“Right.”
She threw him a quelling glance before she poured him a cup of coffee. “I told you I can take care of myself. Give it a rest, Eric.”
“That’ll be about as easy as you putting this crash-quest thing to rest.”
“I didn’t say it’d be easy,” Natalie told him as she handed him his cup. She sighed in relief when he accepted it.
No sooner had Liam parked his bike in the Harbor County Library parking lot the next morning than he saw Natalie walking toward him. He paused, appreciating the sight. It felt good, seeing her so unexpectedly. He’d wanted to check up on her since last night, but he didn’t want to seem as territorial and rude as her brother, so he’d refrained.
Barely.
She was dressed casually despite the fact that it was a weekday. She wore a pair of jean shorts that showed off her long legs and a tangerine T-shirt that enhanced her tan—not to mention the shape of her breasts. He was glad to see she wore her hair down. Most of it anyway. She’d pulled the front out of her delicate face, but the back hung around her shoulders.
He’d never seen such a sexy tumble of curls in his life. Most women would be flaunting that hair as a prime asset. Not Natalie, though. She never flaunted much of anything.
Natalie gave him a quizzical look as she approached. He blinked when he realized he was just sitting on his bike and staring at her like a drooling idiot.
He dismounted. Before she could say something that would stop him, he tangled his fingers in her hair and palmed her jaw. His mouth lowered. He’d meant it to be a casual kiss of greeting, but even more significantly, a reminder of last night. He wasn’t going backward, despite Eric’s irritating interference. He’d told her his intentions, and they hadn’t changed.
That’s what he’d meant the kiss to be. But when he felt her slight gasp of surprise tickle his mouth, when her lips softened against his and he registered her sweet taste, he lingered longer than he’d intended.
“Are you playing hooky, Natalie Reyes?” he asked her against her lips a moment later.
“What?”
She looked up at him. She looked gorgeous, lips parted, cheeks flushed, a dazed expression on her face.
He glanced down at her casual clothing teasingly. “It’s Friday—isn’t that an official CPA workday?”
“I’m not playing hooky,” she said, her forehead crinkling. She stepped back, looking two parts bewildered and one part irritated at herself for participating so enthusiastically in his kiss. He hid a smile. “It’s a holiday weekend coming up, and I’m just not that busy today. I thought I’d help you look up information on DuBois Enterprises and Alerveret.”
“Great. I could use the help,” Liam said, warmed by the fact that she’d come to join him. Suddenly the day seemed bright with endless possibilities. “I’ll take you out to lunch afterward.”
He grabbed her hand and kissed the back of it, smiling when he saw her mouth open in surprise at his brimming enthusiasm.
“Come on, detective,” he urged, tugging on her hand.
Operation kiss and distract, Liam thought amusedly as he led her through the parking lot. He would sneak beneath her defenses when she least expected it, then distract her before she had a chance to protest.
Before Natalie knew it, she wouldn’t be the least bit surprised that he planned on kissing her every opportunity he got.
A little over an hour and a half later, they walked down on Ontario Avenue, deep in discussion.
“It doesn’t make any sense,” Natalie said. “Neither your father or Langford, Inc., seemed to have any connection to DuBois Enterprises or Alerveret Corporation. Maybe it was just a red herring, your father’s interest in that news program.”
“It might have been,” Liam said thoughtfully as they turned down Main Street.
“You don’t really think so, though, do you?” Natalie asked, examining his profile. This morning there was a slight scruff of whiskers on his jaw. His hair was a windblown chaos of burnished waves. He looked a little intimidating—disreputable, even—so his occasional bouts of unselfconscious warmth toward her struck Natalie as all the more potent. One second she’d been admiring the image of him with his long legs straddling the sleek machine. Next he’d dismounted and kis
sed her.
She suspected her heart had just finally resumed its normal pace about five minutes ago, thanks to that kiss. She still hadn’t decided how she was supposed to respond to this new, playful, yet strangely determined Liam.
“I don’t know,” Liam replied, drawing Natalie out of her thoughts. “Nothing else seemed to be penetrating his misery on that night.”
“Liam, what are you doing?”
He glanced back at her, obviously caught off guard by her sharp question, his hand still outstretched to open the door of the Captain and Crew restaurant.