. Good night.”
    She was laughing as she drove away, and couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt so alive. They’d be seeing each other again, she was absolutely sure of it. Then they’d see . . . well, what they’d see.
    She turned the radio up to blast and sang along with Sheryl Crow as she drove, just a bit too fast. The recklessness felt good, a sexy fit. Lusty little chills danced over her skin as she bumped up her lane and parked in the secluded dark outside her house. There was a nice kicky breeze whisking along through the barely budded trees and a pretty half-moon that added its light