“Are you trying to make me an offer I can’t refuse?” Her voice was petulant.

“Damn right.”

“And is part of that plan sleeping together in that alleged big, fabulous bed?”

“Yeah, it is. But we can adjust that part of the plan, if you’ve got a concern with it.”

“I don’t. I just wanted to be sure we were talking the same language,” she assured him. Heaven knew how that came out of her mouth. It wasn’t remotely true. She wasn’t talking Cord’s language in any conceivable way.

Serious shock was sinking in. Her pulse was thudding with it, her heartbeat as skittery as a doe in the rutting season. All these years, she’d been a quiet, studious, cautious, ace-the-course good girl.

The Sophie she used to be-the girl-child Sophie, the selfish, fearless and uninhibited little girl-Cord had brought her out. The Sophie she once was. The woman she thought she’d turn into once upon a time-the kind of a woman who reveled in her sensuality, in her power with a man, trusting him at her most vulnerable moments…because she could. And still be safe.

Only in real life, Sophie knew better than to run with scissors.

She wasn’t as safe as she’d been that morning, not because of the break-in, but because of Cord. Being with him had ripped off layers that she’d counted on being glued tight. So she knew now…he was dangerous.

Deliciously dangerous, but it wasn’t so delicious to discover that she was dangerously vulnerable with him.

After the bath-in a tall malachite tub with seductive lighting and built-in music-she trekked around until she found Jon’s bedroom. As she could have expected, Jon had gussied it up the same way he had the rest of the place. Platform bed. Mirrors. Black sheets. Corny and dumb, but man.

When she climbed into that bed, the mattress really was incredible.

Not as incredible as the naked man in it, but still breathtakingly incredible.

“I get the left side,” she told him.

“We could flip a coin for it.”

“Or you could give in.”

“Or I could give in,” he agreed, scooched over and pulled up the down comforter, offering her an invitation to slide in closer.

As soon as she switched off the light, she did.

In the suddenly fuzzy darkness, he said, “Am I sleeping with the librarian Sophie or the Lorelei seductress?”

“The librarian. It’s possible the seductress could again show up tonight. But not yet.” She punched the pillow, fussed and curled and uncurled until she had it all right, her cheek on the pillow facing him, her neck covered up. For some crazy reason, she reached out for his hand.

Found it.

And she talked to him like that. Holding hands. As if they were kids just falling in love.

“Cord,” she said, softly, seriously. “Your brother’s death wasn’t accidental. I don’t care what the police or coroner or anyone else told you. It wasn’t accidental. It just couldn’t be.”

It took a moment before he responded. “I know.”

“My place wasn’t broken into by chance, either. It was about Jon. It had to be about Jon.”

Again, he responded slowly. “I came to the same conclusion.”

“A lot of women could want those CDs. In fact, I’d think every single woman in each of those films would want her CD.”

“That’s exactly my take on the problem, too.”

She felt the warmth of his palm against the warmth of hers. His touch was tender, sure. She fought to stay on track. “I don’t know what you plan to do with those CDs. I guess you’ll feel you have to give them to the police. But your brother’s killer won’t necessarily know that they aren’t still in this apartment.”

He loosened a hand, lifted it to brush a strand of hair from her cheek in the darkness. This time, he didn’t waste breath verbally agreeing. They both knew it was true. So she just finished up what she needed to say.

“So…for me to be safe. For you to be safe. For us to get our lives back-we have to know who killed your brother. We have a why. The films and photos Jon took are a clear-cut why. But all of those women aren’t murderers. Only one. The rest of them are victims. Victims who are so scared of exposure, so desperate that they could keep trying to find ways into this building to find Jon’s blackmail stash.”

“You’re thinking the same way I’ve been,” Cord agreed.

“There has to be more than those CDs to find. Records, names, addresses. So let’s start exploring. Both of us. I’ll help you look, any way I can. I don’t understand why the police didn’t uncover more of this themselves, but the bottom line is that it doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters is that the killer is found as soon as possible.”

And then, Sophie thought, I’ll be safe again. The threat of Jon’s murderer would disappear. The rest of the CDs and evidence could be destroyed. And Cord would leave. Whatever had sparked this tempestuous fire between them, she had no idea, but she couldn’t imagine his thinking of her as a long-term relationship. They barely knew each other. She had no excuse for fantasizing along those story lines, either.

