Deadly Sins by Lora Leigh Read Free Book Online Page B

blood-soaked clothes and hands and turned his gaze to the flames of the fire that seemed to build. Laughter began to echo, and as Logan jumped to save Rafer from the knife that suddenly sank into his side he felt the cold bite of steel as it penetrated his own back.
    *   *   *
    Logan jerked awake with a suddenness he had become used to over the years.
    As he lay there, though, his senses on high alert, a sound so out of place with the night as to cause him to stiffen penetrated the silence of the room.
    Irritation strained his patience as he clenched his teeth against the need to curse. Son of a bitch, was sleep a frickin’ sin in this damned county?
    For the fourth night in a row he’d awakened to the knowledge that something or someone was prowling the night outside his home.
    Usually, it was the sound of the little squatter Saul Rafferty had dumped in his backyard. The one he still hadn’t been able to find yet another home for.
    Tonight there was more, though. Something larger, something quieter, no, some one , moving with deliberate stealthiness.
    Logan was a cranky bastard when someone messed with his sleep. He could feel his fingers tingling, the need for the fight he could sense brewing around him beginning to irritate his knuckles, to make them ache for the hard, powerful force that only came with a good fistfight.
    It was a mood that had followed him since the night he’d forced himself to send his delectable little neighbor back to her empty bed.
    Hell, since he’d returned to his own empty bed, only to find the couch more bearable.
    Hell, it was more bearable, but he heard every fucking sound outside. He was too well trained not to.
    Each night he awoke to the knowledge, not so much a sound, that someone was sneaking outside his house, that they were moving around it as though probing at Logan’s security.
    Between his late-night awareness that someone was outside and the pup whining and scratching pitifully at the patio door, aware he was only feet away, Logan hadn’t managed much at all in the way of sleep.
    Day or night.
    Tilting his head to catch the sound again, he found himself hearing only the pup’s whines. Logan finally gave up all thoughts of lying there undisturbed to stare at the ceiling another night.
    Hell, if that awareness of something invading his space hadn’t awakened him then his nightmare would have.
    That was no good.
    He was damned if he wanted to relive that night again.
    Instead, he listened to the sound of the puppy whining as she scratched against the door again. A second later, it wasn’t so much a sound he heard. His senses were just so well-honed that the knowledge of the familiar sounds of the night to the side of his house weren’t there. The owl wasn’t whooing, crickets weren’t calling. Something or someone was disturbing them.
    There was a sense of danger, a sense of intrusion. The trespasser hadn’t yet caused harm, but Logan could feel the intent that was there.
    Fuck. The little scrap that refused to be owned by anyone else was too small, too delicate, for where she was currently camped, especially with the enemies the Callahans had. And now, with something or someone stalking the night, there would only be increased danger.
    She was still far better off there, though. With the impression of being ignored, than with the certainty that there was something Logan Callahan cared about, it would only save the pup’s life in the long run. His reputation for having no friends, no lovers, no ties, was so well known that so far no one had suffered for having being associated with him.
    The sound of the pup’s questioning little whimper had him staring at the ceiling in irritation.
    Did people on this street forget the rumor that the Callahans were lazy, shiftless bastards? That they needed their damned sleep?
    No doubt it had to be a neighbor looking to find a way to irritate him. To find a weakness. To add to the tension that everyone hoped would run him from his