Strong, Sleek and Sinful - By Lorie O'Clare Page 0,90

was found dead, raped, and beaten. The situation surrounding her murder is so similar to Rita Simoli’s, it’s eerie. Both girls chatted with a boy on the Internet, agreed to meet him, and then disappeared.” The reporter looked at the camera, disgusted. “I don’t know about you, Mark, but if I had a teenage daughter, I wouldn’t let her chat with anyone on the Internet right now.”

The scene switched to Mark, an older reporter sitting in the newsroom. “At least don’t let them chat with anyone they haven’t already met.” He stared at the camera with a serious, remorseful expression. “Take time to learn the screen names of your children’s friends, and make sure you know everyone they are talking to,” he suggested.

Perry blew out a heavy sigh and then followed it up with several expletives. “Just what I fucking need,” he said, his voice rumbling in his chest.

Kylie wasn’t sure she had the strength to keep from adding a few words to show her reaction to the idiot reporter who’d just made her job ten times harder than it had been. She would need one hell of a good song and dance now to meet Peter on Thursday. He’d assume she’d be under lockdown after that newscast, which every teenage girl should be until Kylie got the bastard behind bars. But now he’d hide in the shadows even more, and be twice as careful about meeting anyone. Prove too easy or eager and he’d get suspicious, especially knowing the cops were on his ass with recorded chats.

“And obviously I need a better security system.” She hated changing the subject. More than anything, sympathizing and having a good rant over media interference hindering investigations sounded a hell of a lot like better conversation than creating a beef with Perry for displaying his abilities to break into her home.

She pushed away from him, but Perry tightened his grip, pulling her to him and then leaning over her. She was forced back on the couch, her legs intertwined with his and his dark, brooding expression inches from hers.

“I’m answering for every move I make these days. I have a perfect track record, and don’t deserve the treatment I’m getting,” he whispered, his mouth so damn close to hers and his eyes a blur of animosity and lust. “Tonight I arrive at a crime scene only to find out the FBI stepped in and scoured the place before I could get there.”

“I’m sorry,” she offered, meaning it in more ways than she could let him know.

“Breaking into your home wasn’t premeditated. But when I got here, and already knowing those cameras were installed outside your home, I decided to see how well you have yourself protected. Why monitor the front of your house and not the back side?”

“I live alone. Duh,” she said, narrowing her gaze on him. There wasn’t any point despising not being able to tell him the truth. This was her life, her job, all that she lived and breathed for. That wasn’t going to change—ever. “When I can afford it, I’ll install more equipment in the backyard. But for now, it’s a safety precaution.” She couldn’t tell him the cameras were there to record whoever she had over, and not for protection.

“Then get a dog.”

“Sometimes using something that only requires double A’s proves a lot less complicated,” she said, and watched his expression darken until it looked as though a thunderhead was ready to explode.

“And maybe something living and breathing would require you admitting that sometimes you need someone else to take care of you.” His tone was bitter, challenging.

She bristled under the implications.

Perry lowered his mouth to hers, gentle at first, but then his demands grew, his actions intensifying, until she was panting underneath him and dragging her nails over his shoulders.

“You’re starting to get under my skin, darling,” he whispered, and continued kissing her.

She was drowning in him, every inch of her tumbling in a whirlwind of lust and need. It was an odd sensation, and one that wasn’t completely unpleasant. But when she finally was able to gulp in a breath of air, desperately trying to clear the fog overwhelming her brain, the urgency to ground herself became overwhelming. It would be too damn easy to lose herself in a relationship with this man.

“You’re just horny,” she said, her voice raspy.

Perry lifted his head, staring down at her as if she’d just said something ridiculous. “Are you trying to tell me you feel nothing for me