Wicked and Dangerous (3 page)

“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.

With blood giving fresh life to his unflagging erection, he dashed out to the family
room and scanned her e-mails in less than two minutes. Most were from family members
sending jokes or the parents of her students asking questions. A quick scan of the
documents saved on her hard drive only proved that she kept her checkbook in Excel
and she was a good little saver. Her Facebook was squeaky clean. He uncovered nothing
suspicious.

On her way through the house, Rachel had flipped on lights. Decker finally got a good
look at the comfortable place, ducking into each room to scan her pictures. He didn’t
see anyone who resembled the guy who’d hired him to kill Rachel.

Then again, if her ex was the guilty party, she wasn’t likely to keep heart-shaped
photos of him lying around after the divorce.

From down the hall, he heard her cut off the shower and he ducked back into the guest
room closet to wait for her to fall asleep. He wasn’t keen to spend the night against
a wall, shoved behind a bunch of coats, but he’d slept in worse places. Afghanistan
came to mind. He’d been through a few South American jungles in his time, too. At
least here he didn’t have to worry about terrorists or snakes.

A moment later, the disposable phone in his pocket vibrated, and he pulled it out.

Are you still awake?—Rachel

Oh, now, this was interesting. It was just after midnight. Did she want to reach out
and touch him?

Y
es, beautiful. Thinking of you. What are you wearing?

Since she’d just stepped out of the shower, he’d bet it was nothing or damn close
to it. He looked forward to seeing how she’d answer that.

Rachel waited a long time to reply, and he was just about to tap out a little something
designed to calm her nerves when she finally sent a message back.

Feel like coming over to see?

Did he ever . . . His cock completely approved of the idea, twitching at the thought
of getting deep inside her and spending most of the night. He’d been on one case after
another lately, and it had been way too long since he’d had a willing female in a
warm bed. The fact that he’d get to end his drought with Rachel was even sweeter.
Now he’d see that lush ass under the tight skirt—and fondle it, and bite it, and . . .
anything else she’d let him do. The fact that he couldn’t remember the last time he’d
been this into a woman he’d just met was a bonus.

Yes! Can you guess what has 142 teeth and holds back a hungry beast?

No idea
, she sent back.

My zipper, beautiful. Text me your address and I’ll show you.

Decker heard her giggle from the next room. Then her address flashed on his screen.
Oh, it was on now.

I’ll be there in 15
.

After a little squeal, she tossed her phone down and tore into the bedroom. Music
started blaring a moment later, and he heard her opening and closing the drawers and
doors in the bathroom cabinet. The hair dryer flipped on. That was his cue to leave.