In a quick glance, her gaze dropped to his crotch.
“Emma.” Not only was his dick not the problem, but she had no idea that there was a three-way war raging inside him between his head and his heart and his still semi-hard cock. And just then, his cock was losing by only the slimmest of margins. But now that there was maybe something going on around Emma’s property, Caine had even more reason to keep his hands and his dick to himself. He needed to figure out if he was right, so he couldn’t afford the distraction.
Her eyes snapped back to his, and he didn’t want to guess at the emotions running across her pretty face. “Okay, then,” she finally said. “Be safe.”
That was his line, but he didn’t say it because he didn’t want to worry her.
He was plenty good at that all on his own.
And then he didn’t know what to say. So, with just a nod, he walked out of the kitchen and through the house. “Keep your ears open,” he whispered to Chewy, who lifted his little head and wagged his tail as if he understood.
Out at his Harley, Caine gave Emma’s street a slow one-eighty scan.
His blood was comprised of at least one part paranoia, so he knew he was more apt than the average bear to see trouble where it didn’t exist. Thing was, he wasn’t often wrong. Having been a target for trouble from the moment his mother had overdosed on heroin and his father had decided that a five-year-old kid was too great of an inconvenience to deal with, Caine had been raised on identifying and combating trouble.
As he looked at that perfectly quiet street, he felt trouble. He felt hidden eyes and he heard the echo of too-quiet footsteps and he smelled bad intentions heavy and thick on the night air.
And as long as his senses were telling him all of that was true and not just the product of his hyperactive ability to imagine worst-case scenarios, he was going to act like it was true.
Which meant one thing—he needed to surveil Emma Kerry’s house. To rule that trouble in or out, once and for all.
Chapter 9
Emma was sitting in the middle of her living floor on Sunday morning amid piles of colorful paper, bows, gift bags, and wrapped presents when the question came to her for maybe the dozenth time.
What the hell happened on Friday night?
One moment, Caine had been all over her, literally devouring her. And the next, there’d been a mile-wide gulf between them.
“We should leave it at that…”
Trying to figure it out had left her distracted all weekend. Not to mention confused, equal parts irritated and hurt, and feeling like somewhere along the way she’d missed something obvious but was being too clueless to know what it was. Ugh!
And the frustrating cherry on top was that she couldn’t stop thinking about how freaking amazing he’d been. The aggression of his kisses and touch. The surprising fervor with which he’d worshipped her with his mouth. The way he’d tormented her after her orgasm, licking her over-sensitive clit until she thought she’d cry but even then she hadn’t wanted it to stop.
The feeling that she could’ve said or done or admitted to wanting anything, and he would’ve given it to her no questions asked. And, damn, how she’d wanted the opportunity to put that feeling to the test.
The only thing that made any sense to her was that realization she’d made over dinner—that he seemed to be trying to make an argument about why they couldn’t work. And if she was right, then perhaps in the cooling off that’d happened while they took Chewy out, dealt with his escape attempt into the alley, and then cleaned up dinner, Caine had revisited that argument. And that time it’d won.
If that’s what happened, it didn’t bode well for her. Because it meant he’d made up his mind about them, and he’d done it after they’d fooled around. Which…ack!…really sucked. Especially because her body craved more of what they’d shared. Emma just couldn’t stop thinking about how good it’d been, how hard she’d come, and how much she ached for more.
More with him.
Putting the finishing touches on another gift, she wrote Alison on a tag and stuck it on the top of the wrapped box. And then she realized she’d been staring at that gift for ten minutes while her mind spun on Caine McKannon.
Man, she needed a distraction, bad. She put the movie Elf on while she did the rest of her wrapping, because it was so ridiculous that she could never resist laughing even though it was also really, really stupid.
But at least it pulled her out of her head and she managed not to obsess about her Tall, Dark, and Mysterious Oral Sex God for a few hours. And then she had Alison and her husband to help, too, because she met them at a matinee showing of “The Nutcracker” and then they had dinner afterward.