Veck knew he shouldn't answer his partner, and he sure as hell shouldn't have come around to stand this close to her. The right move would have been to start cleaning up the mess he'd made with the food - instead of creating another one.

Except he'd seen her staring at his body, and the expression on her face had been a hard, driving hunger. Surprising ? Yes. Satisfying? Could be if they followed up on it.

The trouble was, that was not the kind of thing you could tidy up with soap and hot water.

"What?" she whispered.

"I want to ..." The word was so crass that he kept it to himself.

"Say it."

He leaned in and put his lips by her ear. "You know exactly what I want."

"And I want you to say it."

"You sure about that. It ain't nothing nice."

Before he could retreat, she reached out and put her hands on his hips. Her touch was light as a shadow falling across his body, but he felt the burn all through him. And one thing was certain, if she drew him to her? She was going to know exactly what was on his mind.

The hold on him tightened. "Tell me."

His voice dropped to a growl: "I want to fuck you."

As she moaned a little, he kept going. "I want you naked. Under me. And I want to be inside you." He dipped down and ran his mouth over her neck. "But I know you specialize in conflicts of interest, so you are damn familiar with all the reasons this is a bad idea."

Cue her backing away. Or him stepping off.

Neither of them moved.

Shit, his body was teetering on out of control, his erection pounding to get free and do what it did best. Which meant that if they were going to do the right thing here, the strength had to come from her.

"Slap me," he groaned. "Push me away ... for God's sake, lock yourself in the bathroom or something. Because if you don't, I'm going to - "

"Kiss me."

God, the tone she used: That was a command, right there. And who was he to disobey an order? Especially from a superior?

Veck reached out and wrapped an arm around her waist. With a hard, impatient pull, he yanked her against his body. Next move was to take out the tie in her hair and throw it on the ground.

Man, she was edible with that stuff not pulled back, the red weight down around her shoulders, looking like it was more than ready to have a man's hands in it.

As he gripped the nape of her neck and locked on, he was damned aware that he was dominating the hell out of her, taking control of her body, holding her like he meant to shove her onto her kitchen table and kneel between her legs so he could suck on her sex.

But then again, that was what he wanted to do to her.

"I'm sorry," he said, aware that he was apologizing not only for what he was about to do, but for all the shit racing through his mind, all the down-and-dirty he wanted to put them both through.

And then he sealed their fate by sealing their lips.

Her mouth was soft under him - and so were her breasts against his chest and her hips against his cock ... she was soft and hot, the kind of thing he wanted to seep into and stay in awhile. But even as his pelvis curled in and his erection pulsed, in the back of his mind, he knew that conflict of interest was not the biggest problem they had. As much as he was pretending to be back to normal, he was ripped raw on the inside, between the shit in the woods and the update on his dad.

And he was worried Reilly looked like exactly the kind of Band-Aid he needed ...

It was the last logical, decent thought he had.

As he penetrated her with his tongue, his arms tightened up and his lower body arched again, the squeeze and stroke on his cock juicing him even further. And that was before he felt the shudder that went through Reilly. Clearly, she was right there with him, especially as her nails bit into his shoulders and her thighs split, giving him an opening to push one of his legs through.

With an internal curse, he shifted her around and eased her down on the table, on top of the paperwork she'd just printed out. Images of her with her legs over his shoulders and him licking up the center of her core made him think he might have done some false advertising with his F-bomb.

Well, not false, really. He was just adding a very vital tourist attraction on the way to the big event.

His palm swept down to the outside of her thigh and he lifted her leg, rubbing himself even closer to where he ultimately wanted to be. Breaking the suction of their mouths, he buried himself in her neck, nipping and licking.

"Let me see you," he groaned into her throat. "Let me ..."

Inside, another voice said.

Abruptly, he lost his rhythm, pulling out of the spiral and looking up. Now his heart beat for a different reason.

"What is it?" she said.

His eyes flashed around. Except there were no shadows darting around her rooster kitchen. No creaks of floorboards or squeaking hinges. Nothing staring in through the windows.

After a moment, his adrenaline faded, and he became aware once againwhere they were and what he'd been doing with her.

Maybe it had just been a really loud internal thought.

Which considering what had happened with Kroner the night before didn't make him feel better at all.

Her hand came up and lay on his cheek. "Are you okay?"

"No." He refocused on her face. Felt her body beneath his own. Heard her deep breaths. "But I don't want to stop. You're real to me ... and I fucking need that right now. I need ... you right now."

