Kara was missing, and she was in a hotel room with Ethan Taggart, her body still humming from the aftermath of s.e.x. She looked at the clock. Four forty-one a.m. She should go back to sleep, but her brain cranked into overdrive the way it only can at four in the morning when the rest of the world is asleep and all you can do is worry.

Worries about Kara pinged off thoughts of Ethan and what she thought she was doing sleeping with him. Visions of her nearly empty bank account and the impossible dream of moving back to Seattle slammed into memories of Mich.e.l.le, memories she tried to keep concealed but that forced their way forward at this time of night.

Why had she shared that with Ethan? She never talked about Mich.e.l.le to anyone. Hadn't even shared the details with John, her ex. All he'd known was that Mich.e.l.le had died and Toni didn't like to talk about it.

Then again, her not talking about it was always what John brought up when he complained about Toni's intimacy issues. But for whatever f.u.c.ked-up reason, she'd been compelled to share it with Ethan, explain why she related to Kara, wanted to give him some sort of explanation.

Bad enough that she let him into her pants, but letting him into her head was even more foolish.

The masculine weight next to her shifted and Toni stiffened as a sleep-warmed hand curled around her hip and drew her close.

"You're thinking too loud," he murmured and slid his hand over her stomach, up her rib cage to cup her breast.

Her thoughts dissolved into wisps of smoke as his thumb lazily circled her nipple. "Sorry if I woke you up."

He responded with a grunt and shifted until she could feel the hot weight of his erection pressed against her a.s.s. "I won't complain if you promise to help me get back to sleep."

Toni smiled in the dark. His mouth was hot and wet on her neck, her shoulders, his teeth nipping at her earlobes. She shifted, trying to roll to face him, but he held her firm.

"This way," he whispered, the erotic intent in his voice enough to make desire pool and pulse between her legs.

One touch and her body was already eager for more. Already conditioned to want him with the slightest encouragement. Toni didn't want to think about the ramifications, so she closed her eyes and gave in.

Strong arms wrapped around her and his big, long-fingered hands rubbed and pinched her nipples, probed the drenched folds of her s.e.x.

"Your p.u.s.s.y is so tight," he whispered, parting her legs with his knee as is fingers entered her from behind. "I just want to sink my c.o.c.k inside you and stay there for a week."

A shuddering moan bubbled from her throat. She'd never been with a man who talked about s.e.x so frankly. It embarra.s.sed her. But it turned her on even more.

And he knew it, too, felt her body clench around his fingers as he stroked and pumped. He groaned in response, rubbed his c.o.c.k against the bare flesh of her thigh. His fingers slipped out, pulling a rush of moisture in their wake. She reached between her legs and grasped his c.o.c.k in her hand, stroking and rubbing him against the slippery surface of her inner thigh.

"That's right, so perfect," he whispered and pulled her back against him. He pushed her leg down, closing her thighs over his bare, throbbing c.o.c.k and adjusted his position so his shaft nestled against her cleft.

He'd never felt anything like this. The slickness of Toni's p.u.s.s.y as he stroked against her. The tight fist of her hand, stroking and pumping the head of his c.o.c.k as he thrust against her. Jesus. He was rubbing against her, not even f.u.c.king her, and it felt better than being inside any other woman.

Being with Toni in any way felt better than being inside another woman.

He shoved that panic-inducing thought aside and reached his hand down to stroke her c.l.i.t, get her in the game, keep her flowing hot and wet. She moaned and tightened her thighs around his shaft, and he shifted till he was riding even more firmly against her dripping slit.

He wished he could f.u.c.k her without a condom, something he hadn't done since he was young and stupid and could use that as an excuse not to know any better. Nowadays he didn't mind using protection, even appreciated that condoms lessened his pleasure enough that he was never in danger of losing control.

Not with Toni. s.h.i.t, he couldn't keep control even when he had a condom on. Who knew what would happen if he ever got inside her without one?

f.u.c.king nuclear fission.

She was gearing up for her own explosion. Her free hand-the one that wasn't squeezing the head of his c.o.c.k in a way that made his b.a.l.l.s tingle and tighten with every pump of his hips-was fisting in her pillow. Hungry, needy sounds clawed their way out of her throat. Sweat bloomed on her shoulders, and he licked a bead away with his tongue.

He left it, reluctantly, just long enough to reach for a condom. He pried her legs open and rolled it on in record time and thrust inside her even faster.

