“What was that about?” Kerry asked with a scowl. “He’s just concerned.”

  He snorted. “Concerned with finding a way into your pretty panties, I’d guess. Is he your boyfriend, Kerry?”

  Fighting the urge to ball his hands into fists, he stared at her, waiting. The bitter feeling churning in his gut was totally unfamiliar, but he recognized it as jealousy. The thought of this Jason guy calling her sweetheart and maneuvering his way into her lingerie pissed him off.

  “I told you in the limo—not that you probably remember—but I don’t have a boyfriend.”

  Oh, he remembered. “I’m guessing Jason would be happy to volunteer.”

  Kerry shook her head, frowning. “No. He has a girlfriend. Mara is great. I think he’s going to propose soon, in fact. Jason is just Mark’s best friend. I’ve known him for, like, five years. He’s never even made a pass at me. And even if he was interested, Mark made it clear to Jason that I’m off-limits. Seriously, I’m pretty sure Jason thinks of me as a sister by default.”

  Staring at Kerry’s pretty, pink-tipped breasts, the enticing curve of her waist, the beauty of her smile, the soft exterior that hid true female grit, Rafe couldn’t imagine how any red-blooded man could look at Kerry and think sister. Even her delicate feet were graceful. Was Jason blind? Stupid? Tempestuous, zany Kerry was one of the most interesting women Rafe had ever met.

  “Okay, stop with the skeptical expression,” she said. “I’m going to have to tell you something, and I didn’t want to. It will only freak you out.”

  “I’m already freaked out. You’re out of your mind if you believe Jason isn’t looking for a way between your legs. If your ‘friend’ is a typical guy, he’s going to look for any opportunity to get laid, girlfriend or no. Don’t you know that about guys?”

  Something in her face closed up. “Thanks for the 411. Now get the hell away from me.”

  What? No sooner had she turned her back on him, than he grabbed her shoulders and pinned her to the mattress. “I’m trying to explain Jason’s motives to you. How does that make me the bad guy?”

  She cast her gaze on the wall over his shoulder, refusing to look at him. The gesture crawled under his skin.

  “You’re not. You’re just telling me about guys. Thanks.” Her voice sounded anything but appreciative.

  Suddenly, Rafe got it. He took hold of her face and blocked her view of the wall behind him. Now she had nowhere to look but at him. “I didn’t mean me.”

  “You are a guy.”

  “I’m not going to apologize for wanting you. Yeah, I want to nail you. So what? A few minutes ago it seemed pretty mutual. If it makes you feel any better, I don’t have a wife or a girlfriend. I’m just not keen on the idea that you might be attached. I generally don’t poach.”

  Bullshit, the voice inside him said. It wasn’t the idea that he might be poaching that annoyed him; it was the idea of any other man touching her.

  What in the hell was wrong with him?

  “Goody for you. Someone get the guy a medal,” she muttered.

  Rafe tossed up his hands and stood with a sigh. “Look, I’m just trying to make sure you understand that Jason’s motives aren’t as pure as you think. I’ve delivered my warning. If you want him fucking you when we’re through here, I guess that’s your business. Hell, for all I know, maybe he already has.”

  Kerry squirmed away from him, thrashing for freedom. “You’re an idiot! Jason hasn’t done anything to me.”

  She stood on the other side of the bed, her manacles allowing her that much autonomy. Then she grabbed the sheet and covered herself from neck to knee, directly defying his earlier request. Her thoroughly pissed-off glare told him her disobedience was intentional.

  “Jason hasn’t ever touched me.” Then suddenly, she looked away. “No one has. I’m a virgin.”

  Chapter 5

  Shock coursed through Rafe like a jolt from a power line. He said nothing for a full thirty seconds.

  He had been born and raised in New York City and frequently walked through Times Square. The place seemed to spawn the unusual. He ignored street preachers screaming about the coming of eternal hell and damnation with the same ease he disregarded contortionists making their living out of a tip cup. Generally, nothing surprised him.

  Except, once again, Kerry.

  “Virgin,” he said finally. “As in never had a man’s cock inside your pussy?”

