“Don’t assume. I have total control, right?”

  Was he serious? And was she actually aroused already? “Yeah.”

  “Naked means naked. Off with it. Now.”

  Blinking, Kerry paused. “In the middle of the living room?”

  “Whenever, wherever, and however I say. So, now, here, strip.”

  God, she should hate this. She took orders for her meager living, for Pete’s sake. Oh, but she’d never taken orders like this, from someone as sexy as Rafe. With a few words, her pulse began to skitter. Her nipples beaded. He could see, Kerry knew. She’d opted against a bra, and even now his gaze caressed the hard tips. They only got harder as he stared.

  Her body might be on autopilot to Orgasm Land, but her brain still had a little autonomy. And it wanted him just as hard.

  Reaching for the hem of her T-shirt, Kerry lifted it slowly up her torso. Cool air glided over her abdomen, her ribs, finally rushing across her breasts. Her nipples tightened even more.

  “No bra.” His raspy voice more than hinted that he wasn’t immune.

  Kerry looked right at Rafe, met his molten stare. The connection of their gazes whipped through her like a live wire carrying twenty thousand volts. Her body tingled, her vagina dampened and clenched just from his mere stare. She wondered how much longer her watery knees would support her. Likely not past his first touch.

  “No bra,” she murmured.

  “I approve. I hope you didn’t disappoint me by wearing panties.”

  Swallowing, she bit her lip nervously.

  “That’s mine to bite,” he warned. “Don’t play with it. In fact, don’t play with any part of your body without my permission.”

  His quiet commands drilled through her composure, past the veneer of civilization. She’d always pictured that she’d like a nice guy and they’d have nice sex. Nothing about Rafe was nice, including her scorching reaction to him. The likelihood they’d have nice sex ranked up there with the Loch Ness monster suddenly walking on land, or Tiffany joining a think tank.

  “Yes.” She had the oddest urge to add on sir, or master, or something.

  “You’re wearing panties, aren’t you?”

  Resisting the nervous urge to bite her lip, she answered, “Yes.”

  “Bad girl. Until we’re done here, you don’t wear them anymore. You don’t wear anything at all.”

  He crossed his arms over his massive chest and stared at her with an arrogant brow raised, as if he were some sultan making a pronouncement. Her mind rejected the idea of being totally submissive, despite how much her libido was enjoying it. Still, she’d made a bargain . . .

  “Are you this way with all women?”

  “Not really.” He hesitated and seemed to have something to say. In the end, he just shook his head. “No.”

  Kerry frowned. A wealth of meaning lay in that nonanswer. She had no idea what, though. Why would he treat her differently than other women?

  “Stop stalling. As hot as those swollen nipples are, I want it all. And y ou’re still half-dressed.”

  Closing her eyes, Kerry felt her pulse pounding between her thighs. He just didn’t give up. And she couldn’t stop liking this dominating side of him—a little too much for her comfort. Was it him? Was it her? Did she have some sex fever she’d never heard of?

  With shaking fingers, she plucked at the button of her denim shorts. The slow rasp of the zipper followed, the sound magnified by the utter silence. In its aftermath, she heard her breathing shallow, heard her heartbeat in her ears.

  Wait! This shouldn’t be one-sided. She’d never been easy before. Why start now?

  Raising her chin, Kerry stripped off the low-rise shorts—and only the shorts. She crossed her arms over her naked breasts to drive home the point that her little black bikini panties would stay firmly in place. Never mind that the two triangles of fabric barely covered the essentials. Never mind they were completely transparent. They were a bit like a bad birthday gift—it was the thought that counted.

  “Defying me already?” Rafe wore a shark’s smile, tinged with a hint of sin.

  Kerry’s knees went weak, and she leaned against the wall for support. “Yeah. So?”

  “You’re proving to be a very naughty girl who needs to be punished.”

  Cocking her head, she regarded him with a barely concealed smile. “You’d like to be the guy to dish it out, wouldn’t you?”

