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  She was looking through a two-way mirror, Augusta realized, and her arms tightened about her chest. She inhaled deeply, her nails digging into the fleshy part of her palm. Was he trying to intimidate her? Was that what he was trying to do by showing her the interview room he could’ve kept her in for hours on end?

  “Take a seat,” came the order from behind her.

  The inherent command in his voice had her spine straightening. She turned very carefully on her heel and faced him. He was leaning back too casually against the door she hadn’t heard him close. Augusta shook her head once, then she stood motionless as he studied her from beneath a hooded gaze. She took that chance to study him in turn.

  She hadn’t seen him in nearly a day and found herself disgustingly eager to refresh her memory. Not that her memory needed refreshing. She had him, his looks, his scent, his taste, his very presence, engraved in her mind. Quite simply, she couldn’t forget him had she wanted to. And if it was only lust, she could’ve handled that.

  “Why are you here?”

  His question made her blink twice. It was obvious, wasn’t it?

  “This,” he began, holding up the rolled Times, “wouldn’t have been enough to send you here. Not when you balked at the mere thought of walking through the doors yesterday.”

  Augusta’s hands shot out and gripped the back of a chair. Her knuckles were white. “I went home earlier and found reporters camped out in front of my house. But,” she continued, her voice rising and the words coming out more quickly with the resurgence of her anger, “that was only after I discovered the vultures circling the campus building where my office is and was consequently told by the faculty dean to take a leave of absence until further notice. They might as well have outright fired me. All because of that damned article. And you.” She took a deep breath, released it and regained a measure of control. “A ‘trusted source within the NYPD’ confirmed that you are concentrating your efforts on me because the latest theory is that I hired an assassin to do away with my estranged husband before the divorce could be finalized.” A sardonic eyebrow inched upwards as her voice cooled considerably. “Trying to sway public opinion so the trial’ll be easier? I didn’t think you would resort to such underhanded measures, Detective Markov.”

  There was the scraping of chair legs on the floor, then he was suddenly looming in front of her, over her, but Augusta refused to back down. She wasn’t about to give him the pleasure of knowing he could intimidate her. He had already taken enough from her. Her job, her privacy, her life. The life she was only beginning to reconstruct again.

  Nick cupped her shoulders and gave her a small shake. “Do you think I’d set you up? That I’d leak that garbage to the press?” When she didn’t answer, he shook her again and her hair came free of the loose swirl she had pinned above the nape of her neck. Her hair fell forward to obscure the sides of her face. “Jesus Christ. I spent the good part of my morning defending you. Everyone else is ready to hang you. Can you understand that? I’m the only one on your side at the moment.” His fingers tightened on her shoulders, making her wince, but she didn’t pull away. “And when I find the leak, he’s going to be writing traffic tickets for the rest of his career.”

  The anger dissipated, replaced by burgeoning hope tempered with wariness as she considered the possibility that he was on her side…and not simply biding his time. Very slowly, very carefully, her head tipped forward to rest against his sternum.

  His rough palms slid up her shoulders, lightly scratching her skin and leaving a trail of heat in his wake. His long fingers encircled her neck, his thumbs gently tilting her chin up. “How can you think that I would do something like that to you after what happened?”

  Her smile was sad and fleeting. “That was lust.”

  She felt his muscles stiffen and his fingers flex, and she prepared herself to be shaken once more. But he only said evenly, “It was more than lust, and you know it. You’re just too damned scared to admit it.”

  Perhaps that slide of hot-cold emotion she felt in her middle was the fear he mentioned.

  He pulled her closer and Augusta let him, but her arms remained limp at her sides. A low, masculine chuckle ruffled her hair. “I shouldn’t be doing this.”

  “Then don’t,” she whispered, but she didn’t move away.

  “I can’t help it,” he said, equally quiet. His right hand lifted and he drew his fingers through her hair, brushing it back from her face. He lowered his head even more, his frame almost stooped over hers. “And,” he added right against her ear, the light, tentative brush of his lips on the outer rim making her want to melt like butter all over him, “neither can you.”

  Augusta tried to bite back the sensuous, needy moan and failed.

  His strong, even teeth came together with exquisite care on her lobe. Her breath hitched in her throat. His tongue flicked out to tease her flesh even as he tugged with his teeth. Augusta’s lashes fluttered close. He was as gentle and giving now as he had been rough and demanding before. Both made her equally aroused.

  “All I’ve thought about since I dropped you off is getting my hands on you again…” And those clever hands swept a slow path down her sides, briefly tormenting the overly sensitive sides of her breasts with his thumbs. “And again…” Down to her waist, the small of her back, the gentle flare of her hips. “And again.”

  He filled his eager palms with her buttocks and lifted her up and closer to him, rubbing her in a circular motion against him. Hot, liquid sensation rushed through her and she exhaled sharply, fingertips digging into his shoulders.

