Hounded (Going to the Dogs) (9 page)

Poe stumbled out of bed, yawning deeply and wishing like hell she’d remembered to set the timer on her coffeepot the night before. The sun was barely visible over a very leaden gray horizon, rain spattering her window.

The moment she opened her bedroom door and smelled fresh coffee, she silently thanked Jared. She needed a shower before she faced him, however. “Jared?” she called out. Wow, he got up early on a Sunday. When he didn’t answer, she figured he must be gone. She could only hope it was for a doughnut or bagel run.

Thank God. She’d had erotic dreams about the man all night. That’s what happened when she went to bed with a raging female hard-on.

Poe pushed open the bathroom door and felt the steam, smelled the body wash, sharp and clean. She stopped, confused, and then she saw him, one of her white towels low on his waist, his hair wet and tousled.

Her first glimpse of a scruffy, early morning Jared. And whatever had been primed to explode from her lips evaporated like morning mist under a rising sun.

And her temperature spiked like an August heat wave.

The morning beard coating his jaw, the way his hair fell over his forehead in that boyish way, made his eyes darker, and emphasized how lush his eyelashes were. And his mouth. Oh God, she shouldn’t go there, but her eyes couldn’t seem to stop staring at his lips. The ruggedness the stubble lent to his face just underscored all the more that soft, chiseled mouth.

Her thighs quivered, her nipples hardened, and she had another raging female hard-on.

“Shit! Shit! Shit!” She backed out of the bathroom. Her elbow hit the doorjamb and she squealed with pain. Whoever thought up the name funny bone was obviously a masochist. Slamming the door, she headed for the kitchen.

Once there, she couldn’t figure out what to do with her hands while her elbow throbbed to the hard beat of her heart. In her defense, she wasn’t accustomed to having men in her apartment first thing in the morning. Well, not normally, and if she did, it was because they spent the night. In that case, she wouldn’t feel like a peeping Thomasina. She started putting away the dishes from the dishwasher. If she didn’t, she was going to run screaming from her apartment to escape the sizzling sexual tension that was now tightening her body with no relief in sight.

She could feel him come up behind her, her awareness of him as finely tuned as her senses were to the animals she worked with. Except with him there was all that sexual energy jazzing things up. She cleared her throat and squared her shoulders a little, then made the mistake of looking back at him.

Hard, wet muscle. He’d at least put jeans on, but they were unbuttoned, as if he’d put them on in a hurry. She wondered if he had underwear on. Lord, help her and those tantalizing deep indentations on either side of his hips. Lord, help her some more, not to mention the hair that arrowed down and disappeared beneath the placard of his jeans. It was time to look up. But that didn’t help. Droplets slipped down his broad, thickly muscled chest. His eyes, full of unspoken appreciation and the most intense gaze she’d ever seen, feasted on her. He was both unnerving and charming at the same time. She got the distinct vibe from him that she was in the company of a gentleman—
and
a rake, a description she hadn’t even thought was in her lexis.

“I’m so sorry I saw you half-naked.”

“Look on the bright side, darlin’. I could have been all nekkid.

“Oh shit! Next time lock the door! Save me from getting this…”

“Turned on?”

She whipped around. “What makes you think I was turned on?”

“Aren’t you? I’m freaking vibrating.”

It was too early in the day for this. She couldn’t handle this kind of full-out assault on her senses. Or on her mind. Or…hell, what part of her didn’t he affect? He muddled her up far too easily. Muddled was definitely not what she needed to be right now.

But when he lifted his hand, barely brushing the underside of her chin with his fingertips, and tipped her head back a bit further…she let him.

“I think about you,” he said, his voice nothing more than a rough whisper.

Her skin tingled as if the words themselves had brushed against her.

“All the effing time. You in those damn crazy shoes, delicate and unusual dresses, tight shorts, and baring-midriff tops. I spent half the night thinking about how you’d look in that unmentionable ensemble and the other half wondering what you have piercing your belly button.” He smiled softly.

“It’s a dragon.”

His smile broadened as his mouth lowered slowly toward hers. “Fuck,” he whispered. He closed his eyes and his hand trailed down her body to the skin of her waist, and she gasped at the warm tingle of his fingertips as he traced over the ring. His lips brushed across hers.

She was frozen for a second. The sensation was amazing, mind-shattering.

His arms tightened around her. Her lips parted, his tongue slipped inside, and she fell straight into heaven.

She couldn’t believe this was happening, heat washing through her, a sweet ache coming to life again between her legs. She’d never felt like this before, ever, with any man. The sheer primal force of him swamped her senses.

She opened her mouth wider, wanting more. No man could possibly taste this delicious, feel this delicious. She hardly believed that anyone this amazing would want her so physically. She was the smart one, the brainy one. He was responding to her with every breath, with every touch, opening himself to her, practically begging her to explore. There was nothing she wanted to do more than feel the hard warmth of him, the lean toughness, to sink herself into the exquisite reality of his body.

Dangerous ground, but so incredibly yummy. Groaning softly, she pressed against his mouth, drawing him deeper in to her kiss, and he slid his other hand down around the curve of her waist, pressing her into his hips, growling a little.

Her arms traveled up around his neck. His skin so soft and moist against her forearms she wanted to linger, but her hands itched to get into his thick, dark hair.

She cupped his damp nape, the movement releasing that just-showered smell. He groaned softly, his mouth moving harder on hers as her fingers slipped into his wet hair.

Soft like feathers, like down. She cradled his head in her hands, and the sensation was like she was coming apart and being put back together one molecule at the time. How could a man this tough, this hard, have any softness to him at all?

Then her hands slipped down and she palmed his chest, the hard contours, rubbing over his flat nipples.

“Poe,” he said softly, “You’re so beautiful.”

His sexy accent wrapped around her name making her melt with each word.

