Her lush mouth curved on one side. “You’re not rough.”
His brows lifted in silent chalenge.
“You’re not,” she insisted with a smile. “You’re fierce and in a dark mood, but not rough. And I wasn’t troling for any kind of ride. I came in here for a drink with friends and had every intention of leaving here al by myself.”
She pointed across the room to where three of the smal tables had been shoved together to make a grouping for a party of a half-dozen people. The men offered toasts to Raze, lifting their beers high. The women giggled and bent their heads together, speaking intimately. Their good-humored nervous response to him almost made him smile.
“Am I a bet, then?” he asked. “What do you win for having the courage to hit on me?”
“Hopefuly, a night with you.” Kim took another drink, taking the time to absorb the taste of the wine before swalowing. No liquid courage for her. “I was sitting over there, minding my own business, having a reasonably good time. Then I felt a tingle on the back of my neck. I turned around and there you were. I was just going to admire you from afar, but then I saw you were troling and figured why not me? Plus, I realy needed to admire you up close.”
“You’re out of my league.” But he was beginning to think that wouldn’t be enough to stop him.
She grinned, which belied her hands-off appearance and made her sweetly approachable. “So earn me. I won’t mind the effort, I assure you.”
“The effort I expend wil likely leave you hobbled in the morning,” he said harshly. “You have no idea what I need to get through tonight.”
Kim studied him for a long moment, taking a deep breath and then another. Something swept over her delicately beautiful features, something warm that briefly touched the chil in his gut. “I’m not into pain. If that’s what you need, then you’re right, I’m not your girl. But I don’t think that’s what you’re warning me about. You don’t want to hurt me; you just don’t want to hold back. And that’s what I need, Raze—a man who doesn’t hold back. That’s what kind of mood I’m in.”
Now it was his turn to study her. “Why?”
“Does it matter?”
“No.” Raze dug in his back pocket for his walet and laid out a hundred dolar bil for Sam. “Let’s go.”
“I have to say goodbye to the team. Got a preference for a hotel? I’l meet you there.”
Smart girl, he thought. He wrote his room number on a napkin and slid it over to her. “The Drake.”
“You already had a room? I admire your optimism.”
“I’m just passing through.”
Laughing, she bumped shoulders with him. “I’m just playing with you, rough guy. Besides, twenty minutes in the bar and you’ve already got two women wiling to go to bed with you, I’d say a little optimism is justified.”
Christ. He wanted her. His blood was thrumming through his veins, burning with an excitement he hadn’t felt in... wel, a long-assed time. Impatient expectation wasn’t in his nature. Or so he’d thought.
“Should I bring anything?” she asked, meeting his gaze.
“An overnight bag.”
She slid off the barstool and grabbed his wine to take it back to her table. “See you in an hour, Raze.”
He grabbed her elbow, squeezed gently. “Make it thirty minutes.”
Again, she searched his face. Again, she saw something that settled her. “Forty-five. I’l hurry.”
“Hurry faster.”
* * *
“Are you insane?”
Kim looked at her best friend and shrugged. “Maybe a little.”
“Your dad is a cop,” Delia reminded, twisting her martini glass back and forth. “Your brother is a cop. You know better than to go home with strange men you pick up in a bar. He could be a serial kiler or a sexual sadist or... anything!”
“It’s because I’ve grown up with cops that I know what I’m doing with him.” She’d watched the way he walked into the bar. The confident stride, the cooly observant eyes that took in everything, the way he carried his powerful body with limber agility. A hunter. She’d bet money he was undercover vice. Just as she’d bet money that something about his job was eating at him now and he wanted to put it away for a night, take some solace from someone who wouldn’t be around long enough to remind him he’d lost his edge for a few brief hours.
Looking back over her shoulder, she remembered watching Raze take a seat at the bar, remembered the way he’d looked into his glass as if the answer he was looking for could be found in it. Wasn’t she here for the same reason? To seek oblivion in the company of others. So they’d narrow it down to the two of them, and toss in orgasms and physical exhaustion. There were worse ways to spend the night. Like lying in bed alone, drenched in clammy sweat and shaking with fear.
Delia frowned, her dark eyes filed with worry behind her chic electric blue eyeglass frames. “This sort of reckless behavior isn’t like you. You don’t want to admit it, but you’re stil reeling from what happened to Janele. You’re not in the right frame of mind.”
Janele. God. Kim polished off the last of the shiraz. Even though she’d moved into a different apartment in a different building in a different part of town, she couldn’t get the memory of coming home to her roommate’s murder out of her head. The crazy ex Janele had been running from for years had finaly tracked her down and taken her life, then turned the gun on himself. Kim couldn’t close her eyes without seeing it al over again—blood everywhere, splattered over everything, pooling on the floor in a viscous crimson lake. The sharp metalic smel of fresh death had seared her nostrils, indelibly etching a nightmare on her mind.
“I have to go.” She dug her business card out of her purse and wrote Raze’s name and room number on the back. “If I turn up missing, here’s the last place I was.”
“Ha! That’s not funny, Kim.” Delia looked at the others. “Tel her she’s out of her mind. Stop her.”
Justin looked up as she stood. He shook his head. “Sorry, Dee. She’s not changing her mind. She’s got the devil in her eye.”
“Leave off, Delia,” Rosalind said, fanning herself. “That guy was seriously hot. I’m rooting her on. Go, Kim, go. Rock his world. Make him beg.”