...I refused to look away, staring at him until he fidgeted in his seat.

“Best you just blurt it out, Rick, because I’m suddenly of a mind to finish my drink and go home—alone.”

“Okay. I’ll ask. Rumor has it you may have something on…” He lowered his voice to where I had to lip read. “Earl Fox. That he forced you out the door.”

I shook my head. No way would I admit to anyone but my best buddy Greg Stewartson that I knew anything at all about Foxy. No one. And even Greg didn’t know everything I knew. I needed to protect him and our private investigations firm from Earl Fox to the best of my ability. I even had a lockbox maintained through a lawyer friend in which I hid a memory stick containing copies of what little hard evidence I had on the less-than-illustrious police chief.

“You heard wrong. I quit the force to go private. End of story.” God, I had gotten good at that lie. I sounded completely convincing, if I must say so myself.

Rick leaned in again and motioned for me to do the same. He glanced at the crowd standing around talking about the guy who’d landed on the floor. No one paid any attention to us. The intensity of his gaze slammed into me.

“What if I told you I could give you something concrete?”

Cold sweat broke out under my arms and across my back. I shivered and sucked in a deep breath. “This isn’t the place to discuss business, Mr. Mohr.”

Comprehension flickered in his pretty eyes. He reached across the table and covered my hands with his. My skin prickled with a new awareness of him. I had the sudden urge to give him about eight inches of concrete, regardless of how bad an idea it had become.

“You’re right, of course.” I got another shock as he raised my knuckles to his lips. “How about a little stroll on the beach? We can kick off our shoes and roll up our pant legs and get our feet wet. Get comfortable with each other. Whataya say?”

A walk outside was better than a hook-up inside. For all I knew, he worked for Earl Fox and had on a wire. This could be a set-up. That’s how paranoid I was about Foxy. I pulled away from the warmth of his touch and kept my voice pitched to where only Rick could hear me.

“We’ll take my car. I’ll bring you back later. And I want you to put your cell phone in your car and leave it.”

“I understand your caution, but it’s unnecessary.”

“I’ll be the judge of that, thank you.” I set my hat back on my head, slid off the bench seat, and held my hand out to him. He took it and uncurled his long, lean body out of the booth. I had to look up at him, and I’m no little fellow at five-eleven and one hundred seventy-nine pounds of carefully crafted muscle.

His arms came around me and I realized just how big a man he really was. His lips brushed my ear as he whispered to me, “I’m going to enjoy this.”

Before I could think, much less ask him what the fuck he was talking about, his mouth covered mine. I opened my lips to protest, and his tongue slipped past my poor defenses. Little stars danced behind my closed eyes. My arms slid around his neck.

Familiar heat coiled low in my belly when his tongue danced over mine. My balls tingled as my over-eager cock hardened, swelling relentlessly to an aching fullness. I inhaled, and, under the warm, spicy scent of his cologne, breathed in the rich, earthy tang of an aroused male.

Rick’s big hand cupped my left ass cheek and pressed me tightly to his pelvis. The hard ridge of his dick met mine and I hazed on the rush of testosterone flooding into my blood. I needed to sink my root deep in this man and hear him beg for more.

What was left of my sanity shouted I was in big trouble when his lips trailed fire along my jaw line and down my neck. I ignored it and cupped his balls in front of all witnesses, covering his bulging zipper with my palm. At least eight inches.

His big hands stroked up my back, then down my sides. I leaned over into the booth and grabbed my drink with shaking hands.