  “Yes, I would.” He rose to his feet, his sizzling stare wiping the smile off her face and nailing her to the floor.

  “Take them off.” His whisper whipped desire through her every nerve.

  “What if I don’t want to?”

  “You want to.”

  She did her best to look affronted, though she could feel her nipples hardening again under her forearms. “That’s awfully presumptuous.”

  “Not really.” Rafe lowered his gaze to the panties, zeroing in on the patch at the front. “You’ve made those panties so wet, they’re clinging to you.”

  His stare challenged her to deny it. She couldn’t.

  “Now, be a good girl,” he murmured, walking closer, closer, until he pinned her back flat against the wall and covered her bare chest with his own. His fingers locked in hers as he held her arms above her head.

  Kerry gasped at the heat.

  “Take them off,” he whispered, eyes scorching.

  Drawing in a shaky breath, Kerry closed her eyes, trying to absorb the overload of sensations and emotions Rafe elicited. His heat and musk enveloped her, while his voice inflamed her. No, that wasn’t all. He made her feel sexy.

  For the first time in her life, a smart, stylish guy like Rafe wanted her. She wasn’t from Fantasyland; she knew it wasn’t forever. But to imagine that she could intrigue him enough to persuade him to stay and help her, that he would desire her as hotly as his eyes claimed . . . it was her own for-now fantasy. And she was determined to enjoy it.

  She wriggled one hand free of Rafe’s grasp and plucked at the strings holding up her panties. The sheer black scrap fell to the ground, leaving her completely bare.

  Rafe took half a step back and devoured her with silver eyes that all but glowed with lust.

  “You make me crazy,” he whispered as he closed in and wrapped his hand around her nape.

  His mouth came crashing down on hers. Nothing about his kiss was tentative. He took her mouth in a deep, possessive claiming from the first touch. Kerry opened to him like a drowning woman welcomed a life raft. Instead of saving her, though, his touch created waves of desire that tugged her under, where common sense no longer applied, where nothing but this man and the way they felt together mattered.

  His mouth left hers, nipping at the sensitive spot where her neck met her shoulder, before traveling down to hover over her breast. He licked the hard point of her nipple with a quick rasp of his tongue, then dragged the edge of his fingertip over the sensitive flesh. He finished with a puff of cool air.

  Lightning streaked through her body. Kerry cried out.

  “I love how responsive you are. You could come for me in the next two minutes, couldn’t you?”

  Before she could answer, Rafe massaged her nipple from root to tip once, twice, before his fingers glided their way down her belly and into the soft nest of curls between her thighs. It took him less than an instant to find her clit, now beyond wet and throbbing. With sure fingers, he began caressing her with wicked, circling strokes.

  Kerry gasped, her head falling back against the wall as pleasure drenched her, stealing her voice, buckling her knees. Rafe held her up, silently demanding she take what he gave her.

  He used his feet to spread her legs farther apart, opening her more fully to him. “You’re going to come for me, aren’t you?”

  Whimpering in answer, Kerry lifted her hips toward his magic fingers, praying he didn’t stop. Sensation built, spiraling into need, into something she would have begged for if she could find the words.

  When he pressed his fingers inside her, she gasped in shock, in pleasure.

  “You’re so incredibly tight,” he whispered. “I can only imagine what it would be like to be inside you, thrusting with long, slow strokes that constantly drag my cock over this spot right here.” He found the bundle of nerves, and his fingers imitated his words. In seconds, he had her trembling and gritting her teeth against the monster orgasm mounting just out of reach. “I’d love to be inside you,” he continued. “You’d be all tight and hot, pulsing around me when you come. Just like . . . now.”

  The building dam of sensations inside Kerry burst. Vaguely, she heard herself cry out. But mostly she felt Rafe all around her—his fingers inside her clenching vagina, the hot slabs of his chest rasping against her nipples, so heavy and swollen.

  Rafe planted warm lips on her neck as she began to come down. “You look beautiful in pleasure. I can’t wait to see you come again.”

