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“Think so?” she teased.
“You’ll see. But I really do have to go. I have a couple of serious interviews to do at the Downing place tomorrow and I’ll need to do some research first in our violent-crime database.”
She lifted her head and stared up at him with soft silver eyes. “Don’t get shot,” she said.
He grinned. “I’ve only been shot twice, and that was overseas, before I went with the Bureau.”
“Twice?!” she exclaimed.
He liked the concern in her voice, in her face. “Just in the shoulder and in a leg,” he said. “Nothing serious.”
She was lost for words. She grimaced. Her fingers went automatically to the deep scar across his chest. “You do dangerous work,” she said softly.
He shrugged. “Any work is dangerous if you don’t plan ahead,” he said. “And since Angie walked out on me, I haven’t minded the danger so much.” His face was harder than stone as he spoke.
“Would she want you to take dangerous jobs if she knew?”
“It wouldn’t matter to her,” he said simply. “She never actually cared enough to worry about what I did, or if I was in danger.”
She smoothed her fingers over his hard, beautiful mouth. “I’d care,” she said, a little belligerently. “She couldn’t have been much of a girlfriend.”
His eyebrows went up. He didn’t say a word, but his world turned upside down. He looked at her as if he’d never seen a woman before. His fingers went to her faintly flushed face and traced down her cheek to her mouth. “If you were involved with me, you’d care,” he said abruptly.
“Yes.” She cleared her throat. “But I’m not involved with you.”
He smiled gently. “No, you’re not. And you aren’t going to be,” he added softly. “I live in Chicago. I’d never adjust to life in the wilds of Colorado.”
She sighed. “I guess not.”
He bent and kissed her tenderly. “And on that note, I’d better go back to my motel.”
“Not just yet,” she whispered, her silver eyes searching his dark ones. “You could pretend you cared, just for a couple of minutes, couldn’t you?”
One dark eyebrow went up. “Pretend?”
“I know, you hotshot FBI guys don’t deal in fantasy,” she said. “And I know you’ll never want to settle down in Raven Springs, Colorado. But you could kiss me just once like you meant it, couldn’t you?”
“Why?” he asked, his eyes piercing as they stared straight into hers.
She swallowed, hard. “Because I’ve never been kissed like that in my whole life, and I’m curious.”
“You’re a pretty girl,” he said. “I can’t believe that.”
“I’m shy with most people,” she confessed, studying his mouth. “I don’t mix well. My father drove off any guys who weren’t brave enough to deal with him, and nobody at work wants anything that isn’t casual.”
“Casual.” He cocked his head. “You don’t go in for one-night stands,” he translated.
“Or any other kind,” she agreed. Her eyes searched his. “But just one time, just to see what it would feel like. You know, if we were, well, involved.”
His big thumb rubbed over her lower lip. He could feel her tremble. “You couldn’t handle being involved with me, little violet under the stair,” he scoffed tenderly.
“Are you sure?”
He nodded. “And I can prove it, too,” he murmured as he bent his head and his warm, firm mouth came down on her lips . . .
Chapter Three
A few seconds after Tom curled her against his broad chest, she realized what he’d meant when he said she couldn’t handle an interlude with him. All those years of practice that he’d had made her feel like a teen girl on her first real date. She had no idea that a kiss had so many emotions, or that it could make her want to do shocking things.
