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They stared at each other a spell before they both laughed.
Sean pushed her hair from her face, enjoying the sparkle in her eyes.
Delaney ran her hand over his shoulder and down his back, over his hip, tracing his skin with delicate fingertips. When she reached his abdomen, Sean was ready to tell her that it wasn’t going to work. He wasn’t eighteen anymore. But then, in fact, it worked.
“You look surprised,” she said.
“I am. I can’t remember the last time...” He trailed off, his attention suddenly caught by noise in the hall. Something clacked over the wood floor. Delaney sat up in bed and looked in the same direction as Sean.
A second later, Wyatt appeared, carrying his leash in his mouth. He sat down in the doorway and dropped the leash on the floor.
“Wyatt,” she gasped. “You came upstairs!” Delaney turned to look at Sean. “You weren’t kidding. He finally came upstairs.”
“That’s quite a trick, with the leash,” Sean said. “Pete taught him all kinds of things.”
“Pete didn’t teach him that.” Delaney pushed back the covers and stepped out of bed. “At least, I’ve never seen him do it.” She reached for her T-shirt, which lay on the floor, dropped it again and grabbed a robe that hung from the top of the door.
Sean watched her move around, carrying herself with confidence, completely comfortable being naked in front of him. She slipped her arms into the silky pink robe and closed it, hiding away her creamy skin and all the dips and shadows of her muscles and curves. “You need to go outside, don’t you, boy? Good boy!” Delaney lifted the leash but didn’t attach it to Wyatt’s collar. “Come.” She patted her thigh and the dog followed her out of the room. Sean listened as they headed downstairs, but he didn’t get up.
Not right away. He stayed in bed a few minutes, enjoying Delaney’s lingering scent and warmth all over his body and in the sheets. He’d gotten hard again and needed to let his body wind back down before he rose.
After a few more minutes, Sean reluctantly left Delaney’s warm, sweet bed behind and stuffed himself into his sweaty, dirty clothes. A shower was going to feel like heaven. As he jammed his feet into his boots his gaze connected with the ceiling tile that had been crooked earlier. At the time, he’d decided it was nothing, but now, in light of how the Dudes had behaved at the motorcycle show, Sean wasn’t so sure.
By the time he made it downstairs, Delaney was headed back inside, Wyatt in tow, on his leash. “He wasn’t too interested in his walk today,” she said with a grin. “We wore him out at the fairgrounds. Just did his business and wanted to come back inside.”
“He’s a big boy,” Sean said. “He’ll need lots of exercise.”
Delaney’s smile fell as she watched Wyatt rush to his water dish and lap up the contents. “Do you think the Dudes were right? About him needing more space?”
Sean followed her gaze. “They weren’t right about anything. People have dogs everywhere. Long as his needs are met, he’ll be fine. He doesn’t need a thousand acres to run around in.”
“I know, but—” Delaney hugged herself “—what if they are right? What if Wyatt would be better off with—”
“With who?” Sean cut in. He grabbed a bottled water from the case Delaney had near the register. The sign on the glass listed them at a dollar fifty. He slipped two bucks out of his wallet and set them on the counter. “Those guys who thought he’d be a cool shop toy and terrified him into favoring a cold, concrete workshop? You know what it must feel like in there in the winter?” Sean twisted the cap off the water and took a long drink, not realizing just how thirsty he was until he drained the entire thing in one go.
Delaney’s face crumpled, and Sean regretted putting that image in her head. Sometimes he forgot that the ugly things he saw on a daily basis while doing his job were things the average citizen wouldn’t want to know about. Not that Delaney was an average citizen, but Sean hated how sad she looked. He honestly just wanted to wrap up her body, silky robe and all, into his arms, bury his nose in her jasmine hair and tell her it’d all be okay.
“Not the Dudes.” Delaney waved a hand. “But maybe Wyatt would be better off with some nice family that has a big yard and a few kids for him to play with. Not stuck in a motorcycle shop with a biker chick who finds it hard to sit still on a good day. He hates when I leave. He’s always trying to get out.”
Finished with his water, Wyatt padded over to the Willie G, which Delaney had on one of her lifts, and did circles around the motorcycle.
“He looks happy to me. You just have to give him time.” Sean eyed the motorcycle as much as he did the dog. He wondered what she was doing to the bike, getting a small surge of excitement picturing Delaney’s hands on his motorcycle, making it better, like she had with his body. “Hey.” He tore his gaze from the Willie G and the happy dog and strode over to where Delaney stood, arms wrapped around herself in her worried hug.
She tilted her head up to face him as his hands lit on her shoulders. Delaney Monroe’s eyes were a clear, bright amber—the color of irony, since ancient things had met their demise being trapped in the lifeblood of an extinct forest. “You only promised to foster him, right?” Sean reminded her. “If you really think Wyatt would be better off with a nice family with kids and a yard, then you can hold on to him until that happens. Right?”
“Right,” she agreed, her mouth turning down at the corners.
“Hey, I need to ask you something.” Sean hated to bring up the Dudes, but since Delaney already had, he went with it. “Earlier, when I came back to get Wyatt, and I had to go upstairs... I noticed a ceiling tile in the corner of your bedroom, by your window, that was popped out of the track. Just kind of stuck out to me as odd. Has it always been like that?”
Delaney’s eyebrows rose. “I... No. I don’t think so. I would’ve noticed that.”
“I felt around up there and came up with nothing,” Sean admitted. “And then I slipped the tile back in the rail. I didn’t think much of it at the time, but...”
Delaney was quiet, her bottom lip tucked in at the corner. After a moment she grabbed her phone off the counter and pushed some buttons. “I’m checking the cameras,” she said. “Just in case.” Another long moment went by, then her jaw dropped. “Sean, look at this.”
Sean peered over her shoulder as she backed up the footage. One second the screen showed the back of Delaney’s shop, and the next something large and blurry came flying fast, right at the lens. Then everything went black.
They looked at each other, then they both bolted for the back room.