  He kissed her mouth gently, lingeringly. Kerry returned the kiss tiredly, then lay her head against his shoulder, her body slumped against his.

  She could hardly deny that she felt sated. Orgasms so intense they caused black spots in her vision weren’t an everyday occurrence in her admittedly short years of masturbation. But somehow, it was more. It was Rafe, who for all his big, bad words and whispered demands made her feel safe and desired.

  And she’d bet that beat nice sex with a nice guy any day of the week.

  By 1:18 A.M., Rafe was forced to admit two things: Kerry looked both amazingly sweet and touchable while curled on her side sleeping naked, and there was a very real chance she’d been telling the truth about her brother.

  Heaving a tired sigh, he sank to the edge of the bed and removed his socks. He couldn’t resist looking over his shoulder at his temporary love slave. Moonlight glowed on her oval face, illuminated the enticing curve of her lush rosy mouth. At the sight, his dick stood due north, as it did anytime she was near. He’d had a stiff johnson for lots of women in his life, so that was nothing new.

  The gooey sweet feeling in his chest felt totally unfamiliar. She was getting under his skin, and he wasn’t sure why. On the surface, she was a waitress with a half-finished college education, without a complete grasp of common sense, and had a family member who might soon be spending hard time in prison. But Kerry wasn’t the kind of woman he could see merely at a surface level. The lengths she’d gone to in order to help Mark still astounded him. The fact she’d plotted and flawlessly executed his abduction amazed him. Then she, the woman with next to zero sexual experience, had nearly seduced him . . . more than once.

  Rafe saw in Kerry a loyal, warm-hearted beauty where he’d only assumed to find a ditz. He glanced at the time on his cell phone: 1:20 A.M. Kerry was his to touch and explore at will for roughly the next forty-two hours.

  If he held her to the bargain.

  His conscience warred with his libido. He wished he could tell them both to pound sand.

  He almost regretted persuading her to strip earlier. Almost. But seeing her reaction had been too important. He had to know, could Kerry handle a sexual relationship under these odd circumstances? To her credit, she hadn’t cried or pleaded or passed out. Not Kerry. Instead, she’d toyed with him, teased—and responded beyond his wildest expectations. Rafe couldn’t shake the memory of her flying apart with his fingers deep inside her, her cry resounding in his ears. Still, he wasn’t sure about her readiness to have a two-day fling. Her body was ripe, no doubt, but emotionally . . .

  Emotionally? Rafe frowned. When had he ever worried much about a lover’s emotions? Sex was recreation. It was like eating ice cream—great for the short while it lasted. When you got tired of one flavor, you moved on to the next. Ice cream never cared whether you wanted it now or later, or even at all. It never wanted to get to know you, hear your feelings. It never demanded that you “share yourself.” So why should he worry overmuch about a woman he wouldn’t be with in two days’ time?

  Without an answer to that question, he cursed softly and stood. None too gently, he tugged at the fastenings of his slacks and shucked them, kicking them aside, along with his boxer-briefs.

  “Rafe?” Kerry whispered in the dark.

  His entire body tensed at her voice. Lust, anger, more complex feelings he couldn’t name all swirled in his gut.

  “Sorry to disturb you. Go back to sleep.”

  Instead, she sat up and pushed a curly lock of pale hair from her face. Her green eyes shone soft, sleepy in the moonlight. He read trust in that expression. Amazing.

  “What did you find?” she whispered.

  Might as well get this discussion over with now. “If you’re telling me the truth, that Mark is a smart guy who knows only a little about computers, there’s no way he did this.”

  Sleep left Kerry’s face, to be replaced by a luminous smile and a deepening of the trust in her expression that seemed to blow a hole in his chest. “Thank God.” She took his hand. “Thank you. What made you decide he’s innocent?”

  “I didn’t say he was, exactly. But . . .”

  Kerry snatched her hand away and crossed her arms over those beautiful naked breasts. “What does that mean?”

