She wasn’t sure what to do with that. He hadn’t said much, but he’d held her in a way that had made her feel shockingly safe. He might be stoic and guarded and a little mysterious, but he was also capable and sure of himself in a way she strived to be and usually failed.

Plotting her exit strategy, she shifted, inadvertently rubbing up against him and . . . oops . . . not all of him was stoic and guarded and mysterious . . .

Her body parts liked this. A whole lot. But her brain was sure of only one thing—if he opened his eyes right now, she’d most definitely kiss him.

Again.

She didn’t know what it was about him, but he kissed like someone who knew the act of mouth on mouth was meant to be erotic and sensual, and the means by which to take someone down in the very best possible way.

She was still off-center because of it.

Okay, so the bad news was that she wanted him. But there was good news too. And that was that he was temporary here, and temporary was her specialty. She didn’t have the brain power to allocate to anything more. She was still staring at his throat, running the What-If game through her head, trying to decide if she was going to bolt or make the first move, when she heard someone clear their throat. She looked up to find Winnie standing by the couch, dripping rainwater all over the floor.

“What are you doing here?” Piper whispered.

Winnie shook her head. “Oh, most definitely you first,” she whispered back, looking annoyingly amused. “Although I think I can guess. It’s the same reason why you didn’t want me to come home for your birthday. You had your own celebration planned. Did you know you’ve got mud on your nose?”

Piper put her fingers to her nose and indeed felt dried mud. She tried to imagine what she must look like and decided it was probably best not to. She could also tell by Cam’s alert body beneath hers that he was most definitely awake. She slid a look to his face, and yep, his eyes were open.

And on her.

“Oh my God,” Winnie said, and slapped her hands over her eyes. “Gross!”

Piper looked down and saw that around their mid-body area, the blanket was moving rather suggestively. She lifted the blanket and Sweet Cheeks crawled out. “It’s the cat.”

“Sure it is,” Winnie said, her hands still over her eyes. “You know, I wanted you to get a life, but next time put a sock on the door—leave me a sign!”

“It’s not what you think!” Impervious to the drama, Sweet Cheeks was head-bumping Piper, demanding food, which got her booted to the floor, where, with narrowed feline eyes, she meowed her annoyance and stalked off, tail twitching.

“Hey,” Winnie called after her. “Where’s the love?”