Here Comes Trouble Page 0,29

him have it.” Again with the babbling. But, honestly, his hands were still on her, and she didn’t know quite what to do next. Seemed easier to just keep talking.

She felt the heat of him, just behind her. All that bare skin…he was like a one-man furnace with that heat. Or maybe she was the one with the elevated temperature. She certainly felt feverish…

“You gave my cat away,” he said, his breath warm on her neck. Her feverish neck.

“It, uh—it wasn’t yours, as it turns out.”

“So I heard. Good thing he’s up on all the rules of being neighborly. Are the rest of the residents of Pennydash as…colorful?”

“Never boring, anyway.” Sort of like every second I’ve spent with you. “I’ve met Matilda, the mom cat, by the way. It explains a lot.”

“Psycho senior?”

“Something like that. Let’s just say, I’m not thinking your little pet there was going to be domesticated anytime soon.”

“Well, I think our girl has found a good home. She has a fine career ahead of her. One she can sink her teeth into.”

Kirby groaned, but she was smiling.

“A real corporate climber.”

Now she laughed.

“If there was a draft for mousers, she’d be a first-round pick.”

Kirby ducked her chin and shook her head, but snickered anyway. “If you start in with the ‘my kitten can beat up your kitten—’”

“Hey, I’m just trying to show a little paternal pride here.” He bracketed her hips with his hands, careful not to drag her shirt across the raw skin of her stomach, and pulled her body back against his. “After all, I sent her into the world with the very shirt off my back.”

Which was so very, very true, Kirby thought, feeling the heat of his very bare nakedness emanating right through her thin cotton shirt. “Probably just as well you sent her off when you did,” she managed through a belly knotted up with lust. “She’s already gone through two shirts in two days.”

He pressed his lips just below her ear, and only a superhuman effort could have kept her from tipping her head back to rest on his shoulders. His very broad, very naked shoulders. Turns out she had a ways to go to achieve Wonder Woman status.

“Yeah,” he said, the low rumble of his voice vibrating straight down her spine. “It’d be a real shame if I lost all of my clothes.” He splayed his palms gently across her stomach, pressing the well-washed cotton to her ravaged skin like the softest of bandages. “Whatever would I do?”

“Indeed,” she choked out, which was something of a wonder in and of itself, given the veritable avalanche of images that accompanied that little comment. Her poor imagination couldn’t decide which clip in the erotic slide show to focus on first.

“Kirby,” he said, rubbing his lips along the side of her neck.

She covered his hands with hers, trying, and failing, to find her equilibrium. Things like this didn’t happen to her. She really…really…wanted them to, but as to actually happening? This was a first. “Yes?” she breathed.

“How many beds are there in this house?”

“Uh…” She tried to focus, but it was damn near impossible now that he’d started nibbling. “Ni—nine. Total. Including mine.”

He caught her ear lobe between his teeth and pressed ever-so-lightly. “Would it be too forward of me to tell you that I want to have you on every single one of them?”

Had he not been holding her all but braced up against him, she was pretty sure she’d have slid right to the ground in a puddle of gooey, hormone-soaked lust. She tried to speak, but he was kissing the side of her neck, and all she could manage was a head shake.

How crazy was this? She’d only been fantasizing about this since he’d ridden up on his bike, but fantasies never came true. Not like this. He hadn’t even properly kissed her yet, and he was talking about having her, taking her…dear Lord she wanted him to take her, have her. Anywhere he damn well pleased.

For all she knew, he was some kind of serial killer—a very good-looking, well-dressed, manicured, bank-rolled, hot biker serial killer—who rode around the country seducing poor, orgasm-starved innkeepers into having mind-blowing sex with him, so he could—so he could…well, she didn’t know what exactly, but letting him do this probably was unwise on numerous fronts, the worst of which would be that one. Probably.

Except his hands were all over the front of her now, and she really rather liked them there. Not enough to