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“You shouldn’t be out here by yourself.” Hunter’s voice filled the empty silence.
“I’m really tired of people telling me what I should and shouldn’t do,” I said, looking over my shoulder to see him.
“We’re all just trying to look out for you,” he explained, and closed the distance between us in two quick strides. “Especially after the note.”
I shook my head. There wasn’t much else I could do. The warmth of his hand encircling my waist wove through me like a full embrace. He was just barely touching me, and already I was like putty in his hands.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, unsure why. I wanted him here, didn’t I? Why did it feel like I was already pushing him away?
“I let my sister get all up in my head,” he said, leaning into me. His lips brushed against my temple, eliciting a whole new string of sensations down my spine. It was taking every ounce of restraint not to turn around and throw myself at him. “I just...I wanted to be near you.”
“Are you sure this didn’t have anything to do with Flynn?”
A low growl rumbled from the base of his throat. I raised my hand up behind me to stroke his cheek. A small scattering of stubble already started to form along his jawline. The rough feel of it beneath my fingers encouraged those same naughty thoughts. Combined with the sight of the stubbly shadow on his jaw, it was enough to make any woman fall to her knees.
The throbbing ache at the center of my womanhood emerged, and I clenched my thighs together to stop it. Now was not the time. I couldn’t make love to him outside, with enemies lurking so close by. Especially when I was supposed to be on the lookout for suspicious behavior.
“There’s nothing, Hunter,” I said instead. “Flynn’s just an old friend.”
“It’s fine.” He bent down and kissed my neck. “You should have just seen the smirk he gave me.”
My body tingled with the rekindling spark of his touch. Every inch wanted to give into him there. I needed him now more than ever. Even more than I did before I knew what it was like to make love to Hunter. I would have thought the charm would wear off the way it always did. After the thrill of the hunt was over, there was little left to keep both parties entertained.
Only this time was different. Being with Hunter left me always wanting more. To the point that I worried a lifetime with him would never be enough.
“You should be nicer to Flynn,” I said sweetly. “He’s the one who told me to come out here and tell you…”
My voice trailed off. I meant to tell him how I felt. I really did.
But something nearby caught my attention.
The light to the storage shed was turned on. Why? Grandma normally kept a groundskeeper on the property, but I hadn’t seen him since they’d handed the house over to me. I hadn’t spent any time in the storage shed. I’d barely been able to go through the things in the house. And anything Aly or Zach would have needed for the house, they would have bought directly from the store.
So why was the light on this late at night?
“Lyndsey?” Hunter’s voice pulled me back.
I had even physically started walking toward the shed. I motioned toward it, just as a shadow drifted across the sliver of light peeking through the cracked door.
“There’s someone in there.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Hunter
She was right.
There was someone in the shed out back.
While a raccoon or opossum was still an option, they didn’t know how to operate the lights. Someone had been out there recently. And from the look on Lyndsey’s face, it wasn’t normal.
“Let’s go check,” I said, taking a step toward the shed.
She tugged me back by the arm. “What are you, crazy? What if the person’s armed? Or is here to do something horrible? Let’s just go back to the house to get Flynn.”
I suppressed my initial response to roll my eyes. “We don’t need Flynn.”
I moved toward the shed again, but she yanked me back even harder. “Flynn is armed. That’s why he’s here, Hunter. To investigate the arson. This whole thing was a setup to draw the person out.”
