“Okay. I’m Carly Reese, the owner.” She often omitted Harrington when she didn’t want to call attention to her former occupation.
He recognized her voice and switched on his flashlight, sending the high beam straight at her as he stepped through the backdoor of the store.
Her dark eyes were wide as a nocturnal creature’s. Her hair was equally wild, streamers of curls exploding in every direction about her head. Happy hair, he thought fleetingly, but pinched off his smile. Because the last thing he expected tonight was to find her stumbling about in the dark. Anything—and he had been a cop who knew firsthand the results of those possibilities—could happen to a woman alone in an empty building.
Fear for her safety expanded in his chest as anger. He and Harley moved inside and closed the door before releasing a bit of it. “What the hell are you doing?”
“Noah?” She swerved her light his way for confirmation, then shoved a hand through her crazy hair, setting off little curl quakes. “I forgot to look for something earlier.”
He bit back an expletive. “You’d think last night would’ve discouraged you from taking risks. Even a child knows, once burned, twice shy.”
That pricked her. A chin lift and frowny stare came into play. If she hadn’t looked so pissed off, he might have smiled at her. He was learning her temperament.
“My place. I have a key.” She stuck her flashlight into something so that it stood upright, flooding the ceiling with light. “Why are you here?”
“Protecting your property. And now your beautiful butt.”
She cocked her head to one side. “You took the job? Why?”
He hated giving her a clue to his thoughts, but what the hell? “Because I figured I owed you.”
“So you put yourself in—hah.” She pointed a finger at him. “You’re hoping the arsonist will return.”
His mouth straightened from downward grim to flat annoyed. “This isn’t about me.” He came toward her, Harley at his side. “We’re discussing you. Were you born without the self-protection gene? Or, do you have some kind of martyr complex?”
She didn’t back away from him. In fact, she stepped into his path. “Why are you so angry?”
“Because.” Because she was a little too close for his comfort. It was a hell of a time for his libido to wake up. Just being close to Carly, his body suddenly remembered what it was like to get an erection, and ache for release.
“What if I’d come in with my gun drawn, thinking you were a thief, and shot you?”
She folded her arms and cocked a softly rounded hip to one side. “I’d have sued your ass for reckless endangerment.”
Damn. She had an answer for everything. Why did that please him so much? Most women found him intimidating. She wasn’t easily impressed. Even if her greatest defense was her mouth.
With that thought his gaze latched onto her mouth. Those full soft lips knew how to take him to task and put him in his place. He wondered what they tasted like. Would they be as sweet as they looked, or as tart as her tongue?
She seemed to realize the exact second he stopped thinking of her as a crazy lady and began viewing her as a most desirable woman. He expected her to back up, self-preservation, an instinct in the female/male world of lust. She only stood there.
Harley, also brought on line by the testosterone spilling off his owner, began a nervous dance. It was called “emotion down the leash.”
Noah almost smirked. With the hard-on he was getting, poor Harley should be howling at the moon.
Not professional. The phrase flashed across his mind. He was on the job, informally or not. This wasn’t the time or place to indulge his ego, and other parts.
He took a step backward but she went with him, her face lifted with a question in her gaze.
“You don’t—” His voice gave out. He didn’t want to talk. He didn’t want to follow protocol. He didn’t want to do anything but kiss her.
CHAPTER TWELVE
He’d been out prowling.
The high from the fire on Shelby Road hadn’t lasted. Maybe it was the static charge in the air. About midnight the wind had changed directions, stirring up the atmosphere with electrical energy and reigniting his urge.
Two beers in, he’d left a dive in White Settlement without bothering to inform the crew he regularly drank with. Another beer, and he might have said things he’d regret. The only way to prevent that was to stay sober, and be alone.
With the native paranoia of a creature with many predators, he never slept long when the urge was on him. Or in the same place two nights in a row. Sometimes, like tonight, he roamed.
But a man had to be somewhere. Driving around aimlessly might draw attention. The last thing he needed to deal with tonight was cops. “The Boss’s” song State Trooper hummed through his head. Please don’t stop me.
He knew to stay away from Glover until he was ready. But that turned his thoughts to the woman who’d ruined his perfect crime.