So it wouldn’t be the same thing as abandonment. As having her heart ripped out of her chest. Not if she knew this wasn’t permanent, that it couldn’t possibly go on too long.

“Soph,” he murmured. “We can’t solve any more of this tonight.”

“I know,” she agreed.

“So let’s see if we can inspire that wild, uninhibited Sophie to come out of hiding for just a little longer…”

He leaned over her, his gaze caressing her in the darkness, and then dipped down.

He claimed later that she swept him under, but Sophie didn’t care who did the sweeping. She didn’t care about all the “no matter whats.” This moment, this man, was everything that could possibly matter. She couldn’t imagine regretting anything about being with him.

In the middle of the night, she felt a soft oomph at the foot of the bed. A moment later, Cord murmured groggily, “There damn well better not be a cat on this bed.”

Sophie opened an eye, saw the glitter of Caviar’s collar and heard the tom’s thunderous purr as the feline settled between them, protecting both in the night.


Cord woke up to the howl of an angry wind and the thwack of branches against the windows. Wet leaves would make the roads slick as grease. A far better morning to stay curled up with a slight blonde snuggled next to him…but Sophie was gone. With the damned cat.

He hopped in the shower, uneasily aware that he already missed her. She had to work, of course, and so did he, but that wasn’t the point. She was a woman he wasn’t supposed to trust.

Before he’d finished negotiating with his brother’s coffee machine, his cell phone buzzed. Like a slap of reality, the caller was the detective, Bassett. For a few hours, Cord had managed to forget the porn CDs, the murder, his brother’s unforgivable choices. “Yes, I left a message for you and Mr. Ferrell last night. And yes, I have some information for you, but I also have two classes this morning. The soonest I can shake free is around one.”

“That’s fine. Where?”

Cord thought, then picked one of the fast-eat places in the Smithsonian. It was neutral ground, easier for him to hike from the metro, and a fast route back to his brother’s place.

He got there early, copped a sandwich and a pastry, found a seat where he could watch the entrances-and then couldn’t eat. He didn’t want to be here, talking to the cops. Questions and issues were going to come up about Sophie-questions and issues he had no answers for.

Replays from last night had lingered in his mind all morning, fragile as silken cobwebs, magical as moonlight. A while back, Sophie had told him she couldn’t feel safe if she thought someone was going to disappear on her. The comment stemmed from her feelings about losing her parents. She’d felt abandoned, lost, alone. She’d learned young not to open the trust door. It was easier to keep the door shut than to risk being abandoned again.

Cord had nothing like that in his background-except for Zoe. And Zoe had taught him precisely the same lesson. He thought he’d gotten the right woman, a woman who’d stand by him-and then: zap. First taste of serious trouble, she’s gone. He hadn’t opened the trust door since.

Until Sophie.


A gaggle of women passed, all headed for the gem exhibit. Everyone coming in was shaking off rain, groaning about the ornery weather. Cord picked up his sandwich, then put it down.

His heart somehow started trusting Sophie, almost from the beginning. But everything about last night had been…startling. Beyond fantastic, but still startling. Who could possibly have guessed that beneath those god-awful clothes and oversize glasses was a sensual seductress who bared all and invited even more? When had he ever found a woman who seduced his head as much as his body, who made his blood run hot-and who confused the holy hell out of him?

Abruptly, he saw both Ferrell and Bassett, as noticeable in the sea of tourists as apples in a barrel of oranges. They wore similar rain gear, carried similar mugs of coffee, had that ill-fitting suit-coat thing going on. Both of them shook off their wet trench coats, didn’t waste time, took seats on both sides of him.

Cord filled them in immediately about the CDs he’d found, how his brother had them hidden, behind the back wall of a cabinet drawer.

“Thank God,” Bassett said. “That’s exactly the evidence we needed. How many were there? Did you bring them all?”

“No.” He added carefully, “I’m not certain that I’m willing to turn them over.”

“That isn’t a choice you get to make.” The jowly detective took a pull from his coffee. “That’s evidence, cut-and-dried. The concrete link we need to connect the killer to your brother.”