away.
But that was precisely what had happened.
She’d been rubbing her body against his, arching into him, opening her mouth wider, tasting him, licking him—and wanting so much more. Her nipples had gone tight. Her panties had gotten wet and all along, it had just been pretend. For him, anyway.
He’d been putting on a show. Delivering a screw-you message to Dylan.
While she’d been falling back into a dangerous habit. Wanting War? Yes, that was very, very dangerous.
“We’re turning here.” His words whispered into her ear.
It hadn’t taken long to get to Dylan’s place. He owned one of the historic homes about five minutes away from Downtown Pensacola. A two-story house with a wrap-around porch and views of the bay, the place was gorgeous. He often threw parties for the station employees at his home, so she’d been there a few times. She certainly hadn’t ever seen anything suspicious while she’d been inside. Maybe she’d seen some bad, overpriced decorating, but that had been it.
“He has a camera at the front door, so we’re going in the back,” War told her. He’d parked the car a good distance away from Dylan’s home, and he’d just gotten off the phone on another one of his quick, mysterious calls. “I’ll handle disabling the security.”
“How are you going to handle that, exactly?”
He flashed her his half-grin as he slid from the car. “Trust me, I got it.”
She was having to trust him. Completely. With her life. War held her future in the palms of his strong hands and the very fact that they were about to pull a B&E on her producer…
She shoved open her door and hurried toward War. “Anything we find here won’t be admissible. We can’t just break into someone’s house and steal evidence.” The street was deserted. A good thing.
“Relax.”
Utterly impossible in that moment.
“I’m not planning to steal anything. Try having some faith, would you?”
You could do the same. She bit back the retort. Now wasn’t the time to rehash their past.
“Put these on.” He handed her a pair of gloves. Slid on a pair himself.
Someone had sure come prepared. “Why are you so well supplied? Been committing crimes often lately?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know?”
Yes, she would. That was why she’d asked.
War took her gloved hand, and they quickly slipped to the back of the house. He was doing such a good job of keeping them concealed as they moved that if she hadn’t known better, Rose would have thought he’d broken into Dylan’s place before.
Um, I don’t know better. Because he went right for the hidden key in the back. A key that she hadn’t realized was there. He took it from one of those places cut into the underside of a fake rock, and then he made his way for the door.
Once they were inside, War beelined for the security keypad. A few quick taps, and the alarm was disengaged.
“How did you do that?” Suspicion had Rose squinting at him. She kept her voice low. Hushed.
“I’m a PI, Rose. If I can’t get past a basic security setup, it would be embarrassing.”
“But you didn’t even try multiple codes. You got it right on the first attempt,” she whispered. They were in Dylan’s kitchen, one filled with gleaming granite countertops and white cabinets, and nerves had her fingers fluttering as she spoke.
“You brought me to a party here once, remember? I saw him put in the code back then. Someone broke a window and the alarm sounded so he had to punch in the info. I remembered the code from that time.”
“Oh.” That made sense. The breaking glass had triggered a shrill alarm. “For a minute there,” she tip-toed up behind him, “I thought maybe you’d broken in before.”
“It’s not my first B&E,” he breathed back as his head turned and his mouth brushed along the shell of her ear. “And it’s not yours, either.”
A shiver slid over her because she was sure she’d felt the lick of his tongue against her. He was also right. This wasn’t her first time to sneak into a place that didn’t belong to her. Though the circumstances for the other entry had been different.
Not like she was some kind of career criminal or anything.
“You don’t have to keep whispering. He doesn’t have cameras or audio recorders in the house.”
“How do you know?” She was peering into all of the corners.
“Because I got a thorough tour of the place during that previous visit. Now, come on, we don’t have a lot of time.”
They got