Strong, Sleek and Sinful - By Lorie O'Clare Page 0,50

pole to the house, and it looked like someone, at some point, had drilled cable into the house to accommodate different rooms. Perry turned slowly toward the front door and squinted, noting a small wire under the roof overhang just above the door. Walking closer, he followed the wire with his eyes to where it disappeared inside the home. He traveled the length of it, looking up as he moved closer, and then stopped, gawking at the small, barely noticeable camera that was secured at the edge of the overhang.

“Fuck me running,” he muttered under his breath, moving past it to the front door and paying close attention to every detail of the rest of the house. “I wouldn’t have guessed this about you.”

He made a show of knocking on the door again, although there really wasn’t any point. Kylie knew he was out here, knew it without looking through her peephole. She had her entire home wired with some incredibly expensive-looking spy equipment. Studying the back side of the tiny camera, noting that it didn’t move but remained focused on the side of the home he’d just walked down, he turned around slowly, prickles attacking his spine, as he already felt the sensation that he was being watched carefully.

“There you are,” he whispered, spotting the other camera down the length of the house, just underneath the guttering. “Damn.”

He ran his hand over his hair, taking this new bit of information in about Kylie, and turned his attention to the doorknob when the lock inside clicked.

The door opened and he stared at her flushed face. Sleep had made her eyes slightly puffy and her lips were full, moist, and reminded him of how much he enjoyed kissing them. But it was her hair, tousled and turning in small waves that caressed her slender nape, that made him instantly hard.

“You’re late,” she murmured, her voice scratchy, further proof that possibly she hadn’t been inside watching him but instead asleep.

“You weren’t here at five,” he said, and knew instantly by the slight twitch of her lips that he was right.

She licked them and then raised her baby blues to his eyes, looking a lot more alert than she did a moment before.

“And I can’t stay,” he added.

“What do you have to do?” The scratchiness in her voice was gone and she moved around her door, pulling it open farther so he could enter.

Her curiosity didn’t surprise him. He knew he’d pegged her right when he’d listened to her question his nieces. Possibly she was working on a thesis. But there was another side of her, a side that craved action, adventure, and even a mystery. More than likely when she had picked up on teenage girls being abducted and showing up dead she decided to become a private detective.

His protective instincts kicked into overdrive as he stepped inside and let his gaze drop to the swell of her breasts, accentuated by how her oversized T-shirt draped over them. The fact that she didn’t wear a bra and if she had shorts on underneath the large shirt they weren’t visible made it damn hard to keep his cock from getting hard as a rock. Her long bare, slender legs and no shoes or socks somehow made her even sexier.

“Work,” he said, knowing not elaborating bugged the crap out of her.

“What are you working on?” She combed her blonde hair with her fingers and pulled her attention from him, looking into her home.

Her living room looked exactly like it did the last time he was here. Not as much as a cup on the coffee table, pillows in the corner on each end of the couch, and no media on anywhere. She spent all of her time back in her bedroom, and probably in that middle room she kept locked. He took a moment to glance toward her hallway, betting that room probably held the equipment for those cameras outside. No wonder she kept it locked.

“I get to go talk to the family of the young girl we found earlier today.”

“Oh.” Pain registered on Kylie’s face as if she actually knew what it was like to talk to parents of a child who’d just died. “Do you want something to drink before you go?”

“No time right now.” He looked down the hall. Both bedroom doors were open. “I stopped by for this.”

Kylie fascinated him, sexually and otherwise. There really wasn’t room in his life for any kind of serious, long-term relationship, but he was