by Laura Kaye
He inhaled a deep breath meant to calm, but it was a mistake. A big one. Because he got a lungful of peaches and a sweetness that was all Shayna.
Shayna, who was Ryan’s kid sister. Except…nope. Not one goddamn thing about the woman standing next to him belonged to a kid. And he would know since he’d seen nearly the whole beautiful package.
“Hi,” he said. “Welcome to D.C. Sorry I nearly shot you.”
She grinned, and it was crooked, with one side of her mouth drawing up higher than the other. “No harm, no foul,” she said, and then she held up the ball of clothing in her arms. “I’m going to go get decenter.”
Between the smile and the sarcasm, now he was thinking about her mouth… “You do that, Goldilocks.”
Her brows cranked down, and then she chuckled. “Ha ha. Except I didn’t try out your bed, just your shower.”
And. Now. He. Was. Thinking. About. Her. In. His. Bed. “Don’t you have some clothes to put on or something?” Which was not something he typically said to a woman. But Shayna Curtis wasn’t any woman.
She was one of his best friends’ sisters. A best friend who’d asked him to watch out for her. And therefore she was ten kinds of off-limits.
“Yup,” she said, nearly running back to the bathroom.
Billy just stood there and dropped his head forward. He was so fucked.
Chapter Two
Shayna wasn’t sure whether to bang her head on a wall or burst out laughing. Both reactions seemed appropriate to having dropped her towel in front of Billy Fucking Parrish. Of course, that would happen to her on her first day living with the guy, who’d quite possibly moved faster than any human being ever when he’d turned around and given her his broad back.
Good going, Shay.
She chuckled to herself as she dropped the towel—on purpose this time, folded it, and hung it on the bar behind the door. It only took her a minute to slide on a pair of leggings and a long, lightweight sweater, and then there was nothing to do but brazen it out and face the guy like she didn’t care that he knew her pubes were a few shades darker than the hair on her head.
To the extent that she’d ever imagined anything happening with Billy—and she had to admit she’d fantasized about it a few times—it had never begun with anything so ridiculous and humiliating as what’d just happened. For crap’s sake.
“You like pizza?” Billy called from just outside the door.
On a deep breath, she opened it to find him standing in the hall again. His dark blond hair a sexy finger-raked mess as if he’d been tugging at it. The square of his jaw set in a tight line. Serious brown eyes trained on hers. No gun in sight, this time. Which made her say, “Before we talk pizza, can we just agree that Ryan should never know about what happened the last time I opened this door?”
He nailed her with a droll stare. “Please, God. I’d like to live.”
She snickered as she flicked off the light switch. “Good. And I love pizza.”
“Come on down, then.” With a sideways tilt of his head, he beckoned her to follow. Which gave her the opportunity to really take him in. While she’d dressed, he’d removed the brown bomber-style jacket he’d had on, revealing just how much freaking justice he did to a pair of blue jeans. Because lordy did he fill them out nicely. His white T-shirt was plain but highlighted the breadth of his shoulders and the bulk of his biceps. It was only once they got downstairs that she noticed his feet were bare.
His look was at once nothing special and crazy hot because this was how he looked when he was just chilling at home and not even putting in an effort to make panties drop. Yet, drop they still metaphorically did. She bit back a smile.
He went to the double ovens and set them to preheating, and then gathered flour, sugar, salt, a bottle of olive oil, and some dry yeast from the cabinets. Next, he collected mixing bowls and measuring spoons. He laid everything out in neat, precise rows. Shay stared as he moved about, obviously comfortable in the kitchen. “I thought you were going to order out.”
He shrugged with one big shoulder. “Mine’s better, Goldilocks.”
Shayna rolled her eyes even as the confidence in his tone drew a smile from her. “All righty, then.” She rested her elbows on the counter and watched him start on the dough. “If I’m Goldilocks, who are you?”
Billy smirked. “Papa Bear. Obviously.”
