Well, hell . . . Here might be a fly in his ointment. Decker winced. He’d look like a grade-A ass for insisting they fuck while some kid might be fighting for his life. “Do you need to take a rain check, beautiful?”

She hesitated. “I have to take another friend home first.”

“And your mind is going to be on her brother.” He nodded after the black woman with the outrageous shoes currently scurrying to the door.

Rachel bit her lip. “Probably. I’m really sorry . . .”

She was loyal to her friends, and he admired that. Knowing that she cared about the people around her made him feel even more protective.

Boohoo. Next thing he knew, he’d be crying at greeting card commercials. Even if she’d been the douchiest bitch from hell, he wouldn’t condone her ex or some random ass-hat trying to do her in.

“Don’t worry about it. How about I give you my number, and you see if you feel like calling me tomorrow?” He hated leaving the ball in her court. It seriously went against his grain, but he couldn’t come on too strong now without making her suspicious. He’d think of something tomorrow, if necessary.

But that didn’t mean he intended to leave her alone tonight.

“Really?”

Those big, dark eyes of hers widened in surprise. Hell, those were going to be the undoing of all his bad intentions. One of those expressions, and he felt like he was contemplating seducing Little Bo Peep, for fuck’s sake.

“Of course. As much as I’d like to spend tonight with you, I can be patient. If you’re still interested tomorrow, I’m yours. Don’t get me wrong, I’m fighting the urge to make you the happiest woman on the planet tonight.” He grinned, and she bestowed that gorgeous smile on him with the dimple in her left cheek that somehow made him harder. “But I suppose I can make you doubly happy tomorrow.”

“I’d like that,” she murmured.

And Decker believed that she meant it. Hot damn!

He scribbled the number of the new disposable phone he’d picked up before coming here on the back of the bar’s napkin and wrote his first name, then handed it to her. Rachel took it with a smile.

“It was good to meet you. I’m going to get out of here and take Alicia home, but . . . really, thanks for making me smile.”

“You deserve a great birthday, beautiful. I hope your friend’s brother is all right.”

Just in case he’d misread her and she didn’t intend to call, then he’d have to barge his way into her life in a less seductive fashion. That would suck. He wanted her taste on his tongue at least this once. He could be satisfied with one kiss, right?

TWO

DECKER TOOK HOLD OF HER SOFT CHEEKS AND TILTED HER lips under his, pressing a kiss to her mouth. Pliant, moist, velvety. Holy shit. Her sweetness absolutely flattened him.

No way he’d ever be satisfied with just one kiss.

Without another thought, he charged in, taking possession of her mouth and demanding more. In his arms, Rachel stiffened. Crap, he had to dial back the urgency and the impulse to crush those sweet lips under his own and take control. But this girl was like sinking into his most sugary-spun fantasy. He could kiss her for the next two days and not get enough. The idea of owning her lips for his use by his mouth, by his cock . . . Hell, he was about to bust out of his jeans.

Under him, Rachel suddenly whimpered, and Decker braced himself for her to push him away. Instead, she threw her arms around him, latched on like she was drowning, and pressed those plump breasts against his chest. He didn’t need more green light than that.

Decker gripped her tighter, dove in deeper, caressing his way down her back and grabbing a handful of her pert ass, settling in for a really atomic lip lock. He tangled his tongue with hers, shared her breath, and rocked against her. She shouldn’t have to guess what he wanted or how badly he ached for it. Rachel stood on her tiptoes and melted against him even more.

Until the jerk at the next table shoved his chair back, straight into them. Then she gasped and wriggled away. Damn it to hell . . .

He wanted to yank her back against him, wrap her legs around his waist, and fuck her into next week. But he’d promised to give her control. If he wanted more of her later, he had to live up to his word and let her go now.

Decker couldn’t resist brushing her sultry lips with his own one last time, then reluctantly he forced himself to release her. “I really hope you call.”

Rachel smiled, her cheeks a flushed pink discernible even in the dim light. He would bet every dime in his bank account that she didn’t have a whole lot of sexual experience. And he’d be happy as hell to broaden her horizons.

Decker turned away and maneuvered through the crowd to the front of the club, then shoved the door open. Stepping out into the balmy October evening, he strode to his bike and ripped the chin strap of his helmet off the highway peg before shoving the damn thing on his head. Annoyance chafed. Of course he wanted to fuck her. But it went against his instincts to leave her alone right now for even a minute. Decker took a deep breath. He had to hope that whoever wanted her dead would give him the promised few days to complete the job before sending someone else.

Straddling his Ducati, he settled back onto the leather seat. Sure enough, a few minutes later, Rachel rushed out of the nightclub, keys in hand, and headed to her car, her blond friend swaying drunkenly behind her. She unlocked a sturdy little white Toyota with her key fob. Halfway across the parking lot, she fished in her purse for her phone, completely ignoring her surroundings. Absently, she dialed someone and spoke to the trailing blonde, still not paying any attention to potential danger. Decker made a mental note to teach her to stay alert before he squashed this murder-for-hire plot and moved on. And once she admitted that she wasn’t any sort of Domme, he might even blister her ass a little for this episode, just for fun.

The thought made him smile.

Rachel piled her inebriated friend into the passenger’s seat, then hustled around the car before climbing in. Decker took that as his cue to start his bike and follow. He kept a respectable distance—not that she was paying a lick of attention—and followed her to the other woman’s place, watching Rachel help her up the stairs and into her little cookie-cutter apartment. Then she raced back to her car, on the fucking phone again, and drove off. God, if he’d wanted to kill her, he could have done it twenty times by now before she ever realized she was dead.

Next stop was the hospital. The parking lot was lit decently, and the emergency room was hopping. But this many strangers this close to her made him nervous. He parked his bike and followed discreetly until she was safely inside, hating that he couldn’t trail her any closer without being seen.

