Dangerous Temptations

She gulped before she spoke. “I want to be your sucker.”

I frowned. “My sucker?”

“No, no. That’s not what I meant. I was talking about, you know… like how many licks would it take to get to…”

That made me raise an eyebrow.

“I’m going to stop talking.”

“Yeah, I think you probably should.”

Giving me a sexy smile, she said, “But I wonder how many licks it would take—”

I pressed my finger to her lips and shook my head. “Syd.”

She nodded.

With a wink, I removed my finger, kissed her lightly on the lips, and said, “I can’t wait to find out, lollypop.”

With that, I reached down to pick up Maggie Maye.

“Sleep good, sweetheart.”

She sighed as though I’d just said the most romantic thing ever to her. I gave her a quick kiss on the cheek and said, “Lock the door behind me.”

“Okay.”

“Night, Syd.”

“Good night, Mike.”

The next morning, I woke to Maggie Maye licking my face.

“Good morning, Mags. You have to go potty?”

She barked and bolted out of my room. I could hear her little nails as she ran down the steps and through the house to the back door. I couldn’t believe how quickly she took to house training. My little girl was a smart one.

Yawning, I stood and stretched. Then the memory of last night hit me all over again, and I felt a rush of warmth race through my body. This was a new feeling—nothing I had ever experienced before with a woman. I didn’t want to think too much about it, but I knew for a fact there was something different about Sydney Burch. Something that had me thinking about her nearly nonstop.

Maggie Maye barked, letting me know I was taking too long. I rushed down the stairs, forgetting to put a T-shirt on. Once I opened the back door, the pup ran around the yard, found her spot, and went pee. Then she took off after a bird, chased a butterfly, and stumbled over herself when she attempted to run by and grab a stick along her way.

I laughed. “I’m going to call you Sydney Junior. Come on, girl, let’s get some breakfast.”

As I made my way back into the house, I glanced at my laptop on the kitchen table. I’d lain in bed last night, bothered by the fact that the blog I had been on earlier had vanished.

Maggie ate her kibbles as I mixed up a protein shake and drank it.

The sound of the doorbell was unexpected, and I made my way through the house to answer it. I looked through the side window and saw Sydney standing there.