thoughts they shouldn’t. “You can join the party or get some shut-eye while the storm plays out.”
She faltered. “No party.”
“You hungry?” he asked.
“No.”
“Okay.” He took her hand again, drawing her down the hallway and nudging his door open with his hip. She followed and partially turned, her eyes wide, her shoulders back. “I’m locking the door.”
He grinned. “Good plan.” Then he nudged her farther inside and shut the door with him on the other side, barely holding back a chuckle when the doorknob, indeed, was locked with a loud click.
* * *
Rain pattered against the wide sliding glass door that looked out onto rows of fields on the other side of a spacious living area. Hallie woke up and stretched, warm and sated. Comfortable. A smell surrounded her—masculine and forest-y. She blinked, her back against a very firm front. A male one.
She swallowed and looked around, not moving. The night came back to her. The storm, the crash, the cowboy. The one bracketing her from behind, spooning her within a cocoon of safety that so was not safe. But it felt good. So darn good and warm and tempting. She started to slide toward the edge of the bed.
The arm resting casually at her hip moved and banded around her waist, tugging her back into ripped male muscle. “Mmm.” The low sound was sleepy, and firm lips skimmed along the back of her neck.
She shivered, and her body did a slow roll. The lips nipped near her ear. Yep. He’d felt the shiver and roll. “Wh-what are you doing in this bed?” Her voice was breathy, and fear wasn’t any part of it.
“It’s my bed.” The slow drawl, all cowboy, came from the man she’d met the night before.
“You said I was safe.” Why did he have to feel so good?
He placed the softest of kisses square at the nape of her neck. More shivers, more body rolls. “You are.” When she didn’t answer, he commenced kissing her shoulder.
“Stop,” she said.
He stopped.
“Let me go.”
He let go.
The oddest feeling of loss swamped her. She had to bite her tongue, hard, to keep from seeing if he’d follow other orders . . . like starting again. Instead, she scooted to the edge of the bed, stood and turned around. She shouldn’t have.
He lay in the bed, the covers at his waist, his bare chest revealed. Smooth, hard muscle with jagged scars and one that looked like a bullet hole above his heart.
His eyes were green—even darker in the morning than she’d noticed the night before. A manly scruff covered his jaw, and the hollows and angles of his rugged face went well with the cowboy drawl. His hair was dark, not quite black but a deeper shade than brown, and it was a little shaggy, as if he didn’t have time for a haircut.
Not that he wasn’t perfect to start with.
She swallowed. “What’s your name?”
“Trent.” His gaze wandered down her T-shirt. Rather, his T-shirt that was covering her. The guy was big enough that his shirt was loose on her, a fact she appreciated since she had more curves than a mountain road. “You’re called—?”
She tried to stand taller, but it was difficult in her bare feet. “Don’t you usually know the names of the women in your bed?” Yeah, she sounded stiff. But at least not turned on, which she definitely was. Darn it.
“Sometimes.” He rolled a shoulder in a tough-guy shrug.
The saliva increased in her mouth, and she tried not to drool. That was one heck of a shoulder. Two, really. Muscled and strong and tan. Even the tattoo that covered his right shoulder, of a snarling wolf with sharp claws surrounded by intriguing designs, called to her. But nothing compared to that drawl. So not fair. “I locked the door last night.”
“I picked the lock.” He levered himself up on one elbow, and the covers fell farther. Not quite far enough.
Finally, she was awakening . . . along with her temper. “You had no right to sleep in the same bed with me last night.”
“Baby, I told you it was my bed.” He yawned, not nearly impressed enough with her temper. “I didn’t touch you, and truth be told, you’re the one who rolled your sweet butt into my body, sighed in a way that nearly killed me, and went right back to sleep.”
Baby. Nobody in her entire life had called her baby. Her abdomen heated. She shouldn’t like it. Oh, definitely not. In fact, she did not like