Rafe's eyes followed Isabella's. "Looks like we've closed down the bar." He smiled, noting the dwindling number of customers. "And your sisters are waiting for you."
He hesitated, naturally cautious. "Unless you want to get the hell out of here," he added. He ought to put her into a cab and send her on her way, safe and sound, toward the secure arms of her witchy sisters. "My apartment's a few miles from here," he offered instead.
She laughed a silver bell sound. "Is this the part where you offer to show me your etchings?" She sidled closer to him, her lips hovering inches from his mouth, her thick straight lashes shadowing her pale skin.
He opened his mouth to speak, but impulsively brushed his lips across her cheek, inhaling her clean scent. Beneath his mouth he felt the jump of the vein at her temple and the steady thrumming of her pulse beneath his hand. Any thought of putting her in a cab flew out of his mind.
"There are many things I'd like to show you," he whispered in her ear, "but not one of them is an etching."
He slid from the booth and took Isabella's hand, leading her past the bar where the bartender hardly acknowledged their leaving. That casual lack of interest should've sent a warning jiggle to the back of Rafe's mind, but they arrived at the sisters' table and introductions were made while the gentle scent of Isabella's perfume banished all thoughts of the bartender and his shifty eyes.
"I'll walk you to your car," Rafe insisted.
The sisters left first while he and Isabella followed at a discreet distance. Outside, in the balmy air, typical southern California weather, he removed the jacket from her shoulders and slung it over his arm.
The dark alley stretched to the right side of Stuckey's, flanked on one side by an over-sized industrial bin and a large flat of crates on the other. The alley was strangely clean, with only the slight odor of ocean some miles to the west.
Rafe glimpsed the light winking through the faint mist at the other end where the sisters had already disappeared. He felt the cool, smooth grip of Isabella's fingers inside his hand and the gentle knocking of her hip against his thigh. Just the swish of her dress against his pant leg aroused him, and the next moment, the mere touch of his hand to her bare back sent a rush of blood to his groin.
Halfway down the alley, he swung her around, trapping her against the cool brick of the building. He hesitated, hoping he hadn't misread the cues he'd gotten all night. The rough texture of the wall grazed his palms as they pressed the wall on either side of her head.
Without a word of protest, she wrapped her arms around his shoulders and ran her fingers through the hair at his neck. Her body quivered against him as he brushed his lips across her warm mouth, tentatively, then with greater urgency. Another electric jolt of desire ran through him as their tongues met and danced in an urgent mating rhythm.
His jacket dropped unheeded to the ground as he ran his hand down the side of her dress, reached the short hemline, and explored upward along the smooth curve of her thigh. The sound of her groan fueled his desire. He pinned her to the wall, feeling himself grow harder as he ground his body into her, trying to relieve the tension in his groin. The improbable thought crossed his mind that if he threw her to the ground on the hard cement beneath their feet, she'd open herself to him with the same fever that gripped him.
Brain addled with passion, he suddenly remembered himself. Who he was, and why he was here. He halted his rigorous assault on Bella's mouth and cursed himself for being so caught up in the taste and smell of her that his mind ignored everything around him.
Every other sensory image.
Chapter Five
Even as Isabella clutched at him, Rafe's rational mind warned him to pull back from the heady distraction. She dipped her tongue into his mouth in sensuous simulation, and logic clanged another alarm in his head. The allure of her mouth tamped it down. Good God.
His right hand worked up to grip her bare bottom beneath the panties while his left tangled in her dark curls, roughly tugging her head backward to expose the vulnerable flesh of her neck. He tasted the tang of cologne and sweat mingling on her neck as he broke away from her lips again to run his tongue along the smooth skin.
A third tiny ping registered at the same time he remembered the sly look on the bartender's face. Rafe snapped back to reality with a rush of adrenaline that screeched danger. By then it was too late. He barely had time to swing around, shield Isabella's body with his own, and reach futilely for the handgun at his ankle. A split second to acknowledge the burly body of the attacker who'd crept up on them. Hell!
The sharp blow to his temple might've felled him except that the woman's body braced him at the back. A trickle of blood ran from his forehead into his eye, blurring his vision as he sank against her and they both toppled to the ground. A soft groan escaped her as she collapsed under the full force of his hundred and eighty pounds.
Swiping the blood from his eye and shaking his head to clear the dizziness, he unholstered his weapon and braced himself on one knee. By the time he'd swung around and gripped the pistol in a two-handed stance, the attacker had fled down the alley and darted around the corner toward the rear parking lot.
Rafe chased him to the end of the alley, ran past the waste disposal bin, and leading with his gun, eased around the corner. The lot was empty except for his green Hummer, a battered white truck, and Isabella's sisters huddling beside a blue sedan.
He put his finger to his lips and cautiously moved along the exit doors that lined the back lot, twisting each knob as he reached it. All locked. Crouching low, he approached the truck and peered through the windows, then checked in the bed and beneath the carriage. Nothing. The attacker had vanished.
"Which way?" Rafe barked at the older sister. Consuelo, he thought her name was.
With wide eyes both women shook their heads and pointed tremulous hands toward the street and the dark night beyond.
"Where's Bella?" Consuelo asked sharply. "What have you done with her?"
As the three turned back to the dark mouth of the alley, Isabella limped slowly toward them. Belatedly, he remembered the thud of her body hitting the pavement. Ah, shit!
"You always leave a woman sprawled out like that?" she quipped.
Her hip felt as if it had been ripped from its socket, her left knee burned from a bloody scrape, and her right arm tingled from wrist to elbow. But, damn it all, she would keep her sense of humor even if it killed her. Twice now she'd tumbled in front of Rafe, sprawling as gracelessly as a toddler. She was not going to revert to the shakiness that threatened her limbs.
"Bella," Nita wailed. "Are you hurt? Is anything broken?"
Connie ran practiced, assured hands over Bella and glared at Rafe. "What kind of a thug are you?"
Bella felt her face flush. "It's okay, Connie. I'm not hurt. Rafe's a polite thug."
"Looks like you're well enough to wrangle," Rafe muttered, edging Connie aside. He took Bella's hands and turned them over, observing the knuckles and then the palms. "So I guess you'll live." He glanced down at her knee. "My place is close. We'd better get some antiseptic on those abrasions."
"Gringo," Connie spat, although Rafe clearly was darker than she was. "She's not going anywhere with you. ¡Tonto torpe!" Clumsy idiot. Connie didn't mince words.
Rafe daubed at his temple with a snowy white handkerchief, but made no reference to his own bleeding wound, Bella noticed. Without another word he trotted back down the alley, retrieved his jacket from the ground, and gazed carefully around.
A few feet from where he'd dropped his jacket, he crouched down and touched his fingers to what looked from a distance like an oil stain on the asphalt close to the brick wall of the building. He dipped his fingers into the stain, lifted them to his nose, and sniffed. What had he found?