He spent the next ten minutes concentrating harder on the road than he had since his very first ride, forcing himself to calm down. By the time they pulled into the same car park where this fiasco had begun, his body was mostly under control. There was just the secret, burning core of him, smoldering for her. Good thing she’d never see it. He could almost pretend it wasn’t there.

He cut the engine, toed the stand, dragged his helmet off, and sucked down some much-needed air. Behind him, he felt her fidgeting like a little kid. He held out his hand in silence, and she gave him her helmet and slipped off the bike. He stood. Wondered if, despite that one exhilarated scream, she’d actually hated it. Wondered why she’d wanted to go out in the first place. Opened his mouth to ask.

And was hit by an asteroid that felt suspiciously Chloe-shaped, slamming into his side and throwing its arms around him.

“That was amazing,” the Chloe-shaped asteroid murmured. Didn’t sound like Chloe; there wasn’t an ounce of sarcasm in those three words. No hesitance or snooty distance, either. Just all this intense feeling, like she was full of the same white-lightning thrill he’d always chased and savored, like touching her should give him an electric shock. And it kind of did—not because of the palpable excitement coming off her, but because of the way her breasts pressed against his arm. Asteroids weren’t supposed to have fantastic tits.

He patted her awkwardly on the shoulder and tried to seem disinterested. After dinner at Mrs. Conrad’s, Vik had made it clear that friendship with tenants was fine—but the last thing Red needed was for someone to wander out here and see him grabbing the prettiest woman in the building. Knowing his luck, they’d investigate further, find out about Smudge, and decide that Chloe was trading sexual favors for pet privileges. Tenant wars could be ruthless and she might end up with a scarlet letter painted on her front door, which would take him fucking forever to scrub off.

“Thank you,” she said.

“Uh,” he replied, smooth as fuck. “… No problem.” To add to his air of charm and intelligence, he patted her shoulder again. Brilliant. Bloody brilliant.

She pulled away abruptly, as if she’d just realized who she was hugging. Somehow, she managed to put a good three feet between them in about a second. The woman moved like a shot when she was embarrassed—and she was embarrassed, with her eyes focused on the tarmac and her lips pressed tight, awkwardness rolling off her in waves. He could tell now, as if he knew her, all of a sudden.

As if he’d put on those 3-D glasses at the cinema and was finally seeing every side of her.

She was fiddling self-consciously with her hair, smoothing down frizzy little flyaways that popped right back up again. Cute as fuck, this button of a woman. He tore his gaze away and opened the bike’s pannier, retrieving the case that usually held his shades, but currently held Chloe’s glasses. Her eyes were all soft and unfocused without them. For a moment he wondered if she took them off when she had sex, or if she wouldn’t want to give up even that ounce of control.

Then he told himself to stop being such a fucking weirdo and held out the specs. “Here you go.”

“Thanks.” She took them, quick and wary, like a squirrel snatching nuts from his hand. “What are you smirking at?”

He couldn’t help himself. He said, just to piss her off, “You hugged me.”

She narrowed her eyes behind those familiar blue frames, set her jaw, crossed her arms. “And?” She could have silenced a thousand men with that one scary syllable. He wondered how many people had been shocked to realize that, despite the posh accent and the prissy outfits, she was a tough motherfucker all the way to her bones.

“I didn’t have you down as a hugger,” he drawled, locking up and strolling back toward the flats.

“I should hope you don’t have me down as anything,” she said primly, falling into step beside him. “I am, as I’ve just proved, an eminently unpredictable woman.”

He barely managed to choke back his laughter, turning it into a mangled sort of cough.

She shot him a glare and said, “I am.”

Red had to lean against the nearest wall for support. He doubled over in the narrow walkway leading to the back entrance, laughing so hard he might break something.

She stood in front of him with her hands on her hips and a mutinous expression that clearly hid a smile. That mouth of hers said one thing—abject irritation—but her eyes shone and crinkled at the edges in a way that felt like champagne bubbles looked. A way that let him keep laughing.

When he finally managed to calm down, she asked archly, “What, exactly, is so amusing?”

He let his head rest against the wall for a second, let his eyes slide shut while he savored the ache in his abs. He hadn’t laughed this much in a fucking century and it felt better than a three-hour massage. “For one thing,” he said dryly, “if you were such a wild card, you probably wouldn’t have to tell me.”

She sniffed. “Maybe I simply don’t trust your skills of observation.”

“Fair enough. Observation’s more your thing, ain’t it?”

She stared at him, biting her lip. Her laughing annoyance faded away, along with most of the warmth in her brown skin. “Red, I—” She stopped, swallowed, squared her shoulders. “I have something to tell you.”

Ah, shit. He couldn’t resist prodding her guilty conscience, and now she was going to confess. She’d open her mouth and spill the secret of her spying into the open, and then he’d have to ask her why she’d done it, and she’d make it clear she saw him as a creature in a zoo, and he’d have to go back to disliking her.

Suddenly, he didn’t want to dislike her. It had been difficult. This new, laughing, teasing thing was easy.

“You going to tell me why you wanted to ride a motorbike?” he asked lightly. “Because I’ve got to be honest, I’m dying to know.” He was giving her an out. She’d take it, right?

Wrong. She rolled her lips inward, shook her head, and he thought, Come on, Button, don’t be so bloody decent.

Behind his back, he pressed his palm to the wall until the brick bit into his skin. He didn’t want to hear her admit how little she thought of him when she’d just made him feel so … free. So he did the only thing he could think to do; he kept needling her. “Is it because you have a biker fetish?”

Just as he’d hoped, her mouth popped open in a shocked little O and her dark eyes flooded with outraged humor instead of cold anxiety. “I—what? No. No, I do not have a biker fetish.” She wrinkled her nose at the words, as if the idea horrified her.

For some reason, he felt compelled to point out, “I’m not technically a biker, myself.”

She blinked.

“Not that it matters.” For fuck’s sake, what was he doing? Shaking his head, Red got back to the point. “Tell me, then. Why?”

He could see the indecision in her face, where last week he’d have seen nothing but cold blankness. She was trying to decide if she should tell him—or rather, what she should tell him. In the end, to his relief, she didn’t broach the topic that would change everything between them.

Instead, she said, “I have a list.”

His eyebrows rose. “A list?”