Page 52 of Missing Justice

Except information. Which further complicated things because there was no way to analyze what the intruder garnered on the excursion.

At least Taylor hadn’t walked in on it. Images of her popped into Matt’s mind. Opening the door, surprising the perp, her chest blooming red from a bullet and…nope. Not going there.

Emotions, right now, wouldn’t help him. Logic. That’s what he needed.

He unlocked the front door of his bungalow, a foreclosure in Farimount Heights he’d nabbed at a great price. He waved Taylor in.

“It’s not fancy,” he said, “but it’s home.”

She strode by him, stepped into his small living room with the oversized windows and fireplace and spun back to him. “Matt, you surprise me.”

“Why’s that?”

“I pegged you for a city apartment guy. You know, footballs laying around, milk crates. Instead I get a tidy bungalow in the burbs with comfy looking furniture, stained wood trim and hand-scraped oak floors.”

Before he’d bought this place, he had been that guy. On his 31st birthday he came home alone, wasted from a night out with the boys, and something changed. Call it maturity or boredom. Being unsettled. The revolving door of women in and out of his life didn’t make for emotional stability.

In short, he’d had enough. The hangover the next day didn’t help.

He set Taylor’s overnight bag down and walked to her. “For the record, the trim and floors were here when I bought it and my mom helped with the furniture and curtains. I was fine with bare windows, but apparently that’s unacceptable. As for the tidy part,” he shrugged, “I don’t know. I guess I’m not a pig. I like order when I come home.”

She seemed to like that answer—score—because she ran her hands up his chest, brought them to rest on his pecs. “Another thing we have in common.”

Oh, they had things in common all right. He dipped his head and kissed her, softly at first, but Taylor had something on her mind and it clearly required use of her tongue. And what an amazing one it was. She swept through his mouth, worked her way over his jaw and down his neck and his body responded. Her being so close, she hadn’t missed that response, and brought her gaze to his while a wicked smile lifted her lips.

Damn, she got him hard.

She cupped his crotch, adding a squeeze. “Hi.”

“Hi.”

“Bedroom. Now.”

Then she was on him again, kissing, arching into him, taking everything up a notch in that Taylor way.

“Or,” she said, “maybe we won’t make it to the bedroom.”

If he wanted, he could put her against the wall and ram himself into her. That’s whatshewanted. He saw it in her hot gaze and the way she touched him in ways his mother would definitely not approve of.

But something felt…off. Forced. Not on his part. On hers. Completely fucked up, that. Between their crazy chemistry and how good they were together, the last thing a roll in the sack should have been was forced.

He stepped back, holding his hands wide. “Whoa, babe, slow down.”

She went for his shirt buttons and slammed her lips against his. “No. This’ll be good. I know it.”

A woman on a mission.

He didn’t doubt it would be. He wanted her, she wanted him. One plus one made two. A grand, stupendous, supremely amazing two and suddenly he felt the need to analyze?

Yes.

Shit.

Still with his hands up, he didn’t move. Just let her have at him, kissing, dragging her hands over his body, getting him harder and harder until his skin almost burst. This wasn’t right though. Intellectually, he understood that if he touched her, he’d be cooked. He’d shove her pants down, bend her over the couch and that would be it. They’d rock each other’s world, for sure, but as much as she believed it, she didn’t need sex now. Sex, in his opinion, was currently her replacement for a scotch neat.

And he wasn’t having it.

Not so much the sex, but the being used part.