  His name was a low moan as she blindly sought his lips with hers and wrapped her legs reflexively about his hips. His lips trailed to hers, nipped. Her mouth fell open, wanting more. He rubbed his pelvis against the warm notch between her legs, circling, pushing, and did it again.

  He groaned. “Not here,” he muttered harshly. “Not like this.” Another groan, then he pressed one final hard kiss on her lips and gently but firmly untangled her legs behind his back. Then bracketing her hips with his hands, he lifted her away from him and set her on feet. It was a few long moments before she was steady enough to lean back.

  Augusta refused to look up at him. The heat suffusing her face, neck and chest was now more due to embarrassment than passion, but passion still had her taking shallow breaths through her mouth.

  One final deep inhalation, then she swung away from the man who had just rejected her and gripped the back of a chair as if it was a lifeline. She stared into the interview room on the other side of the two-way mirror, the image out of focus.

  She should be grateful to him, though. If his common sense hadn’t kicked in, she wouldn’t have stopped him. They would’ve made love in a viewing room. No, she rectified, it wouldn’t have been making love. It would’ve been sex.

  Augusta lifted a small fist and pressed it beneath her left breast, feeling the warm weight. She sucked in another deep breath and pressed harder, as if she could stop the rapid pounding of her heart. Or at least muffle the sound, for it was so loud in her ears.

  “Augusta?”

  His voice came from right behind her, making her heart feel as if it would leap right from her chest.

  She was frazzled. A blind man could see that. She wasn’t thinking clearly, couldn’t think clearly. And being in the same room as Nick Markov wasn’t helping. In fact, it was the cause of everything. She moved for the door. Though humiliation burned, nearly searing away the last vestiges of lust, her words were steady. “I have to leave.”

  “Home?”

  “No.” There was no hesitation. She knew it a cowardly act, but after everything else, she didn’t want to fight to get back into her own house.

  “Then where?” he asked, his voice closer than before. She didn’t turn around to see how close. Instead, she grasped the doorknob.

  “Augusta?”

  “I…I…” She let go of the doorknob. She hadn’t thought that far ahead. “A…hotel, I suppose. I ha
ve my credit cards with me.”

  “Any resourceful reporter will know which hotel you’re staying at just in time for the evening news,” he said.

  She closed her eyes and exhaled loudly, then finally faced him. “Where do you suggest that I go, then? My place? They’re already there, waiting like vultures. Adam’s? They’d find me there in a heartbeat, and Adam doesn’t need that kind of attention right now.”

  His lips thinned, then he straightened his long frame, as if readying himself for battle. “You can stay with me.”

  Her slowing pulse skipped, then sped up again. “I beg your pardon?”

  “You can stay with me,” he repeated in a too neutral voice. “It’s the least I can do. You can stay at my place for tonight, and I’ll get rid of the reporters in front of your house by tomorrow morning.”

  She tucked a non-existent errant strand of hair behind her ear before asking, “And how do you plan on doing that?”

  “You don’t want to know.”

  “You mean you don’t know.”

  “I have an idea.”

  The temptation was strong, especially with the taste of him still on her lips. She swallowed. “Thank you, but no. I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  Augusta made a move to leave again, but suddenly a large, tanned hand was splayed on the door in front of her eyes. She froze, afraid to move for fear she would feel the press of his length along hers and lose control again. She had lost control twice today, and that exceeded her quota for the week.

  “Why not?” he demanded from close behind her.

  How had such a large man moved so quickly? And without her hearing it?

  “I don’t think you need me to spell it out for you, Nick.”

  She felt his breath on the sensitive rim of her ear. “No one will think to find you at my place, Augusta. Think of it as hiding in plain sight. You’ll be safer there than anywhere else in this city.”

  But not from you, she thought. And not from myself.

  “You can have my bed,” he added. “I’ll take the sofa.”

  She closed her eyes, trying to strengthen the thread that was her will.

  “Be reasonable, Augusta.”

  She blew out a breath. “You can keep your bed. I’ll take the sofa.”

  “Do you have anywhere else to go today?” he asked, taking a step back and giving her breathing space.

  “No,” she told him after a long hesitation. “Why?”

  “I’ll take you to my loft now. It’s a little hard to find.”

  “I drove here,” she said, following him as he opened the door and stepped into the hallway.

  “You drive?”

  “Yes. You don’t have to sound so shocked. I was born on the West Coast. Everyone drives there. And not only can I drive, I drive a standard.”

  “Make and model?”

  “An Audi S4.”

  He whistled. “Nice. So that was your S4 parked in front of your house.” His hand found the small of her back and guided her. “Then you can follow me in your car.”

  Bemusement drew her brows together. “You trust me to be alone in your home?”

