Page 99 of Hot Cops

“They weren’t on steroids.” Then she paused, quickly adding, “Well, the lumberjack probably was.”

Landon shook his head. “He definitely was. Idiot was so buff, he couldn’t put his freaking arms down by his sides. Only thing he was missing was the ax.”

Sunnie giggled, feeling strangely lighter and happier than she had in ages. She’d missed him the past couple of weeks.

“You haven’t been around much lately,” she said.

“I know. That was a mistake.” He gave her a very sweet, very Landon-like kiss on the cheek, then headed for the door. He stopped and bent over to pick up her panties.

She held out her hand for them, but he shook his head, shoving them in his pocket.

“Um, those are mine, hotshot.”

Landon ignored her, reaching for the doorknob. “Mine now,” he said, unlocking it. Once he glanced outside to make sure no one was there, he turned back and winked at her. “Souvenir.”

Sunnie laughed, tugged her skirt farther down, and then followed him back to the table.

CHAPTERTEN

“Sunnie,”Landon murmured quietly, shaking her gently. “Sunnie.”

She slept like the dead, so he tried again.

“Mmmm,” she hummed, clearly not awake yet.

“Rise and shine, Sunshine.”

Sunnie’s hair was a tangled mess on the pillow, the covers twisted in a pretzel. She slept on her stomach, arms stretched upwards, diagonally on the queen-size mattress.

Sunnie and Yvonne had shared a bedroom up until about a year ago when their older cousins Caitlyn and Ailis moved in with their boyfriends. That left an extra room, so Yvonne claimed it. Sunnie, delighted to have more space, immediately traded in the single bed for a queen. He knew that because it had been he and Finn who’d lugged the old bed out and the new one in.

She wore an oversized T-shirt and boxers.

“Sunnie,” he tried again, sitting on the side of the mattress, shaking her a bit harder.

She blinked a few times, and he suspected she was trying to focus.

“Landon?”

“Yeah. You need to get up, babe.”

She glanced around her room, confused. He didn’t blame her. He’d dropped her off last night after their dinner date, only walking her as far as the entrance to the pub, where he’d given her a pretty legit good-night kiss.

She thought it had been for the benefit of the dozen or so tabloid photographers there. He knew it was for him.

“What time is it?” she mumbled, her voice husky from sleep. She was still trying to function.

“Six.”

She frowned, and for the first time it looked like she was fully conscious. “As in a.m.?”

He nodded.

“What the hell are you doing here?”

“I have a key. I’ve always had one.”

Her frown was more scowl as she said, “I know that, jackass. I didn’t ask how you gotinhere. I asked why you’re here. In my room. At the ass crack of dawn. I’m on vacation. That means sleeping in.”

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