Swiping his fingers through his hair, Logan admitted it was damned hard to believe that anyone in Corbin County did not have an ulterior motive.
He’d spent a week on the computer and on the phone with damned near every contact he possessed in the information business. The background check he’d done on Skye O’Brien had come up as clean.
Well, with the exception of a few too many speeding tickets. And there was that time in college she’d gotten a little too drunk and had propositioned a cop outside a bar.
Normal, everyday, run-of-the-mill, girl-next-door adventures.
And he didn’t want to believe it. Suspicion was a vicious, sharp-toothed demon that gnawed at his mind.
Suspicion turned to hunger as she came into view.
Long, dark waves spilled down her back, and she was wearing another one of those damned, vintage nightgowns that made the animal hunger that already tore at his balls rise to a howl of pure lust.
The black filmy lace looked so damned soft, he ached to touch it. To touch her.
The material molded over her br**sts, all the way down to her delicate waist before falling to the floor in a long sweep that trailed majestically behind her.
He wanted to strip it from her body. To peel it slow and easy from her shoulders to her h*ps and watch it pool at her feet.
Naw, once he got it to her hips, he wasn’t watching anything but those incredible br**sts.
Suddenly the soft strains of a sensual R&B instrumental began to fill the night rather than the raucous dance tunes she usually played.
She wasn’t the best dancer he’d ever seen, but damned if he didn’t love watching her move.
She had a natural sensuality to every step she made, to every twist of her h*ps and every pleasure-loving step she made.
Even now, as she peeked curiously in the direction of his patio, he could see the urge to move to the music eating at her. And he had to grin.
He’d deliberately left the lights out, so she would believe that he was gone. For the past week, she hadn’t danced for him once.
She closed the curtains on the sliding doors and kept the lights down low, and he’d known, f**king known, she was dancing and denying him the chance to watch. But now she thought she was alone.
Scratching at the raspy short beard that covered his lower face, Logan tipped his head to the side and watched as she began to sway.
Slow and easy, her arms lifting above her head, her h*ps began to move in langorous, sensual circles. Fuck him. He’d never been so hard, so tormented with the need to f**k one woman in his life.
The pulsating, let’s-fuck music drifted like a heated breeze through the night as her movements, maybe not in rhythm to the music exactly, but definitely in rhythm to the hunger raging through him, tormented him.
She was dancing for a lover.
Enticing. Sensual. Pleading for a touch.
Her hands lowered, one crossing over her stomach as the fingers of the other slid down her neck, her head tilting back. The hand crossed over her stomach, gripped her own hip before her fingers curled just enough to allow her nails to rake over her hips.
His abs tightened, flexed, as he felt the ghostly sensation of those nails raking over his own hip, rasping over his flesh and sending bolts of sensation to strike at the taut sac of his balls.
Hell, he could jack off to the sight of that and probably come hard enough to lose the strength in his legs. A sight like that begged for sex. Pleaded for a man’s touch. Made him ache to bury his c**k between her thighs and demand that her h*ps sway and roll with just that rhythm.
He was a second from striding across the distance that separated them when a new sound intruded on the night.
At first, Logan was certain he had to be hearing things.
A soft, distressed little whine.
Stepping into the house on silent feet, he grabbed the weapon he kept on the shelf next to the patio doors before moving to the edge of the doors he’d slid open earlier.
There it was again.
“Ease up, little bastard.” The hiss of the demand had his muscles tensing, denial surging hot and furious through his body.
Stepping from the house, careful to stay within the shadows, Logan waited.
He didn’t have to wait long.
Saul Rafferty had aged in the months since Logan had last seen him. He had been with his wife, Tandy, at the time.
He’d stared at the old couple, and told himself he hadn’t seen the sheen of tears in Tandy’s eyes, or the desperation on her face.
Saul had been just as cold and hard-edged as always. He had led his wife past their only grandchild, continuing on their way as though Logan hadn’t existed.
“Come here, you crying little shit.” Despite the harsh words, Saul’s tone lacked the gruff disgust Logan normally heard in it.
Saul sure as hell couldn’t be doing what Logan thought he was doing.
But he was.
Logan waited silently as the old man made his way around the edge of the house.
In one arm he carried a whining little bundle, in the other, his hand gripped a small Igloo pet house.
“What the f**k are you doing, old man?” Logan shoved the gun in back of his jeans, propped his hands on his hips, and glared at his grandfather.
Saul didn’t even appear surprised.
“I should have known you wouldn’t have the decency to actually be gone.” Anger filled his rasping tone. “Can’t just be up-front can you, boy? Have to keep the damned lights out and pretend you’re not even here.”
The response didn’t even make sense, but the bundle in his arms gave an excited little yip and all but jumped from Saul’s grip.
“You’re not f**king doing this to me again,” Logan snarled as Saul set the pup in the grass. It bounded ecstatically over to him.
Chomping down on the strings of Logan’s sneakers, it gave little baby growls, tugging and begging to play.
The Chinese pug was damned small and cute as f**king shit and he didn’t want a damned thing to do with it.
He didn’t want to remember the one other pup he’d had as a kid, or its death. He sure as hell didn’t want the responsibility of keeping this one alive.
The lights on Skye’s patio flared on, the music shutting down as she became aware of the presence of Logan and his grandfather outside.
“Logan?” she called out to him, the concern in her tone making his chest clench.
Only his two cousins had ever cared what the hell happened to him. What was he supposed to do with a sexy neighbor who now seemed to feel the same?