Because he had no choice other than give in to the small yet primal part of him that wanted to push this case aside and taste every inch of Shae’s smart, sassy mouth, Capelli tamped down on anything not coming directly from his brain and methodically went through everything they had already established at the scene of the fire. She surprised him by listening carefully, peppering in a few technical details that the fire marshal had added to his official report before he’d handed it over to her for the investigation, then gesturing to his laptop.

“Okay, so what else do we know?” she asked, and Capelli released an exhale in a slow leak.

“It’s what we don’t know that’s dead-ending us.” He tapped his laptop to life, pulling up the photos of the crime scene along with the detailed report from CSU to keep his thoughts in order. “We have no suspect, no murder weapon, no witnesses, and no possible motive.”

“And no obvious link between these two fires, other than the fact that they both appear to be arson,” Shae added, although funny, none of it seemed to throw her.

“No. CSU wasn’t able to pull any physical evidence from the bodies or the scene that could be definitively linked to the murders,” Capelli said, scrolling through the images that the ME had sent over. “The sufentanil in both victims’ systems was a big find, obviously, but not really unique enough to get us anywhere useful. It’s almost as if these crimes were committed by a ghost.”

Shae was quiet for ten seconds, then twenty before he realized her eyes were solidly fixed on the detailed photograph of Denton’s injury splashed over his laptop screen.

“The gore doesn’t bother you?” she asked, and he remembered—too late—the way she’d paled at the sight of the bloodstains on the floor yesterday.

Something twisted beneath the center of his long-sleeved Henley. “I have to look at it as evidence,” he said with care. “The anatomy and the nature of the wounds are clues just like everything else. They’re pieces to the puzzle, so I have to look at them from every possible angle if I want to solve the case.”

Shae stared at him for a minute, those green eyes burning pinpoint after pinpoint into his skin until he couldn’t stand but to ask, “What?”

“You’ve either got a hell of a work ethic or a bulletproof defense mechanism. I’m just trying to figure out which.”

The thought of her having noticed enough of him to be able to peg either made him strangely uncomfortable and even more strangely turned on. “You were really calm with Slater,” he pointed out, and at her raised brows in response, he added, “He told Hale you worked the scene like a pro, even though Denton was in bad shape. But it clearly bothers you.”

“Oh, it scares the crap out of me,” Shae said without pausing for so much as a beat or a breath. “I still have to do my job, though. Anyway, I’m kind of a firm believer that fear is just an opportunity to knock a little courage into a person.”

“I never thought of it that way.” Capelli sat back, weighing the concept of fear versus courage in his mind.

But she continued, unfazed. “I can’t afford to think of it any other way. I learned a long time ago that being afraid isn’t such a bad thing. It lets me know I’m not too far gone, you know?”

The reality of her words arrowed through him, sticking his breath in his lungs. He needed a redirect, and he needed it right now. “There is something odd about the wound, actually,” he said, focusing on the facts to ground himself.

“Oh?” Shae asked, turning her attention back to the image on the screen.

“Yes.” Capelli scrolled past the photograph, landing on the ME’s report. “Denton’s cause of death was obviously blood loss. But he bled out from a very precise cut to the carotid. All of this larger damage was done post mortem.”

“How can you tell?” she asked, and as gruesome as it was, he was grateful for the technical question. At least he could speak to the facts with ease.

“Tissue damage looks different when wounds are inflicted after death. The science isn’t like a stopwatch, though, so it’s impossible to know with certainty exactly how much time passed between the wound that killed him and the rest of the damage. But the ME definitely put his time of death before the majority of the throat slashing.”

Shae sat back against the couch cushions, obviously caught up in thought. “So the person who did this hacked into Denton to cover his tracks.”

“Either that or the murder was extremely personal.”

“Like some sort of message?” she asked, and he nodded.

“Could be.” The intelligence unit certainly saw their fair share of revenge crimes, and some of them were exactly this nasty. “But nobody seems to have a vendetta against the gang that Denton and the L-Man were a part of, so right now, it doesn’t make any sense. Then there’s the sufentanil in their systems…none of it adds up.”

That odd prickle he’d felt on the back of his neck at the Crooked Angel came back in full force, but the more he tried to focus on the feeling and pin it down for examination—damn it—the harder it was to grasp.

“It does seem really weird that both victims were knocked out by the same drug as Kellan.”

“‘Weird’ is one way to put it,” Capelli agreed. Frustrating. Infuriating. Completely fucking unexplainable. “But it still could be a coincidence.”

Shae’s laugh sounded oddly like a dare. “You don’t believe that, though. Do you.”

He took a breath to collect his patience. Or maybe it was his sanity. “I can’t prove that it’s not.” He’d tried—all freaking day in fact—to find just one scrap of truth that would get him somewhere on this case.

“Proof.” She made a noise that sounded suspiciously close to a snort. “Come on. Can’t you go with your gut, just this once?”

