Mackenzie's Magic by Linda Howard

head, who remained cool no matter how tense the situation. He might have some sleepless nights afterward, he might sweat bullets, but while the job was going down he was an iceman.
    He couldn’t be emotional about her; it wasn’t logical. Okay, so he’d had the hots for her since he’d first seen her. Chemistry happened. With her, it had happened in a big way. And he liked her; he’d learned a lot about her since she had practically commandeered him the night before. She was quick-thinking, had a sense of humor, and was too damned gutsy for his peace of mind. She also responded to his slightest touch, her soft body melting against him, with a sheer delight that went to his head faster than a hit of whiskey.
    He frowned. Only the fact that she was concussed had kept him from taking her, and even then, it had been a near thing. Never mind that they were waiting for a killer to come after them, that he had deliberately left a trail that was just difficult enough to keep from being obvious. He never should have undressed last night; he knew that. But the fact was, he had wanted to feel her against his skin, and so he’d taken off everything but his shorts and slipped into bed with her. Dean would beep him when anyone showed up; if Mac had timed it right, he figured it would take another hour at least before anything happened, but still he should have been dressed and ready in case something went wrong. Instead, he had been on top of her, between her legs, and thinking that only two thin layers of cotton were keeping him from her. It would have taken him maybe five seconds to get those two layers out of the way, and then he would have been inside her and to hell with anything else.
    But none of that was emotion. That was liking, and a powerful lust. So she had this crazy idea, after spending only a few hours with him—and being asleep most of that time—that they were going to get married. Just because she felt that way didn’t mean he did, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to let himself be buffaloed into something like marriage, no matter how hard he got whenever she was anywhere around.
    The thought of using her as bait almost made the top of his head come off, but that wasn’t emotion, it was common sense.
    "You’re concussed," he finally said. "You’re moving like a snail, and you don’t need to be moving at all. You’d be more of a hindrance than a help, because I’d have to watch you, as well as myself."
    "Then give me a weapon," she replied, her tone so unruffled that he wasn’t sure he’d heard right.
    "A weapon?" he echoed incredulously. "Good God, you think I’m going to arm a civilian? "
    She straightened away from his grasp, and his palms ached from the loss of contact. All of a sudden her black eyes weren’t bottomless at all, they were cool and flat, and the recognition of what he was seeing jolted him.
    "I can handle a pistol as well as you, maybe better."
    She wasn’t exaggerating. He’d seen that look in the eyes of snipers, and in the eyes of some fellow agents who had been there, done that, and had the guts to do it again. He had seen it in his own eyes, and he’d understood when some women had shied away from him, frightened by the dangerous edge they sensed in him.
    Maris wouldn’t shy away. She looked delicate, but she was pure steel.
    He could use her. The thought flashed into his brain, and he couldn’t dismiss it. Policy said that no civilians should be involved if it could be avoided, but too many times it couldn’t be avoided. She was right; she was his best bet, and he would be a fool if he compromised the investigation by not using her. It wrenched every instinct he had to do it, but he had to put his feelings aside and concentrate on the job.
    Damn it, he thought in surprise, he had been letting his emotions cloud his thinking. That wasn’t a good sign, and he had to put a stop to that kind of idiocy right now.
    "All right," he said swiftly, wheeling around to get their