Page 79 of Puppy Love

“Um. A ruse, obviously. The second Bubbles is off the clock, that means I am too.”

“Why does that matter—” he began, but there was no need to finish. One look at Sophie supplied all the answer he needed. She licked her lips in what had to be deliberate leisure, making it impossible for him to look away from the soft, gently parted plumpness.

He took a wide step back. “Oh no you don’t.”

“What?” she asked. “I didn’t say a word.”

“Oscar knows there’s something between us. He can tell.”

“Can he? I wonder how.”

“You know very well how. Ever since you started staying at the house, you’ve been exuding sex at me.”

Those oh-so-plump lips parted in a laugh. “I’ve been exuding sex?”

“Atme,” he added, lest she forget the most important part of that accusation. Sex appeal in a woman who looked like her was no mystery, but the fact that it was unfurling his direction was. It was as though tendrils of ivy were wrapping around him, drawing him closer and closer until he had no chance of escape.

A gorgeous plant, ivy, but destructive as all hell.

She did it now with a firm step in his direction, careful of the puppy who lay obediently at their feet. The tugging started in his gut, a churning of desire that worked up to his throat and choked him from the inside. From there, it moved lower, drawing him inexorably forward.

“No one has ever accused me of exuding sex before,” she said, her voice a low purr. “How am I doing it?”

“We can start with this ridiculous thing you’re wearing,” he said, since it seemed as good a place to start as any. It also seemed as good a place totouchas any, so he slipped a hand out to grab her about the waist—which, as any man with eyes in his head and blood in his veins would notice, was stark bare. “Where is the rest of your shirt, young lady?”

She giggled and arched into his touch, allowing his palm to slide down the gently sloping softness of her back. He stopped just above the line of her jeans. “It’s called a crop top, Harrison. All the kids are wearing them these days.”

He highly doubted it. Whatever seductress of a designer had come up with this shirt obviously had a woman built like Sophie in mind. There wasn’t a whole lot of skin showing between the high waist of her jeans and the tightly fitting black shirt, but what was there was bound by two straps that crossed over her belly button and drew in the narrowest part of her waist.

He fingered one of those straps now, over and under the fabric, pulling it out just far enough to snap it back into place. Sophie gasped, but she followed this up by tugging his lower lip between her teeth and giving back as good as he gave.

“If Oscar knew what kinds of things I want to do to you, he’d have me killed,” Harrison muttered.

“Such a scaredy-cat,” she teased.

There was no use denying it. He was scared of Oscar. He was scared of Sophie. Hell, he was scared of himself—particularly of how quickly he was casting aside every scruple he’d ever had for a chance at feeling this woman in his arms again.

“What are some of the things you want to do, by the way?” she asked as she coiled her arms around his neck and pulled him closer. “You should tell me. In explicit detail.”

He gave up on trying to keep his hands above her waist and tugged the front of her jeans until her pelvis lined up with his. The sweet agony of sensation rocketing through his groin caused him to groan.

“Nice try,” he said. “The only thing I’m going to do to you is put you in my truck and take you home.”

She jolted back. “Home?” Her voice was small and her frown intense. “What for? I thought it was going well—the training, the cohabitating.”

He realized his mistake almost immediately. To him,homemeant only one place—the same place it had always been, whether for good or bad or, as was more often the case, terrible. Since Sophie had been staying there, however, he’d found himself seeing it with a more optimistic eye. It was rundown as all hell, yes, and there was no mistaking that it contained memories that should have been exorcised a long time ago, but she could make even a backwoods cave feel like the only place he wanted to be.

To her, however, home meant Spokane. It meant her mother and sisters. It meant those people who loved her and underestimated her in equal proportions.

Although how they could go twenty-six years of living with this woman and not see how superior she was to every other goddamn person on the planet, he had no idea.

“Home,” he repeated more firmly this time. He moved his hands around to her backside, forcing their hips into more perfect alignment. The rounded softness of her ass filled his hands, and he realized that he probably wasn’t going to make it the entire twenty-minute drive home. “But you wanted to show Bubbles around here first, didn’t you?”

He released her, causing her to blink up at him in some perplexity, but he took her by the hand before she could misunderstand. “I think she should see inside the DNR building, don’t you? Especially my office.”

“Your office? But—”

“But isn’t the building empty?” he asked. “Yes, it is. I, however, have a key. We’ll be all alone in there.”