  Shaking his head, Rafe urged her to sit back against the headboard, then handed her the bedsheet. If she wanted to discuss e-security and the transactions in question, looking at the enticing curve of her breasts and her soft sex—while seeing all the trust in her eyes—would not help him to be coherent. She cuddled up with the luxurious Egyptian cotton without comment.

  Willing his stiff cock to stand down, he sat beside her. “Let me start at the beginning. In a case like this, one of the first questions I have to answer is, was the job done from the inside or the outside? In this case, the bank’s software at the time of the theft looks fairly up to date and most of the key security patches had been installed. Their software wasn’t configured very well, and I’ll fix that, since that’s part of my job. But it would still take someone with a fair amount of skill to hack into that system, and even then, they couldn’t frame an employee in this way without having some inside information.”

  “Okay.”

  “Since I didn’t find any evidence of firewall tampering around these transactions, I’m ruling out external theft. I agree with the FBI here. That makes this an inside job.

  “Different questions arise when you’re dealing with an insider. How did it happen? Did the criminals trick an employee into giving away vital information? It’s one of the easiest ways to steal because companies don’t train their employees to spot cons. Someone slick can call an employee, claim they’re from IT, and ask for sensitive information. A lot of well-meaning people don’t think twice about a request like that.”

  “Oh, that makes sense. Do you think that happened here?”

  “Hard to say. It’s always a possibility that someone unwittingly assisted a criminal, and since we only know from Swift Codes that the money went to Grand Cayman after it left Standard National, we can’t follow that lead. Another possibility is that someone on the inside performed the transactions via an unauthorized access point.”

  “Huh?”

  Against his will, Rafe smiled. “It’s not uncommon for an employee to get fed up with the amount of time it takes their company’s IT department to obtain and install the equipment they feel is necessary to do their job. This means they circumvent the process by bringing their own from home or buying new equipment from their department budget. They install it themselves and hook it up to the network.”

  “People know how to do this?”

  Rafe sneered. “Yeah, there’s always one wise guy wherever you go.”

  “And the people monitoring the network for the company don’t know the new equipment is there?”

  “If they aren’t paying real close attention, no. I’m not ruling this out as a possibility; it goes hand in hand with weak electronic transfer controls.”

  She frowned. “You’re losing me with the Techese, Spock. Could we have this discussion in English?”

  Rafe grinned. “When businesses began doing more things via computers and e-mail to eliminate paperwork, they unwittingly circumvented a lot of the approval processes, as well as the paper trail. They frequently lose track of all the people approving transactions. That may not have happened here, but I suspect it may have played a role in the reason money was stolen on multiple occasions with Mark’s ID before anyone discovered it missing.”

  “Oh. That fits. Mark said that half the time Smikins had no idea what was going on. He often delegated things that he was supposed to do himself.”

  “Peachy.” Rafe’s voice rang with sarcasm. “Another common issue is crappy password policies.”

  “Like an e-mail password?”

  He nodded. “But think larger. Passwords are required for most every system. There’s one required to log on to the funds transfer system used at Standard National Bank. That’s how they pointed the finger at Mark. Whoever did this used his ID. They had to have his password to do that. Unless you’re so mentally challenged you make Jessica Simpson look like a genius, anyone seriously trying to embezzle money doesn’t leave this obvious an electronic trail. A neon sign is more subtle.”

  “But someone framing Mark would want it to be obvious.”

  “Exactly. Who had access to his passwords? Do you know?”

  “Mr. Smikins for sure. Mark used to complain that he insisted on keeping a current list of everyone’s passwords, even though it was against company policy to share passwords with anyone. That’s why I’ve suspected him all along. He hated Mark with a massive purple passion.”

  “Because . . . ?”

  “Smikins is an autocrat with short man’s disease and all the sex appeal of a kumquat. And he wanted Tiffany bad. But Mark, who could pass for a Viking in the right clothes, landed her.”

  “That could be a motive, I guess. Who else had access to Mark’s passwords?”

  “I’m guessing that Tiffany, his wife, might have his passwords. She works at the bank, too. That’s where they met, in fact.”