Rolling over, I began to sit up, wondering where all my clothes had gone, but Rebel grabbed me around the waist and pulled me back down. My back was flush against his chest, his crotch hard against my ass.

“Where are you going?” he asked, tightening his grip.

“Home,” I replied.

“Done with me already?” His lips brushed along my shoulder.

Hesitating, I allowed myself to sink back against him for a moment. “I thought…”

“You thought wrong.”

“But—”

He bit down on my shoulder lightly, flexing his cock against my ass. “No buts, Charlie. I want you to stay. I’ll want to go again before morning.”

Oh… It was an alien notion, but then again, I’d always been with guys who’d turned out to be lackluster idiots. Rebel had already been put on a pedestal, what else did he want from me?

“Stop thinking about it,” he murmured, letting his head settle back against the pillow. “It’s getting you into trouble.”

Boy, was it ever.

Rebel kept true to his promise, waking me for another round of obliterating sex. As he did in the cage, he dominated, but his pleasure was mine. If I came, he came harder. Win-win.

I’d well and truly crossed the line, but when I looked back…I couldn’t even tell where it was anymore. Career had been everything to me up until the point Rebel had kissed me against that wall at The Underground. I could no longer see the way ahead, and it was terrifying.

Opening my eyes, I drank in the sight of his features. He was still asleep, his face peaceful, innocent. Here was an entirely different man to the one I’d met. He looked closer to his age, maybe twenty-five or twenty-six, his dark eyelashes resting against his cheek—eyelashes any woman would kill to have. He was a fierce yet beautiful man.

His leg was threaded between mine, but that’s the only part of him that touched my body. We were apart but still connected despite not being wrapped around one another. I liked it. A lot.

Sliding my legs from his, I slipped out of bed and fished around in the pile of our clothes for my T-shirt. Not finding it, I pulled on his instead and breathed deeply. Rebel’s scent filled my head, and I found myself smiling, my body still humming in the afterglow of an amazing night. Fuck, I was a goner. I’d fallen for the guy and already there were a shit ton of lies between us.

Standing, I tiptoed across the room and out into the hall, searching for the bathroom. It was a tiny place, I hadn’t really had a chance to see any of it last night, but now that it was daylight, I could see that it was a modest little apartment. One bedroom by the looks of it. I found the toilet down the hall, separate from the little bathroom. Once I did my business, I poked my head into the living room. There was a small kitchenette attached, and I frowned at the threadbare belongings that were haphazardly arranged in the small space.

Rebel must be earning a great deal of money fighting at The Underground, yet he lived in modest surroundings seemed to forgo material belongings… Who was this man, and where had he come from? I was beginning to realize there was a lot more to this man than met the eye. Lori had said he was smart, but the fighters in that place didn’t seem to strike me as the intelligent type. Physically intelligent, yeah, but book smart? Rebel was beginning to worm his way deeper under my skin the more I uncovered.

Shaking my head, I discarded my wandering thoughts. What exactly was I investigating here? The Underground or Rebel?

Easing back into the bedroom, I stilled as I saw Rebel sitting on the edge of the bed. He was naked and holding something that was mine.

He held up the little black wallet I kept in my jeans pocket and flipped it open. “Detective Croft.”

I froze, my blood beginning to race in my veins as I began to have heart palpitations. I leaned back against the wall, clutching at my chest as he held up my badge.

“What are you really doing here, Charlie?” he asked, his expression hard. The man who’d spent all night making me feel like the only woman who mattered in the entire world was nowhere to be seen.

“I—” I didn’t know what to say. It was my job to know what to say, but right now, I was doing pretty shit.

“Are you playing me?”

“No.”

“Then what is this? I haven’t got any patience to deal with this shit.”

“I told you,” I said firmly. “I told you in that hallway.”

“You were unhappy…” His eyes narrowed dangerously.

I nodded slowly, still too wary to move away from the wall. Rebel watched me watching him, and I could see the cogs turning in his head. Lori was right, he was a smart bastard, and I feared he was about to work me out.

“You’re mixing with the wrong people,” he said finally. “They have no problems cleaning up any unfortunate messes.”

I knew exactly what he was getting at. “I know.”

“Then why would you risk it?” He stood, unashamed in his nakedness. “A woman alone in that place?”

“A woman?” I asked, scowling.

“It’s a man’s world despite the women’s league. You saw it, Charlie. It’s not a nice place. Especially for a cop.” He shook his head, raising a big hand to rub at the back of his neck. “If they found out what you do…”

My eyes widened as I realized that he was worried about me, not himself. “You’re not going to say anything?”

“Depends on your motives.”

He didn’t know what I was really doing. He didn’t know that I was trying to crack The Underground. He just thought I was walking on the wild side. Good. I could protect him from the fall out when it was time to take them down. The less he knew the better.

“I have no motives.” The lie slipped easily off my tongue, and I had to stop myself from flinching. Five seconds with this man and a night of unbelievable sex had me emotionally invested. Fuck it all to hell and back.

Rebel’s expression softened slightly, and he stepped toward me, pressing me back against the wall. “Good.” he said, dipping his face toward mine. “Fuckin’ good.”

The tension bled from my body as we kissed, the argument already beginning to fade. But at the back of my mind, my inbuilt cop conscience was trying to get my attention. If they found out what I was really doing at The Underground, I’d end up in a ditch with a bullet in my head.

Ironically, that didn’t seem to bother me as much as the fact that I’d lose Rebel if he found out the truth. He’d drop me like a stone if he knew, and I didn’t think I could handle it if he did. Falling hard and fast for a man never seemed a realistic occurrence, at least not until now.

Of all the unlikely places in the world to find a man I could fall in love with, I never thought it would be at The Underground.

Big trouble had nothing on it.

Chapter 10

Rebel

I’d had a lot of women. I’d fucked them all kinds of ways. Usually, I’d kick them out straight after, but Charlie…Charlie was different.

Something clicked physically with her, something that had never happened with anyone else, and for a guy like me, that shattered everything I understood about the opposite sex. About relationships and motherfuckin’ love. Could I fall in love? The idea sounded stupid.

I didn’t know if Charlie was the one, but it was the first time I’d wanted to try. I still wanted to even after finding out she’d been keeping a huge secret…she was a cop. A fucking cop. I slammed my locker closed, trying to filter out the noise of The Underground.

Trouble. She was nothing but trouble, and I still wanted her. If Max and the others found out, my big break would be shot. They’d take Charlie and make an example outta her, and it didn’t matter one iota that she wasn’t investigating. She was one of them.