I was buttering toast in the kitchen when Rob walked in the next morning.

He stopped in the doorway, running a hand through sweaty dark hair. “You’re making me breakfast?”

He was shirtless, wearing sweatpants low enough on his hips to expose hard hip bones below chiseled abs. Beads of sweat stood out along his glistening pecs and rock-hard biceps. I might have glimpsed a dark-haired happy trail beginning below his navel before I forced myself to look away through the French doors. I glanced out at the deep blue Atlantic waves. But damn it, Rob was the better view.

“I’m making your grandmother breakfast. Even though it’s not in my job description.”

He pulled out a stool at the breakfast bar, settling close enough to me that I could have sworn I felt the heat coming off his body.

I stared down at the toast like it was the world’s most fascinating grain product. “Just finished your workout?”

“Yeah, there’s a weights room in the basement. Sorry, I wasn’t expecting you here so early.”

“Or you would’ve put on a t-shirt?”

“Maybe.” The tiniest hint of a grin played around his lips as if he knew what effect his body had on me.

“You should go shower,” I said primly. “You’re sweating all over the kitchen.”

“Sorry.” He didn’t seem sorry.

My phone began to warble, and I shoved his grandmother’s breakfast tray across the island. “Would you bring that up to her?”

He nodded. “I better put on a shirt first.”

“That might be ideal,” I said. Even if it wasn’t my ideal.

Rob lingered in the doorway, though, probably dripping beads of sweat on his grandmother’s whole wheat toast, as I answered my phone. I tried to shoo him away. It was someone calling because they were pretty sure a cat was trapped in their neighbor’s abandoned townhouse.

As I hung up, he ducked out of the room. By the time I’d packed up my stuff, he came sauntering back in, pulling a polo over his head. While he was blinded by the fabric, I took one long look at his tanned abs and chest, studying the way his hip bones indented from his muscular abs, like they were made for my fingers to wrap around his hips while he pounded into me.

When his dark hair popped out of the collar, I slung my bag over my shoulder.

“What’s going on?” He yanked the hem down, and now there was no more temptation to follow his happy trail down those angular lower abs in my imagination. His shirt clung tightly over his pecs and then hung loosely over that lean waist.

“I have a cat to rescue.”

For a second, our eyes met. Then I lunged for the keys, just as he swiped the keys to the Suburban from the bowl at the edge of the counter.

“You know me,” he said. “I don’t like to be bored.”

“I’m pretty sure everything about rescuing cats is boring for you.”

“Well, you’d be wrong.” His tone implied as usual.

I shrugged. “Suit yourself, sailor.”

He led the way to the garage. His ass filled out his jeans way too perfectly, and I rolled my eyes at myself and at him. What the hell were we doing here?

Why couldn’t I stop?

As we drove over to the other side of Newport, Rob asked me, “How are we going to get into the house?”

“I have my ways,” I promised.

His eyes sparked with curiosity. Something about that look made butterflies rise in my stomach. It was probably just a reaction to that weird nut-and-seed bread of Rebecca’s that I’d tried when I was making her toast, though.

We parked in front of a row of rundown townhouses, and Rob followed me as we walked around to the back of the townhouse. I was trying to listen for a plaintive meow, but I found myself far too focused on where Rob was, the slight swishing sound of his jeans as he walked, the sense of his body towering over mine.

I stopped dead when I heard the cat. Rob, who had been following so closely, rested his hands briefly on my shoulders, catching himself, with his big body pressed against mine. Just for a second, I felt the full, muscular warmth of his body against mine. Then he was gone. And I shivered.

Standing next to me now, Rob listened, with his head cocked and his face intent. He nodded at the siding. “Two feet south of that bathroom window.”

Rob bounced onto the back porch and tried the door knob. It didn't turn. "Worth a try. Now what?"

"I was planning to break in. And if I get caught, explain to the nice police officer that I really, really love cats..."

"Has that happened to you before?"

"Once."

"And how did it go?"

"I don't have a B&E conviction."

He shook his head. "Well, how do you usually get into one of these houses? Because I can knock down the door..."

"No," I said. "That's so disrespectful of the property. Then anyone could just waltz in there..."

"Anyone like you?"

"I have a good reason," I said, gesturing him out of the way. Rob grinned slightly, crossing his arms across his chest as he leaned against the porch railing. That little smile on his soft lips, above that firm and masculine jaw, made my heart do a flip.

"There's a Youtube tutorial for everything these days," I told him lightly, unzipping the side pocket of her bag for her lock picking kit.

"Naomi Anne Papadopolous, is that what I think it is?"

I glanced down at my re-purposed purple makeup bag. "That depends. Do you think it’s a homemade locksmithing kit I loving crafted while watching Supergirl re-runs, with a Dremel tool, a scientific feeler gauge, and 1/4 inch flat rods, which the Internet told me work a lot better for making your own picks than the standard hacksaw blades?"

"You," he said, "are a wonder."

After we had wrestled the cat out of a wall and into the carrier and settled her in at my house, Rob and I headed back to the Delaney mansion, slightly covered in cat fur. It felt good to be a team.

He nodded his head in time to a woebegone love song by a U.K. rocker, and it made me smile; he stopped, crossing his arms over his chest.

“You like Cailim Reid?” I asked.

“Is that who this is?”

"He's just gotten big in the last year," I said. "After he was on Guitar Star. You were probably out of the country, being a hero."

"Okay." He gently nudged my shoulder, and the warmth of his hand on my body was electric. Even though he was pretending to shove me like we were kids. "That's fine from everyone else. But you need to stop."

"You don't like me making fun of you?" I asked. "Or really, of Amy? You make fun of me all the time."

"I don't mind you making fun of me. Just... not that."

I felt a lurch of dismay that despite his light-hearted chiding, maybe I had crossed a line. "I really do respect what you do. Obviously. Everyone does."

"Naomi. Stop." That reassuring smile was back on his lips. "If you ever need me to be the Navy SEAL, trust me, I can swim, fight, or MacGuyver just about anything. But when it's you and me, I want to be just Rob."

"Okay," I said. "Fair enough."

Except just Rob made my heart pound.