Moving across the room to the kitchen bar, she noticed the note. She stopped and stared at it before she completed her path and picked it up, reading,Lock your damn doors.
So he had been in her house. Long enough to leave a note.
Cassidy swept her gaze over the room again. He had entered her home, had passed by her while she’d slept.While she had been sleeping!Had he watched her sleep? Had he wandered around? What else had he done? Apparently, he could have danced a damn jig, and she wouldn’t have been the wiser. She looked at Fred accusingly.
What had Mac even been doing here? He had to have ventured over in the middle of the night. She’d returned from town late; she’d been talking to Darlene about picking up a few shifts at the bar. She’d taken a bath, heated a slice of pizza she’d picked at before tossing it to Fred, and turned on Elijah’s playlist.
Looking down at herself, she ran a hand over her bare midriff between the cami top and her bikini brief underwear. Had he been outside watching as she’d danced to the music? Hugging Elijah’s robe as she did so, imagining she could still smell him; feel him? Had he watched her grieving ritual? Had he found her pathetic?
In a fit of temper, Cassidy ripped the note up, not caring what he thought. He had no right to intrude on her privacy—no right to intrude into her home—no right to judge how she missed her husband.
Whodoesthat?
Stalking into her bedroom, she went into her closet and jerked on a pair of gray sweatpants, yanking at the cords to tie them so they stayed on. She shoved her feet into a pair of faded white KEDS and returned to the front room, grabbing up Fred’s leash from a side table and hooking it to him.
He became excited about an adventure. “Oh, you’re going on an adventure, all right,” she assured him. Yanking on the leash, she exited through the open door, making sure to slam the slider closed behind herself.
Her fury drove her across her lawn and had her pushing through the tree limbs and stepping over underbrush as she beelined toward her neighbor’s shack. She was almost in tears as she worked herself up over the offense of his spying, his intrusion.
His audacity!
Breaking through the foliage, she warily eyed the cabin. Her first thought was they’d done a decent job shoring up the front porch and railing—the hammock looked inviting. Then she frowned; she hoped the overhang would collapse and he’d fall on his arrogant ass.
She pounded up the steps, Fred prancing like an excited hooker about to visit a favorite john, and banged on the screen door. His front door was open, allowing her to see into the room—kitchen and living space—shrouded in the haze of early morning darkness and the cover of trees.
If she’d had the nerve, she would have waltzed on into his house, invading his space the way he’d invaded hers. But she wasn’t that brave. Instead, she banged on the wood again and yelled, “Hey!”
From the room to the side, which she knew was the bedroom, came an irritated groan, “For fuck’s sake.” But she could also tell there was movement behind the complaint.
Taking a step back from the door, she waited, arms akimbo.
He stepped out of the bedroom haltingly, bleary-eyed with a sleepy frown. He ran a hand over his closely-cropped hair as though he’d have bedhead, his face cast in the shadow of morning scruff. Cassidy’s gaze swept over him, his bare shoulders, tattooed arm, and broad chest that he was scratching with his other hand as he came forward.
She followed the natural line of his stomach and narrowing waist downward, the fine line of dark hair leading her eyes to the treasure at the end, and blinked. She swallowed. Sweet Jesus, he was naked. And she couldn’t stop looking; at rest, he was long and thick, the appendage looking enticing nestled against the backdrop of dark curls and muscular thighs. Dar’s words,He’s talented,too, were resurrected in her brain. Even stunned, she had to admit his was a beautiful penis.
There was a wicked chuckle. “Wanna come in and get better acquainted, neighbor?”
Cheeks blazing, Cassidy snapped her head aside, all of a sudden interested in the construction of the hammock. “You… you’re…” She carefully side-eyed him.
Reaching over his head, he braced his arms across the top of the door frame as he peered out at her, perfectly comfortable being on display. He bent his knee outward as though to afford her the best view should she care to continue her perusal. His gaze rolled over her in her brief attire, as well, as he finished for her, “Naked. Nude. In the raw.”
“I get it,” she snapped, returning her attention to the hammock. She noticed again how comfortable it looked, how well-used and sturdy it seemed. She wondered if a person could have sex in it. She wondered if this was what she should be wondering, standing in front of a naked man—this naked man—as her pulse banged out her embarrassment.
That was her excuse for her pulse. She didn’t have one for the heat between her legs.
He chuckled again. The heat increased.
Casting another wary side-eye toward him, deliberately looking him in the eye, so he didn’t mistake the direction of her glance, she asked, “Are you going to go put something on?”
His eyes darkened even more as they leisurely swept her, his looks always so thorough, he may as well have his hands as accompaniment. Upon their return to her scandalized eyes, he shook his head. “Nope.”
Cassidy’s initial rage abated after being thrown for one heck of a loop—momentarily knocked down and beaten up by astonishment and inappropriate curiosity. But with a whisper of a bark from Fred, it came back to her. And the side-eye she threw to the cocky man behind the screen—no pun intended—was full of anger.
“You broke into my house.”
He was unaffected. “No breaking, sweetheart.”
“You were in myhouse, uninvited, while I slept,” she accused.