Strong And Sexy

“What? Are you telling me you don’t want to have sex with her?”

Shayne just rubbed his eyes.

“So you’ve already done the deed.” Patrick laughed again. “Well, damn, that was fast. Even for you.”

“Go to hell.”

“Sorry. I’m too busy. I’ll call you if I get anything else. Be smart, Shayne.”

Shayne hung up. Be smart? Well no doubt, the smart thing to do was exactly as Patrick had suggested.

Walk away.

Hell, Dani had even helped him out in that area, by walking away first.

But damn, he’d been the black sheep of his family too long to listen to reason now. So he picked the phone back up. Yeah, he was going to call her, which was crazy all by itself, never mind the implications of wanting to call her. By doing this, he was sending far more than a “how are you after all the amazing sex” signal, he’d be sending a “I want to do you yet again” signal.

Which he didn’t need.

Never needed.

But somehow he’d dialed her cell and the phone was ringing in his ear, and then her voice was asking him in that sweet, slightly halting tone to please leave her a message and she’d get back to him as soon as possible.

“Hey, Dani,” he said, his mouth apparently having completely disconnected from his brain. “Missed you in the shower this morning.” Christ, was that him? Telling her he missed her? He cleared his throat and found his balls. “Anyway, just wanted to make sure you made it to work okay. Have a good day.”

Have a good day? What was he, a fucking Girl Scout? Jesus. To make sure he didn’t repeat that shockingly needy mistake, he deleted her number from the memory in his cell.

Better.

By the time he got into Sky High Air, things were hustling and bustling. Maddie met him with a stack of phone messages, files, reports, and a blessed mug of caffeine. “Hey.” She studied his face. “You look like crap.”

“Gee, thanks. Any of these messages from Dani?”

“The damsel in distress? Nope, you’re in luck, boss. No calls from her.”

He lifted his head from the messages and looked into her eyes, and her smile faded. “Oh,” she said, clearly taken aback. “You…wanted to hear from her.”

Instead of answering, he turned away.

“Wow, that’s new,” she murmured.

He looked back. “What?”

“You, looking for the whole morning-after thing.” She grinned, the smart-ass. “And it’s so cute. What happened, she pull a Shayne and sneak out on you?”

“You do realize I sign your paycheck.”

“I’m not afraid of you. You want me to get her on the line?”

“No.”

“You want me to reschedule your flight so you can pull the whole stay-in-your-office-and-pout thing, like Brody does?”

“No. Brody’s a woman.” He headed toward his office.

“Shayne?”

With a sigh, he stopped. “What?”

“You’re pretty cute when you’re being the woman too.”

Chapter 13

Dani got out of the cab and looked up at her second-floor apartment. At her front window. Was she scared to go in? Hell, yes. But she could do this. All she needed were panties. So she took the stairs.

She could have stuck around Shayne’s longer, maybe found those panties, but she hadn’t wanted him to look into her eyes and discover the truth.

One night hadn’t been enough for her.

She had quite a few conflicting feelings about that. On the one hand, she felt like a woman who’d just had the best sex of her life, and she had.

No fumbling, no clumsy, klutzy, nervous movements for Shayne. Nope, the man had the moves. Great moves.

But on the other hand, she also felt exactly as she’d known she would.

Like they weren’t finished.

Like maybe they couldn’t ever get finished.

And that was the problem, wasn’t it. Shrugging it off, she opened her apartment door. “Hello?” she called, staying in the doorway.

No one answered. Of course no one answered. She lived alone.

“Dani?”

Nearly exiting her own skin, Dani jumped and found Alan standing in his doorway, watching her.

“You okay?” he asked, a worried frown on his face.

She opened her mouth to answer. Of course she was okay, she always showed up at eight in the morning wearing no panties, looking like she’d just had wild sex all night.

But he was looking at her so sweetly, so I-really-want-to-date-you sweetly, that she just shut her mouth and nodded weakly.

His gaze locked in on her neck. “You sure?”

She nodded again, but he kept staring at her neck. “What?”

“Is that a…hickey?”

She slapped a hand to her neck. “What? No. Of course not.”

“Someone bit you.”

Yes. Yes, Shayne had bitten her, lightly, with such heat and suction and perfect use of his tongue that her eyes had rolled back in her head with pleasure. She remembered sliding her fingers into his hair and holding his head to her, encouraging him to keep on kissing her like that.

Perfect. “Maybe it’s a bug bite.”

He sucked his lips inward but didn’t voice the doubt that was all over his face. “Are you just getting home?”

“Yes.” Which looked bad. She’d turned him down for a date, saying she was too busy with her job, and that she was going through a tough time right now, and that a man would complicate things.

But not a single one of those reasons made sense of the fact that yes, she was just getting home, she’d been with a man. She wondered if telling him it’d been a complicated man would help.

Probably not.

Nor would the fact that she’d witnessed an invisible murder, been shot at by an invisible shooter.

Oh, and then there’d been all that wild sex on the floor of Shayne’s living room.

And in his shower…

And in his bed…

“Work’s been a little crazy,” she said weakly. She glanced inside her apartment. No sign of trouble. But still, she couldn’t bring herself to step over the threshold. “Alan?”

“Yeah?”

She looked at him. “Would you like to come in for coffee?”

“Is that just because you want to have coffee, or because you’re nervous about going in alone after the possible break-in?”

Damn it. He was adorably fumbling, yes. But not slow. Not by a long shot. “How do you know about the possible break-in?”

“I heard the police talking.”