  Kerry rolled her eyes. “That’s a lovely way of putting it. You are one smooth talker.”

  Her sarcasm rubbed his raw nerves with all the softness of steel wool. “Hey, I could have asked if you’d ever been fucked. But you haven’t?”

  Clutching the sheet to her, Kerry frowned. “That isn’t exactly the way I would have put it either, but no, I haven’t.”

  Seriously? Maybe not . . . But in their short acquaintance, Kerry hadn’t exactly received awards for her honesty, Rafe reminded himself. “How do I know that’s the truth?”

  “Why would I lie about something this embarrassing?”

  She had a point. What would lying accomplish? And as much as he didn’t want to, Rafe believed her. Her virginity explained so many things, like why she looked both fuckable and undeniably sweet in that short skirt she’d worn the night they’d met, why she blushed after a few wicked words. It also explained the hint of inexperience he’d caught in her kiss and why she’d never given or received oral sex before him.

  And she had agreed to allow him to be the first man deep inside her body.

  “Why?”

  “Why what? Why wouldn’t I put it that way? I’m not fond of dropping F-bombs. I mean, I sometimes lose my temper—”

  “Why now? Why me?” Rafe swallowed against the thread of impatience he heard in his voice. “Why the hell did you agree to this bargain when you didn’t even know what you were signing up for?”

  “I’m a virgin, not a moron. I know what sex is.”

  “That’s not the same as having it. That’s like saying you could handle a tiger because you’ve read about them.”

  “Siegfried and Roy thought they could handle tigers after twenty years’ experience. You see how well that worked out.”

  “You’re impossible.” He sighed.

  Kerry sank to the edge of the bed, turning her back to him. “And you’re freaked out. I knew it. That’s why I didn’t want to tell you.”

  “You were going to let me find out the hard way?”

  “It would have been over and done in a minute, no big deal. It isn’t like I saved my virginity for some shining wedding night. I just never . . . I never met anyone I wanted to be with. Between being shuffled from foster home to foster home and Mark getting cancer, losing it just seemed like a low priority.”

  Rafe crossed his arms over his bare chest. “And you weren’t going to tell me. That would have been a fun discovery. What if, for our first time, I’d started reaming you from behind and smacking your ass for the hell of it?”

  “What if you had?”

  “It’s not a virgin sort of way to have sex.”

  “There’s only certain positions virgins are allowed to use?”

  Staring at the ceiling, Rafe started counting to ten. “Seriously, you never had a single boyfriend volunteer for virginity patrol?”

  “It’s not like I broadcast the fact. Look, I had plans to lose it on prom night, but my date was more interested in the bottle of vodka he smuggled into the dance.”

  “Too drunk to perform?”

  “Too busy vomiting on my dress—while he had his hand down the front of it. That was the extent of my experience. At least until you.”

  Rafe felt like his head was about to explode. He’d never wanted the responsibility of being the first man inside a woman and showing her all about sex. It seemed too time consuming, first of all. He preferred a woman who knew what she wanted and wasn’t shy about asking for it. He liked women who understood how to please a man.

  Being a woman’s first seemed so intimate, inevitably creating emotional ties he didn’t want. Women were sentimental about their firsts, or so he’d been told, and he didn’t want anyone sentimental about him.

  Kerry inspired anxiety . . . but not the kind he expected. The responsibility bothered him, but in a different way. What if he hurt her? Hell, he would; it was simple biology. But the rest of the thoughts jumbling inside his head were totally unexpected. Rafe wanted to teach her about her pleasure, about his. He planned to do everything he could to make sure she remembered him. Even the thought of Kerry remembering him sentimentally didn’t disturb him. He relished the idea of being inside her, where no one else had been. And for as long as he was with her, no one else would be. Was that territorial? It felt suspiciously so.

  Why?

  He needed to think, to breathe some air not swarming with her teasing sugar-sunshine scent. He had to find some view somewhere in this two-by-two cracker box not teeming with views of Kerry—or his memories of her touch.

  “Is my laptop here?” he said.

