While she stared, his nipples hardened into points. Flushing, she forced her gaze up before she succumbed to the urge to find what else of him might harden for her. Above the t-shirt's neck, she caught a peek of tattoo, the inked design ornate and aggressive, from the little she could see.
The burn in her cheeks and tightness in her breasts told her that Jude was treating her to the same scrutiny. The thin satin camisole she'd slept in suddenly felt like sandpaper against her nipples and she knew they were as stiff as his. Maybe harder, because, Jesus. His look felt like a touch.
Lily exhaled. She refused to behave like a shy girl and forced her hands to remain in the pockets of her sweater instead of acting on the instinct to shrug deep into the concealing folds and hide herself. If he wanted to look … well, she certainly wanted to look. More, she had every right to look. She was a free woman with nobody to answer to but herself.
She closed her eyes, inhaled, and braced herself before opening them again. Still too much of a coward to look directly into his eyes. "I suppose I should see the footage."
Jude stared at her another moment before nodding. "It's brief. Only seventy seconds or so."
He nudged open the door to the tiny storage room she'd reserved for his equipment.
Lily crossed the sales floor and entered ahead of him, Jude close on her heels. Jude just close, his chest against her back. Inside the room, wrapped in the heat of electronics, she drew a ragged breath and … let him do it. It had been a long time since she'd tested herself, since she'd trusted a man to walk her up to the edge. She kept expecting the cliff to give away beneath her, but nothing bad happened. Jude stood so close she could feel the imprint of his belt buckle against her ass.
And nothing bad happened.
Something else did, though. As he reached around her to press a button, his scent invaded her senses. He smelled delicious. Definitely just out of bed, without the strong scents of soap or aftershave to disguise the earthy fragrance of his skin. All man, nothing world-tilting or mentally unbalancing. Just … good. Familiar, but that was alarming enough that she shied away from it and focused on the here and now. But not before she closed her eyes and breathed him in.
"This is right before he takes the hammer to the door. Watch over here."
She regretfully opened her eyes. Jude tapped his index finger against the right corner of the monitor above her head. Nothing happened for two or three seconds, but soon a shadow moved. She watched, sick in the pit of her stomach, as the average-sized male silhouette raised his sledgehammer and swung it into the glass. Even though she knew what was going to happen, even though the security monitors had no sound, she jumped at the instant of impact.
Jude rested his big hand on her shoulder and rumbled reassuringly. Despite knowing she should keep things professional, that accepting his touch was a bad, bad decision, she leaned back into him.
He squeezed briefly and then moved his hand closer to her neck, long fingers over her collarbone, tips resting on the uppermost swells of her breasts. Everything about his touch was hot on her naked skin. She started to tremble. Jude slipped his thumb beneath the collar of her sweater and gently massaged the tendon in her neck and she stopped shaking. Just like that.
Neither of them spoke as he pressed another button and the feed switched to a different angle. She watched from above the intruder's head as he walked across the threshold, grinding glass into her carpet. As soon as he was inside, he veered left and Jude changed the picture again.
"He knows exactly what he wants," she whispered. "The register's on the other side of the shop."
Jude didn't reply. She made herself watch the rest. The intruder selected three skeins of yarn, carefully keeping his face angled away from cameras and his flashlight beam away from his face. He turned off the light and hunched his shoulders before he turned to make his exit. All of it in just over a minute.
She hugged her arms across her chest. Paul was a bigger man than the intruder, elegantly tall and narrow. He would've had to walk doubled over to avoid a face shot from one of the cameras. Paul was also in perfect physical condition. The intruder walked with a noticeable limp.
"Anything familiar about him?" Jude asked as if he'd picked up on her thoughts. "The limp?"
His voice held a troubled edge that made her look over her shoulder. His jaw was tense. And really close. The short bristles of a shadow beard tempted her. She curled her hands into fists and shoved them into her armpits. Small victory, but she needed every win she could get.
"Lily? The limp is all we have to go on. Can you think of anybody?" He angled his head, met her eyes, and hell. Her blood felt fizzy.