Archer looked behind him to make sure Joe had left. “Elle and I saw you at the pub last night, flirting with her.”

This had Lucas’s full attention. “What?”

“Yeah, and what the hell were you thinking? You were lucky Joe was late.”

He’d flirted with Molly? Was he crazy? He’d long ago learned to ignore the undercurrent of electricity between them because he had zero interest in mixing business and pleasure, and even less interest in hurting her.

And he would eventually hurt her.

Not to mention what Joe would do to him after he did. And if Joe failed in this new mission, Archer would happily finish him off, and they’d both have every right. But Lucas wouldn’t go there, ever. His job had come between him and The One a few times now, so he’d shifted his priorities. He still loved women, just not one woman—and he was good with that and who he was.

Except . . . sometimes, like two weeks ago when he’d almost died on the job and had been forced off duty, he knew he was fooling himself. He’d been left feeling far more alone than he liked to admit. He looked at guys like Archer and Joe, both who’d managed to make love work for them just fine, and he wondered what the hell he was doing wrong.

Drawing a deep breath, he thought of the woman in his bed two flights up. Maybe for starters, he should try to remember the name of the women he’d just slept with. “Trust me,” he said. “Nothing happened with Molly last night.”

“Uh-huh.”

“No, really. Apparently, I was preoccupied with someone else.”

Archer went brows up. “The new brunette at the bar?” He then clapped Lucas on the shoulder. “Glad to hear you’re not going to have to die today.”

“Yeah, well, when Molly finds out you’ve put me on babysitting duty, she’s going to kill us both.”

“That’s why she’s not going to find out.”

Lucas stared at Archer, a very bad feeling coming over him. “I’m supposed to keep it from her?”

“Now you’re getting it.”

Lucas didn’t know much about Molly’s past other than something bad happened to her a long time ago and she still had a limp from whatever it’d been. Joe had kept a tight lid on his and Molly’s rough childhood. Both brother and sister had some serious trust issues. He shook his head glumly. “This is worse than monitor duty.”

“Is it worse than dying?” Archer asked mildly.

Shit. Lucas went back upstairs. He needed a shower, fresh clothes, and a clear head before he faced Molly, as well as a good story because apparently he couldn’t tell her the truth. He hoped to hell that a long hot shower would clear his brain enough to come up with something believable, because something else Molly was—sharp as they came. He stalked through his bedroom, hit the switch on the wall and froze.

The brunette was still in his bed.

At the bright light flooding the room, she gasped and sat straight up, clutching the sheet to her chin, her hair a wild cloud around her face.

And not a stranger’s face either.

Molly’s face.

Molly was in his bed and his first thought was oh shit. His second thought tumbled right on the heels of that—he was going to die today after all, slowly and painfully.

Chapter 2

#TheyDontKnowThatWeKnowTheyKnow

Molly Malone didn’t have a lot of experience at the whole morning-after scenario. She wasn’t big on going out much, mostly because all she wanted to do after a long day of work was take off her work clothes, chill, and not get dressed up and go out on some date with a guy who thought that by date three he should get laid.

Last night had been different for several reasons, one of which happened to be standing at the foot of the bed, his short, silky dark hair tousled; scowl on his very hot, unshaven face; hands on his lean hips. He wore rumpled cargoes and the same black T-shirt he’d worn last night, the one that hugged all his sinewy strength and could make a woman’s mouth water.

But not hers. Instead she lifted her chin into his terse silence. Lucas was a man of few words. He could say more with an annoyed exhale than anyone she knew. “What?” she asked.

“I’m . . . confused.”

Probably not an easy admission for a guy who always knew what to do or say. But she had to admit, seeing him a little off his axis, something she’d bet the tough, hardened investigator rarely allowed anyone else to see, made her want to mess with him. Yes, sometimes she liked to live dangerously. “And you’re confused about . . . ?”

His warm, deep brown eyes met hers, but he didn’t answer.

“You didn’t seem confused last night,” she said with more bravado than she felt.

He scowled. But more interestingly, he also paled. Which, considering he’d gotten his sexy bronzed skin tone from his Brazilian mother, was quite the feat.

“Maybe you should tell me what happened last night,” he said.

“You first. What do you remember?”

“We were at the pub.” He frowned. “And then I woke in bed with you.”

Oh boy. After one of Hunt’s longtime clients had shown up and had lifted his glass with “this one’s for Lucas, who saved my ass and my life,” he’d tossed back his drink, clearly expecting Lucas to do the same.

Which he had.

Shortly after that, Lucas’s constant sharp edge had softened, though she’d been the only one to notice. To make sure he got upstairs to his place safe and sound, she’d taken him herself. He’d been both a smartass and a pain in her ass as she’d bossed him to bed, asking if she’d been mean Nurse Ratchet in another life.

It’d been a direct hit because she’d played the hard-ass nurse nearly all of her life to her dad. She’d had to.

“Molly,” he said tightly now, clearly out of patience.

Fine. He wanted to know what had happened. A recap might be fun. “Well, for starters,” she said, “you told me you had a crush on me.”

“Bullshit.”

Okay, fine, he hadn’t. And ouch. “You’re so sure about that?” she asked, knowing he wasn’t. He couldn’t be. By the time she’d gotten him here, he’d been really out of it. Having never seen him anything less than 100 percent in control of himself and everything around him, she’d been worried about him.

And had been ever since he’d gotten shot two weeks ago on the job, the memory of which still made her heart clutch. According to Archer and Joe, Lucas had continuously denied being anything but “fine,” but there’d been shadows in his eyes last night and a new hollowness that she recognized.

Deeply buried pain.

Being shot had brought back some bad memories for him and no one understood that more than she.

Still standing at the foot of the bed, hands on hips, his expression dialed to Not Happy, he blew out a breath. “Tell me what else.”

She’d grown up in a house made of testosterone. It’d been just her dad, her brother, and herself, and she’d learned early on how to handle the male psyche. Her best strategy had always involved humor. “I don’t know if I should say. You look ready to have a mantrum.”

He scowled. “What the hell’s a mantrum?”

“It’s like a tantrum, only worse because a grown-ass man is having it.” She smiled.

He did not. The muscles in his jaw ticked. “I don’t have mantrums. I want to know exactly what I said.” He paused. “And did.”