“We’re supposed to be dancing.”

“So I was told. Alexi.” Snuggling into love as she would have into a cozy robe, she cupped his face in her hands.

“What?”

“I’m just looking. I want to make sure you’re not mad at me anymore.”

“I’m not mad at you.” To prove it, he kissed the tip of her crooked nose.

No, not angry, she thought, searching his eyes. But there was something else shadowed there. She couldn’t quite identify it. “My middle name’s Louisa.”

With a half smile on his lips, he tilted his head. “Okay.”

“I’m trying to think if there’s something else you might want to know that I haven’t told you.” Needing to be close, she rested her cheek against his. “I really don’t have any secrets.”

He turned his face into her hair. God, what was she doing to him to tie him up in knots like this? He pulled her against him, wrapping his arms tight around her. “I know all I need to know,” he said quietly. “We’re going to have to figure out those rules, Bess. We’re going to have to figure them out fast.”

“Okay.” She wasn’t sure what was holding her back. It would have been so easy to hurry out of the club with him, to go home and be with him. Her body was straining for him. And yet…

The first tremor of panic shocked her enough to have her pull back and smile, too brightly. She wasn’t afraid, she assured herself. And she didn’t need to overanalyze. When the time was right to move forward, she’d know it. That was all.

“Come on, Detective.” Still smiling, she pulled him away from the table. “Let’s see if you can keep up with me on the dance floor.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

Alex read over a particularly grisly autopsy report on half of a suspected murder-suicide, and tried to ignore the fact that Bess was sitting in a chair to his right, scribbling in her notebook. She was as good as her word, he was forced to admit. Though she did tend to mumble to herself now and again, she was quiet, unobtrusive, and once she’d realized he wouldn’t answer her questions—much less acknowledge her presence—she’d directed them to Judd.

He couldn’t say she was a problem. But, of course, she was a problem. She was there. And because she was there, he thought about her.

She’d even dressed quietly, in bone-colored slacks and a navy blazer. As if, he thought, the conservative clothes would help her fade into the background and make him forget she was bothering him. Fat chance, when he was aware of her in every cell.

He could smell her, couldn’t he? he thought, seething with resentment. That fresh and seductive scent had been floating at the edges of his senses all morning. Sneaking into his brain the way a good second-story man sneaks through a window.

And he could sense her, too. He didn’t need a cop’s instincts to know she was behind him, to picture those big green eyes drawing a bead on his every move. To imagine those never-still hands making notes, or that soft, agile mouth curving when a fresh idea came to her.