She was not like the other women he'd had: Her smart eyes saw too much, knew too much. Hell, he'd been naked in front of her from the first moment he'd met her - and that should have sent him running in the opposite direction. Instead? He just wanted the shit out of her.

"Then take me," she said, pulling her shirt free of her skirt.

He didn't give her more than a split second to change her mind: as he had with her lips, he ped in, running his hands under the opening she gave him, making contact with a whole lot of warm female skin. And then the buttons came free as if they had the same objective he did: all-access.

He reared up when the last popped open... . Holy fuck.

Red lace. Intricate red lace over a set of perfectly proportioned breasts.

Which meant that through the little cutouts, he saw her nipples, tight and straining.

"Do you like what I bought today?" she asked hoarsely.

"Not bad." He cleared his throat as his voice cracked. "Not bad at all. But what's underneath is even hotter."

With smooth grace, her hands went up and traced the bra's thin, bright straps ... then drifted down to the hard tips that, as she arched, begged for him.

On a growl, he shoved up her skirt and maneuvered himself between her legs, spreading them further with his hips as he went for what had caught his eye: Drawing her into his mouth through the amazing bra, there was the rasp of the lace against his tongue, but also peek-a-boos of the pink, tight flesh beneath.

Wasn't long before that was so not enough.

With a rough, impatient hand, he tugged the cup down, revealing her nipple.

"Fucking hell ..." he bit out. "You are - "

Uninterested in him talking: in a rush, her fingers grabbed onto the back of his head and brought him downward to her breast. As he sucked her in, she jacked up off the table, and that movement, that jerking, demanding shove snapped what last restraint he had. All at once, he took over, pushing one of his arms under her and lifting her further, using his other hand to go right between her thighs, to that heat behind her hose and her panties.

He rubbed her sex, his palm hitting the top, right where she needed -

"Veck !"

The sound of his name was all about the more, more, more. And he was going to give it to her. Switching sides, he bit the other half of the bra and pulled it down with his teeth, before he suckled on her opposite nipple.

This still wasn't enough, though. He needed full-contact naked. Here, now -

The moan that rippled up and out of her was just the kind of agreent that he needed to hear.

Christ, this was going to happen, he thought. This was going to happen.

Veck was totally dominant.

Reilly hadn't expected anything less, but what was a surprise was how much it turned her on. Part of it was her sense that if she got uncomfortable with how far they'd gone, he'd pull back in a second. But the other half was the way he handled her, the confidence, the power, the erotic possibility that came from his mouth and his hands and his intense, hot eyes.

No doubt he'd started out with a natural talent for sex ... and developed it over the years.

Abruptly, as if he read her mind, his stare flashed up to hers and locked on while he flicked her nipple with his tongue ... and as his lids lowered, she knew he wanted her to watch him.

What a sight it was. He'd pulled down the other side of her bra and was working her there, licking and sucking as his flat hand pushed into her. God, he was big - all over: His erection was a long, thick ridge rubbing against her inner thigh, his shoulders were so huge she couldn't see anything past them, and his lower body was taking up all the room between her spread legs.

With her breasts pushed up by the bra he'd pulled down, her shirt wide-open, and her skirt up around her waist, the next logical undoing was the thin nylon covering her legs, and she popped her pelvis off the table, feeling that circling palm of his press harder into her. Dipping her thumbs into the elastic waistband, she scooped the hose down and ducked her hips, the constriction slipping onto her thighs.

"I'll take it from there." Veck eased back, his eyes on fire as he stared at her body. "Mmm ... right where I want to be."

As he smiled like a predator, she brought her knees up to help as he stripped the hose off slowly. And it wasn't until the thin wisps were free of her feet that she had to wonder how far this was going to go. Was she really going to take what they'd started to the conclusion they were both gunning for?

If that was a "yes," there were practicalities to deal with.

But, crap, what a buzz kill the condom discussion was - and, yeah, now she knew why people made dumb choices when it came to sex. All the things that truly mattered, the things that were going to sting after these intense minutes were over and done with, the things she'd have to live with, maybe forever ... were nothing more than distant echoes she could barely hear, spoken in a language she didn't want to translate.

Fifty thousand years of evolution knew what was up.

With a surge, Veck came back to her mouth, kissing her deep as his hands drifted downward -

The curse that shot up her throat was more vibration than sound: His hand was back between her legs, brushing over her inner thigh, heading for the match to the bra he'd already seen and dominated.

