My stomach lurches. Shit. Damn puppy mill rednecks.
“Who’s that?” Daniel asks.
My heart hammering, I take a deep breath to control my fear without taking my eyes off the rumbling truck. “Bunch of inbred fuckers, that’s who.” The driver must have seen me turn my head toward him, ’cause he’s revving his engine now. Dick.
“That covers a lot of ground. Care to elaborate?” Daniel asks.
“My brother and I busted up their puppy mill operation a while back and they like to drive by slowly to fuck with me once in a while. This is the first time they’ve pulled right up to the gate, though.”
“Want me to go have a polite word?”
My head snaps back to look at Daniel. Testosterone is popping off him; his aggressive stare is so scary. I think back to Boone’s wish for me to find a new bodyguard and think Daniel could do in a pinch. He’s as big as Boone and can turn on and off a seriously mean expression at will. Plus, he definitely has a streak for shenanigans. And that mouth of his tastes good, but what comes out of it tends to piss me off too much. Too bad.
“No….” I start but trail off.
Daniel places one beefy hand on top of one fence post and bends his knees. Next moment, he’s springing over the fence from a dead stand.
My jaw hits the ground.
It’s such a freaking smooth move, my pussy walls clench up.
Shit. He’s actually doing it. He’s going to talk to them. I’m staying put and keeping an eye on the dogs. Unfortunately, the loud truck has caught the attention of a bunch of the yappers, while the big dogs have fallen in line behind their new alpha leader. Oh, brother.
As soon as the driver of the beat-up truck sees Daniel approaching, however, the engine revs again and they back up and speed down the dirt road.
Daniel snaps a photo of the back end, but I doubt he got a good shot of the license plate from this distance. Not like it will do any good; they weren’t actually doing anything illegal.
He marches back in my direction, his eyes blazing. His jaw is rippling. He looks like he might Hulk out at any moment. True story: I would not mind watching him triple in size as his Dockers fell away in ribbons.
At first I think he’s going to offer some advice about the puppy mill jerks, but he’s back to our previous conversation.
“Let me ask you something,” he says through gritted teeth. “If I’m such a bad guy who wants nothing other than to get into your panties, what in the hell would I be thinking, letting one of your dogs loose in such a way that it makes me looks blatantly guilty? How do you know it wasn’t one of those assholes?” He jerks a thumb in the direction of the road, indicating our recent visitors.
“I don't know. I’ve been trying not to figure people out. It makes living easier when people don’t take up that much real estate in my brain.”
“Well, let me tell you something, sister,” he says, “If I wanted to get rid of one of your loud-ass, flea-bitten mutts, I would simply jump over and grab one instead of leaving evidence of a break-in.”
I gnaw on my lip, almost ready to believe him.
“Or I’d just shoot one,” he growls.
“Goo
d god. No you wouldn’t,” I gasp.
“How do you know?”
I cross my arms. “Because you’re an asshole, but you’re not a monster.”
“So you do like me.” That cocky sideways grin appears again, featuring that damn-near crooked canine tooth. My wanton side wants to lick it. How dare he not get that fixed?
“I didn’t say that. Declaring someone isn’t a monster doesn’t mean you have to like them.”
“So, now that you know I don’t like wiener dogs, you’re not attracted to me anymore? Is that the story?”
“You were the one who didn’t want to finish our…negotiations last night,” I say. “I have to tell myself some kind of story other than maybe I have bad breath… What are you doing?"
He takes an intimidating step closer to me and his voice does that thing where it rattles in my chest and vibrates down through my body. “Because it ain’t right, taking what doesn’t belong to me. I didn’t take any dogs, and I didn’t want to take from you last night.”