“That’s not how figuring out a case works.” Pulse tapping faster, Capelli pushed up from the couch, walking to the open space of his kitchen in order to give his frustration a logical outlet.

Shae followed him the handful of steps, her chin hiked in a way that meant nothing good was in his immediate future. “That’s exactly the problem, though. None of this works.”

“We can’t just chuck the rules, Shae.” Was she nuts?

“I’m not suggesting we start making shit up to suit our purposes here,” she said, nodding in a wordless please and thank you at the bottle of water he just as wordlessly offered her from the fridge. “But you said it yourself. It’s what we don’t know that’s dead-ending us. So what can it hurt to take a flyer and go with your gut here?”

“My gut won’t get us anywhere,” Capelli insisted, frustration swirling hotter in his chest. “You’re suggesting we try to tie an active murder investigation to a man who’s been dead for months.”

“Do you have any better ideas?” Shae said, and sweet baby Jesus, she was nuts.

“Intelligence did an extensive investigation on DuPree. He never did business on the pier, and there’s no connection between him and the Scarlett Reapers. All of his clients were high end.” Other than the sufentanil, there wasn’t even a hint of a suggestion that the cases could be related. “Yes, it’s a bit of an odd coincidence that Kellan was drugged with the same narcotic as Denton and the L-Man, but there’s no point pursuing it—DuPree is dead, and his entire operation went down with him. Right now we have a killer on the loose. We don’t have any time to chase highly unlikely what-ifs. We need to focus on the facts.”

Not that a tiny little thing like logic was going to stand in Shae’s path. “When I came to you with these arsons, they were both what-ifs too. I was going purely on my gut,” she said, her eyes glinting greenish-gold, and the sudden pop of adrenaline in Capelli’s veins warred with his diehard need for caution and order.

“You acted on your gut when you went back into that house after Slater, too, and look where that got you.”

The words tightened the tension in the air, but Shae met it head-on. “Why are you so afraid to just act on something you can’t measure?”

Something dark and dangerous swelled in his chest. He stepped toward her, reducing the space between them to mere inches, and there went more of his control. “I’m not afraid.”

And yet, his heart pounded hard enough to negate the claim. Her stare flashed with intensity, raw and hot and so fucking beautiful that it destroyed his ability to think.

“Yes, you are,” came Shae’s fierce reply. “God, Capelli, why can’t you just trust what you feel instead of what you can prove?”

“Because,” he growled.

And then he grabbed her by the shoulders and slammed his mouth over hers.

* * *

A thousand thoughts and feelings crashed into Shae from all directions. She wanted to yell at Capelli, to shake him and call out his completely rigid ways and scatter his tightly wound composure all over the floor like marbles. But one feeling surged ahead of all the others, and it was the only one she could focus on with any sort of clarity.

More.

Her lips parted in an effort to convey the message without resorting to messy extras like words. Capelli caught on quickly, answering the movement of her mouth with a hard, deep press of his own. He was so shockingly brash, the steadfast control that normally ruled everything about him nowhere in sight, that all Shae wanted was to keep unravelling him until they were naked and sweaty and screaming, right here in his kitchen.

Her sex clenched, a heady sigh climbing the back of her throat at the thought. The sound—or maybe it was the feel of it vibrating between them—made him even bolder, and he tightened his hands on her shoulders, claiming her mouth with his tongue.

Yes, yes, fucking yes. Shae was dimly aware of the clatter of the plastic water bottle in her hand tumbling to the floor as she dropped it to knot her arms around his shoulders. Capelli’s muscles flexed beneath her touch, the friction of cotton over the hard angles where his neck met his back making her nipples harden against the thin lace of her bra. Sliding her tongue out to meet his, she opened to his kiss even more, offering up the control he seemed to so desperately need.

And oh, he took it. Gripping her shoulders, Capelli swung her around, walking her back just a few swift steps until her body met the flat surface of the refrigerator behind her with a firm thump.

“Ah.” She moaned into his mouth. His lips twisted into a wicked smile that she felt rather than saw, and the gesture grew even darker when she arched up to fit her frame against his from chest to hips. Heat speared between her legs at the contact, the unmistakable press of his cock at the seam of her body making her clit throb in a demand for more.

“You drive me crazy, you know that?” He broke from her lips to trail a line of rough kisses over her jaw that were no less intense than the way he’d taken command of her mouth. “You make me want to lose my fucking mind.”

“Mutual,” Shae said, forcing the word past the greedy need building low in her hips. She turned her head to one side against the cool, stainless steel surface of the refrigerator to give him better access to her neck, and he took it with a low curse. Flattening one palm over her shoulder and lowering the other to her hip, Capelli held her close, working the sensitive skin of her earlobe with his lips and tongue. He explored without pause, tasting every inch of her jaw and neck as if he was memorizing her with his mouth, and her breath squeezed in her lungs as her sex went slick with want.

