soap. I wish you’d been here to share tonight.”
She waited, hoping that the message she’d read in the flutter of curtains and scent of peaches meant her Grams was back. She listened, hoping to hear the words I was here, Savannah Sophia. But the voice in her head remained stubbornly silent.
“Well,” she murmured, “I still feel your love in my heart and that’s what’s most important.”
But because she did feel lonely she went looking for her dog … and found more than she’d bargained for. Inny was in the backyard where Savannah had put her before the party, but she wasn’t alone. Zach Turner sat in the porch swing with Inny draped across his lap.
Savannah treated herself to a moment of drinking in the sight of him. Lamplight shining through the back windows cast him in a warm, honeyed glow. The man was so darned delicious to look at—in a totally masculine sort of way with his thick, dark hair, sculpted cheekbones, and squared jaw sporting a five o’clock shadow. He sat sprawled on the swing, his big hand stroking little Inny’s coat. Those glacier blue eyes of his watched her with an intensity that started her blood humming.
“You came back,” she said, sounding a little breathless to her own ears.
“I never left.”
“Why not? Is my dog okay?”
“I didn’t want to leave, and your dog is fine. Come sit with me.”
“I shouldn’t.” But she wanted to. Oh, how she wanted to.
“Why not? It’s a beautiful night. Your dishes are done. I looked.”
Because you’re dangerous. “I need to make a night deposit at the bank.”
“I’ll walk you over in a little while.” He patted the empty space beside him. “Swing with me, Savannah.”
Temptation resonated in his voice, and Savannah couldn’t help herself. She crossed to the swing and sat beside him. Inny’s ears perked, but she didn’t so much as lift her head from Zach’s lap.
The dog knew when she had it good.
The porch swing was one of Savannah’s favorite spots in town. She sat there and drank her morning coffee and sometimes a glass of wine before bed at night. Ordinarily, sitting in the porch swing relaxed her. Tonight, though, she wasn’t relaxed. Tonight excitement hummed in her blood like her daddy’s moonshine.
“What a gorgeous night,” Zach said, staring up at the star-filled sky. Then his gaze shifted and roamed over her with frank male appreciation. “Gorgeous night. Gorgeous woman.”
Deliberately he looked at her, his intention in his eyes. Savannah shivered as he reached out and tucked her hair behind her ear, then skimmed his hand along her jaw to cup her cheek. “You left Reflection Point before I had the chance to say good night, Savannah.”
His mouth closed over hers and he proceeded to give her the sweetest, slowest, sultriest kiss she’d ever enjoyed. She melted against him in response.
He tasted dangerous and delicious and powerfully male, and as the kiss went on and on and on, a thick languor stole over her. She thought she might have purred. She knew he growled low in his throat. Savannah lost herself in the sensual pleasure of the moment, only vaguely aware that at some point Zach had shooed Inny down from the swing. He pulled Savannah onto his lap, her bottom set squarely between his rock-hard thighs.
“Now it’s time to say hello.” He deepened the kiss, his tongue seeking, then taking. She inhaled his masculine scent, and even as her hands slid up and across the broad expanse of his shoulders, a little part of her brain wondered how she could re-create the fragrance. I’d make a mint.
She bubbled along in a current of sensation like a leaf drifting in a mountain stream. She wished this could go on forever. She needed this man’s mouth on hers.
She needed more.
He gave her more.
His hand cupped her breast, his thumb flicking across the hard peak of her nipple and sending a bolt of desire shooting through her. His mouth left hers and went nibbling across her jaw, instinctively homing in on the sensitive spot on her neck that had her whimpering in response.
Zach gasped out, “Why don’t we take this inside before I have to arrest myself?”
The rueful laugh bubbled up inside her and spilled out onto the gentle night. “Good try, Turner, but no. I’m not that kind of girl.”
He groaned once more, then sighed. “You sure?”
No. “Yes. It would be stupid. You’re a cop. I’m an ex-con.”
“I’ll let you use my handcuffs. On me.”
A fantasy image of the sheriff of