Fingers lifted my chin, turning my face upward, and I felt the barest brush of Blane’s lips in a kiss. His palm cupped my cheek, a thumb brushing my cheekbone as his mouth moved gently over mine. It was unexpected and I gasped in surprise. Blane took the opportunity to deepen the kiss, forcing my breaths to slow.

Kade’s touch was warm against my shoulder, the slide of his tongue on my skin sending a shiver through me. His hand had crept under my tank, the heat of his palm like a brand.

I couldn’t see a thing, I could only feel. And gradually, as I stood wedged between the two men whose entire focus was on me, who made me feel the safest and most protected that I’d ever been, my tremors eased and breathing was no longer a chore.

Distantly, through the haze of forbidden desire they’d woven around me, I heard footsteps pass the door, heading back downstairs.

Blane slowly eased back, our lips clinging together. I was breathing fast again, but this time for a completely different reason.

“I’m going to see who it is,” Blane whispered. His lips brushed my temple. “Keep her here.”

My heart shot into my throat and I clutched at Blane’s shirt. What if he got hurt?

“I should go, not you,” Kade protested.

“No time to argue.” Blane gently but firmly disentangled his shirt from my clenched fingers, then he was out the door, closing it behind him.

“We should go after him,” I said, turning to face Kade. His hands slid around my back.

“No can do,” he replied. “We’ll wait here. Neither of us wants you hurt. Blane will be fine. He’s good at this, remember? Have a little faith.”

I chewed my lip, my anxiety easing somewhat.

“Why do I feel like we’re in a grown-up, slightly more dangerous version of spin-the-bottle?” Kade murmured. His voice was close to my ear now, his breath warm against my skin. “In which case, my time is short.” His mouth began searching in the dark, trailing kisses along my jaw.

I turned my head away, trying to keep my wits about me. Kade’s lips drifted down my neck to where my pulse was pounding.

“You should stop,” I managed to say.

“I don’t want to,” Kade murmured against my skin. “Blane kissed you. Now it’s my turn.”

Cradling my head, he held me still as his lips found mine.

Kade kissed like he needed me more than he needed air to breathe, as if it was agony to have been apart these past few hours. He overwhelmed me, his tongue tangled feverishly with mine until I was lost to everything but him.

A sharp whistle pierced the silence and Kade pulled back with one last brush of his lips against mine. “That’s our signal.”

I was reeling, but Kade didn’t seem fazed as he opened the closet door and carefully peered into the hallway. He had his gun in his hand when he turned to look back at me.

“You all right?” he asked.

Sure. I was hunky-dory. Making out with Blane, and moments later, Kade—I’d absolutely lost my mind. Guilt and self-loathing crept over me. What kind of person was I to do something like that?

I followed him down the stairs to where the glow of lights showed Blane with someone else. A woman. Older, perhaps in her mid-forties, she was Hispanic and was wringing her hands. Her face was lined with worry as she watched Kade and me approach.

Blane’s gaze drifted over me, banked desire in his eyes. My cheeks flooded with heat, remembering what had transpired in the closet with the two of them.

“This is Maria,” Blane said. “She’s Kandi’s housekeeper.”

“Why is she here at this hour?” I asked.

“Kandi hadn’t paid her,” Blane answered.

“She pay every month,” Maria answered, her accent thick over the broken English. “Now this horrible thing happen to her.” Her eyes filled with tears. “I know is terrible, but I must have pay. I have grandchildren. Rent is due, bills.” She shrugged helplessly. “I was hoping maybe Miss Kandi have money here somewhere.”

She started crying in earnest now, covering her face with her hands. “I should not have come. Is dishonoring the dead to steal from them. Here.” She rummaged in the pocket of the long skirt she wore, handing something to Blane. “I am sorry.”

It was some kind of jewelry. Blane looked at it, then handed it to me. He pulled out his wallet. “It’s okay, Maria. How much did she owe you?”

“Three hundred dollars,” she said.

Wow. Kandi had gotten off cheap for a housekeeper.

Blane dug twice that amount from his wallet and held it so Maria could see it. “Can you tell me if Kandi’s been seeing anyone recently?”

“Other than you, Mister Blane?” she asked.

Ouch.

Blane’s fist clenched. “Yes,” he said stiffly, “other than me.”

Maria nodded, wiping her eyes. “Yes, but it was secret. Kandi told me not to tell.”

“I need you to tell me,” Blane said.

Maria’s eyes started leaking again. “But if I do, he said he would send me back to Mexico. My grandchildren are here. Who will take care of them if I go?”

“I promise, no one is going to send you back,” Blane assured her. “We need to know who it is. Who was seeing Kandi?”

Maria hesitated, her indecision apparent. I waited, barely breathing.

“It was Mister James,” she finally said.

I sucked in a breath. It couldn’t possibly be—

“James Gage?” Blane asked.

She nodded.

“How long had he been seeing her?”

“A while,” she replied, “on and off.”

“Okay. Thank you, Maria. You’ve been a big help.” Blane handed her the money. She gave him a nod, glanced at Kade and me, then hurried out the front door. A moment later, I heard a car start in the driveway.

“Oh my God,” I breathed, sinking down into a nearby chair. My legs wouldn’t hold me any longer. James Gage was a bad guy, I knew that. He and I’d had several run-ins and he’d not hesitated to use violence and force to get what he wanted.

But murdering Kandi? Why? And what he’d done to her after she was dead? It didn’t make sense, even for someone like him.

“Well, that was unexpected,” Kade said. “I wonder if we’ll find his DNA on the tie and scarves.”

