Strong, Sleek and Sinful - By Lorie O'Clare Page 0,32

He squeezed her breast and growled into her mouth.

Kylie swore her world turned sideways. She had one free arm and she grabbed his shoulder, fighting to stay grounded as she opened to him, taking what he insisted on giving her and drinking him up as fast as she could.

She kept her fingernails short yet filed and painted, her personal vanity. And with what nails she had she dug into his shoulder, feeling how solid he was and rubbing her fingers over the swell of roped muscle. Then wrapping her fingers around the side of his neck, she lost herself in the solid, repetitive beat of his heart as it pulsed through his vein in his neck.

“Don’t tell me no again,” he hissed into her mouth, moving his lips over hers.

Her eyes were still closed and she relaxed between the wall and his virile body. “Don’t do anything that I wouldn’t want,” she challenged, and then blinked several times, her vision blurring when she gazed into his face.

His eyes pierced her soul. “I haven’t so far,” he growled.

“Perry, leave.” There was no insistence left in her, but she made the words come out nonetheless.

And she hated it when he backed up, leaving her against the wall. He headed down the hall toward the front door and opened it. She felt drunk when she followed him and gulped in a few soothing breaths to regain her composure so that when she reached the door she hoped there was some appearance of control in her expression.

“Your nieces are good girls. I won’t let them get hurt,” she promised him.

Perry didn’t comment but walked down her sidewalk to his car. She watched him climb in and start his engine before she slowly closed and locked her door.

Chapter 6

Perry adjusted the earpiece, listening carefully while he drove out of Kylie’s neighborhood. He heard the sound of a doorknob turning and then footsteps. Kylie had unlocked that middle room and was once again in there. For good measure, he drove around the block, confirmed what he’d heard when he saw the middle light on through the window and kept going. Something that sounded as if a chair slid across the floor. Damn, his bugging equipment that he’d placed in her hallway, and just inside her front door, was sensitive as hell. It might not be what some would consider scrupulous, but no one would harm his nieces. Perry would know beyond any doubt that Kylie’s intentions were good before he allowed anyone to get closer to her.

His cell phone rang as he ran his tongue over his lips, still tasting her. No, he wasn’t getting too close to her. It didn’t matter how good she felt or smelled. Or how damn aroused she got him. Her intelligence and beauty were compelling, and he’d see her again, and soon. But he had to know beyond any doubt that she wasn’t indulging in any foul play.

“Hello,” he said, noting the number calling as he yanked the earpiece for his equipment that allowed him to hear into Kylie’s house.

“Hey, little brother,” Megan said, sounding cheerful yet tired. She always sounded tired these days. “Word on the street is that you might have found a hot little number.”

“What?” he hissed, rolling his eyes. “Hold on a minute.” He dropped the earpiece that had a cord attached to a black box in his passenger seat. Then grabbing his Bluetooth out of the cubby on his dash where a CD player or some other modern contraption could be installed if he were so inclined, he shoved it in his ear. “Do I even want to ask what you might have heard?”

Before Megan, his sister and mother of his nieces, spoke he was positive he heard amusement in her sigh. “It appears the girls spent the afternoon with a Kylie Dover. I admit freaking on it a bit, even with Diane there, too, until they told me you were part of this gathering as well. Mind filling me in on what’s going on?”

“What did the girls tell you?”

“You know I hate it when you answer my questions with questions.”

He knew. He also was curious whether the girls had told Megan a different story about Kylie than what they had told him. When he didn’t respond, Megan sighed again, sounding slightly less amused, and continued. “Dani met her first at the bowling alley earlier this week. They tell me she’s working on her thesis over at KU but came here to get a different