“Want a dog?” Keeping his tone cool and unconcerned was suddenly the hardest thing he had ever done in his life.
“She looks like she knows where she wants to be.” Bending to her knees, unconcerned of the grass beneath the delicacy of her gown, she ran the backs of her fingers gently down its tiny head.
She was rebuffed quickly.
A tiny growl and the pup moved from her, curling at Logan’s heel before he bent, picked it up by the scruff, and deposited it in the little doghouse Saul had brought.
He stalked into the house then, slamming the door closed against the sad little whines it sent up at being barred from the house.
“Logan?”
She had to follow him, didn’t she?
“Go home, Skye,” he told her wearily. “This really isn’t a good time.”
“Is any time a good time for you?” Her tone wasn’t confrontational, but neither was it kind and caring.
What the hell did he expect? He’d known months ago tact wasn’t her strong suit.
“No. No time is.”
He turned back to her as she shifted, moonlight spilled through the glass doors, washing over the gown and robe, making them no more than a shadow around her body, outlining her in an aura of dark magic.
“Fine, I can leave.” She shrugged. “Stay here and enjoy your own miserable company, Logan, since no one seems to be good enough to share it with you.”
Before he could stop her, she turned and stalked away from him, leaving the house quickly, careful to keep from slamming the door on the wiggling little pup attempting to get in.
He waited.
He made himself wait.
He waited at least a nanosecond before he followed her, catching her at the big oak tree that sat between the two houses and pulling her quickly into his arms.
CHAPTER THREE
It was the kiss that destroyed him. That brought home the realization that ignoring the attraction simply wasn’t going to work. He couldn’t ignore her. Not when she tempted him with a siren’s gaze and lips so lush he hungered to taste them.
Not when she drew him, challenged him, and with every look assured him that teasing him, touching him, was her ultimate goal.
Not when he held her like this and felt the perfect fit of her body.
He’d fought it for six months. Now, too damned late at night for common sense, the darkness wrapped around them and the sultry summer heat sizzled outside the doors and inside them at the same time.
He gave in to hunger and knew that moment when the loner inside him realized just how lonely he’d been.
Logan stared into her dark eyes, realized his fingers were wrapped, tangled in long, dark, silky tresses, and he couldn’t let go. His c**k tried to push past his jeans, her shorts, and straight into the heart of her feminine core. His entire body throbbed with the need to possess her until nothing else mattered, until no other hunger dared to intrude.
He hadn’t even known he was going to kiss her. Hell, he didn’t even remember what she was saying as she laughed up at him, chiding him the way she did over whatever she was chiding him over. He couldn’t even remember what he’d done this time. All he remembered was that destructive thought that he knew the perfect way to shut her up.
By kissing her.
And now he had no idea how to stop.
He wanted to pull back.
He told himself he was going to pull back.
He told himself he wasn’t going to let this go any further. She was his neighbor. She was off-limits. He didn’t mess with any women within a hundred miles of Sweetrock because they ended up dead.
“What are you waiting on?” Her voice trembled along with her lips as sensually drowsy lashes brushed against her cheeks, then lifted as though weighted.
That siren’s gaze, sensual and seductive, and filled with an innocent hunger that, frankly, amazed him.
Amazed him that she could feel such hunger for him. That any woman who knew his history, knew the deaths that followed him, could possibly want him.
His fingers tightened in her hair, slowly pulling her head back, tugging at the strands and her obviously sensitive scalp as a moan whispered past her lips.
Oh yeah, she liked that.
“I think I’m waiting for my common sense to return.”
Sensual, sexual hunger tore at him, raced through his veins, tightened his gut, and left him all but shaking in the face of the knowledge that he couldn’t let her go.
Surviving meant holding on to her just a little longer.
“Should we be showing common sense at this moment?” The question almost brought a smile to his lips.
He hadn’t had reason to smile in a very long time.
Why wasn’t he surprised that the smile was tempted with this woman? A woman he couldn’t seem to take his hands off?
Hell, he’d never had a problem letting a woman go before. He’d never had a problem stepping back or walking away. Sex didn’t control him; he controlled it.
Until this woman. Now he had a very bad feeling she might end up controlling him.
“I’m sure we should be.” But his lips were still lowering to hers, settling against them, rubbing over the softest silk in the world as he parted them.
Sensation sliced through him again. The instant his lips touched hers a sizzle of heated electricity seemed to sweep through him, bringing his senses to heightened alert.
Damn. It was like sinking into pure sensation.
Her lips parted beneath his as his tongue swept over them, licking at the soft flesh, tasting the inner sweetness, and becoming drunk on the ambrosia.
Each cell of his flesh was drinking her in and becoming intoxicated with her.
He’d never felt this with a kiss in his life. He’d never felt his entire body come alive in quite this way. And it was definitely coming alive. Every nerve ending was suddenly tingling with heat. His flesh was drinking in her touch at every point of contact.
Pressing her tighter against the trunk of the tree he’d braced her against, he suddenly wanted more than he’d ever believed he would want from a woman.
He wanted her against him. Naked. Just this willing. Just this hot, with nothing between them. No clothes. No gowns. No second thoughts. No regrets.
No knowledge of where it could end.
In her bed or in his.
He wanted her lush, na**d body spread beneath him, her thighs parted for him, her cries filling his ears as he sank inside her.
His lips lifted from hers just enough to move to the side and place a delicate kiss at the corner of hers. “Skye, you’re killing me here.”