...................................

Allie watched Rafe’s eyes darken.  Saw his gaze drop to her mouth.  So she couldn’t pretend later, even to herself, that she didn’t see the kiss coming.

She tried to think, to remember the consequences if she allowed him to cross that invisible line she’d drawn long ago. But her senses had clouded and all she could do was feel. 

“I’m ... not sure this is a good idea, considering,” she managed.

“You’re probably right, considering.”  He ran the pad of his thumb over her bottom lip.  “But I can’t think of a better one right now,” he added, then captured her mouth with his.

Rafe Diaz kissed like a fallen angel, coaxing and enticing and unrelenting.  He didn’t let up; didn’t allow Allie to breathe.  He just kissed her, slow and sure and endlessly, until she began to feel faint from the uneasy, exhilarating awareness that no man had ever kissed her this way.

There was nothing soft about him; not the magnificent shoulders her fingers clenched, not his hands that cupped her face, not his lips or tongue.  Nothing. 

She wanted, as she had never wanted before.  Never  dreamed of wanting.  The ache was so huge it left no room for reason.  The rightness of it was so clear it left no room for doubt.  There was only this moment.  This man. 

A whimpering moan rose in the back of her throat.  It wasn’t due to protest or pain, but of no-holds-barred desire. 

For Rafe, the sound that seemed to claw up from her throat was every bit as primitive as the need that raged through him.  He’d known desire before, but not this gnawing, tearing desperation.

His hands slid from her face, across her shoulders, down her trim, toned body to grip her hips.  When she strained against him, center to center, core to core, he was ready to rip off her jeans and feed those hungers.  More than willing to take what he craved without a thought for the consequences.

Consequences.

He slapped his palms on the wall on either side of her head to stop himself from touching.  From taking.  Fighting to regain both his breath and his control, he eased out of the kiss.  Stepped back.  

What the hell was he doing?

He knew better than anyone that every act carried consequences.  He’d walked out of prison, and painstakingly rebuilt a life centered around ironclad restraint.  It was clear now that this gorgeous, intriguing woman had the power to whisk away every bit of his control as if it were nothing but dust in the wind. 

He’d be damned if he let her.  Damned if he’d allow himself to be ruled by emotion.

Curling his hands into fists, he studied her while she leaned back against the wall, her blond hair tousled, her eyes closed, the lips that had taken him so close to the edge of reason slightly parted.  By the time her lashes fluttered up and her blue eyes focused on his, he had his control snapped back ruthlessly in place. 

“You were right,” he said.  “That wasn’t a good idea.”

Allie might have flinched from the remark if she hadn’t been braced against the wall.  Everything inside her was in a mindless rush -- her heart, her blood, her brain, and the man responsible now claimed that kissing her had been a bad idea.  Maybe when her senses cleared and reason returned she would agree, but how the hell could he sound so contained and unaffected when the same kiss had pummeled her insides into nuclear meltdown?

She searched the hard planes of his face, trying to find some hint of emotion, a flicker of feeling but there was none. 

Her pride scratched, she forced her mouth to curve.  “It’s good we’re in agreement,” she said, infusing her voice with a coolness that contrasted with the fire blazing in her system.

Just then, his cell phone rang.  Rafe dug it out of his pocket, checked the display.  “I have to take this.”

“Of course.”

On legs that felt like molten glass, Allie stepped to her cluttered desk.  Looking down, she stared unseeingly at the sea of papers and file folders covered with a fine dusting of fingerprint powder.  It was true that no man had ever driven her to almost complete abandon with just a kiss, but there was something more.  Something....

She went very still as emotion delivered a punch to her heart.  Shaken, she turned and looked at Rafe.  Phone pressed to his ear, he stood with his back to her, all tall and tough-bodied, his deep voice a quiet murmur on the air.  For an instant, she was back in his arms, his mouth plundering hers while a closeness that felt utterly foreign from anything she’d experienced with another man swept through her.

She closed her eyes while the wariness with which she lived every day of her life had her breath going shallow.  She had no idea what alien emotion had caused that finger-snap connection to Rafe, nor did she want to find out.  At this point, all she wanted was the safety of distance.

He ended the call, flipped his phone closed and turned.  His face was tense, his eyes cheerless in the office’s bright light.  “I know I said I’d go to your warehouse with you, but first I’ve got to meet Hank Bishop.”  

“I know how it is when a client calls.  You have to go,” Allie flicked a wrist toward the office’s door.  “I’ll ask Claire to go with me.  Maybe Liz can meet us.  They’ve both been there before so they might help spot something out of place.”  And, because the unexpected, unwanted emotions still battered her, Allie added, “You’re definitely not needed.”

“Even so, I want to see what you’ve got inside.”

“It’s mainly three floors of lingerie, sewing areas and offices.”

He walked back toward her, his gaze locked on hers.  “Slater needed to know the location of your warehouse because there’s something inside he wanted.  Or he at least thought it was there. He’s dead, but if he was working for someone, that person is still after whatever it is.”  Rafe checked his watch.  “How about I meet you and your friends there in about an hour and a half?”

Allie swept her gaze around her ravaged office.  He was right.  She’d been lured to her warehouse by a man who had tried to kill Rafe.  If he could help figure out what Slater was after -- and who sent him -- they could all get back to their own lives that much sooner.  

“Fine,” she said, using the same, void-of-emotion tone she heard in his voice.  “See you there.”

In the meantime, since the lust crawling around in her belly seemed to be all one-sided, she would do her damnedest to just get over it. 

it.