“Oh, obviously,” she said mockingly, earning a wink from him. It was either mock or stammer in an embarrassment she didn’t quite understand. At least she hadn’t blushed, which given how fair she was, happened often enough. “Can I help?”
His dark-eyed gaze lifted to hers, and he gave a single nod. “Suit yourself. Grab the cans of tomato sauce and paste from the pantry.” He nodded his head toward the cabinet. “And then the spices are next to the stove. We need the dried oregano and onion powder. I’ll mince the garlic and chop the basil while the yeast stands.”
“I’ll have you know that you’re putting my pride in being able to make a mean bagel pizza to shame right now,” Shay said as she collected everything.
“A decade of missed meals and MREs makes a man crave something real, something homemade.”
She nodded, a little niggle taking up root in her belly. Because Ryan was still out there. Still going places and doing things that he could never tell her about. Still sacrificing his comfort and his time. Still putting himself in harm’s way. No homemade meals in sight.
“Ryan lives and breathes it, Shay. He loves what he’s doing. Don’t you worry about him,” Billy said in low voice. He tossed an observing glance her way, then got busy starting the sauce.
Shayna blinked. How had he known? She didn’t ask, though, because Billy had insight into her brother’s life that Ryan himself would never give her. Would he share it with her? “Did he say that?”
“He didn’t have to.”
“Was that what it was like for you?” she asked.
A muscle ticked in the side of that angled jaw, and the knife with which he chopped the basil thunked-thunked harder against the cutting board. For a moment she thought he wasn’t going to answer.
And then he did. “It was.”
Was. As he’d moved about, she’d seen a small stretch of scarring that ran up his neck and under his shirt. Her gaze trailed over the tee again, and she wondered just how extensive his scars were from the burns he’d suffered in an explosion a few years ago. An explosion that he and Ryan had survived but that a lot of the other Rangers in their squad hadn’t. That was all she knew, and it’d taken her a lot of coaxing to get Ryan to share that much with her.
Silence rang loud in the room, clearly communicating that it wasn’t something about which he wanted to talk. She regretted asking and searched her mind for something to lighten the mood, watching as he combined the sauce ingredients in a blender.
“Have you always been good at cooking?”
A single shake of his head. “My mom came to stay with me for a few months. After I was discharged.”
So much for changing the topic, because she heard what he didn’t say. That his mom had come to help him as he recovered…for a few months. Just how bad had his injuries been? “If you cook this good, she must be amazing.”
It was his first genuine smile since their unfortunate reunion upstairs, and man, was it a stunner. “She is,” he said. “Could whip up a fantastic meal and whip me into shape with one hand tied behind her back.”
The affection in his voice was utterly charming. “That’s impressive,” Shay said with a chuckle.
He smirked. “It really is because I was a fucking handful when I was growing up.”
Shayna grinned. “Oh, so you’re not a handful anymore?”
He gave her the strangest look, and then burst into a speechless guffaw.
Heat absolutely flooded Shay’s face. Oh. My. God. Did she seriously just ask him if he was a handful? “That’s…that’s not what I meant!”
Grinning like a shithead, he turned the blender on high
. One hand on his hip and the other on the blender, he yelled, “What? I can’t hear you!”
“You are a total ballbag, Billy Parrish!” she said, crossing her arms and glaring at him. Even though she knew she totally deserved whatever shit he gave her, because she’d walked right into that. Mostly she didn’t really mind, since it seemed to have chased away the tension that her earlier question had caused.
And playful Billy was a thing to behold.
He hit the stop button on the blender. “What did you call me?” he asked, amusement still plain in his voice.
“A ballbag.” She gave him a challenging look.
He snickered. “How am I the scrotum? You’re the one—”
“Yeah, yeah,” she said, feigning indignance. “Obviously you answered the question about whether you’ve grown up. In the negative.”
