Smitty winked at her. “You’re right, ya know. We’re all scum.”

Mace shook his head. “Thanks for the help there, bud.”

“What can I say? She caught me in my lie.”

“You admit nothing. Deny everything. Demand proof. Did you learn nothing in Boot Camp?”

Dez did like Smitty. She liked him a lot. But the man sure wasn’t Mace. Darker in appearance. An inch or two shorter. Not as wide. She found herself surprisingly comfortable around him. Mace, however…well, she didn’t actually feel comfortable around him. Not with her body tingling at the mere thought of him. She kept noticing things about him. Little things. Like the way he unconsciously scratched the scar on his neck or the way he kept pushing his blond-brown hair out of his eyes. Her eyes narrowed. Wasn’t he bald just yesterday? No. That wasn’t possible.

“Don’t blame me, hoss, because she knows we’re all brain damaged.”

Dez looked down at the chocolate cake garnished with dark chocolate and wondered how she kept getting involved with such idiots.

Mace watched as Dez took her forefinger and swiped up some of the drizzle of dark chocolate sauce that decorated the plate as garnish.

She slipped her chocolate-covered finger into her mouth and sucked it clean.

Mace growled. He couldn’t help it. If it were a practiced move, meant to tantalize, he wouldn’t have even noticed. But Dez did it because she clearly liked dark chocolate and was slightly tacky.

She frowned and smiled at the same time. “Did you…growl at me?”

“Sorry. Couldn’t be helped.”

“No reason to apologize. I’ve just never had a man growl at me before.”

“You just weren’t listening,” both Mace and Smitty said at the same time.

Dez shook her head as she and Mace picked up their forks. “You two are such boneheads.”

Smitty watched Dez for a second, then leaned forward. “Do you mind if I ask you a question, darlin’?”

“Only if you stop calling me darlin’.”

“Now where I come from that’s a term of endearment.”

“Really? Well, where I come from motherfucker is a term of endearment. Want me to start calling you that?”

Mace almost spit his cake out, but now he knew Smitty was pissed.

“All right then, Dez. Mind if I ask you a question?”

“Ask away,” she happily offered as she ate a bite of cake.

“You’ve never had great sex, have you?”

Swallowing her cake and damn near choking on it, “That ain’t no question, Smith.”

Well, hello Bronx accent. Welcome back!

“Oh, I’m sorry.” Uh-oh. Smitty being sarcastic—not good. “I can phrase that in the form of a questionif ya like. Have you ever had great sex?”

Dez leaned back in her chair, her arms crossing in front of her. She leveled that gray-green gaze in Mace’s direction. “You’re not going to help me out here, are you?”

“I could help you out, but I don’t think that’s what you mean.”

“I’m still waitin’,” Smitty pushed. Mace didn’t know what his friend was up to, but he couldn’t wait to find out, and to see if Dez punched him. The girl he used to know had a mean right hook; he could only imagine what this woman had in her arsenal.

“Well…I…uh…”

“Well-I-uh what?”

“Hey! I’m thinkin’!”

“If you have to think about it, darlin’, you haven’t had great sex.”

“What exactly is the point of this conversation?”

“Simply pointing out a fact.” With that, Smitty got up and disappeared again.

Now it seemed to be Dez’s turn to growl. “Okay, now I’m starting to hate him.”

Mace grinned. He was so okay with that.

Dez’s face burned. She could probably fry an egg on it. How had this evening gone so terribly wrong so goddamn quickly? She’d lost control. Again! She never lost control. Whether during an interrogation or a perp walk or a tactical maneuver, Dez MacDermot never lost control. But with Mace staring at her and his country bumpkin friend twisting her words around, she felt like she dangled off a building without a bungee cord.

She’d already regressed to her old nervous habit of running her damn hands through her hair, saying the word ain’t in a sentence where she wasn’t mocking someone, and getting that damn accent back. Maybe Missy Llewellyn was right. She would always be that Bronx girl, no matter what she did.

“Dez. Look at me.”

“No.” Absolutely, unequivocally, kill-herself-first no.

“Desiree. Look at me.”

Clenching her hands into tight fists, Dez raised her head and froze, trapped in that gold gaze. Trapped there as if the man had put shackles on her wrists and sat on her. Dez had no idea how long they were staring at each other. She felt Mace sliding through her body. Touching everywhere. Making himself quite at home. She couldn’t look away and she didn’t want to.

He didn’t say anything to her. He really didn’t have to. He said it all in those beautiful eyes of his. He wanted her. Would do anything necessary to get her. And, if she let him, he’d give her more than great sex. He’d give her never-able-to-walk-straight-again sex. The kind where she’d lose her soul.

Finally, Mace motioned for the check, but his eyes never left her face. “Come home with me, Dez.”