My hands went up and held his wrist. I didn’t try to pull him away. I held on.

Adam smiled at me. It was heated and bitter. “I thought this was Fraser’s house. I thought he lived here alone. I thought he was free, single, and down to fuck.”

Well, that was crude.

“I was furious when I learned about you.”

“At the competition?” I said.

“God, you’re obtuse.” He sank into a crouch with fluid grace and placed his hands on my thighs. He dug in his fingers.

The view looking down into his upturned face really was something. I couldn’t help it. I touched his cheek, fleetingly. He turned into it but I’d already drawn away.

He heaved another of those sighs. It was a mix of eye-rolling youth and world-weary man, and I didn’t know what to do with it.

He squeezed my thighs, still balancing on his toes. “Let’s get this back on track. Ray, I’m here to apologise for scaring you earlier,” he said.

What did he mean, earlier?

“Earlier when we were at the hotel,” he clarified.

My stomach lurched. How humiliating. Iknewhe’d been able to tell that he’d psyched me out and thrown me into a sexual panic. “Oh, I wasn’t afraid.” Like hell was I going to admit it. “I’m confident. I’m a confident sexual man. You didn’t scare me even a bit. It was a kiss and some banter. I can handle you.”

He hummed thoughtfully. “I wish youwouldhandle me. I wasn’t talking about erotic fear, though.”

My mouth dropped open a little at his words.Erotic fear? It was the perfect description, but good lord. I was aroused, intimidated, and scared all over again.

Adam’s eyes tracked down to my mouth and back up. His lips curled. “I meant for freaking you out about the dead guy, not for flirting with you at the hotel.”

“Oh. Yeah. That was shitty.”

“Which is why I’m here.” He rubbed my thighs then stood up. He did it slowly, sinuously, giving me aaaall the time I needed to get a jolly good look at his lithe, flexing body. My gaze came to rest at his groin, which was, most conveniently, at eye level.

I stared.

He was definitely hard.

I stared some more and managed to tear my gaze away when he stepped back. He shot me an amused, heated look from under his lashes.

Freed from his proximity and the sheer magnetism no one so young should have, my head cleared. I was about to cordially invite him to leave when he said, “Let’s see the crime scene, then. Where is it?”

I shuddered. “There isn’t much to see, you vulture. As I said at the hotel, it’s not like there’s blood splatter everywhere. It’s a ragged hole in the floor. Very uninteresting. Also, should we be calling it a crime scene? There was no crime committed there.”

“Let’s see the grave, then. Where is it?”

I stared up at him, horrified. Thegrave.

In my bedroom floor.

“Ray.”

“Huh? Oh. It’s in the master bedroom.”

“Yikes,” Adam said with a wince.

“Yeah.”

“Come on.”