A wave of possessiveness rushed through her at the sight of his plush, stern, moving mouth glistening with the remains of her gloss. He wiped the back of his hand across it as though he could feel it— and it made her want to smear her gloss across his lips once more.
Trying to distract herself, she checked her own cell phone. Five missed calls from the real estate agent. Not the time to call the chatty woman and not in the mood for anything except more of what she’d recklessly started, she tucked the phone away.
Zach was wrapping up, listening to his superior now, his expression severe. Paige could feel the anger coming off him, and more than that, was aware of something else. The air between them pulsed, felt dense and charged with lightning. His eyes kept seeking hers as he spoke; the look in them was heated and probing and as personal as his kiss.
“Yeah, Lieutenant, I got her,” he finally said, and flipped his cell phone shut.
He gazed broodingly at her red, swollen, thoroughly kissed lips, one hand on the wheel, the other casting aside his phone and coming to rest on his knee.
Silence.
A light smattering of mud she’d smeared across his hard cheeks still blackened bits of his skin.
His thumb tapped restlessly against his muscular thigh as he stared out at the sea of lights ahead. “Do I owe you an apology?” She only stared, reacting to his voice with a quiet inner fre
nzy. Promptly he added, “For what happened back there?”
Somewhat despaired he’d even ask that, she shook her head. “I’m the one who started.”
“You’re on a high.” He shot her a pointed look that seemed to arrow down to her nipples. “Endorphins.”
No. She was high on him. Zachary Rivers.
Who made her heart flutter.
And suddenly, excitingly, the thought that he could be high on her too sent even more adrenaline pumping through her veins, gripping around her tummy, stimulating her nerves. He’d been so excruciatingly, torturously rigid. So excited to grope her. So hungry for her. God!
Yes. He had her all right. May his lieutenant and his colleagues and the entire world know.
Zach totally, completely, had her.
“You know what, Zach?” She stared outside, her mind turning bleak as she thought about the message, the car, that heartless, motherless bastard.
“Hmm.”
He sounded contemplative, and the minute she caught the grim expression on his face and noted his strong, jutting knuckles as he gripped the wheel, Paige knew he wasn’t far behind with his thoughts.
“I’m not going back to Seattle until we find him.”
CHAPTER 4
HE RENTED A ROOM.
Small, cheaply furnished. It was the kind of place you could rent for an hour. Hardly the kind of place one would look for an Avery. Zach could picture her staying in a hotel room with fresh-cut flowers and complimentary mints. This place had complimentary condoms. And the only flowers to be seen were the ones on the label of the plastic air freshener by the nightstand.
Loathing having had to bring her here, he secured the locks, searched the small bathroom, and went to the window to examine the pitch-dark alley below. Escape route, if necessary. He closed the blinds, and at the same time, he closed his eyes for a minute. Get a grip, Rivers.
But damn. He was reeling.
Paige running away from him . . . Paige running for her life . . . Paige clinging to him.
Some twisted bastard was after her and Zach burned with the need to protect her in ways he hadn’t been able to before. But he couldn’t think, dammit, couldn’t find his cool head.
Because she’d kissed him. Kissed him.
She’d slipped her tongue into his mouth, had held his face in her hands and— dammit, his hands tingled at his sides. He was trying, and not very effectively, to keep from reaching out for her. He was thrumming with a raving need to take her body with his, lick every inch of her skin, spill days and weeks and years of wanting inside her.
“We’re spending the night here?”