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I lost my capacity for rational thought after that kiss.
I took a deep, calming breath. Bad idea. Lee’s scent, a mix of clean laundry and flowers, filled my lungs. I gripped the leather-encased steering wheel hard enough to turn my knuckles white. The kiss had been a mistake.
A fucking hot-as-hell mistake. She was Ray’s little sister.
I replayed our interactions that morning, from the sweet blush that had colored her cheeks when I said good morning all the way through to the argument and the kiss.
The argument was a car without brakes hurtling down a mountain. I had completely lost control. There were only two ways it could have ended: I either kissed her or walked away. I slammed my fist on the steering wheel.
I should have walked away.
But if my second tracking device was discovered, she’d never let me close to her again.
She’d pushed every button I had. That damn key digging into my chest, the dull pain radiating out from the point of contact like a ripple on the surface of a pond. When I grabbed her wrist, I should have pushed her away, not dragged her closer. But I needed her body pressed up against mine more than I’d needed anything in a long time. She was all volatile emotion, and I’d wanted to taste it—her frustration. Her passion.
Now I couldn’t forget it. The feel of her in my arms. The plunge of her tongue into my mouth. I rubbed my thumb over a tender spot on my lower lip. My cock pulsed at the memory of her bite. I shifted uncomfortably in the cushy leather seat.
I stopped at a light and flipped open the mirror on the sun visor. Traces of her lipstick ringed my mouth like red wine. A fitting comparison. She was intoxicating. I pulled the hem of my shirt up and scrubbed the stain away while I navigated a right-hand turn.
Guilt stabbed my heart. It felt a lot like Lee’s key digging into my sternum.
“Ray. I’m so fucking sorry. I panicked. Let the wrong head take over. I promise not to lose control like that again.”
In my head, I heard Ray laughing at me. Telling me it wasn’t the first time I’d been caught thinking with the wrong head. I’d gotten used to missing Ray. It had been two decades. Months, even years, would go by, and I wouldn’t think of him. But right then, the echo of his laugh sounded real. I half expected he would be next to me if I turned my head.
He wasn’t, of course. Only Onyx’s hair-covered towel was on the cream leather seat.
I rolled to a stop in front of a small auto repair business. Israel, a third-generation Miami Cuban, stepped out of the office, wiping his hands on a rag, and jogged to the Bentley’s window. Israel’s shop was the only one John trusted to work on the agency’s vehicles.
I rolled down the window.
“Nice ride. John give you a raise?” Israel smiled and waved me toward the bay door that was slowly opening.
“I wish!” I called as I maneuvered the car into the shop.
Once parked in the bay, I got out and circled around to the passenger side, where the doughnut was installed. The mechanic and I shook hands.
“If you would mount a new tire and put this on the undercarriage somewhere.” Redundancy was the key to continued success. I passed him another tracker. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d installed one for the agency. A small part of me felt like a stalker tracing her movements, but I ignored it.
“No problem. Pop the trunk. I’ve got to get the model numbers off the flat.” He slid the tracker into the chest pocket of his coveralls, unconcerned.
I clicked a button on the key fob, and Israel pulled the flat tire from the trunk. As he yanked it free, something silver clattered to the cement floor. I bent and retrieved a cheap butterfly knife from the ground. I turned it over in my hand and opened the blade.
“What kind of asshole hurts a beautiful car like this?” Israel asked, pointing to a few holes in the tire he laid on a workbench. “Punch a guy in his face, but leave the Bentley alone.”
“It’s a woman’s car,” I told him distractedly as I compared the cuts in the tire to the knife blade. It didn’t take a crime scene investigator to realize the knife had done the damage. Lee’s tires had been slashed while the car sat behind her shop…and she never told me.
My chest grew tight with a mix of annoyance and concern. I flipped the knife closed and shoved it in my pocket. Ominous questions crowded my mind. Who? Why? What next?
Slashed tires weren’t an end game. They were the opening gambit, afuck youto the car owner. Some prick threatened Lee, but she arrived at my house screaming about the tracker that night. She must already know who slashed her tires. Otherwise, there was no way she’d have gone to the effort of figuring out where I lived. Not that a Google search was a big deal. But I wouldn’t have been a priority.
The tire slasher was her known enemy. And now, my unknown enemy.
Maybe the universe brought Lee into my life exactly when she needed me the most. I would fight for her and beside her. Help her deal with the prick who was threatening her and drag her back on the right side of the law. Suddenly, the GPS trackers felt noble. I was the good guy—the savior to her damsel in distress. The tracker was my window into her world.
“Should I just put it on the Agency account?” Israel interrupted my thoughts.
“No, this is personal.”