“You can’t lob a man a softball and not expect him to swing for the fence. Or at least want to…” His mood seemed much lighter as he finished the dough, divided it into two balls, and spread it out on two pizza pans. Then he made quick work of cleaning up after himself, leaving his workspace nearly spotless. Meanwhile, part of the reason Shayna disliked cooking was because she made such a mess. “Now for the fun part. What do you want on it?”
“Surprise me,” she said. “I like almost everything.”
“Mmm, an adventurous girl, I see,” he said, gathering the mozzarella, pepperoni, and a few vegetables from the fridge.
Shayna couldn’t resist giving him a hard time, just to try to make him laugh again. “Woman.”
“What?”
“I’m twenty-six, after all. An adventurous woman,” she said, arching a single, teasing brow.
But laughter was decidedly not his reaction. His gaze flashed suddenly and tantalizingly hot, and he gave her body a slow once-over before his eyes met hers again. Shayna felt his perusal as if it had been a physical caress. Heat bloomed over her. Was he seeing her as she was, standing there in leggings and a sweater? Or was he seeing her as she’d been earlier, completely naked, flushed from her shower, and pressed up against a door?
Because it sure as heck didn’t seem like he saw her as the girl whose teenage infatuation had often left her hanging on his every word. And she wasn’t at all sure what to do with the possibility that her unattainable teenage crush…might find her attractive in return.
Or maybe she was reading too much into the whole thing.
He cleared his throat and returned to stand beside her. “Duly noted,” he said, an odd tone to his words that she didn’t know him well enough to understand. Minutes stretched out as he chopped and diced the toppings.
In the wake of their exchange, her heart kicked up inside her chest, even as Billy busied his hands—and eyes—with sprinkling the mozzarella evenly over the pies. He wasn’t looking at her any longer, but she had the strangest sense of certainty that he was utterly aware of her where she stood beside him.
“These look really great, Billy,” she said, watching his big hands work. “You didn’t have to go to all this trouble, but I think I’m going to be really glad you did.”
He kept his eyes on the pizzas as he finished preparing them and finally slid them into the ovens. “Anything for Ryan’s kid sister,” he said, his tone much more reserved.
Oh. So that was how he saw her. All righty, then. What she’d thought she saw in his expression had been wishful thinking, after all.
Which was fine. Probably even for the best. Because Shay’s fresh start definitely didn’t include renewing her silly crush on her brother’s best friend.
The best thing about it being Saturday was Warrior Fight Club.
Which meant that Billy could attempt to fight out all the shit in his head and the restless energy in his body that had kept him awake all night.
Awake picturing Shayna’s beautiful body. Awake with her voice in his ear saying that she was an adventurous woman.
Which was about a million times better than the other images and sounds that had been keeping him awake lately. On the same call where Ryan had asked for the favor for Shayna, he’d also informed him that one of their buddies hadn’t survived the injuries he’d received on an op a few weeks ago. And that knowledge seemed to have revived Billy’s old nightmares.
So, yeah, imagining Shay was far preferable, even if she’d been a constant torment in his head, keeping him hard enough that he’d been tempted to take himself in hand. But no fucking way was he jacking off to the thought of her just a few hours after she’d moved into his house.
And that left fighting as the best way to chill his damn self out.
Even better? He was meeting a few of the guys beforehand to work out. With any luck, by this evening, he’d be drained—and therefore a significantly less horny and moody motherfucker.
One could hope.
He pulled his ass out of bed and grimaced at the stiffness of the right side of his body. Some of which was muscular, and some of which was his ruined skin.
In the bathroom, he pulled off the shirt he’d slept in and gave himself a once-over in the mirror.
“Shit,” he murmured. All that tossing and turning had opened up the ulceration on the top of his shoulder. Given how extensive his scarring was, he supposed he was lucky that he only had one place where the skin remained so fragile.
He frowned at his reflection. He was lucky. That, he couldn’t deny.
