But that couldn’t be. Everyone lost it, at least occasionally.
Some more than others…
In any case, she spent a few minutes trying to imagine how it would happen. Since it hadn’t while they’d been shot at, it couldn’t be danger that triggered him…
Maybe…maybe it happened in bed. Just the thought made her a little tingly. Yeah, in bed…She was just putting together a fairly X-rated scenario where he lost it entirely, involving him being extremely naked, when she realized he wasn’t taking her home, but down a very lovely oak-lined upscale street in the hills, where she probably couldn’t afford to breathe the air. “Where are we?”
“My place.”
She stared at the large modern house. “Oh.”
He got out of the car and came around for her before she’d gathered any brain cells.
His place.
As he pulled her to her feet, she stared up into his face. “I realize that you probably have to stay in control under any circumstances when you’re in the air,” she said. “But-”
“Still on that?”
“Well nothing ruffled you tonight, so, yeah. I guess I’m wondering…”
With a little smile, he took her hand and led her up a gorgeously paved walk, pulling a key out of his pocket with his free hand.
“Maybe you lose control over food…” she said, fishing for insight. Also fishing for something to soothe her sudden nerves.
Laughing softly, he unlocked his front door. “Yeah. A fully loaded pizza really throws me over the edge. Oh, you should probably brace yourself.”
“Um, what?”
But as he opened the door, a huge brown ball of fur launched itself at Shayne, knocking him back several feet with a pair of paws to the chest. A pair of paws the size of polar bear paws.
“Bella.” Shayne stroked the animal, who panted happily and drooled. “Miss me, huh?”
Bella panted some more, then dropped to the floor in a boneless heap of joy and exposed her belly.
Shayne obliged her, hunkering down with a smile, giving her a long, hard rub. “Sorry I was gone so long. But Jan came and walked you twice.”
“Jan?”
“My neighbor, and dog walker. There, Bella, that feel better?”
Dani had never been jealous of a dog in her life until that moment. Stepping close, she crouched down too. “Is that a dog or a bear?”
“Yet to be determined.” But Bella let out a welcoming doggie smile, and with a huge tongue, licked Dani’s hand.
“She’s sweet,” she murmured, staring at the biggest paws she’d ever seen. “Aren’t you something?”
“Something,” Shayne agreed.
Unable to help herself, Dani petted the dog, who panted with great cheer. “She must be a great watchdog.”
“She’s an attention slut is what she is. If a burglar came to the door, she’d show him all the good stuff for a belly rub.” But he smiled affectionately down at the dog as he said this, still stroking, sending Bella into fits of moaning ecstasy.
A guy who melted over a dog…“Sports?” she whispered, trying to get back to their conversation instead of nursing a sudden and dangerous crush on an out-of-reach playboy pilot. “Do sports make you lose control?”
“Love sports,” he said. “Play them when I can.”
“But they don’t make you lose it.”
With a smile, he shook his head.
Nodding, her thoughts raced as she tried to find a foothold on a slippery slide right into Serious Crush-ville. “Nothing makes you lose it. Got it.”
Straightening to his feet, he tossed his keys into a little bowl on a table in the foyer. Then he pushed the door closed and turned to her.
Oh, boy.
Bella scrambled up to her feet just as Dani’s stomach did a little tap dance. Other things tap-danced, too.
Like every single erogenous zone she had.
With Bella running circles around them, Shayne leaned in until his nose just touched Dani’s.
She opened her mouth to press on the whole losing-it thing, but he crooked his head to the side, then rubbed his jaw to hers. And then his mouth was near her ear, and he was breathing into it. “So you want to see me forfeit control?”
“I-” God, she couldn’t think when he was breathing in her ear. “I think so.”
“But you’re not sure.”
“No.”
She felt him smile against her skin, and then for the briefest second in history, his mouth slid against hers in a far too fleeting kiss. “Don’t ask until you’re sure.” Then he stepped back.
She concentrated on gulping in air while he told Bella it was time for food. The dog barked with happiness, while she? Stood there trying to control her body’s needs.
She didn’t plan on doing that.
But a small part of her
Chapter 10
Shayne walked into his kitchen to feed Bella, incredibly, erotically, aware of the woman who followed him.
He was also incredibly, erotically aware of her inner struggle.
Do him.
Don’t do him.
She was giving him a damned complex, but he didn’t mention it as she watched him feed the dog or as he led her through his house.
He’d only purchased the place about three months ago, and hadn’t exactly made it a home yet. There was nothing in the living room but a huge-screen TV and an even more huge soft comfy couch and chair. He had only bar stools in the den, which opened to the kitchen, where Bella was busy chowing through five pounds of food. He hadn’t gotten around to finding a table he liked.
He had a bed, though, a large, lush bed that he wasn’t having any trouble picturing Dani sprawled across, her wild hair all around her head, his sheets smooth beneath her lovely, hot bod, and then that same body beneath his…
“I can’t.”
He tore his brain away from the fantasy and looked at her.
Eyes glued to his bed, she swallowed and shook her head. “I’m not taking your bed.”
It was barely dawn and they needed a few hours’ sleep. He especially needed a few hours’ sleep, since he had a full schedule ahead of him for the day, including a flight to Santa Barbara. “You’re the guest,” he said firmly. “You get the bed.”
She stared up at him, her face unreadable. “Have you ever had a woman in your bed that you weren’t sleeping with?”
“Uh…”
“Have you?”
“No,” he admitted.
“That’s what I thought.” She sighed. “At least your mom taught you good manners.”