  He spared her a brief glance. “Of course. Besides, as you pointed out, you make more than enough money. Probably a hell of a lot more than a cop’s salary, anyway. So there’s nothing at my place you would deem worth taking.”

  She quelled the urge to roll her eyes and kept her mouth firmly shut. She kept her gaze straight ahead, refusing to glance left or right, refusing to acknowledge the speculative gazes thrown their way as they cut through the squad room.

  The traffic was thankfully light as Augusta followed Nick’s car in her S4. The high-performance European car was made for driving, and she found herself enjoying the drive as she stepped down on the clutch and smoothly shifted into the next gear. She settled more comfortably into the leather seats and tuned into a classic rock radio station. It was almost like one of the Sunday drives she and Drew used to enjoy in the beginning.

  Augusta blinked a few times, sat up straighter and focused on the car in front of her. Her vision would be seriously impaired if she started crying. Rubbing the palm of her hand on the knob of the gear shift, Augusta promised herself that as soon as this was all over she was going to find a long stretch of open road and see what three hundred-forty horses can really do.

  A short while later, Nick was pulling into the parkade of a newer high-rise apartment building in Murray Hill. Augusta followed him and parked her sedan in the empty space next to his as he had indicated.

  “It’s my neighbor’s, but she doesn’t have a car,” he explained, as he ushered her into the elevator.

  They got off on the eighth floor, where he lead her to the far unit.

  “Oh, my,” she breathed, immediately met by a stunning view of the spacious living room—and the five windows that offered an even more amazing view of Manhattan and endless blue sky. It was a corner apartment, with north and west exposure.

  “Like it?”

  “It’s beautiful,” she said, taking only a brief moment to take in the ten-foot beamed ceiling, the hardwood floors and the comfortable furniture. Then her gaze was drawn back to the almost panoramic city view, hardly noticing as Nick gently pushed her further inside the apartment until she was leaning against the neutral-toned sofa.

  “How does a cop afford a place like this?” she asked, as she continued to gaze out at the inspiring view from his large windows, memorizing it. “Should I be worried?”

  “My father used to be a financial adviser who taught all his kids the importance of making your money work for you. And he always said property was the best kind of investment.”

  “Used to be?”

  “He retired a couple of years ago and bought a yacht. Now he and Mom are fulfilling their dream and going anywhere the water can take them. Last I heard, they’re somewhere in the Bahamas, basking in the sun.”

  A smile lifted her lips. “Sounds like fun.”

  “They’re having the time of their lives, and they deserve it.

  “I’ll give you the ten-cent tour and then I have to get back to the office,” he told her. He regarded her, brow furrowed. “You will be okay alone, right? I can stay with you if you need me.”

  “I thought you trusted me,” Augusta said teasingly, not wanting to darken the easy, almost playful mood between them. “I’ll be fine. I can amuse myself.”

  His grin was wicked. “That would be a pity since I can probably do a better job.” He laughed as he caught the small fist aimed for his sternum. “Just remember that if you fall asleep in my bed, I won’t mind.”

  Augusta didn’t think she could blush. She never had in the past. But the heat sliding into her cheeks proved that there was a first time for everything. To cover up her embarrassment, she withdrew her fist from his grip. He released her only to steer her across the room with his hand between her shoulder blades.

  “The bedroom’s through there,” he told her, pointing with his finger. “The bathroom’s the next door, and we passed the kitchen on the way in. You can’t get lost in a one-bedroom loft. You’ll find extra blankets and pillows in the wooden trunk in my bedroom.” He grabbed hold of her hand and pulled her along after him. “Here, I’ll show you.”

  “There’s no—”

  But he had already dragged her through the bedroom doorway.

  Augusta was speechless for a long moment. “Oh, my,” she finally sighed once more. “Detective Markov, you are single-handedly changing my opinion about bachelors and their lifestyles.”

  All the pieces in this room were part of a set, as attested by the gleaming dark oak of the dresser that matched that of the bed frame and headboard. The sheets and pillowcases were all complimenting shades of white and navy blue and green. Like the living room, it felt open and light.

  Standing behind her, he looked down at her questioningly. “In what way?”

  “In a good way. This is beautiful. If you ever decide to quit the force, you have a c
areer in interior decorating waiting for you.”

  “Confession time. My sister’s the interior decorator.”

  She tilted her head back and peered up at him, one brow arched. “Should’ve known.”

  The hands she hadn’t even noticed about her waist squeezed. Augusta yelped and jumped away from him.

  “Ticklish, are you?”

  She pinned him with a warning glare. “Don’t get any ideas.”

  “Sweetheart, ideas have been running through my head since you opened your front door yesterday morning.”

  For the second time in her life, Augusta blushed, speechless in the face of such bald-faced honesty. She turned her back on him and latched onto the first thing she saw to change the subject.