Prologue #3
“Well, time to meet the neighbor,” she murmured to herself.
She looked in the hall mirror, deciding that it wasn’t going to get any better, and then headed out the door and across the road.
And, Lord help her, the hot neighbor was even bigger and sexier in person.
She wasn’t quite sure how she was going to pull off casual and flirty while scolding her twins, so she gave up on that pipe dream.
Besides, the last thing she needed in her life was another man, especially one as big and intimidating as the one standing before her.
She felt like a first-class fool yelling at the girls and dragging them back across the road after Torren was kind enough to offer to let them play with his new puppy.
And did she say to holler if he needed anything?
God, how lame. She was almost home free when Torren’s sexy-as-sin voice called after her.
She released her girls and told them to get their little butts in the house and wash up for lunch.
They didn’t argue this time, knowing that when she used her “librarian voice,” she meant business.
They did do a little complaining as they longingly looked back at Torren and his puppy, but disappeared into the house.
Tana sighed, ready to be anywhere but standing in her yard, about to face sexy Torren and his sultry blue eyes and jet black, curly hair.
Heaven help her, he even had a yummy five o’clock shadow that she never liked on other guys, but on him—it worked.
“Tana, wait up.” Torren made his way into her yard and stood so close to her that he just about blocked out the sun with his large body.
She couldn’t help herself— she sighed again.
He seemed to have that effect on her. “Sorry to chase you across the road, but you did say to holler if I needed something.” Her mind wandered to all the things that she hoped that he needed from her, and she shook her head, trying to stop the sexy images of Torren standing over her without his shirt on. What the hell was wrong with her?
“What can I do for you, Torren?” Her voice sounded raspy and needy even to her ears.
“What do you need?” she squeaked, trying to go for more casual and failing.
She wanted to run into her house and hide with the twins, but she had a feeling that Torren would still find her. He seemed to be a man on a mission.
“I need you to hold something for me.” Torren cleared his throat.
“I mean, I was wondering if you could watch Tucker for me? You see, my twin brother, Tag, and I own a high adventure store, and I take people out on treks. Tomorrow morning, I’m heading out for two nights, and my dumb-ass brother thought it would be cute to give me a fucking puppy as a housewarming gift.
” Tana heard her girls giggle at his use of curse words and yelled for them to go to their room.
Torren cringed. “Sorry about the cursing. I’m not used to having kids around.
I promise to try to tone it down some,” Torren promised.
Tana couldn’t help her giggle. “Well, they’ve heard some of those same words from me.
We are all guilty of cursing from time to time.
” She took Tucker from Torren, noticing the way his eyes flared when she ran her fingers over his hand.
“We would love to watch your puppy. I’m sure the girls will be thrilled—they’ve been begging me to get them a pet since we moved here.
” Judging from the squeals of joy coming from inside her house, her mischievous little girls heard the entire conversation and were more than on board with the idea of puppy-sitting.
“Really?” Torren asked. “You’ll watch him?”
She giggled again and wondered what the hell was up with that. She never giggled so much in her life, and here she was acting like a giddy schoolgirl. “Sure, isn’t that what neighbors do?”
Torren looked confused, and she giggled again. Dammit.
“Well, I owe you—big time. If this works out, maybe we could talk about you helping me when I have to go out overnight, just until Tucker is big enough to be trained to come along with me.” Tana found herself nodding, not paying attention to what Torren was saying.
She was too busy fixating on the way his lips moved and thinking how they might feel on hers or, even better, on her body.
She needed to pull herself together. Tana handed Tucker back to Torren, lingering with her hand touching his for just a moment.
She liked the way his simple touch made her whole body heat.
It had been so long since she felt something like that.
“I’ll bring him over with his stuff before I leave in the morning.
What time do you get out of bed?” He was staring at her as if he could see right through her, and his voice was almost a whisper.
She leaned into his body and inhaled his clean, musky scent.
Yep, time for her to go back into her house.
“Six in the morning,” she squeaked and turned to walk into her home.
She ducked into her kitchen, watching as her sexy new neighbor slowly made his way across the street and disappeared into his house.
She had no idea what just happened, but the one thing that she was sure about was that Torren Harrison was going to be one hard man to ignore.