“I have a buddy on the force,” Blane said. “He’s supposed to come by in the morning and bring the case file. I can see if he can get the tests run. In the meantime, we need to go.” His eyes met mine, then flicked away as he headed for the kitchen.

I avoided Kade’s gaze as I hurried after Blane. What had we been thinking? What had I been thinking? Did Blane know Kade had kissed me, too?

The ride back to Blane’s was filled with tension, and guilt turned my stomach into a pit of churning acid. Kade parked the car in the driveway and turned off the engine. I was slow in climbing out as they both loitered by the car.

I felt as though I was suffocating, the weight of their gazes made me want to cringe. Did they expect me to choose? How could I choose between a man I loved but didn’t trust, and a man I wanted but didn’t love?

“I-I think I’ll stay out here for a while,” I stammered, backing away slightly.

Hurt flashed across Blane’s face before he masked it. He said nothing, just gave a curt nod, throwing a quick glance at Kade before turning to disappear inside the house.

Someone nearby was shooting off fireworks. Illegal, at this time of night, though it was technically the Fourth of July. I wandered over onto the lawn to get a closer look. It seemed like a better idea at the moment than going inside.

Kade followed and I felt his eyes on me as I gazed upward at the sky. The whoosh of a rocket launching reached my ears, then the sparkle and crackle of the firework as it exploded.

“I won’t say I’m sorry, because I’m not,” Kade said.

I shrugged. “It’s not a big deal. It doesn’t mean anything, right?” Hell, we’d done more than kiss in Vegas and that hadn’t done a thing to change our relationship.

No. I wasn’t being fair to Kade, after all, he had no idea how far things had gone between us. But I did, and my body did. Maybe that was why it had taken little more than a furtive encounter in a closet for me to fall under his spell.

I felt dangerously close to bitter, which was not how I wanted to remember Kade.

Another firework was launched, exploding into a brilliant show of color, then fading to ashes. Kind of like Kade and me, I supposed.

“I think we both know that’s not true.”

I jumped, not realizing Kade had moved directly behind me, his voice in my ear.

“Then what does it mean?” I asked, turning and looking up into his eyes. “Enlighten me.” And perhaps part of that bitterness I was feeling leached into my voice.

Kade’s fingers caressed my jaw. “It means you’re beautiful. Desirable. That I can’t keep my hands off you any more than I can tell my heart to stop beating. It means I listen for your voice when I know you’re near and love it when I can smell your perfume on my clothes at the end of the day.”

I couldn’t breathe and the knot in the pit of my stomach grew to the size of my fist.

“Stop it!” I cried, shoving at his chest. I’d taken him off guard and he stumbled back a few steps. “Stop saying things like that! You can’t… tell me all of that and then walk off like it’s no big deal! You’re killing me.”

He stared at me, silent.

I took a breath and swallowed the lump in my throat. “Offer me something or offer me nothing, but stop trying to play both sides.” Because that’s what he was doing. Pushing me at Blane, telling me we should reconcile, then getting upset when he saw the ring on my finger. Kissing me, touching me, then saying it could lead nowhere.

Yes, he’d told me he loved me in Vegas, but he’d been drunk at the time and didn’t remember saying it. Unless it was an emotion he was willing to own up to sober, it didn’t really matter, did it?

I searched his eyes, not breathing, and hoped for… I didn’t know what. To my disappointment, Kade turned away without a word. I watched his form be absorbed by the darkness as he walked to the house.

Two steps forward, three steps back.

I remained outside, unable to bear the thought of going inside just yet. I slumped down on the grass and watched the fireworks. I could hear the people laughing and talking as they shot off rockets. The frugal part of me cringed at every explosion, adding up the dollars in my head. I’d never seen the point of buying fireworks—it was literally like setting your money on fire. But I liked watching them, and if other people wanted to blow their money in that fashion, who was I to judge?

I thought about Kandi. She’d been having sex with Blane… and James. Why? Had she been hoping to make one of them jealous? Had she known how much James hated Blane? What if she hadn’t told James and he’d found out she was sleeping with Blane, too? Could he have flipped out enough to kill her? Maybe accidentally?

My eyelids were heavy when I finally decided to call it a night. I brushed the grass off my jeans and went inside. I showered and wrapped myself in a towel, my wet hair clinging to my shoulders. I hoped I was tired enough to sleep. Part of me ached for my own apartment, but another part of me was glad to be here, glad to be with Blane and Kade, despite the tension between the three of us.

I walked out of the bathroom and froze.

Blane was sitting on my bed, the dim glow of the bedside lamp casting pools of light and shadow on his body.

He was silent, his gaze steady on mine before it dropped lower, taking in the damp towel I wore. Memories of our kiss earlier tonight assaulted me. My breath caught in my chest and I had to swallow before I could speak.

“What are you doing in here?” I asked.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to intrude. I just… need to talk to you.”

I shifted my weight from one bare foot to the other, acutely conscious of my nakedness. Was this about Kade, or about us? I didn’t know if I was ready for either conversation.

Yet, if it was important enough to make him invade my room at this hour, then I should probably hear him out. “It’s okay. What is it?”

He approached me, stopping when he was close. “I wanted to tell you that you were right about my uncle. I confronted him with what you told me while you were in Vegas, that he had tried to pay you off. He admitted it quite openly.”

Vindication. It was a good feeling.

“I’m so sorry, Kat,” Blane said, his voice a husky whisper. “I had no idea, never thought for a moment that he would do something like that. Which also explains why, when you didn’t take the bribe, he resorted to lying to me about you.”