Kylie.
He walked past her green hybrid and touched her hood. It was warm. She hadn’t been home long. He wondered where she’d been as he climbed the one step and then stood at her front door, rapping his knuckles against it.
Kylie was quickly making a habit of not answering her door right away when he knocked. It could be that she did it on purpose to get under his skin. Something told him that she didn’t think about him enough for that. He stepped away from the front door, glancing both ways at the front of the house, and then headed away from the drive, taking in the outside of her home and the windows.
Blinds were closed over each window. The white siding was slightly dirty but in good shape. The small bushes along the house had been trimmed back, probably a landlord’s doing before she moved in. She hadn’t said, but he put money on the fact that she hadn’t lived here long at all. Her house barely looked lived in and wasn’t homey. Kylie struck him as the kind of woman who would make a place her own given time. It was part of her need to feel in charge of her life.
Power lines extended from the street 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 compelled to pull her in close, tighten the reins he decided needed to be put on her, and keep a close eye on her.
“What?” she started to ask, returning her attention to him.
He didn’t let her ask anything else. Grabbing her arms, he pulled her to him and then attacked her mouth with savage need that unleashed the moment his fingers moved over her flesh.
She cried out into his mouth, which brought out even more of a craving to possess her, have her, taste every inch of her warm, sensual body.
Perry cupped her ass, enjoying the soft curve and smooth, round shape of it, and lifted her against him, deepening the kiss. Kylie dragged her nails down his chest, not holding on but definitely not pushing him away, either.
But when she opened to him, parting her lips and tilting her head to give him full access to the moist heat surrounding her feisty little tongue, a growl tore through him that he didn’t anticipate.
Kylie didn’t do anything special to try to lure him in, which was part of her appeal. Her oversized T-shirt and bare legs and feet made just about the sexiest picture he’d ever seen. He pictured her coming home, stripping down, and then crashing without a care in the world about her appearance. Along with that, as he moved his hands over her rear it became apparent that she wasn’t wearing anything underneath. And she knew he would be coming over.
Damn.
“You can’t,” Kylie whimpered, turning her head but leaving it tilted perfectly with an arch that was an open invitation to feast.
“Can’t what?” he growled, raking his teeth over her skin and feeling her shiver against him. Lifting her shirt, he ran his hands over her bare ass and then enjoyed the way her curves ended at her slender waist.
“What can’t I do, Kylie?” he asked again, and nipped her flesh at her collarbone.
Her breath caught, stifling a small cry as she dug in with fingernails that pinched his skin through his shirt. “This,” she hissed.
Perry dragged his fingers up the sides of her body, feeling her ribs as she arched farther against him. If she was trying to tell him no, she was doing a damn lousy job of it. And although it crossed his mind to lift her into his arms, head down the hallway to her room, he wouldn’t push matters. One, she was trying to tell him to stop even though she didn’t want him to any more than he did. And two, he would wait to fuck her when he had time to enjoy everything he knew she had to offer him. He lifted his head and caught her with her head tilted, her eyes closed, and soft strands of blonde hair draping over the side of her face. Cupping her breasts, he ran his thumbs over her nipples, which were hard like pebbles. His cock fought against the constraints of his jeans while all blood drained from his brain.
Damn it. She’d told him no.
“I have a feeling you’re going to be a lot better at making love than you are at saying no.”
Her eyes snapped open and those bright blue eyes flashed with emotions that made them glow. A mixture of lust and defiance created the perfect shade. Something else he put to memory as he reluctantly let his hands slide down her shirt.
“I was trying to be nice,” she said, and pressed those moist, pouty lips of hers into a firm line.
