Jinxed!

Oh, God. What was he saying? She didn’t want to have to beat back the knot of hope currently blocking her air passage. “Ian-”

“I know, too little too late, right? But if you can’t believe me, Chloe, and you don’t believe in karma, then maybe you can believe in letting people right their wrongs, fix their mistakes. I want to make this right.”

She pulled his head to hers for another mind-altering kiss, where there were no misunderstandings, no mistakes.

All that existed was now, how he made her feel. He had his hands flat on the door on either side of her head, his mouth hard on hers, and she lost track of everything but this…God, this…

“My room,” she said between kisses.

“Again, just what I was thinking.” Still holding her, he turned away from the door. “Which way?” he asked, nipping her lower lip with his teeth.

Oh, God. She sank her fingers into his hair and returned the little love bite, thrilling to his rough groan. “Down the hall.”

In the hallway, he stopped to press her back against the wall, then plundered and pillaged her mouth, her neck, tugging open his sweatshirt, yanking down the tank and her bra to latch on to her nipple.

She cried out, fisted her hands in his hair and panted for breath. “First door,” she gasped.

He headed toward it with such fierce intent, she would have laughed, if she could breathe. In her room, he turned to the bed, but she directed him to the bathroom because that’s where she kept a-

“Condom,” he said, reading her mind this time.

“Top drawer-”

He set her on the bathroom counter and pulled out the top drawer. After grabbing a foil packet, he opened it while she yanked open his shirt and brought her mouth to his chest.

Somehow his shirt melted away, and then hers. Her skirt followed, as did his pants. Then he stepped between her legs, and holding her thighs wide, he drove into her, the power of his stroke making her gasp with unspeakable pleasure so that she arched back. He promptly attached his mouth to her exposed throat, sucking on a patch of her skin there as he took her. It was just as she’d craved-Ian, six-plus feet of solid, warm, hard, ungiving muscle, wrapped around her, in her.

And there was nowhere on earth she’d rather be. Please let this be real…

By his third thrust, she was trembling, on the very edge. His hands tightened on her thighs, opening her further to him, and rearing his head, he captured her gaze in his. “This is real, Chloe.”

Oh, God, she’d spoken out loud?

“Whether the fortune-teller said it or not, this is real. You and me.”

And then he sank into her again, and then again, until she was hovering on a plateau, held there, suspended, lost in the way he looked at her, touched her, said her name in that low, raw voice. He filled her senses as he reached between them and stroked her with a knowing thumb, so that she came all over him, wildly, messily, gasping for breath. Then he started all over again, and this time, they both went over together.

“So real,” he said on a thread of breath, sinking to his knees, pulling her down with him.

They lay there on the floor, gasping for breath, their bodies damp and cooling, hearts thundering against each other for a long time. Chloe ran her hand up the muscles taut in his back, unable to hold back her smile as he finally lifted his head.

“What are you thinking?” he murmured.

“Thank God some things never change.”

He let out a low, rough laugh, a glorious sound, then slid down her body, dropping kisses as he went, on her breasts, her belly, and then…“Oh!”

“So you still like that,” he whispered against her. “Let’s see if you still like…” And he brought his fingers and tongue into the action. “Yeah?”

She couldn’t answer, she was far too busy being whipped back into a frothy frenzy. And afterward, when she was still trembling, he rolled, pulling her over the top of him so that she straddled his hips.

Bending over him, she set her hands along his jaw and kissed him deeply. “What now, cowboy?” she purred.

His hands went to her hips. “Well, you could ride me off into the sunset.”

Which she did.

THEY MADE LOVE UNTIL close to dawn, and then finally collapsed into her bed. Snuggled in his arms, Chloe lay there with one of those stupid I’ve-had-amazing-sex grins on her face. She absorbed the warmth of him next to her, and let her fingers drift over his skin, feeling the tough sinew beneath. “You kept in shape.”

“I still play ball. For an old guys’ league.”

“Old guys, huh?” Didn’t feel older, just built. Seriously built. She grazed her lips over his throat. “You still got the moves?”

He let out a soft chuckle against her temple and wrapped his arms around her. “You tell me.”

Oh, yeah, he had the moves, and he spent the next twenty minutes proving it yet again.

They fell asleep in each other’s arms, and for a woman who’d been so fiercely independent for so long, it felt incredibly good.

Ian’s pager went off at dawn, and he got out of bed. Hair tousled, an extremely male, satisfied smile curving his lips, he grabbed a two-minute shower and came out of the bathroom with a pair of knit boxers low on his hips.

She fought the urge to tug them back down.

“Be careful,” she whispered.

“Always.” He leaned over the bed, his hands on either side of her hips and kissed her until her toes curled.

“I wish I’d tossed your pager out the window.”

“I’ll be back as soon as I can,” he promised.

“Take my spare key on the desk in the living room by my laptop-in case I’m at the office.”

He smiled his surprise. “You sure?”

So damn sure. “Yes.”

“’Kay.” And then he kissed her one more time before he left, a kiss that left her body humming.

She sighed dreamily, then tried to go back to sleep. She couldn’t. Instead she got up and headed to the shower, where she leaned back against the tiles as the hot water pummeled her deliciously sated body.

She was still grinning like a fool.

A fool in love.

Finding the energy, she reached for the soap, shoved her hair out of her eyes and-

Stared down the barrel of a gun.

She thought maybe she gasped in terror. She definitely staggered backward, coming up against the tile.

“Hello, Chloe,” Steve said from behind the gun.

9

IAN GOT TO THE OFFICE and took one look at Danny’s tight face. “What?”

“They lost Steve and Al.”

Ian went still. “What? The text message said-”

“Yeah.” Danny was tall, six-five, and as the point guard on Ian’s winter basketball league, that height came in handy. It did not come in handy for pacing the small, tight office, and he banged his head on the hanging light. “Damn it!” He rubbed the spot. “They’ve still got Al in their sites somewhere in Mexico City. But they lost visual of Steve at some point after midnight. Never picked it back up again.”

“And we’re just finding out? Christ, that was-” Ian looked at his cell phone for the time “-eight hours ago. He could be anywhere, he could be going after anyone he thinks will lead us to him. He could be-” He went still, galvanized by a sudden fear. “Here.”

“What?”

“He could be here by now. Shit.” He ran toward the door.

“Where are you going?” Danny asked.