With a sigh, he waited in the shadows. Just in case the prick who’d hired him was impatient, he wasn’t going to give anyone the opportunity to off her in a parking lot and make it look random.

About ninety minutes later, she emerged under the little portico outside the ER’s automatic door. She and her wildly dressed friend exchanged a few words under the glaring LED lights overhead and hugged. The black woman’s face was dotted with tears and smudged mascara, but she managed a relieved smile. Then Rachel darted out to her car as the other woman headed back into the hospital. Decker followed his little bundle of curves in the sinful black skirt. She never noticed.

Predictably, Rachel drove straight toward home. When she finally looked in her rearview mirror at a stoplight, he turned right onto another street, taking a gamble that she didn’t have an alternate destination in mind. He raced to her darkened cottage on the quiet residential street he’d scoped out during recon earlier in the evening. Ditching his bike on the next cul-de-sac, he dashed around the block to beat Rachel. He wanted to check inside, make sure she didn’t come home to any nasty surprises.

It took him all of two minutes to jimmy his way through a back window. She had zero security—another conversation they’d be having before he hit the road again. He crawled through to a guest room, figuring he had three minutes at most to scope out the place before she pulled into her little attached garage.

In less than sixty seconds, he’d crept through every room in the house, pried open closets, checked any other obvious hiding spots. The place was spotless and devoid of any life except a purring cat who curled around his ankles. He’d always been a dog person.

“Hairball . . .” he groused.

“Meow,” the little orange tabby wailed at him, rubbing against his pant leg again.

Decker smiled, despite himself, and scratched the cat between the ears. “I’ll bet she spoils you rotten and rubs you all the time, lucky thing.”

The cat only purred louder.

He caught sight of her computer on a little desk in the corner of her living room. He’d check her phone as soon as she nodded off. Framed photos rested all around her place, on shelves, countertops, and the mantle. He didn’t dare turn on lights now to investigate, but soon.

Finally, he heard the electronic hum of the garage door opening. He beat feet to a hiding place he’d found during his search, wedging into the guest room closet behind her winter clothes and the leaf for her dining room table. She came in and he heard her drop her keys in the little copper dish on the console table in her foyer. Her heels clicked across the hardwood, then stopped abruptly. He tensed.

“Did you have a good evening, Val? Been a good boy? Miss me?”

“Meow.”

“Don’t look at me like that. I fed you before I left. I didn’t leave you for that long.” When the cat meowed again, she sighed. “Give me a minute, and we’ll go to bed. Why you can’t find the bed without me is a mystery.”

As Decker grinned, she started across the floor again, and the click of her shoes progressed past the guest room and down the hall. In the master bedroom, he heard the smart tap of her heels stop before she dropped them on the floor and moaned in relief.

A minute later, he heard her set something on a hard surface with a gentle plop, then a door closed. The shower began to run.

Rachel was going to get naked. Fuck if that didn’t turn him on all over again.

Decker yanked his brains out of his jeans and waited about sixty seconds before he crept from the closet. No sign of her. He heard the water splashing inside the stall and the sound of her singing a peppy, upbeat pop tune about someone calling her maybe. He couldn’t fight the grin on his face as he made his way into her bedroom.

Here was a good place to start his search for clues. The cat lounged on the bed and raised his head with a yawn. Damn hairball got to sleep with Rachel tonight. Hell yeah, he was jealous.

Hustling across the room, he found her phone on her nightstand. No password protection. He shook his head and accessed her texts. It didn’t take long to scroll through them. A message from Shonda earlier in the day detailing her party at the nightclub. Her mother asking whether she’d be coming home for Thanksgiving. Her neighbor begging her to cat-sit. Decker yawned until he came to Owen. It didn’t take him long to surmise that this was the name of her ex-barfbag, and didn’t he sound like a real fun guy.

Did you take my box of books in the closet of my study when you left? I am missing several crucial texts relating to relativistic quantum fields, two-level atoms, and condensed matter.

He was a physicist? Wow, if Rachel went for the studious type, Decker figured he wouldn’t last long with her. Of course she’d claimed she was thrilled he wasn’t into such things . . . But from about the tenth grade on, he’d devoted himself to T&A.

After a brief stint as a juvenile delinquent, he’d graduated from high school and joined the military. His dad wasn’t around to care, and his mom had been too exhausted working three jobs to say much. Since he had aptitude for fighting and sneaking around, he’d gotten into Special Ops, which eventually led to a stint with the CIA. All that had made him get his shit together, but he was never going to be a bookworm.

He glanced through Rachel’s exchange with her ex. It was a lot of blah, blah, blah. Owen was on the short list for the Wolf Prize in Physics, whatever that was, and he had notes in those texts he needed. Everything was pretty civil until, after looking for the books again, Owen insisted that she must be lying. He asked sharply if she was trying to sabotage his career, hinting that she’d always resented his work.

Rachel had stopped responding at that point. Decker wished she’d told the asshole to get fucked.

Less than an hour later, Owen had texted her some stiff, stupid-ass apology, saying that he’d found his textbooks—and he didn’t appreciate her impolite lack of response, but he wasn’t surprised in the least.

As evidence went, it was thin. A DA would find it circumstantial at best, but the divorce, coupled with this kind of stuff, might add up to motive.

With a frown, Decker placed the phone back where he’d found it, then peeked inside her nightstand. Well, well, well . . . Under a wrist brace and an old copy of Vogue, he found a battery-operated clit stimulator, a slender vibe that would be too weak to really get her off, and an electronic reader chock-full of BDSM romances. So beautiful Miss Button-down had a naughty side. Damn if that didn’t do his heart good.