Her cell phone chimed, and she didn’t want to acknowledge it, but Jared pulled away only enough so that he could speak. “You should get that. It could be important.”

Reluctantly she agreed with him. When she picked it up, she sighed. “It’s Harper.”

Jared’s face closed down. Shuttered. She sighed again.

“Hello.”

“Poe, we’re getting together for brunch, you in?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, eleven at Mission Cool.”

“See you then.”

She turned to find Jared gone. He emerged from the hall wearing a black t-shirt, tucking it into his jeans.

“What was that? In the kitchen.”

“That was our sexual attraction exploding.”

“Oh, and you think it was a mistake.”

“Don’t you? You said I was your dance partner and it could complicate things.”

Her mother. She was supposed to be focusing on The Fur Ball and the dance routine, getting him ready for the competition, not kissing him in her kitchen like she couldn’t get enough. Oh, yeah. God, there just wasn’t enough room in her mind for both her mother and Jared’s hot, wet kiss.

“So we probably shouldn’t really put any significance on it, right?”

“Right. A lapse.”

She nodded. “I’m going to get my shower. I have brunch at eleven.” She would make that a cold shower.

She must be out of her ever-loving mind. In fact she was sure of it. She felt awkward and uncertain, and yet still powerfully connected to Jared, this man she had kissed and allowed to kiss her silly in her kitchen.

“Okay.” He walked into the living room and turned on the TV, and Poe, all her tingling parts, and her deflated ego, headed for the bathroom.

#

He sat on the couch and pretended to watch a basketball game until the bathroom door shut behind Poe. Then he closed his eyes and leaned back. His dick was throbbing and he was thinking if she wasn’t in there right now, he’d get himself a cold shower. How stupid could he be, kissing her like that?

Geezus! It’d been about the hottest kiss he’d ever shared with a woman, and her skin was like satin. Right, this trip down memory lane wasn’t helping him or his dick. Really, he had vowed to keep his hands off her. He was lying to her, betraying her, and yet he still wanted her with the heat of a thousand suns.

She came out of the bathroom and, without looking at him, went into her room. He didn’t want her to feel bad. At this point, he wanted to date her, but he couldn’t. He had to maintain the distance between them. It was imperative for him to protect her.

When she came out dressed in ripped leggings, denim shorts and a black eyelet lace top, she checked the windows.

“It’s still raining. I really want to walk Edgar and Allan. I guess I’ll just take them out to see if they need…”

“I already took them out when I got up.”

“Oh. Thanks for doing that.”

“Poe,” he said softly, rising. “I really hate this polite, we don’t really know each other shit.”

“I do that when I feel…rejected.”

“Dang it, girl! I wasn’t rejecting you! If it was up to me, we’d be…never mind. The point I’m trying to make is that the circumstances are weird, but it doesn’t have to be that way with us.”

“Of course, you’re right.”

He nodded. “I know I am. I can give you a lift when you go to brunch.”

“You don’t have to leave the warm and dry to do that.”

He shrugged. He needed to let off steam. “I think I’ll go pump some iron or hit the bags.”

“Okay, if it’s not too much trouble. I’m meeting them at Mission Cool.”

“That’s an excellent restaurant for brunch. Good eggs Benedict.”

“Why don’t you join us? You look like you could miss an iron-pumping session. Oh, was that too personal?”

“That you think I’m buff? Hell no. I like hearing that you like my body. I like yours, too.”

Now that he knew his advances were welcome, that Poe wanted him as much as he wanted her, it was twice as difficult to keep his hands off her.

“I think I’d better pass.” He wasn’t sure about crashing the foursome’s plans, especially having to interact with Harper on less sleep than he needed. Of course, in the Marines he’d been used to getting very little sleep and catching up when he could. But Harper was much scarier than an insurgent, even unarmed. He just didn’t want to test it and blow his cover, which would leave Poe unguarded.

“Okay, you up for a session later on today?”

“Surely am.”

“I’ll call you after brunch, and you can pick me up and we’ll go to Callie’s. That might be the best place to practice. Is that good for you?”

What would be good for him is if she was under him right now and they were both naked and burning up the sheets. That would be good for him right now.

Instead he nodded.

“I’m ready to go.”

It was a quick trip to Mission Cool. Poe dashed out of his truck and zipped inside just as Harper’s limo pulled up and she got out holding an umbrella.

She flashed him a look and hesitated, then walked over to the truck.

He rolled down his window. “Jared, I wanted to make sure you understood how sorry I am about what I said. I don’t know the circumstances of what happened to you and Aiden. He won’t talk about it and…well, we really don’t know each other well enough for me to pry into your life. I am so thankful you took on this crazy assignment for me. I love Poe like a sister and if anything happened to her…well, I would be devastated.”

He reached up and covered Harper’s hand on the edge of the window. “I won’t let you down. She’s…very special.”

“Oh, God, Jared. Don’t get involved with her. Don’t lose focus.”

“I’m working on that. But it’s not easy. She’s so sweet.”

“I know. I gotta run.”

He watched her go into the restaurant and thought about what she’d said. He’d thought the most difficult thing about this assignment would be to get the dancing down and coax Daisy to respond. But he’d been totally wrong. Keeping his hands off Poe from here on in was going to be the most difficult thing he’d ever done in his life—and that included boot camp and trying to survive for ten miles when he and Aiden were being hunted, both of them wounded and running on empty.

#

“One more time, Jared and try to look less rigid.” Poe could hear her own despair in her voice. It was now afternoon and they had already put in two hours of intense work, and he wasn’t any better. Daisy was still on the whole unresponsive. Poe was quite frankly worried about the dog and worried she was going to lose this competition. There was no way they were even going to place at this point. Maybe she should just cut her losses and try to work out another way to help her mother.