Deadly Sins by Lora Leigh Page B

brain. The terrifying fact was, she was beginning to play in fantasies that, surprisingly enough, weren’t all sexual.
    He couldn’t allow that.
    “What’s my problem?” he snapped as hunger, emotion, and a need clenched his guts as his resentment, his fury against the circumstances he could chance, flooded his system. “It’s three in the morning and you nearly got your head blown off sneaking around to play on my patio like a nine-year-old. Why the fuck didn’t you just cross the yard rather than sneaking around?”
    His door was right across from hers. What the fuck was her problem?
    Folding his arms across his chest as he glared down at her, watching as the dog sat on her haunches and stared up at Logan as well, panting happily now. The squashed-in dark little face was creased in bliss, as though just the sight of him pleased the little scrap. And he couldn’t understand why.
    He was the bastard trying to give the dog away, not a savior.
    Skye snorted at his statement, her gaze as confrontational as her smart-assed mouth. “I’m a vampire. I prefer the night,” she replied drolly. “There now, you have your explanation. Can I go back to visiting with the only sociable member of your little family or do I have to deal with you too?”
    He wanted to wipe his hand over his face in an attempt to convince himself he was still asleep, but there was no way in his wildest fantasies that he could conjure up such a farcical dream.
    Especially the part where he swore he could glimpse her nipples through the lace and soft-as-silk chiffon covering them.
    “I didn’t ask for infantile bullshit,” he said slowly, clearly, desperate to ignore the warmth now penetrating his sneaker as the pup crossed between them and flopped over his sneaker to sleep. “I asked what you were doing on my back porch irritating the hell out of me. I thought we agreed you were going to stay away from me?”
    Her eyes widened before her gaze slid down his body, though not in appreciation of it, but rather to glance at the now drowsy little bag of fur on his feet as though the answer to his question were self-evident.
    Son of a bitch. He hadn’t asked for this. He distinctly remembered not asking for these kinds of problems.
    “The sociable part of your family,” she stated again. “I was visiting. I was not bothering you.”
    “Then take it home,” he ground out between clenched teeth as the puppy shifted for a better position on his foot. “It’s not and never has been a part of my family.”
    A slender brow arched mockingly. “I think she’s under the impression she’s already home.”
    Logan didn’t stop to think or to consider his actions. The feel of the warm little body draped over his sneaker, her little heart pounding against the leather, brought back memories he rarely allowed himself to revisit. Reaching down, he gripped the scruff of the puppy’s neck as he opened the door and with the utmost gentleness deposited the puppy back onto the patio before closing the door in the scrap’s disappointed little face.
    “Take it home with you,” he told Skye coldly. “It has no business here.”
    And neither did she.
    And his heart was breaking.
    The pup’s cries threatened his determination and the look of disappointment and pity on Skye’s face threatened his control.

CHAPTER FIVE
    Logan had known, even as a child watching the hell his parents had gone through in their battle against his grandparents, that unless it ended, his wouldn’t be a life that could be shared with a woman and a pup. And when you had the woman and the pup it wasn’t long before the kids or, in his parents’ case, the kid followed.
    And it was that kid who was left to suffer when the parents were no longer there to protect him.
    He almost shuddered in pure, gut-wrenching male horror because he could actually imagine the kids. A girl with Skye’s dark hair and delicate features. Or a boy with his dark hair and her dark eyes.
    “Do you have to be