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technique, but I was out of line all the same.”
    “If you say so.”
    “Look, I’m not in the market for a committed relationship, and you’re not the type of woman to settle for a one-night stand or even a short affair.”
    “Of course not.” Her distaste for the very thought had to have been written on her face because he winced.
    The thing was, she didn’t think Hotwire was a one-night stand kind of guy himself. Only, for some reason he wanted her to think he never got serious with women. She realized that was the message he’d been giving her since the day they met, but it simply did not ring true. He had too much integrity to be a true hound dog. Regardless, patently, he had no desire to get serious   with her , and that’s all that really mattered.
    Besides which, she wanted a relationship with a man like she wanted to retake her finals from last semester and flunk them all. There was no place in her life for a man…not even a super-sexy stud who made her insides go nuts with something as simple as a kiss.
    “Right, we’re at opposite ends of this particular data array,” he said. “So, no more soul kisses.”
    “That felt more like a groping, marauder kiss to me.”
    “I do not grope.” Hotwire looked truly offended.
    “So the fingers I felt on my behind were a spectral phenomenon?” she mocked.
    “I’m not a ghost.”
    “I can vouch for that,” she said with a small smile, still tingling in places   she   never talked about.

Chapter 2
    “C laire,” Josette yelled from the other room.
    “That’s my cue to go.”
    “Good luck,” Hotwire said.
    “Aren’t you coming to watch?”
    “No.”
    “Marriage isn’t a disease, you know. You can’t catch it being in the same room as Josette and Nitro.”
    He smiled a little. “It’s a good thing, since I was at the wedding.”
    “You really are clinging to your freedom, aren’t you?”
    “I’m not ready to settle down, no.”
    She shrugged. Marriage wasn’t her idea of life happily ever after, either, but his single status was almost a religion for Hotwire. “Thanks again…for getting me my locket back.”
    “Hey, no big deal.”
    Wolf had told her that Hotwire had spent precious extra minutes searching the offices of the terrorist group they brought down the month before, risking his very life to get her necklace back. Hotwire was hero material for sure…she, however, was no princess, and she didn’t believe in fairy tales anyway.
    “It is to me,” was all she said, and then she turned and walked away, her hand rising of its own volition so her fingertips could press the swollen contours of her lips.
     
    Hotwire watched Claire walk away and damn near went after her when she touched her mouth as if holding onto their kiss. He hadn’t been this turned on in…hell, he wasn’t sure he’d ever been this turned on.
    Claire did nothing to entice him, and he spent every second in her company wanting to strip her naked.
    If the near debilitating desire wasn’t enough, he actually enjoyed her company. He’d once told Nitro that he and Claire had nothing in common. And in some ways that was true. The woman was a vegetarian and   a pacifist. Not exactly best-buddy material for a former mercenary.
    But she was also smart and understood computers with the same intrinsic ability as he did. She shared his passion for new technology as well. He’d never met another woman like her.
    She didn’t dress to her best advantage. He’d never seen her wearing makeup before today, but her lack of artifice didn’t make her any less feminine to him. He felt more male hormones rampage through him in her company than he did surrounded by a gaggle of his mother’s southern belle protégées.
    But something about Claire held him back from acting on what those male hormones wanted him to do. Her ready confirmation that she was not the kind of woman to enjoy a no-commitment affair was only part of it. Even if she would accept those terms, he had a