  “You’re angry about this.” Her beautiful, bare shoulders slumped. “What can I say? I’m sorry. Look on the bright side; I’m disease-free.”

  How could he want to castigate, comfort, and screw her all at once? What the hell was she doing to him and his normally rational brain? He closed his eyes and counted to ten—again.

  Rafe had to pick one emotion, so he chose the safest. “Kerry, when have you not tried to manipulate me? Everything you said in the limo was a lie. You drugged me, kidnapped me, stripped me down, tied me up—”

  “And I’m sorry for it all. I am. Believe me, I’m really not like that under normal circumstances.”

  Her apology barely registered. “You tell me Jason isn’t your boyfriend—”

  “He isn’t.”

  “And that he doesn’t want to get into your panties. I still think you’re feeding me bullshit designed to throw me off track somehow. Then you agree to have sex with me, while having no intention of telling me you’re a virgin. What’s next? Are you from outer space? Or having Elvis’s love child via immaculate conception?”

  She huffed out an angry sigh. “Elvis is dead and I’m not green or pregnant.”

  “With you, I’m not sure that’s proof of anything.”

  “Oh, get over it.” She smiled. “At least you know I can’t pull a fast one on you à la The Crying Game.”

  He glared.

  “Okay, okay. No more surprises,” she promised.

  “Right. You want me to investigate this case of your brother’s, who you swear is innocent. And you’ve given me tons of reasons to believe that.”

  “You’re angry. I got it. You have a right to be angry. But I did everything to help Mark. I would never lie about him. Helping him is too important. And before you forget, you’re the one who came up with this little sexual blue-light special. Don’t act like I twisted your arm here.”

  As much as the truth pissed him off, Rafe couldn’t refute that. In the moments since she’d agreed to their hot sex bargain, he’d been desperate to touch her, taste her, take her. He’d been far less angry about his abduction and far more focused on how her wet slit would grip his cock and what sort of noises she would make when she came. Worse, even after a great blow job, he still felt that desperate urge to know every part of her body intimately.

  Shit.

  Rafe made his way down the hall, to the closet. He quickly dressed in his slacks and dress shirt. “Where is my laptop?”

  As he reappeared in the bedroom door fully dressed, panic tightened Kerry’s face, widened her eyes. “Rafe, can’t we talk about this? I know you’re angry, but—”

  “Where the hell is my laptop?”

  “In the living room, next to the TV,” she murmured, tears welling in her green eyes. “Are you leaving now?”

  He should. He should. He knew he should . . . but somehow he didn’t want to, not until he savored her every delight . . . and tortured her a bit with her own medicine.

  Mind spinning with possibilities, he approached her and reached for the handcuff key. “I promised to look into your brother’s situation. You promised me forty-eight hours of sex. I’m going to work on my end of the deal now. I’m uncuffing you so you can rest and live up to yours later. Until I come to you, leave me the hell alone.”

  For three hours, Kerry listened to Rafe in the front room, trying to imagine what he was doing on her brother’s behalf. It beat trying to forget everything they’d done together in this rumpled bed. The orgasm he’d given her had made her body explode with such force, Kerry was stunned her brain hadn’t burst with it. The feel of his tongue rasping over her slick flesh while his finger prodded the bundle of nerves inside her . . . even the memory electrified her more than a light parade at Disney World.

  Equally enticing was the freedom and power she’d had with Rafe’s body. Like velvet steel under her hands, his skin enthralled her. He wasn’t one of those bodybuilders whose biceps exceeded their brain cells. He was lean, like a swimmer. The salty-musky man scent and taste of him had her hormones doing the Macarena. Tiffany really had given oral sex a bad rap. What a rush! Feeling Rafe tense, hearing him groan as he clutched her hair in his fingers, gentle yet aggressive. That’s how Rafe kissed her, touched her. If he took her to bed in that same fashion . . . Well, the thought made her shiver.

  Again, he’d persuaded her through his touch, his kiss, to say yes. Even after he’d given her plenty of opportunity to say no. How was that possible? She wasn’t easy, except with him.