Of the eight men on his Ranger squad, five had died in the fucking trap that had been set. There’d been no reason to question the well-vetted intelligence they’d received about a large munitions stash hidden in the basement of a house in the middle of a densely inhabited part of Baghdad. No reason at all.
Until the explosives detonated, revealing that the whole thing had been a set-up and they’d been played.
Why did I survive that shit when so many others didn’t?
He’d asked himself that so many times over the past three years…
Needing to shake off the fog of sleeplessness, guilt, and regret, Billy took a quick shower, and then he treated the crack in his scar tissue with antibiotic cream. He debated bandaging it, but it wasn’t bleeding, and he really didn’t want to call attention to it. Next up came moisturizing the nearly forty per cent of his body that had suffered second- and third-degree burns, the most serious of which had been down his right side—the side that had been closest to one of the devices his squad hadn’t seen until it was too late.
A lot of his scarring had matured and mellowed enough now that it wasn’t super obvious, but the skin on his right shoulder, ribs, and back, that covering a lot of his right arm, and going down the outside of his right thigh, remained shiny and melted-looking and was where, if he was going to have skin irritation or scar breakdown problems, they occurred.
At first, he’d been too sore, too demoralized, and too stiff to do something as simple as rub cream on himself, but for most of the last three years, this had been part of his daily morning routine. Like brushing his teeth or hair. Just what he had to do if he wanted to have nearly full function of his right arm and shoulder.
But the tear in his skin meant he was either going to have to wear a tank that wouldn’t further irritate his shoulder, or wear the compression shirt he used to have to wear all the time. Four hours of working out argued in favor of the tank. He dressed in his gear despite the fact that he wasn’t meeting the guys until mid-afternoon, then headed downstairs to put on some coffee.
Except, he’d only made it to the top of the steps before he smelled the warm, rich scent of French roast on the air.
Sure enough, he found Shayna downstairs perched on one of the stools at the breakfast bar. Her shoulder-length red waves hid her face as she stared down at an iPad on the counter, and he cleared his throat hoping not to scare her for the second time in less than twenty-four hours.
“Oh, hey,” she said, her gaze cutting to him.
“Hey. You made coffee.”
She nodded. “Coffee is life. I hope you don�
�t mind.”
He wiped up a little spilled sugar and poured himself a cup. “I woke up to ready-to-drink hot coffee and you think I’m gonna mind?”
She gave him a smile, and it struck him again—as it had while they’d made and eaten dinner—that she was so damn pretty. Even sitting there in an old T-shirt and a pair of men’s boxers, without makeup, and with those curls going every which way. She’d always been a cute kid, though the infrequency of his visits to the Curtis house, the regularity of their deployments out of country, and the age difference between them had kept him from really getting to know her as anything other than Ryan’s little sister.
Which was exactly how he should keep thinking of her. Even though, she was right, she wasn’t a girl anymore.
“Just don’t want to overstep. I’m sure my invading your home for two months is inconvenient enough.”
He mentally winced, because he’d thought that very thing about her. But he certainly didn’t want her to feel like she was a burden. “My house is your house, Shayna. Make yourself at home any way you want.”
“Thanks,” she said, her gaze landing on the cut on his shoulder and skating away again. “You headed to the gym?”
“Later,” he said, throwing some bread into the toaster and wondering if Ryan had told her anything about how he’d sustained his injuries. Billy hoped he hadn’t, because there were only so many times someone could say Billy was lucky to survive! without it sounding like How did Billy survive when the others didn’t? And for Billy it was a really fucking short trip from that question to the guilt-drenched worry that others deserved to have survived more than him. Like Laurens, who was married, or Coffman, who had kids.
On a sigh, Billy held up the loaf. “Want some?”
“Not much of a breakfast eater,” she said, shaking her head.
Quiet fell between them as he buttered his toast and sat beside her at the bar. “Work?” He nodded at her iPad.
“Yeah. Just reviewing the emails about my orientation for the new job.”
