He tilted his too-sexy chin at the pile of metal on herporch.
“Nothing. A skull.Art.”
“Nice.” He advanced on her, smooth and knowing, as he lowered the shoulders of her robe. His heated gaze drew sparks up and down herbody.
Linx swallowed hard, as he lowered his slick wet lips onto her neck, melting all the panic from her body and replacing it with dreadeddesire.
“I can’t, I mean, the dog, Sam.” Her words were useless against the press of his hard, hot body, and the suckling of his mouth as he trailed kisses down the column of her neck to her bareshoulders.
All he had to do was drop the robe, and she’d be exposed to the entire world—including her mother, if she were lurking around with a pair ofbinoculars.
“We can’t.” She summoned all her strength and pushed from his embrace. “Someone might see. I wasn’t expectingyou.”
“Then let’s move inside.” Grady’s low voice electrified every sensual nerve on herbody.
Woof. Woof.Thud.
Linx froze. Cedar had gotten out of the bathroom and was lunging against the frontdoor.
“Oh no! My dog got loose.” Linx scrambled to tie her robe and turned to thedoor.
“Then let her out.” Grady laughed and reached for thedoorknob.
“No, you can’t!” Linx grabbed his hand, but he was tooquick.
He jiggled thedoorknob.
Locked.
Whatever relief she felt quickly fanned into a firestorm of panic. She was locked out in nothing but her light summer robe, buck naked underneath, and Cedar was on the other side of thedoor.
“Hey little doggy,” Grady said. “Your mommy’s locked out with big badme.”
“Stop teasing her. Can’t you tell she’s scared?” Linx yanked Grady by his arm. “Let’s go get Sam, and you can be on your way. I know that veteran really wants him, and we can’t keep her waiting. How’s Cait, by theway?”
“You’re popping like a busted sack of popcorn in a microwave.” Grady tapped his fingers on the door, eliciting heavier barking and whining from Cedar. “Hey, little doggy. I bet you want toplay.”
“Let’s go.” Linx gritted her teeth, but he wouldn’t move from thedoor.
The barking grew morefrantic.
Linx’s pulse panicked when the curtains moved against the window and Cedar’s paws showed underneath, digging at the windowsill.
“Look, she’s trying to get out,” Grady hooted. “Maybe she has to pee. You do have a key somewhere out here, don’tyou?”
She did—under a potted plant, which was thankfully hidden by her mother’s huge metallic spike in theeye.
She couldn’t expose Cedar to Grady—not right now. She wasn’t ready. Notyet.
There was only one thing to do. She had to get Grady’s attention off the dog and onto her and get him away from thewindow.
Slowly, she untied her robe and pulled it aside, flashing her boob. Giving him a come-hither wink, she wiggled her behind and sashayed around the wraparound porch to the back of the property where the rest of the dogsstayed.
* * *
Linx was acting strange,but after the last twenty-four hours, whowouldn’t?
Grady turned away from her hysterical dog who would hurt herself if she broke through the window and chased Linx around thecabin.
