His hand was in my hair, cupping the back of my head. His other hand lifted me to him, hard across my back, effortlessly supporting my weight. His chest flattened my nipples. The time at the mall was just a tiny taste of his magic. This? This was heaven, or maybe hell, I didn’t know and I didn’t care. I wanted more.

The insanity-inducing liquid heat pooled under my breasts, sliding down my body, slowly, ever so slowly, tracing the sensitive nerves in my back and igniting them one by one until my whole body hummed with near ecstasy . . . he drank me in, like nothing else mattered, and I let him.

The heat crept down, lower and lower, winding in ribbons of pleasure around me. Pressure built between my legs, aching need and shuddering anticipation. The heat pulsed inside me, building and building.

He kept kissing me, the onslaught of his tongue relentless.

Oh my God. I couldn’t stand it. I couldn’t . . .

He thrust into my mouth. The velvet warmth drenched me. Pleasure was a river and I drowned in it, overwhelmed by the throbbing rush of ecstasy and delirium. My body contracted, so hard it almost hurt and I cried out, my hips arching up on their own.

The pressure between my legs broke into a cascade of aftershocks. I slumped against him, into his arms, and floated in a haze of bliss.

He held me to him and kissed me, the brush of his lips on mine almost tender.

Someone banged on the door. “Sir? Sir?” Daniela.

The reality slammed into me like a train. I made out with Mad Rogan and I came. I had a mind-numbing, life-altering orgasm that I would remember until the day I died, and he didn’t even take my clothes off. Oh no. No, no, no. I covered my face with my hands.

“What?” Mad Rogan snarled.

“You’re not answering your phone, sir. I have Augustine Montgomery on the line.”

“I’ll call him back,” Mad Rogan said.

“He says it’s urgent.”

“I’ll call him back,” Mad Rogan repeated, steel in his voice.

I heard retreating steps. His arms were still around me.

“Nevada?” he asked. “You okay?”

I’d shot my professional integrity in the face. I’d made a complete fool of myself. I’d made out with Mad Rogan. But worst of all, he’d given me a tiny taste of what it would be like to be with him. It was magic. It would be a drug that would be addicting from the first moment, and like a drug, it would consume me and leave me hollow. And he would leave me. I couldn’t have him forever. He was a Prime, he looked after his own interests first, and the moment I became boring or tiresome, he would walk away. Just thinking about it hurt.

“Nevada?” he repeated.

Get a grip. I took my hands off my face, pushed away from him, reached for the bed, and handed him his cell phone.

He took the phone from my hand and tossed it over his shoulder with a dismissive flick of his wrist. The cell phone thudded into a wall and fell on the carpet. He reached for me.

“No,” I told him.

“Why the hell not?”

“It’s unprofessional and dangerous. This didn’t happen.”

“It happened.”

“No.”

“It happened. I was there. And you liked it.”

“No.”

“You melted.” A male, self-satisfied smile touched his lips. “Like spring snow.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

We stared at each other.

“Fine,” he said. “You had no idea it could be this good. Nobody in your past was ever that good and you know that nobody in your future will ever be this good. You’ve had a taste and you want more. You want sex. Dirty, naked hot sex. It’s floating through your head as we speak. You think you can imagine what it would be like. Trust me, you have no idea. I haven’t even started. So run from it, think it over, pretend it didn’t happen, it doesn’t matter. I’ll allow it for now. The more you fight, the more irresistible it will become, until one day I’ll motion with my hand and you’ll come running.”

My fingers closed about something hard. I tossed it at his face. The chalk hit him square in the forehead. He blinked.

I got to my feet and marched into the bathroom to compose myself.

Chapter 15

Either Mad Rogan’s cell phone was shatterproof, or he had an identical supply of them, because when I came out of the bathroom, he was holding one to his ear, listening. He was also wearing shoes. We were leaving.

Mad Rogan beckoned to me and headed for the door. I followed, and we walked out of the room, down the hallway. Rogan moved fast, and I almost had to jog to keep up with him.

“Okay,” Mad Rogan said. “I need you to be there in ten. Can you do it?”

He hung up and sped up. “Augustine called. A police cruiser sighted Pierce driving into the city on South Freeway. They radioed it in three minutes ago.”

“Did he explode the cruiser into a fireball and then laugh dramatically?” I broke into a run.

“He ignored them, and then an armored vehicle following him rammed the cruiser and rolled it off the road.”

We burst out of the doors into the light.

Adam wasn’t taking the opportunity to make a statement. He was heading into the city on South Freeway, which would put him straight into downtown, and he was conserving his energy. He was about to hit Houston like a meteor. This had just turned into a race.

“Keys.” Rogan held out his hand.

I put them into his palm. He clicked the locks on the Audi and we got in.

“He doesn’t have the third piece.” Rogan reversed and stepped on the gas, and the Audi shot out of the parking lot like a bullet. “He made a huge production out of getting the first and the second, so he’ll make a production out of getting the third one. He knows where it is. We don’t.”

The radio came on. “This is an Emergency Broadcast. The Secretary of Homeland Security received credible evidence of a possible terrorist attack on the city of Houston. The risk of terrorist attack has been raised from elevated to imminent. Evacuate the downtown area. I repeat, evacuate the downtown area. If you’re unable to exit via vehicle, seek shelter in the tunnel system. The main entrances are . . .”

Mad Rogan turned it off. We wove in and out of traffic at a breakneck speed. A flood of cars clogged the street going in the opposite direction. Everyone in our lane was either turning onto side streets or trying to turn. People fled out of downtown.

“Mark Emmens has one daughter,” Mad Rogan said. “His wife and sister are deceased, and so is the sister’s husband. The daughter and her husband are accounted for. According to Augustine, nothing unusual has taken place in their life, but Mark’s grandson Jesse Emmens disappeared from his dorm room at Edinburgh three months ago.”