"Veck!" she barked again as his touch slid to that center strip of satin.

He was careful, putting just enough pressure on that sensitive place, stroking her in a tight circle that made her body go both utterly loose and unbearably tense.

Screw the panties, she wanted nothing between them ... and yet the silk barrier was not all bad, the seam at the top adding another dimension to the rhythm he'd fallen into. And he didn't stop kissing her mouth or her neck or her breasts, until she felt as though he was all over her, surrounding her, taking her even though they had yet to become fully joined.

With a quick shift, he lifted his torso from her, and pushed his hips into her sex, locking their bodies together. Then curling his lower spine, he ground into her, stroking her with his erection as he looked down at the connection.

God, his face was dark with hunger, that cool reserve of his gone, that impassive mask blown to hell and gone by the driving need that locked his jaw.

They were going to do this, she realized.

Which was a shock. In her life, choices were made based on data screens of should and have to and better not. This hot sex was definitely in the last category ... and yet she wasn't going to stop it.

They were going to do it safely, however - although not in a bed. This table was working just fine.

But there were things she wanted to get a better feel for first.

Reaching down her body, she took her palm and slid it between them -

Veck's head dropped back. "Fuuuuuck ..."

Perfect sentiment: His erection was even bigger than she imagined, and it kicked against her palm -

The sound of the doorbell was loud as a gunshot.

And yet for a moment, she couldn't comprehend what the hell the noise was, or why she should care.

Veck recovered his senses first. "Pizza."

"Wha ...t?"

With quick, logical thinking, he reached over and canned the lights so that whoever had brought their pepperoni and sausage didn't get a floor show. Then, with efficient hands, he pulled her shirt back together, tugged the hem of her skirt down, and reached into his pants, rearranging his arousal so his fly didn't look like a circus tent.

"I'll take care of it," he said in a level voice. Like nothing had happened. At all.

As he walked off for the front door, Reilly sat up slowly, her head swimming and her body shaking. Holding her blouse together, his brisk return to normal made her feel totally out of control - and then she shifted herself off the table, and the papers on the Barten case fell to the floor.

The flurry of inpidual pages formed a kind of carpet at her feet, and they were just the kind of mirror she needed to see herself clearly in: Across town, there was a whole family mourning for a daughter they knew they had lost, and instead of focusing on their pain and her job ... she was hooking up with a man she had no business getting within ten yards of.

Couldn't get a better conflict of interest than this one. It was frickin' textbook.

Fumbling with the buttons on her shirt, she did them up fast and then bent down to pick the copies of the report up. As her hair fell into her face, she thought, where was her scrunchie?

Who the hell knew.

Tucking the tangled mess behind her ears, she pulled the printouts together with careful hands, reordering the pages, separating everything back into two piles, hers and Veck's.

Separate was better.

Had she lost her mind?

Downthe hall, the deep rumble of a thank-you was followed by the front door shutting and his heavy footfalls coming back toward the kitchen.

Standing up fast, she put the two stacks of papers on the table and kept her eyes on them. She couldn't look at him. Just didn't have the strength at the moment.

"I think you'd better go." Her voice didn't sound right, but then, she didn't feel right.

"Okay. I'll call a cab."

Crap. His bike was back at the station house, wasn't it.

With a silent curse, she muttered, "That's all right. I can drive you - "

"No, a cab is better."

She nodded and brushed the front page of the report ... right where Sissy's vital stats and disappearance date were listed. "We'll go through this in the office tomorrow morning."

"Yeah." As he pulled on his coat, the soft sound of fabric on fabric was loud as the doorbell. "I'm sorry."

She crossed her arms over her chest and nodded again. "Yeah, me, too. I don't know what got into me."

But she damn sure knew what would have if dinner hadn't arrived in the nick of time.

Moments later, he was gone, and he shut the door behind him so quietly it didn't make any sound.

When she finally looked over her shoulder, all she saw was the pizza on the counter. Uh-huh, right, like she was eating anything right now.

The box went right into the fridge.

On her way out, she passed the table and found her panty hose on the back of a chair. Her scrunchie, on the other hand, was on the floor by the archway into the little dining room. Leaning over to pick the thing up, she went eye-to-eye with the Victoria's Secret payload.

And realized that her bra was still waaaaaay out of place.

She left the bags where they were and fixed the immediate problem with a couple of jerks and a whole lot more cursing.

As she headed for the stairs, she thought, tomorrow she was wearing her old boring cotton underwear to work, thank you very much.