  In a weird way, she trusted him. He had no reason to be kind. When he had stayed with her after managing to trick her and tie her down, she’d been stunned. Of course, he must actually want her. Guys couldn’t fake an erection—at least not that she was aware of.

  And there was no denying that, despite everything, she wanted him.

  “What the hell?” Kerry heard him mutter down the hall.

  The tapping of the keyboard and a few soft curses later, he rose to pace the hardwood floors. None of that sounded promising, and Kerry wished she knew more about computers than surfing AOL required. Jason had always called it Internet with training wheels. Maybe she should have tried to come out of her cybershell. Too late now. It was up to Rafe.

  Could he find anything to help Mark?

  Before the abduction, Kerry had been certain that an expert like the esteemed Rafael Dawson could find the proof needed to free her brother. So certain, she would have bet a lung. Now she wondered. Maybe it wasn’t that easy. Could someone alter, freeze, or heaven forbid, erase the files that might prove Mark innocent?

  Positive energy, she told herself. Rafe was the best; he’d find something.

  Tiptoeing down the hall, Kerry peeked into the front room—and drew in a sharp breath.

  Rafe sat, gorgeous and shirtless, in the cottage’s red leather chair. Muscles rippled along his bronzed shoulders and back, around the sizable width of his arms, every time he moved. A pulse of heat beat low in her belly, and Kerry chastised herself. No matter how yummy, now was not the time to indulge her overactive hormones with Rafe. Biting her lip, she held in a sigh.

  His laptop rested on the ottoman. Rafe’s gaze alternated between her file folder full of Mark’s case information and the square color screen. Kerry didn’t want to disturb him, but the suspense was killing her. She also didn’t want to endure another tongue-lashing. Suffering Rafe’s sarcastic temper was not her idea of fun.

  “You don’t follow directions well, do you?” he asked, not looking up from his work.

  He’d heard her? Tugging the lavender shirt over the short shorts she’d donned, she asked, “How did you know I was here?”

  Casting a glance over his shoulder, Rafe shot her a sardonic glance. “Let’s just say you shouldn’t apply to work for Spy-master.”

  “I can’t be that loud. I have bare feet,” she protested while wiggling her toes.

  He snorted. “I grew up listening for the sounds of sneaky servants and my father. If I didn’t listen hard enough and move fast enough, there was hell to pay.”

  “In trouble a lot as a kid? I can picture that.”

  “My fair share, anyway.” He shrugged.

  Kerry’s imagination provided an image of Rafe, all dark razor-cut hair and fancy prep school uniform framing silver eyes full of mischief. The only thing that had changed since then was his clothes . . . or lack thereof. Damn it all, why didn’t the man put on a shirt so she could think straight?

  “Find anything yet?” she asked.

  Rafe glanced over his shoulder, that hot silver gaze zeroing in on her. “You mean other than the fact you’re wearing clothes when I told you not to?”

  “I mean about my brother.” She anchored her hands on her hips.

  He shrugged. “Still looking into it. Tell me, was Mark a smart guy in school?”

  “Honors all the way. He was a whiz with math and science. Without him, I would never have made it through my first semester in college. Algebra Two nearly did me in.”

  The smile Rafe tried to suppress showed through. “What about computers? Does he know much about them?”

  “Only what he learned at the bank. Jason had been teaching him some . . . before his arrest. Mark had just been promoted to assistant manager and needed more computer skills.”

  Something in Rafe’s gaze sharpened. “Do you know what Jason taught him?”

  Kerry shook her head. “It all sounded like Greek to me. If I was at Mark’s house when he and Jason talked cybergoo, I usually found my sister-in-law, Tiffany. She’s always good for chats about General Hospital and the merits of nail polish.”

  “Hmm.”

  “What’s that mean?” she demanded.

  “Maybe nothing. I don’t know yet.” Rafe twisted in the red leather chair and riveted her in place with a challenge of a stare. “Let’s talk about you. Let’s talk about the fact you’re dressed in more than your birthday suit.”

  “Well, I . . .” she sputtered, as caught off guard by his tone as by the tension coiling low in her belly. “I assumed that since you weren’t in the room—”