Dangerous Tease (The Layton Family 3)

Straining her ears, she picked up on the shuffle of feet against tile.

Snips?

His muscle from Vegas?

Her body tensed and her heart raced. She held her breath for what seemed like an eternity, waiting, dreading what she'd hear next until she couldn't stand the burning in her chest any longer.

Josie unwound her body from Sam's and brought her lips to his ear. “Sam, wake up. I think someone's here.”

“Old house,” he mumbled and rolled away from her.

“No.” She poked him in the kidney. “Someone is here.”

He didn't say anything, but he turned onto his back, eyes opened, and stared at the ceiling. A series of muffled thunks and bangs filtered into the bedroom. When she opened her mouth, he silenced her with a shake of his head.

They sat like that as the tree branches scraped against the window, pushed by the gathering wind outside, but no other noises sounded in the dark. Maybe she'd been wrong. It was an old house. A cute bungalow, but still an old house. Hell, it could be her subconscious pushing her to get the fuck out of bed. It was about time she listened to that instead of made-up noises.

Annoyed with herself, she sat up and to

ssed the comforter off her body. At the same moment her feet hit the floor, a short series of thumps blared in the silence.

Sam bounded out of bed. “Stay here.”

“No, Sam, wait. It's Snips.” She wrapped her fingers around his forearm, his muscles tensing under her touch.

Another thunk echoed down the hall.

“Stay here.”

Before she could blink, he crept out the door and into the hall.

“Yeah, like that is going to happen,” she muttered. Lickity fast, she grabbed one of Sam's T-shirts from a chair and pulled it over her head before following him into the dark hallway.

Ignoring the ice-cold tiles, she tiptoed to where Sam stood outside a closed door. Light filtered out through the crack between the door and the floor.

He shot her a dirty look before jabbing a finger in her direction and then pointed it toward the floor.

She gave him a hand signal too, one of the middle-finger, single-digit variety.

A vein throbbed at his temple, but he turned his attention back to the door.

She didn't hear any more noises, but with the blood rushing like white-water rapids through her ears, she didn't take that to mean the invader had left. Nerves strung tight, she flexed her fingers, hoping to ease the adrenaline pounding through her system.

Tension radiated off of Sam as he reached toward the brass doorknob.

His fingers wrapped around it and he slowly rotated to the right.

The light under the door blinked out.

Sam pushed the door open with a whoosh and stormed into the darkened room.

Josie swallowed her scream.

A whump echoed in the room, followed by a thump and a crack. Two shadows grappled, silhouetted against the bay window. One crashed to the floor.

Breaking out of her brain freeze, Josie slapped her hand against the wall until she contacted the switch. Light flooded the room.

A pitiful mewling cry emanated from a man curled into the fetal position on the floor. Latex-glove-covered hands shielded his eyes as he sat up.