And he was being kissed.

Her mouth connected with his, hot and hungry. She parted her lips, deepened the kiss, all warm, spicy woman. Stacey tasted so damn good to him after the long drought of personal connection; she quenched his thirst, emptied and refilled him at the same time. That slender body, pressed against the length of his, emphasized her femininity, despite her undeniable strength. The combination intoxicated him until he was almost out of his mind with the need to touch every inch of her.

He let her have control for a few seconds, then took it back, turning her until she was the one backed into the corner. Their mouths continued to meet; they exchanged kiss after kiss. Each sweet, wet thrust of her tongue sent another surge of lust coursing through him and refilled the dry, empty well of physical need that had tormented him for so long.

Groaning low in her throat, Stacey pressed herself harder against him. “God, I’ve wanted this,” she mumbled against his mouth. Tangling her fingers in his hair, she kept kissing him, as if once she’d started she couldn’t possibly stop.

Not that he wanted to. Huh-uh.

Dean dropped his hands to her hips, sliding his palms across the generous curves to tug her even harder against his aroused body. When she felt the rigid proof of that arousal, Stacey sagged a little in his arms, as though her legs had suddenly lost all their strength. His hands and the office wall kept her upright, pressed against him, exactly where he wanted her.

Finally, though, voices from the vestibule pierced the hazy cloud of sensuality filling his head. With utter regret, he let go of her, ended the kiss, and stepped back. They stood staring at each other for a good thirty seconds, both sucking in ragged breaths, both asking a million silent questions, and answering them with only their eyes.

“You are going to come over for that beer, right?” she asked once they both seemed to have gotten it under control.

He nodded, then had to at least pretend to play the gentleman. “I don’t expect-I mean, just a beer is fine.”

“Yeah, uh, I don’t think so.”

Wondering how this woman could so easily work him straight from pulsing desire into pure amusement, he had to laugh. “I bet you were hell on wheels growing up.”

“I didn’t play with dolls, if that’s what you’re asking.” Her lashes half lowered, her mouth suddenly twisting down. “Except when I babysat Lisa.”

She’d been a passionate, wild woman in his arms a moment before. Now the regret almost visibly washed over her. She’d allowed herself to forget for a moment. But he knew those snatched bits of happiness wouldn’t drive away the guilt until this case was solved.

Still, she made a concerted effort. “Enough. My brain is ready to explode from the defensive ramblings of a dozen drunks. And I am sure I reek from having been inside that place for so long.” She glanced at her watch, then bent over her desk and scrawled an address and directions on a small sheet of paper. “Let me go home and shower. Then you can meet me at my place in forty-five minutes or so.”

“Sounds good.”

“Wait.” She straightened, not yet handing him the paper. “Do you have a way out? Didn’t your boss take your car back to D.C.?”

“Yeah, but Jackie and Kyle drove out in two cars so we’d have an extra vehicle.”

“Oh, good. That means I can get home and take out a couple of steaks for us to throw on the grill, and still have time to wash the tavern smell out of my hair.”

Her hair. He was very much looking forward to seeing it down around her face, knowing it would softly frame her fine features. “Leave it down,” he murmured.

She lifted a questioning brow.

“Please.” After their sensual encounter, he shouldn’t have felt strange making the request. But he did. Because it seemed intimate. Something a lover would ask.

She swallowed hard, her throat quivering, as if she knew how often he’d pictured wrapping those strawberry blond strands around his fingers, then whispered, “All right.”

He left the office without another word, without a touch. Because if he reached for her, or she reached for him, one of them would be backed against the wall getting their lips kissed off.

“You’re taking a cold shower,” he told himself as he left the sheriff’s office and walked toward the inn.

It was only after he’d reached the corner that he began to wonder what, exactly, he was going to say to Stokes and Mulrooney about why he wasn’t joining them for dinner. But, hell, the truth was as good as anything. Because if they hadn’t noticed the tension between him and the sexy sheriff, then neither of them deserved to carry a badge.

Fortunately, though, when he got back to the flea trap a few minutes later, he saw a note taped to his door. The two of them had gone to check out the steak place just outside of town. So he didn’t have to explain a thing.

Or maybe he was right: They were good enough agents that they’d definitely noticed and were giving him a night alone without requiring excuses or explanations.

Dean’s cold shower lasted a long time. He felt every bit as grungy after their day as Stacey did, and he had extra incentive. Not having had sex in more than a year, he needed to bring his body temperature back within normal range; otherwise he was likely to go up in flames if she touched him at her front door.

This wasn’t how he was supposed to get back in the saddle. Stacey wasn’t a mindless bar hookup. But he just couldn’t bring himself to care.

He wanted her. He liked her. He admired her. He respected her.

Why on earth would he even think about being with anyone else?

It would be just sex, no question about that. Neither one of them was up for anything else, and they both damn well knew it. But sex between two people who liked and respected each other… what was wrong with that?

After dressing and calling his son to say good night, he shoved the address and directions Stacey had given him in the pocket of his jeans. A quick stop at the liquor store on the corner-if she was supplying the steaks, he could show up with an extra six-pack-and he headed out of the main section of town.

Unable to keep the smile from his face as he drove, he had to acknowledge that for the first time in months, he felt genuinely good about something that did not involve Jared. He hadn’t felt that way about anything else in his personal life since he’d realized just how far he and his wife had drifted apart. That had been about a month before he’d found out she was cheating.

All that, however, was in the past. And, when he thought about it, he had to acknowledge a certain relief that she’d handed him an easy out of their cold marriage.

Surprised by that self-realization, Dean almost drove right by Stacey’s house as he turned into her neighborhood. Spying the number on the mailbox, he swung into the driveway, parking right behind her dusty cruiser.

He sat there for a moment, wondering whether he was losing it. Because coming to that kind of conclusion about his breakup after more than a year of feeling like the wounded party was both shocking and a little freeing. And it made him wonder if he would have arrived at it now if he hadn’t met a woman who’d driven him crazy with lust since the first time he’d shaken her hand.

Maybe. Maybe not. Either way, he was looking forward to seeing just what else he figured out about himself and about Sheriff Stacey Rhodes. Starting tonight.

Smiling in anticipation, he grabbed the beer and walked toward the house, up the curving sidewalk lined by tall, ragged hedges. He came around the corner, intent on avoiding the sharp thorns on the ivy bushes. So intent he didn’t at first notice what was happening just a few feet in front of him.

Then he saw it: the front porch stained red.The woman kneeling on it.

The woman covered in blood.