Heat of the Night

'I do not.'

'Liar.'

She set her hands on her hips and asked, 'Why do all men regress to being big babies when they don't get what they want?'

He stuck his tongue out at her.

Stacey bit her lower lip and looked away quickly. He laughed, a full-bodied guffaw of pure joy. She choked while trying to keep from joining him.

'Come on. Enough of this nonsense.' He rounded the dining table and took her backpack from her. The grin he gifted her with made her tummy flip. 'I promise to behave.'

'But I'm so irresistible,' she drawled wryly.

'I know.'

The intimate timbre to his brogue arrested her and kept her staring at him long after she should have looked away. His gaze was warm and possessive, slightly hungry. She was asking for trouble with a capital 'T' by taking him home with her. Letting him play man of the house for the afternoon. Allowing him to imprint himself on her home.

She sighed. 'What if I don't behave?'

Connor stepped aside and gestured toward the foyer. 'I won't say no,' he warned. 'If you're hoping I'll agree to play the gentleman, think again.'

'Fine.' Stacey led the way to the front door and he opened it, pausing a moment to collect his sword. 'But I'm putting you to work, Mr. Big-strong-man-who-can-do-the-chicken-dance.'

'Bring it on, sweetheart.'

He followed her out the white wooden gate that enclosed Lyssa's flagstone patio. They walked together to the small guest parking area and Stacey hit the remote on her keychain that popped open the trunk of her Nissan Sentra. Connor tossed her backpack and his scabbard inside, then began whistling as he moved to the passenger door.

'You're too happy about this,' she muttered.

'And you're too worried.' He paused and stared at her over the roof of her car. 'We had sex, Stacey. Great sex.' His voice lowered and the brogue thickened. 'I've been inside you. If I can't be happy spending time with you after that, what kind of guy would that make me?'

Stacey swallowed hard, blinking. She'd seen this look on his face before. Austerely intent. Serious. He wore it just as well as he wore amusement. 'You're fucking with my head. I don't like it.'

'By telling you the truth?'

'By being perfect!' she hissed, glancing around to make sure they weren't being overheard. 'Stop it.'

His mouth curved in a tender smile. 'You're nuts, you know that?'

'Yeah?' She yanked open her car door and slid behind the wheel. 'You don't have to hang out with me.'

The passenger door opened and he folded his big body into the suddenly miniscule seat. He grimaced.

'Move the seat back if you won't go away,' she said.

He shook his head and looked exasperated. 'I'm not going anywhere. Get used to the idea.'

Rolling her eyes, Stacey leaned over and reached between his legs to find the manual seat release. 'Don't think you're going to make me feel guilty that you're squished. Push back.'

He didn't move.

'Jesus H. Christ!' She smacked his shin. 'Why are you so stubborn? Push back.'

He still didn't move. Not one muscle.

Turning her head to complain, she found herself eye level with an impressive bulge in the crotch of his jeans. His right hand was on his thigh, the fingers white as they dug into the hard muscle beneath the denim. Stunned for a moment, Stacey didn't move. Comprehension was slow to sink in. Eventually she realized that her breasts were pressed to his left thigh, thrusting rhythmically due to her labored breathing. Her gaze lifted, noting the rapid lift and fall of his chest before coming to rest on his face.

His expression was mocking. 'This is supposed to make me more comfortable?'

Stacey glared and straightened. 'You did that on purpose.'

Connor snorted and moved the seat back himself. 'Let's go, sweetheart.'

They pulled out of Lyssa's gated condominium complex and sped down the road to Stacey's part of town. Old town, they called it, but it was presently going through an overhaul. The new police station and town hall were being built in one large complex, and new businesses were filling the once empty plots. Murrieta was a new town with an old history. Within a block of each other, one could find a Starbucks and a farm. The dichotomy was one she relished. Country charm with all the modern conveniences.

'Do you like it here?' Connor asked, surveying the passing landscape with a curious eye.

'I do. It's perfect for me.'

'What do you like about it?'

She glanced aside at him. 'What's not to like?'

He wrinkled his nose. 'It stinks.'

'O-kay…' Stacey pondered that a moment. 'We are in a valley.' At his raised brows, she explained, 'Smog tends to sit in valleys.'

'Wonderful.'

She shrugged. 'If you think it stinks here, don't go to Norco.'

'Sounds like a gas station,' he said.

She laughed. 'I've always thought so, too! Seriously, though, it's horse country. Plus they have lots of dairy farms out that way. The whole town smells like cow shit.'

'Nice.' His mouth was curved in that singular smile that made her heart flutter madly.

They turned a corner and entered the part of old Murrieta where there were no sidewalks and there was a good bit of distance between one house and the next. It was far different from the area where Lyssa lived. There you could borrow a cup of sugar from a neighbor just by reaching your arm out your window.

Stacey pulled into her gravel drive and came to stop before the little two-bedroom house she called home. It was small, just under a thousand square feet, but it was adorable. If she said so herself. It had a wide covered front porch framed by curving flower beds that she'd designed and planted herself. Painted a soft sage green with bright white trim, the place was cute on the outside and fully modernized on the inside. And it was hers.

Well, as much as a mortgaged house could be.

'Here it is,' she said, lifting her chin with pride.

Connor rounded the trunk and drew abreast of her. 'I like it.'

She glanced at him and found him engrossed in checking out her abode. 'It's too small for you,' she thought aloud, then instantly regretted how that might come across. As if she were imagining him living there.

He canted his body to face her, standing so close she couldn't help but smell him. She didn't know what the scent was. It wasn't any cologne that she could recognize. It was just him, she suspected. Just Connor-brilliant name for a signature cologne and he'd make a fortune off it.

'I like tight places,' he purred with mischief in his eyes.

Not for the first time, Stacey wondered what it would be like to live with a man who was so confident. That inner surety enabled him to be such a shameless tease. It also made him different from all the other men she had ever dated. The others had been small men pretending to be big men. She'd always fallen for the shell, the illusion of stability. Until she had Justin. Then she learned to find strength within herself, because someone else depended on her.

She inched by Connor and went to the trunk where she pulled out her backpack. Evading him when he tried to take it from her, Stacey jogged to the porch and cautioned, 'Watch out for the second stair. That's the one with the rot.'

'Got it.'

When she pulled open the wooden-framed screen door, he was right there with her, his hand catching the edge and holding it ajar while she unlocked the two deadbolts and door lock.

'Isn't it safe out here?' he asked, delaying entering the house after her because he was scanning the front yard and the quiet street beyond.

'Yes. But my scaredy-cat sensibilities take over after dark.'