As she watched, Conn walked around the main living space, opening doors, peering behind curtains. “You’re good at this,” she said.
“Making myself at home in other people’s houses?” He gave her a quick grin, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “I’ve got some experience with that.”
“I suppose you do,” she replied.
“Where should I put these?” Conn asked, back by the suitcases. Even with rugs under the dining area table and anchoring a leather section facing the fireplace in the living area, his voice echoed in the big space, a suitcase dangling haplessly from either fist as he looked around.
“In my bedroom,” she said.
She looked at him as she spoke. The moment they made eye contact, a bolt of sweet electric heat shot up her spine, lifting the hair on her nape. Her nipples tingled and hardened. His eyes darkened in response, going from all business to a heavy-lidded possessiveness she couldn’t ignore.
They were alone, in her house, and he was looking at her like if she said the word, he’d have her right there on the hardwood floor.
CHAPTER FOUR
“Through there?” Conn said. He tipped his head toward a wide doorway just off the family room. Anything to break the tension thrumming between them, because no way was this happening. She was Cady Ward, pop star, and he was Connor McCormick, a cop on the verge of being suspended for an assault he didn’t commit, which would likely earn him jail time. Nothing good would come from acting on a desire that twenty-four hours earlier hadn’t existed.
But he wanted to. He really, really wanted to.
She blinked, then cleared her throat. “Yes. My … um … bedroom is the one on the left. The spare room is across the hall.”
She turned on lights as she showed him the rooms. He brushed past her to set her suitcases down by the king-sized bed. They weighed a freaking ton, and he mentally revised his estimate of her strength. The room was decorated as if being photographed for a magazine. Pictures sat on the dresser, with larger ones on the walls. Cady and her sister, her mother, her friends. The surfaces were dust free, the comforter and mounded pillows giving off an expensive sheen.
It was the biggest bed he’d ever seen in his life. In a split second his mind betrayed him, sending up a vivid image of Cady’s slender body under the sage green down comforter, nothing visible but her wild mass of brown and gold hair.
Two people could have some crazy hot sex in that bed and not even mess up half of it.
Not happening. He turned around. Through an open door he saw an enormous tiled shower with jets set into the walls. His brain spun, heating like racing slick tires doing a burnout, then shot off in the direction of sex in the shower.
Not. Happening.
“First things first,” he said, then cleared his throat and said the words again, this time in a voice that sounded professional, not like he’d said Your place or mine? “I need to do a security sweep. Get familiar with the layout, exits. I’ll start with the yard, because the sun’s about to set, then do the interior.”
“Of course,” she said. “This way.”
She led him down a set of stairs between the living room and the bedrooms to a finished walkout basement. “Thanks,” he said, and slipped out the door and into the yard.
Where he drew in several deep, cooling breaths as he used the rapidly fading light to make a quick circuit of the perimeter. The air was cold and sharp enough to sting his skin, signaling snow was on its way. For a singer who wanted privacy, the house was perfect, set well back from the road, barely within shouting distance of either neighbor. The front of the house was an imposing stone-and-brick facade with a few unobtrusive windows. From a security standpoint, it was a nightmare. The pines were dense enough to hide anyone from paparazzi with a zoom lens to a crazy guy with a sniper rifle and loomed up from the edge of the lawn. She must have the latest in security cameras because he couldn’t see any at all around the house’s doors or windows.
He skirted the brick patio with built-in fire pit and edged around the side of the house, ears tuned to the stillness of a winter night. The air was cold and sharp, and all he heard was something scuttling near the neighbor’s woodpile. The shape resolved into a raccoon when it came close enough.
“Gun. Badge. Taser. Mag light,” he said to himself as he crossed the driveway, heading for the front door. He’d sleep a lot better if he had the contents of his utility belt, because he was a cop. Hawthorn told him to stay out of everyone’s grill. In other words, be someone he wasn’t. Forget that. He wasn’t about to get shoved out of the department and into jail. He wasn’t going to back down from this.
He rang the doorbell. Cady opened it without confirming his identity.