She gasped, her back arching as her body stretched and struggled to accommodate him. She was soft and supple from their earlier f.u.c.king, but he was big, and she was tight. Tighter than any woman he'd ever been with, gloving him and gripping him with every thrust and withdrawal.

His fingers slipped between her thighs and found the hard bud of her c.l.i.t. Taking it carefully between his thumb and forefinger, he milked her, gently stroking as he thrust into her from behind. She went rigid, her thigh muscles flexing against his as she moaned, almost sobbing now.

He could feel her grasping him, her c.u.n.t rippling along his c.o.c.k as her o.r.g.a.s.m built and he stilled his thrusts. He wanted to wait, wanted to make it last. But was too late. Toni covered his hand with hers, pushed his fingers more firmly against her c.l.i.t as she rocked against him in quick, desperate thrusts of her hips.

"Oh, G.o.d," she moaned. "Please. I can't-" her voice broke on a low moan and her p.u.s.s.y clamped down hard, her body pulling him deeper, ripping his own o.r.g.a.s.m from him whether he was ready or not.

His eyes squeezed shut and he came so hard he almost blacked out. He pulled her to him. She was breathing hard, shaking, and he wondered if she felt the way he did. Like she'd been ripped apart and put back together. Like she didn't know whether to push him away and take off running or yank him close and never let him go.

Tonight, for him, holding her close won out. He tucked her long body against him, kissed the damp skin of her neck, and wondered how terror and contentment could coexist inside one man's skin.

The second time Toni woke up in Ethan's arms she didn't waste any time getting out of bed and away from him before she did something foolish. Like have s.e.x with him a third time. She was already in danger of reading way too much into the fact that he had s.e.x with her twice in the s.p.a.ce of six hours. He wasn't anything like the experienced, polished lover she'd imagined him to be. Instead he was all raw s.e.x and uncontrolled desire.

As if she really drove him crazy. And if she let herself believe that, she was in for a world of hurt.

She slipped out of bed, taking a moment to indulge in this scene, burn it into her memory. Ethan lay on his stomach, head turned to the side, his dark hair tousled and spiked. The sheet was twisted around his waist, and the long, rippling muscles of his back were relaxed, shifting under skin she knew would be hot and smooth under her fingers. Her hands clenched into fists as she retreated into the suite's sitting room.

She dug through her backpack and pulled on her bra, underwear, T-shirt, and jeans like they were armor and flipped on her computer, mostly for something to do. She checked her phone to see if by some miracle Kara had texted or called and somehow she hadn't heard her phone ring, but of course she hadn't. She checked her e-mail, too, but no luck there, either. She checked both of Kara's FacePlace pages to see if she'd posted any new messages.

Nothing.

Toni stared mindlessly out of the suite's window, her brain touching on what Toby said about Kara like a tongue exploring a sore tooth.

She tries to act like a good girl, but she's into all kinds of s.h.i.t. She wanted to do those pictures. Liked the idea of doing it behind everyone's back. Especially her dad. Did you know he bought her a Mercedes after she signed the pledge? She loves driving around in that car, still getting away with everything she can.

Toni blew out a sigh. She hadn't known about Jerry's bribe, just knew Kara had a nicer car than Toni could ever hope to afford. She hadn't known about a lot of stuff Kara was doing. But the image of the spoiled-brat Internet Lolita didn't jibe with the Kara Toni knew.

Regardless, Toni refused to believe the pictures were Kara's idea. Toni wasn't so far from seventeen that she couldn't remember the dumb stuff she'd done, hoping a boy would like her. And Toby had that slick, smug, manipulative thing going that told Toni he got off on using people, getting them to do what he wanted, using money, drugs, whatever he could as leverage.

He reminded her too much of another rich, spoiled a.s.shole. Another who got away with murder, since his A-list defense attorney was able to convince the jury that a wealthy kid from a good family would never have to resort to raping a drug-using s.l.u.t like Mich.e.l.le. And he would certainly not have it in him to strangle her when he was through.

Toni shoved the memory away. Kara was not Mich.e.l.le, and it was unlikely she was going to turn up in a Dumpster. She was a confused kid going through a hard time who had decided to go AWOL for a few days.

She didn't really believe it, not one hundred percent, but if she didn't think positively right now she was going to drive herself crazy.

