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"Oh, hello." He bent down and picked up her cat. Jello curled into him and began purring louder than Laura had ever heard her purr before. She couldn’t blame her. "What’s your name?"
"That’s Jennifer Lopaws, but we call her Jello because my nephew couldn’t pronounce JLo. And Sofia Purrgara, Sofie—"Laura pointed up in the tree"—is stuck up in the tree. She was the reason I was climbing a tree in my underwear."
Knox looked up, set Jello down, reached one arm over his head, grabbed the lowest branch, and hoisted himself up. He climbed to the top of the tree like a ninja on steroids. Within seconds, he was back on the ground, and Sofie was wrapped in one arm.
Seeing him scale the tall oak so effortlessly, so gracefully, and so efficiently was the hottest thing Laura had ever witnessed in her life. If she could get pregnant without intercourse, watching Knox rescue her cat with one arm would have done it.
Knox petted Sofie, who was cuddled against his chest, on the head, then handed her to Laura.
"Tha…than…thanks." It took three tries to get out one single word; that was how flustered Knox had made her as she held Sofie in her arms.
Knox nodded, then grabbed the ladder and put it back inside the garage. He hit the close button on his way out and ducked beneath it as it closed. Forget the cat; that had been the hottest thing she’d ever seen. She hadn’t asked him to put away the ladder or close the garage; he’d just done it.
She could come right there on the spot, and that made her realize that her family's low bar might have rubbed off on her if she was about to orgasm at a man putting a ladder away.
Knox walked across the front yard in purposeful strides and stopped about a foot in front of her. The energy between them was crackling with something. She tried to speak, but when she opened her mouth, nothing came out.
After a few seconds, or maybe minutes, Knox lifted his arm and reached out toward her. Her heartbeat rapidly increased with anticipation as she waited for him to cup her face and kiss her. But that didn’t happen.
Instead, Knox petted Sofie on the head and said, "You should go inside; it’s late."
Go inside?
No kiss?
"Right." Laura shook her head, trying to erase her wayward thoughts. "Yeah. Okay. Thanks, again."
She rushed up to the porch, holding Sofie in her arms and Jello trailing behind. When she went into her house and shut her front door, she immediately closed one eye and looked out the peephole. Knox was still in her front yard. He looked up and ran his hands through his hair as he blew out a long exhale. He started to walk up to the porch, and Laura’s heart began to pound in her chest once more.
If he knocked on the door, she didn’t think; she knew she wouldn’t have the willpower to send him away. Not after what she’d just witnessed.
He made it a few steps before he stopped, then turned and jogged out into the night. As she watched him disappear down her street, she wasn’t sure if she’d just dodged a bullet or missed out on the greatest night of her life.
Probably both.
9
Knox turnedto his left side and shoved the covers off himself. He’d been tossing and turning for the past few hours. Normally, he had no problem sleeping. He’d trained himself to shut his brain off and power down. It was essential to get rest when he could while he was in the military. But tonight, he couldnotshut his brain off. All he could think about was his curvy, luscious, sexy, and sassy landlord.
When he’d gone out for a run to clear his head, the last thing he’d expected to stumble upon was Laura’s ass on full display as she baby talked her kitty cat down from the tree. It had rendered him fucking speechless. Thank God for his training; otherwise, he wasn’t sure he would have caught her when she fell. And, damn, was he glad he had.
Holding her in his arms tonight had been the highlight of his day, his week, his month, hell, even his year.
He had never responded so intensely to someone. Just being near her caused every cell in his body to come alive. Seeing her, touching her, smelling her, and hearing her sent his senses on sensual overload. It made him obsess about what his fifth sense would do if he ever got a chance to taste her.
She overwhelmed him in the best possible way. As much as he enjoyed it, it was also equal parts infuriating and frustrating. When he was around her, he didn’t feel like he had control over himself.
All his life, he’d been measured and in control. People might think he was reckless, but everything he did was calculated. He weighed out the consequences of his actions. If he did something that was reckless, he’d already decided he could live with the outcome.
But with Laura, it was different. She made him want to do things that were impulsive with no regard to the consequences. Like earlier today, when he’d had the ice pack on her head, he’d found himself leaning closer to her. If she hadn’t stood up, he might have kissed her. And then tonight, before he’d told her to go inside, he’d been so close to wrapping his hand around her neck, pulling her into him, and pressing his lips to hers.
It’s not that he’d never wanted to kiss someone before. He’d just never needed to kiss someone as much as he needed his next breath. That level of all-consuming desire was dangerously close to obsession. Which was why, when he’d started to go up to her door, he’d forced himself to leave instead.
He flopped onto his back once again and stared up at the moonlight dancing across the ceiling. The mattress was comfortable enough, but he just kept wondering if Laura had ever slept on it and, if she had, what her state of dress had been. Did she sleep in a T-shirt and sweats? Shorts and a tank top? Or nothing at all?
Whatever the reality was, his fantasy was that she slumbered in the nude.
His lids slowly closed as an image of her hourglass figure and her shapely curves came into sharp focus. The fullness of her breasts in contrast to the dip of her waist made him grow harder as he pictured his hand running down the side of her waist and gripping her hip. He reached down and began to stroke himself as he imagined sucking her perky nipple into his...
