“You were drugged.” Saying the word poison would freak her out. And he had no desire to explain the lifelong battle between lions and hyenas at this moment. “But you should be okay now.”

She looked at him as if seeing his bruises for the first time. Her hand reached up and touched his cheek. “Oh honey. What happened to your face?”

Mace gazed at her lips and moved in slowly. Not wanting to startle her, but determined to taste those lush lips. But before he could reach heaven, her head snapped around. “Where are my dogs?”

“What?”

“My dogs.” Her soft hand on his cheek suddenly grabbed a hunk of his hair and pulled.

“Ow!”

“They should have ripped you apart and left you for dead on my porch by now. Where are they?”

With a dramatic sigh, “I don’t know.”

Dez got to her feet, a Packlike growl rolling from her lips. “If anything happened to my boys—”

“What exactly are you accusing me of? Harming two smelly beasts that would happily run out in the middle of moving traffic?”

Dez threw down the blanket and began to search the room. Mace had to focus hard on her face so he didn’t focus on the rest of that luscious body. Her body did things to him. Strong, almost painful things.

He shook his head. Stop it, Llewellyn. You’re wasting your time. The woman didn’t even notice him in the room.

Who was she kidding? Her dogs were somewhere. But waking up and finding one gorgeous hunk of man-meat crawling on her floor had stirred things in her she never thought existed. Things she wasn’t sure she could actually admit to. It didn’t help that seeing his face all bruised up almost shoved her right over the edge of “Stupid Things People Do,” like letting him kiss her—again.

So finding her dogs seemed the quickest and simplest thing to do, given the circumstances.

Although she was starting to worry a bit. Her dogs should have greeted them at the door. They should have definitely gone for Mace’s throat by now. He didn’t seem like much of a dog person, but she couldn’t see Mace doing anything to her “boys.” So where the hell where they?

“You check under the bed?”

Dez practically snarled at the man who had quickly become the star of any and every fantasy she would ever have. He leaned back into her couch, his arms out over the back of the sofa. His incredibly long and muscular legs stretched out in front of him and crossed at the ankles. My, he certainly has made himself at home.

“My dogs don’t hide under beds, Llewellyn.”

“But did you check?”

“Did you see me go upstairs?” At his raised eyebrow, she snapped, “Fine. I’ll check.” She headed up the stairs to her bedroom. Her house wasn’t big byany stretch of the imagination, but it had a backyard for her dogs, a second floor, and a huge dining room and gourmet kitchen she rarely used. Most important, though, it was her mortgage. Her place. So it didn’t matter how big or small it was.

“Sig! Sauer! Where are you guys?”

“You named your dogs after a gun?” Dez jumped and spun around. Mace had moved up behind her and she hadn’t even heard him. “Holy shit! The Christmas stockings were for them?”

She would not be having that conversation. “What the hell are you doing?”

“Besides being freaked out by your Christmas decorations—helping you find your dogs. The dogs you named after a weapon.”

“They’re cop-owned dogs. What did you expect me to name them? Fluffy and Poopsie-head?”

Dez walked into her bedroom. She could feel Mace behind her. Feel the warmth of his body. She could smell the man. And he smelled really good.

She mentally shook herself. Snap out of it, MacDermot. She crouched down by her bed and looked under it. And, to her utter disbelief, she found her two dogs. Cowering.

She reached for Sig. “Come here, baby.”

Mace crouched down next to her and that’s when Sig gingerly gripped her wrist in his maw and dragged her under the bed. He didn’t hurt her. If she didn’t know better, she’d swear the dog simply wanted to protect her.

“What in the hell?”

“You okay?” Mace held on to her ankle and she suddenly felt like a wishbone.

She pulled her arm away from Sig and slid back out from under the bed. Mace grabbed her hand and helped her to her feet. She snatched her hand away. She had to. His touch made her uncomfortably warm.

“What did you do to my dogs?” She had no idea where that came from, but she couldn’t shake the feeling they were hiding from Mace.

“Me? What makes you think I did anything?”

“Sig once took down a two-hundred-and-fifty-pound professional football player because he got a little too close to me in the park. And Sauer took on three, out-of-control pit bulls to protect me. These are not dogs that hide under the bed. And then you come to my house…”

Mace didn’t say anything, he simply watched her.

Dez sat down at the foot of the bed. She ran her hands through her hair. Someone obviously drugged me. Why else would she sit on her bed, hardly worried about the unsightly rolls it would cause in her less-than-taut stomach, wearing her favorite lace Christmas bra and jeans, in front of the one man she’d happily wrap herself around like a boa constrictor? Meanwhile, her vicious, well-trained dogs cowered under her bed. Something was going on and she wanted to know what. And she wanted to know what right-goddamn-now.