The lights of the Las Vegas strip flashed and pulsed against the sky as dawn broke over the desert. Toni was startled from her reverie by the sound of the bedroom door opening and closing. Ethan had donned his pants but foregone a shirt, and he looked rumpled and male in the red-gold light pouring into the suite.

A little thrill pulsed through Toni's lower half as she admired the muscular beauty of his chest, arms, and abs. Now that she wasn't blinded by a haze of l.u.s.t, she noticed several scars decorating his torso. She wondered what it would be like to trace the marks with her tongue. Her stomach flipped at his lazy, sleepy smile.

She steeled herself against it. No matter how great the s.e.x was, she couldn't let herself get sucked in further.

"Morning," he said, his voice s.e.xy and sleep graveled. He turned to look out the window, his back and shoulders rippling as he yawned and stretched. Toni stared at his bare back, fighting the urge to press her lips against the acres of warm, tanned skin. How could he be so casual when she was so keyed up?

He turned and walked over to her. She held her breath as he dropped a kiss to her forehead. "Last night was amazing, Toni."

She held herself stiff, willing herself not to melt into his kiss, hating herself for the disappointment that surged when he walked away without doing anything else. She didn't want him to pull her into his arms, hold her against his chest, and kiss her the way he had last night. Like she was the only woman in the universe he'd ever wanted to kiss. "Yeah, I bet you say that to all the girls," she said, hating how snappish she sounded to her own ears.

Ethan chuckled and gave her shoulder an affectionate squeeze. The kind he'd give his sister if he had one. "Not all of them," he said, with a wink that made her jaw clench.

His eyes had none of the intensity or awareness of last night. He smiled without really smiling, his gaze slid by her as if he didn't really see her.

He was on autopilot, his typical morning-after routine.

She was too smart, too much of a realist for this to hurt as much as it did.

"I'm going to order us some coffee," he said when she didn't smile back. "Then I'll call the airport and see about getting the plane ready."

"Great idea," she said and headed for the escape of the shower. Once the hot spray hit her, the events of the last twenty-four hours came crashing down. She leaned against the wall. With the spray of the shower, she could almost convince herself there were no tears running down her face.

G.o.d, she was an idiot. There was a reason she didn't do casual s.e.x. She'd had a single one-night stand in her entire life, and it had left her feeling exactly like this-disappointed and empty.

Scratch that. This felt worse. She'd opened up to him, told him things she didn't share with anyone. And the s.e.x had been...Mind-blowing didn't even begin to describe it. Like something inside her had finally ventured out to make a tentative connection with another person.

She suspected that Ethan found a similar connection with anyone in possession of a v.a.g.i.n.a. She scrubbed hard at her skin, trying to get the smell of s.e.x, the smell of him, off her. But it did no good. While he could apparently dismiss her as easily as a pa.s.sing acquaintance, it was as if the scent of him, the feel of him, had been permanently branded into the reptilian part of Toni's brain.

She lathered her hair and closed her eyes. No doubt Ethan was bracing himself for her to hit him with a bunch of expectations, to read too much into their one night of s.e.x. She would show him he had nothing to worry about. She was as capable as he was of putting the s.e.x behind them and working beside him until they found Kara and got her back home.

Ethan hung up the phone as Toni walked out of the bathroom. "The plane will be ready to fly in an hour," he said, hoping his voice revealed none of the tension and frustration roiling right below the surface. Her eyes met his in an unblinking stare, slightly puffy from behind the lenses of her gla.s.ses. Exhaustion gave her fine features a sort of blurred look, but it didn't stop him from wanting to slide the gla.s.ses down her nose and kiss her into oblivion.

She was dressed once again in her jeans, T-shirt, and sneakers, the silver Bond Girl dress a long-forgotten memory. Her hair was brushed straight, angling to the clean line of her jaw. His fingers twitched with the need to rake his hands through the black, silky strands the way he had last night.

In an effort to distract himself, he grabbed the carafe of coffee and poured her a cup. She took it with a polite nod, and he felt a shot of heat straight to his groin as he imagined pulling her down on the couch and stroking her until the tension that tightened every line of her body disappeared beneath his fingers.

She was having none of his usual morning-after routine. His gee-that-was-great-maybe-we-can-f.u.c.k-again-sometime routine that had done just fine for him in the past. Trust Toni to see right through it. Then again, he wasn't exactly at the top of his game.

He was restless, jumpy, and, frankly, hornier than he had a right to be after last night. Usually so confident, so sure of his next move, now he didn't know what to do, wasn't sure if he wanted to shove her back into the bedroom and d.a.m.n the consequences or get as far away from her as possible.

