“Primarily, yes. Also in cases when paternity is in doubt.”

The gulf between us was getting wider. He was pulling back from me. He was still thinking about children and matches. Was he trying to give me an out?

“Please pull over,” I said.

He guided the car onto the shoulder. I unbuckled my seat belt, reached over, and kissed him. His lips were like fire. He didn’t respond, but I tried harder, licking his lips with the tip of my tongue, wanting to taste him.

His seat belt snapped free. He caught the back of my head with his hand and claimed my mouth. His magic wrapped around me, mixing with mine. The taste of Connor, the heady intoxicating taste that burned with lust, power, and need, filled me, and I drank it in, melting into it. The strokes of his tongue turned possessive, his fingers tangled in my hair, holding me to him. There was a hint of menace in the way he kissed that warned me that when I tasted dragon fire, I’d get burned and then I would never be the same. It made me want to strip and climb naked on top of him.

Magic slid over the back of my neck, like molten honey, sizzling pleasure on my skin. I gasped into his mouth.

“You’re mine,” he said, his voice rough. “I’m not letting you go.”

“I’m glad we cleared that up.”

“Do you understand me, Nevada? I’m not walking away. I thought I could, but I can’t and I don’t want to.”

I brushed his cheek with my fingertips. “What makes you think I would let you go?”

He pulled me to him, and I climbed over, onto his lap. He kissed my neck. Magic swirled along my spine, a heated bliss. I wanted him between my legs. I wanted him inside . . .

There were blue and red lights behind us.

Rogan growled.

A cop was walking toward us, a flashlight in his hand.

I crawled back into my seat and put my hand over my face.

Rogan rolled down the window. “Yes, Officer?”

“Is your vehicle disabled, Mr. Rogan?”

“No,” Rogan growled.

“Then you should move along. The road is dark, and you’re presenting a safety hazard.”

Wow. Apparently we’d run into the one cop in Houston who wasn’t intimidated by the Butcher of Merida.

“Ms. Baylor,” the cop said. “DA Jordan says hello.”

Oh.

“Please move your vehicle for the safety of the public.” The cop stepped back. He showed no signs of leaving.

Rogan rolled the window up, we both put our seat belts on, and we pulled back into traffic.

Lenora Jordan, the Harris County District Attorney. When I was in high school, she was my hero. Incorruptible, uncompromising, she served as the last line of the public’s defense against crime, especially when committed by the Houses. The first time I saw her was on TV, years ago; she walked down the steps of the courthouse, where a raging fulgurkinetic Prime wrapped in a web of lightning refused to be arraigned on charges of child molestation. Lenora strode right up to him, summoned chains from thin air, and bound him, right there, in front of all the cameras. And then she dragged him into court.

I never thought I would meet her, but I did. She was everything she seemed, and she scared the living daylights out of me. Even Rogan treated her with the kind of respect one affords to a hungry tiger.

“Was that a love tap on the shoulder?” I asked. “To tell me she knows we’re filing?”

“Yes. Come home with me tonight.”

“I can’t. A lot has happened and I need to be with my family. They’ll have questions.”

“I’ll wait.”

“I don’t know how long it will take.”

“I’ll wait,” he repeated.

I would give almost anything to go with him. He would take me to his bedroom, strip off my clothes, and love me until I couldn’t even think anymore. I would fall asleep wrapped in him, with his muscular arm around me, and his hot hard chest pressing against my back, and in the morning we’d wake up and make love again. Saying no hurt. Physically hurt. “Rogan . . .”

“Nevada?” My name rolling off his lips was a caress.

“I just turned my family’s life upside down. Everything is in shambles. I need to be there tonight. If one of my sisters knocks on my door at two in the morning, I want to be there to reassure her. If my mom isn’t able to go to sleep and comes checking on me in the middle of the night, I want to be there. And I can’t do that if I’m over at your place, and you can’t be at mine, because you make me moan and scream, and that’s not what my family needs to hear.”

His face told me he didn’t like it.

“What are you thinking?”

“I’m planning to kidnap you until the trials,” he said.

“We’ve tried that, remember?”

“I had the air-conditioning fixed in the basement,” he said.

“Is there a nice chain waiting for me?”

“No,” he said. “But I do have some handcuffs.”

“No,” I told him. “Okay, maybe. Who’ll be wearing the handcuffs?”

He grinned.

We reached the warehouse.

“I have to go,” I told him. I didn’t want to.

He opened his mouth and I put my finger on his lips. “Please don’t say my name. If you say my name, I won’t be able to get out of the car.”

He smiled against my finger. It was a wicked male smile, and it made him look both handsome and evil, like a demon.

“I mean it, Rogan. Don’t say my name, don’t kiss me good night, and don’t look at me . . . yes, like that. Don’t look at me like that. I have to go investigate your ex-fiancée’s husband’s disappearance tomorrow, and I need sleep.”

I still couldn’t move from the seat. He pulled at me like a magnet. It wasn’t the spectacular sex and it wasn’t his looks, although both helped. It was the way he looked at me when he thought I wasn’t watching him. Like I was the center of his universe. When he looked at me like that, I would do anything for him. It scared me that I could love someone that much, so I fought like crazy to keep every shred of independence I had left.

“I see Caesar’s shadow,” he said.

I did too. But until we had some evidence, jumping to conclusions did no good. “It does seem like a big coincidence—Rynda’s mother dies, then, within weeks, her husband disappears. But, apparently, he has a history of taking off when things get rough, and things are rough for her right now.”

He fixed me with his Mad Rogan stare. “If you find the connection between Brian’s disappearance and the conspiracy, I want to know about it. Not eventually, not when it’s convenient, but immediately.”

“Yes, sir. I was going to kiss you good night, but now I can’t. It’s against the rules to fraternize with my superior officer.”

“Hilarious,” he said.

I opened the door and climbed out.

“Nevada,” he called after me, sinking a world of promise into one word.

I kept walking.

His voice caressed me like a touch. “Come back and let me kiss you good night.”

“I can’t hear you.” I sprinted to my door, got inside, and closed it. It was a big thick door. I couldn’t possibly have heard him laughing behind me. I must’ve imagined it. Yes, that was it.

I walked through the house. The light in the kitchen was on. Voices floated to me. Everyone was still awake and waiting for me.

Tomorrow I would have to go to BioCore and start looking for Rynda’s husband. Tomorrow I would see Rogan again. But first, I had to get through tonight. I sighed, squared my shoulders, and went to talk to my family.

Chapter 3

It was morning. Bright sunlight, cheery blue sky, and a massive headache hammer that pounded the inside of my skull. I’d popped two ibuprofens as soon as I’d clawed my eyes open, because I had things to do today, but they didn’t even make a dent.

Last night I came home to all sorts of questions. And once I told them what happened, they came up with even more questions. My mother wanted to know about Victoria Tremaine, Leon wanted to know if he would eventually get a gun when we became a House, Catalina wanted to know about her trials, Arabella wanted to know if Michael was cute, and Grandma Frida said she met Linus Duncan once during the war and wanted to know if he still had that “hot, dark-eyed, Scottish thing” going. By the time I fought them off, it was close to two o’clock in the morning. I went upstairs, took off my clothes, fell into my bed facedown, and passed out. I dreamed of Rogan, woke up an hour later, and couldn’t figure out why he wasn’t in the bed. Now it was morning, and as I walked into our office, I felt like I was dragging a bulldozer behind me.