She didn’t acquiesce, but she also didn’t argue, simply angling her head to look at him. Her expression, so serious and tough, was completely at odds with the understanding glinting through her wide-eyed stare. The suit jacket Kellan had wrapped around her swallowed the slim line of her shoulders, making her look that much smaller than him despite her larger-than-life moxie, and damn, he couldn’t tell what was more enticing. The brass she flashed like armor or the softer side she was surely guarding underneath.
Finally, Isabella released a sigh. “All right. Angel’s meeting me tomorrow morning. As soon as I get a statement from her, I’ll loop Sinclair and the intelligence team in on everything. I swear,” she added.
“Okay. That’s all I can ask for.”
For a second, they stood there, face to face on the pavement, and the urge to kiss her—not for show or pretense, but really kiss her—stole through him. But Kellan knew all too well that adrenaline was a bitch best left undisturbed.
Damn, Isabella was beautiful.
Even though his body sent nine kinds of what-for and why-not to his brain, Kellan took a step back on the pavement. He’d done what he’d come here to do. Moreno was safe at her car. The scene around them was secure. “I guess I should get out of here. I called in for the first couple hours of my shift tomorrow, but I still have to punch the clock at oh nine-hundred.”
“Oh.” Isabella swiveled a glance over the quiet street. “Did you park nearby?”
Ah, hell. “No, I…walked.”
“You walked?” Her tone painted the question as a direct descendant of are you crazy? and screw it. He nodded, letting one corner of his mouth drift up into a half-smile.
“I was in the Army. I’m used to humping it places. Anyway, the trip’s not too far.”
At Moreno’s lifted brows, he caved the rest of the way. “Okay, okay. My apartment is six miles from here. But the walking clears my head.”
It would have to do for an explanation, because if she thought the walking part was nuts, he was pretty certain the whole I walk to get my emotions in check otherwise there’s a decent chance I’d fucking self-destruct thing would go over like a two-ton boulder.
“If you say so.” Isabella laughed, the soft, throaty sound hitting him right in the center of his chest. “Six miles is kind of a lot, though, and you’ve already done it once tonight. Do you want a ride?”
Kellan realized in that moment that she’d stepped toward him to regain the space he’d given her; that suddenly, her body was very much within touching distance, and that despite the warning coming from the small corner of his brain still allowing rational thought, the darker, baser rest of him wanted nothing more than to make their earlier kiss a prelude to better things. Hotter things.
Naked things.
“I’m not sure that’s such a good idea,” he said, the roughness in his voice spotlighting the words as a lie. But the hungry look in her eyes, along with the current of want burning in his veins at the sight of it, was the product of circumstance and nothing more. They’d just snuck into a sex party thrown by a highly dangerous criminal and garnered a lead that would blow Isabella’s case wide open. Of course they were wired. They probably had more adrenaline winging through their bodies than blood right now. But Kellan of all people knew that actually acting on those keyed-up endorphins was dangerous as hell.
Fuck, he wanted her anyway.
Isabella’s catlike smile—this one genuine, sweet and sexy and shared like a naughty secret—ensured he wouldn’t get a blink of sleep tonight, even after the six-mile haul home. “Not a good idea,” she repeated. “Because?”
He weighed his options. Saw that he had no good ones. And went with the truth.
“Because if you give me a ride back to my apartment, I’ll be tempted to ask you to come upstairs.”
“Ah.” But rather than retreating or clamming up in awkward silence, Moreno tilted her head to bring her mouth mere inches from his. “Is that what you want? For me to come upstairs with you?”
“Yes.” His honesty flew out, hot and unchecked.
Isabella met it with a twist of her lips that made his cock go hard and his pulse rush fast against his throat. “Good,” she whispered.
And then she slanted her mouth over his.
Her heels gave her enough of a height advantage to line their bodies up with near perfect precision, and Kellan wasted no time taking full advantage. Pressing his chest flush with hers, he cupped her face between both palms, hooking his fingers into the wild fall of her hair. Of course she gave as good as she got, her tongue darting over the seam of his lips in an eager bid for entry. For a wicked second, Kellan considered denying her just to hear the noise of want she’d make in the back of her throat as she tried again. In the end, his greedy impulses won out, and he deepened the kiss with a sweep of his tongue, then another.
Isabella sighed, and he caught the sound with another greedy kiss. Her lips opened easily, her tongue stroking and seeking, but Kellan held off her advances. He wanted her—Christ, his cock was hard as steel, begging to be pushed deep into the heat between her legs—but that was the point. He wanted her.