Strong And Sexy

And yet…that didn’t appeal, not in the least. Instead, he was heading back to a woman he hadn’t imagined he would be attracted to.

He’d been incredibly wrong.

Pulling back into the parking lot, he caught a flash of light. The gate. It was opening. Opening, and a figure running out into the night.

Right in front of his car.

Dani.

And as she glanced back over her shoulder behind her, he caught her pale face and the sheer terror on it as she ran from something he couldn’t see. Jerking the steering wheel, he slammed on the brakes, missing her by an inch, which did not in any way soothe the heart that had just about leapt right out of his chest. Jumping out of his car, he ran around the front toward her.

“Sorry,” she gasped as she bent over his hood, gasping for breath.

He pulled her around to face him. Her face was white as she gripped the front of his shirt in her fists. “Are you hurt?” he managed.

“We have to get out of here.”

Something cracked the night, shocking his eardrums as it whizzed past them, pinging into one of the tall steel light poles.

A bullet. A fucking bullet?

“Hurry,” she gasped. “We really gotta hurry.”

Pretty much the understatement of the century. Grabbing her hand, he yanked her with him, opening the driver’s door, shoving her in ahead of him.

On her hands and knees, she scrambled over his seat and into the passenger’s, whirling back to glue her gaze to the direction she’d just come from.

Where the bullet had come from.

“Go,” she said tersely. “Before-”

Another shot rang out into the night, missing his car, though he had no idea by how much. “Get down.” He emphasized this with a hand to the back of her head, shoving it to her knees as he peeled them out of the parking lot with an exhibition of speed that would have gotten him one hell of an expensive ticket.

“Shayne-”

“Stay the hell down,” he commanded, simultaneously driving and watching the rearview mirror. “Are you okay?”

“The light in my office was on. I didn’t leave it on, Shayne, so-”

“Goddamnit, are you hurt?”

“No.” She gulped for breath. “No.”

He let out a long breath of his own. “Okay.” He nodded. “Okay. So what the hell was that?”

“Someone shooting at us.”

“Yeah, I got that much.” At the bottom of the hill, he pulled into the gas station on the right and got out his cell phone.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m thinking if Patrick was interested in taking a look at the gun you found, then he’s going to be extremely interested in this.”

There were questions to answer, and then the same questions to re-answer. First with Shayne present, and then without him. Dani walked through her entire evening for the police, over and over again, until she started slurring her words from sheer exhaustion. “No, I didn’t see anyone, just the light in my office,” she said for the hundredth time. “Then I got that tingly sensation of being watched, and I ran. And then someone was shooting at me.”

Proving her words, there was a bullet embedded in the light pole in the zoo parking lot. Not to mention Shayne’s earlier statement concurring that someone had indeed been shooting at her.

Finally, she was given the okay to leave, and she walked out the gates of the zoo into the damp, chilly dawn and found…

Shayne propping up his car, arms and feet casually crossed as if he was at a party, content as can be.

That is until she got a little closer, and in the predawn light saw the tight, grim set of his mouth, and the way his entire body was rigid with tension.

If she wasn’t so exhausted, this unusual show of decided un-laid-backness from him would have fascinated her. “Hey.”

Pushing off from the car, he stepped close enough that their toes bumped. Cupping her face in his hands, he looked into her face with such scrutiny she squirmed.

“What?”

“You okay?”

The genuine concern in his voice had her discomfort fading away, replaced by a suddenly tight throat and burning eyes. “Good news. I think the police are taking my craziness seriously now.”

“You didn’t imagine those bullets.”

True. In spite of the terror of the night, she had that. Something was going on. There was no longer any doubt of that.

Shayne looked into her face for another long moment, then he slid his thumb over her lower lip. In spite of her lingering fear and unease, not to mention sheer exhaustion, the touch felt like a lightning bolt to her good parts. Man. She had no idea what was malfunctioning, exactly, but she needed to get it fixed pronto.

And then he surprised her yet again. Still holding her face, he leaned in and kissed her. Not the sensually heated kiss like they’d shared in the closet at Sky High, or the heart-stopping one he’d given her when she’d been squished between her own front door and his body, but a sweet, warm connection that told her she wasn’t alone.

When he pulled back, she found she couldn’t speak. He didn’t either.

“You didn’t have to wait for me,” she finally said.

He just opened his car door for her.

“You probably have flights tomorrow. Today,” she corrected as dawn broke over their heads, cold but blessedly rain free.

“Come on. Get in.”

“I can call Reena.”

“I’m right here. Willing and able.”

“Right.” Admittedly relieved to have him there, she collapsed into the seat, leaning her head back against the headrest, closing her eyes.

He’d stayed.

For her.

She stole a peek at him as he drove, silent. Unbelievably, he still looked as amazing and put together as he had when she’d first seen him standing in the midst of the party last night, watching her with an amused quirk of his mouth.

After all they’d been through since then, she knew she looked like a complete wreck.

Hell, she’d started out a complete wreck.

But not him. Nope, he was still as innately sexy and calm and…perfect as he’d started out, and she could hardly stand it. “Shayne?”

“Yeah?”

“What would it take to ruffle you up?”

He cast her a quick glance. “What?”

“You’re always so calm and easygoing. Laid-back. Do you ever lose it?” Until tonight, she’d been a stranger to him, a stranger who’d claimed to have seen a murder, then an intruder, and then been shot at.

And still he’d remained cool and collected.

But she really wanted to see him unhinged, see him let go. “Do you?”

He slanted her another glance, which she took as a definite no.