Want that became entirely more primal when he closed his teeth over the spot where her neck joined her shoulder and applied just enough pressure to make her cry out in pleasure.

“Ah. There it is,” he murmured in satisfaction, and God, the gravelly, need-soaked sound of his voice alone was enough to make her want to fly apart. “Christ, you are so hot right now. I can’t wait to find every single place that makes you scream.”

Shae’s heart thundered even as her frustration welled. As sexy as it was to think of Capelli taking the scenic route over her erogenous zones, the need in her belly had pushed far past an insistent demand. They could take their time on round two, or maybe three.

But right now, she wanted him.

Hard. Fast. And buried between her legs.

Reaching down, she freed the button on her jeans, her zipper releasing a soft hiss as it followed suit. “I can show you a good place to start.”

Capelli’s body went bowstring tight against hers, but thankfully, he didn’t argue. Shae slid her jeans lower over her hips, exposing her teal satin panties, and his stare grew nearly black in the diffused light filtering in from the adjacent living room. Not waiting for her to get her jeans past mid-thigh, he anchored one hand at her waist, cupping the other against her pussy in a hard press that left no guesswork to his intentions.

“Christ, Shae.” He grated the words at her ear. “You’re so wet.”

The easy slide of his fingers over the fabric between her legs was proof, the movement making her clit pulse with hot, provocative want.

“Capelli.” His name collapsed past her lips, part moan and part whisper. Shae tilted her hips to maximize the contact, and ah, he didn’t waste any time following her lead. Shifting slightly to one side, Capelli angled his stare downward, his eyes locked on his fingers as he tugged her panties aside to reveal her bare, need-slicked sex. A sound rumbled from his throat, both dirty and reverent, and she pushed forward to meet his fingers at the same time he pressed inside her.

“Oh God.” For a second, she couldn’t do anything, couldn’t think or speak or breathe. Then he started to move, and forget not being able to do anything.

Shae wanted everything.

Capelli filled her in slow, firm strokes, one finger thrusting deep while his thumb slid up to find her clit. There was nothing sweet or tender about the way he touched her, but that just made her want him all the more. Shae chased each forward movement with her hips, daring him faster and deeper until she was certain the desire pulsing through her blood would either break her in half or swallow her whole.

“I can feel how close you are,” he said, a second finger joining the first. “How bad you want it.”

The added pressure stretched her, daring her closer. “Please,” she moaned. “Please make me come.”

Something dark and wholly forbidden hardened his face, his stare glittering in the shadows. Hooking one finger around the other, Capelli pressed both into her pussy, finding some spot deep inside of her that sent sparks through her vision. Shae reached forward blindly, the blunt edges of her fingernails digging into his forearm and holding him close as he fucked her with his fingers.

She couldn’t think of a word to call out that would do this any sort of justice. She’d never felt so turned on, so desperate for release, and sensation built between her legs, both pure and primal. Capelli’s breath sawed out in quick, hot bursts against her neck, his hand pumping harder and harder, and with one last thrust, she shattered with a keening cry.

The climax gripped Shae in waves that stunned her with their intensity. He worked her through each shudder, pulling back only after her body had gone lax against his.

But oh, how she’d only just gotten started with him.

A sassy smile tugged at the corners of her mouth, and she reached out for the hem of his Henley. “I’m game to stay in the kitchen if that’s your kink, but you’re going to have to lose some of these clothes if you want to catch up.”

But an unreadable expression had replaced the urgent passion that had been on his face only seconds before.

“Shae.”

Capelli caught her hand to stay her movement. His tone slid past the lusty haze in her mind, making her heart squeeze with something other than arousal, and wait… “What’s the matter?”

The slow, deep breath that lifted the front of his shirt served as an all-too stark reminder that he was fully dressed and fully in control. “This…I was…I mean, you’re…”

Too impulsive.

“Don’t say it,” she managed, although the look in his chocolate-colored eyes told her that her brain had filled in the blank with gut-punching accuracy. Cheeks burning, Shae quickly righted her clothes, then locked her shoulders around her spine. “I’m going to take a wild guess and assume you’d rather work on this case alone for the rest of the night, too.”

After a few seconds that lasted an eternity, Capelli said, “I think that would be the smartest plan,” and God, could she be any more thoroughly dismissed?

“Right. I’ll be on my way, then.”

“Wait.”

Her stupid, treasonous pulse tripped as he took a step toward her. Then he paused as if he’d thought far better of the proximity, his chin lifting as he fixed her with a serious, all-business stare. “The note. I need to walk you to your car.”

Shae’s protest burned brightly in her mouth. But she’d agreed to let him walk her safely out, and of course he’d get all uptight and argue if she pushed.

The fastest way out of here was to let him have his way, despite the fact that the chance for danger was frigging nil, so she did what any smart girl with shredded pride would do.

She took it.

“Fine. I’m ready if you are,” she said, and then she walked toward the door without looking back.