hand but kept his body pressed against hers.
There was most definitely a noise coming from somewhere within the house. A shuffling. Like someone trying to move quietly. It was hard to hear over the racket her own heartbeat was making as it pounded away in her chest. Fear and the weight of Nick’s body pressing into hers were doing wild, confusing things to her hormones.
She was acutely aware of her breath—it was loud—and her nipples. They were painfully hard.
Lily never locked her bedroom door. What if the intruder tried that one? What if Mr. Willicott took another middle-of-the-night trip to the bathroom? Was she about to hear one of her poor, sweet neighbors that she’d miss much more than Dickie Frick yell “Cabbage Casserole”?
There was a noise on the stairs, and Nick stiffened. Riley’s heart kicked into overdrive, and her nipples tried to drill their way out of her shirt. Subtle, nipples. Really subtle.
Nick’s fingers flexed on the gun. It wasn’t his only weapon. As best she could tell, the man was also armed with a raging hard-on. Or a large flashlight stuffed in his pajama pants.
She hadn’t known bosoms could actually heave, but that’s exactly what hers was doing against his chest.
Was it weird that she was terrified and turned on at the same time? Could Nick fight off an intruder if most of his blood was in his pants?
A sound came again, this time on the worn tread of the stairs. It was… familiar. Shuffle clunk. Shuffle clunk.
Like someone walking with a—
She heard a wooden scrape followed by the telltale creak and then a door on the second floor closed.
“Just Mrs. Penny,” she whispered. She could feel Nick’s breath on her cheek, his heart beating steadily against her own chest. The hand he had at her waist fisted on the hem of her shirt as if he were fighting some conflicting urge.
She felt his hard-on pulse against her and nearly blacked out. Was the danger over, or was it only just beginning?
“Stay here,” he ordered.
She had to obey. Her knees had turned to overcooked spaghetti. Walking was not an option.
He left her propped against the wall and silently crossed to the staircase. She felt light-headed, weak-kneed, and really, really ready to get naked. Peeking out of the alcove, she watched him descend to the second floor, the light casting his shadow on the rose and fern wallpaper.
In silhouette, his erection looked like it could take out someone’s eye.
She took a moment to calm her breathing and think about anything but Nick’s penis. Oops. She was thinking about it again.
“What the hell is an eighty-year-old doing sneaking around at two a.m.?” Nick’s harsh whisper startled her. Yelping as her knees buckled, she reached out to catch herself… and caught the waistband of his pajama pants instead.
She—and the pants—went down.
“Thorn?”
“Uh. Yeah.” She wanted to look him in the eye. But she couldn’t tear her gaze away from another body part that was demanding her attention.
“About the platonic part of this sleepover…”
“Uh-huh?” she breathed. In this exact moment, she would be fine with having sex right here against the wall. She could be quiet. Probably.
“We should really focus on that,” he said, interrupting her fantasy.
“Huh?” She looked past his proudly jutting erection to his face.
He reached down and helped her to her feet. Only then did he pull his pants back up.
“We’ve got a good thing going here,” he said, knotting his drawstring. “Maybe we shouldn’t complicate things.”
“Two questions,” she said. “Did you not just offer up a fun little fling three minutes ago? And is that a flashlight shoved down your pants?”
“Uh. Yes, I did. And no, it is not.”
“So you’re saying you’ve got that going on—” She pointed to his heroic hard-on. “—and you definitely want to keep things platonic.”
He scratched the back of his head. “Yeah.”
“You are the worst fake boyfriend I’ve ever had,” she whispered, stomping to her door.
“Come on. Don’t be like that, Thorn,” he said, following her. “I’m trying to be the good guy here. You’re not making it easy.”
Thorn women had never been accused of making anything easy. It looked as though she was finally living up to her genetics in more ways than one.
“I’m going down to check that the doors are locked and to make sure that really is Mrs. Penny in her room,” Nick said, tucking the gun into the back of his pants.
“You’re not knocking on her door like that, are you?” Riley asked, eyeing his erection.
He held up three