Last night, in the dark, buried inside her, it had all gotten a little too real for him to handle. And he didn't know what to do except act the way he always did the morning after. But he supposed that only worked when he actually felt the way he usually did.

He should be feeling the relaxed satiation he normally experienced after a night of s.e.x, but what he'd shared with Toni wasn't ordinary s.e.x, and she wasn't an ordinary woman. She made him feel things too much, too intensely. And the way she looked at him, staring at him with that implacable hazel stare, like she could see straight through the wall of bulls.h.i.t he'd built so thick it had become like a second skin.

As if she could see straight down to the core of him, to the parts he didn't even want to see himself. She could see his wounds because she was wounded, too.

Let's cool it right there, Dr. Phil. What kind of asinine s.h.i.t was that? Toni didn't know him. She was different, but not that different. Just because he felt sorry for her and what happened to her family, it didn't make her any different from all the other women who had come before and who would come after. No more beautiful, no s.e.xier. Her skin wasn't really smoother and her p.u.s.s.y wasn't any wetter or tighter. No reason for him to be acting like such an idiot.

His phone buzzed, indicating an incoming text message. He flipped it open to read a message from Danny.

Ubud a waste of time. Dad f/up on lead in Australia. Total f'ing PITA.

No surprise there.

Another message came in as he finished reading, this one also from Danny.

WTF R U doing in Vegas?

Ethan laughed.

Tell U when U get back. Keep ur watch on.

Toni had taken her cup of coffee and retreated to the desk, busily tapping away at her keyboard. Each keystroke needled at him, pulling the muscles of his shoulders tighter and tighter as she continued to ignore him.

"Anything new?" he asked.

"Nope."

Another five minutes of dead silence pa.s.sed as he sipped his coffee, searching for something to say.

Finally, her fingers stilled over the keyboard and she took a deep breath as though bracing herself. "Look, we might as well get this out in the open. What happened last night was a really, really bad idea."

The vehemence grated on his already raw nerves. "You didn't seem to think it was such a bad idea when I had my tongue between your legs."

Her face went beet-red as she glared at him over the screen of her laptop. "Be that as it may, it was still a huge mistake, and we can't let it happen again."

She was making this easy, letting him know that she had no expectations, exactly what he liked to hear the morning after. Because when it came to his love life, Ethan Taggart didn't do expectations.

But that didn't stop him from wanting her again, more than he'd ever wanted a woman, and she'd just made it d.a.m.n clear she had no intention of letting him back in her bed.

Now, if that wasn't waving a red cape in front of a bull, he didn't know what was.

She turned her attention back to her computer, studiously ignoring him as he sauntered up to the desk and rested one palm on the flat surface as he leaned in close. "What's the matter, Toni? Did I not make you come hard enough? Is that what's got you so determined not to give me another go?" He leaned close enough for his bare chest to brush her shoulder, and he caught the slight change in her breathing pattern. Mistake or not, she couldn't hide her reaction, any more than he could keep his c.o.c.k from hardening from even this slight contact with her. "I mean, maybe three o.r.g.a.s.ms isn't enough for you. If that's the case-"

His phone rang, interrupting him. He looked at the display and saw Jerry's number. Duty called.

"This is Ethan."

"Ethan, I have great news. Kara sent me a text message. She's absolutely fine."

CHAPTER 10.

"I STILL CAN'T BELIEVE that after two days of nothing, she'd just up and text Jerry out of the blue," Toni said. They were on their way back to the Bay Area, streaking over the harsh, desolate landscape of the Mojave Desert.

According to Ethan, Jerry had received a text message from Kara earlier that morning. Jerry hadn't forwarded it to Ethan yet, but the gist of it was that she had gone with a friend to a beach house, and that she'd be back in another couple of days.

"Why didn't she text me back? What friend is she with, anyway?"

Ethan shot her an impatient look. "I didn't know the first hundred times you asked, and I still don't."

Toni stared out the window, watching as parched rocky canyons gave way to the evergreen forest of the mountains. "It doesn't make sense," she said again for the dozenth time since Jerry's phone call. Toni had immediately called Kara, but her call had gone directly into voice mail. A follow-up text had fallen into the same abyss. Marcy hadn't answered her phone, either.

"What doesn't make sense about it? She took off for a few days, finally realized someone might be worried, and decided to get in touch."