Strong and Sexy

by Jill Shalvis

  “Dani? You okay down there?”

  Jerking upright, she whipped around to face him. “Um, hi.”

  “Hi.” His voice was rough with sleep, but his eyes were filled with heat.

  And that wasn’t his only reaction.

  Oh, God, oh, God. She leapt to her feet and clutched her clothes to her chest. “I was just looking for my underwear.”

  “Ah.” As naked as she, and clearly utterly and completely at ease with that, he took a step toward her. “Did you find them?”

  “No.”

  “Sorry.”

  But he didn’t sound sorry as he stroked a finger over her jaw. “You didn’t get much sleep.”

  He had an erection, a really big one, and he stood there as if she couldn’t see it bouncing in the morning air, brushing low on her belly, making her entire body beg her brain for one more condom . . .

  “Hi,” he whispered again, and with a wicked smile, brushed his mouth along her jaw, making its way to her ear.

  And now her own body began to give her away but hello, she was naked. In the unflattering light of day.

  And so was he!

  Normally, she would love his lack of self-awareness, love the easy confidence, but now she only wished she possessed even a fraction of it as she took a step back while trying to shove her shirt over her head. “I was just trying to get out of here before I woke you.” Damn, she’d put her shirt on inside out.

  As she ripped it off and righted it, he reached for her, but she took a step backward, pulling the shirt back on, shaking out her jeans, and she couldn’t help it, her eyes glued onto the part of him that was the happiest to see her. “I—I thought you’d be hard—” She grimaced. “I meant fast. I thought you’d be fast asleep. Th-that you’d want to sleep some more.”

  He grinned.

  “Seriously,” she said desperately. Damn it, he was gorgeous. Gorgeous and cute and . . . she took a peek . . . yep, still ready for more action. Her body reacted to that without her permission, but she ruthlessly pulled on her pants. Without the damn panties.

  “Dani.”

  “Yeah.” She whirled around, looking for her purse. “I’ve got to go.”

  He halted her frenetic movements with a hand on each of her arms. “Go? As in home? Where someone tried to break in last night?”

  “No, not home. Work.”

  “Oh, okay. The place where you were shot at.” He nodded agreeably, easily, but nothing in his hold was easy and agreeable. “Perfect, then.”

  “I really have to go.” Didn’t she? “I do.”

  “Your car isn’t here. Let me get dressed—”

  “I called a cab.”

  “Oh.” He had some serious bed-head, and still looked amazing. Really, really unfair. And then there was that body, which she couldn’t even look at because her own kept reacting to just the sight of it, like it belonged to her.

  As if. “I have to go.”

  He stood there, naked, sexy, hot, with a bemused look on his face. Maybe no woman had ever left his bed before, at least not with him still in it, and she had to admit, she was crazy for doing so.

  Crazy.

  She definitely needed a new word. But the fact remained, she couldn’t stay. She already felt her heart tug hard every time he so much as breathed, and that was not good.

  So not good.

  He’d told her himself, he was not a long-term bet. And she’d put money down that he wasn’t a good middle-term bet either. Or a short one.

  Yeah, she needed to get out now. Heading toward the front door, she squirmed at the feeling of wearing her jeans without panties. “I’ll just . . .” Be seeing you? Because she didn’t believe that. She’d seen his business card. She knew that he was far more than a pilot, and the fact that he still hadn’t told her so spoke volumes.

  She wouldn’t be seeing him. “Let myself out.”

  “What about breakfast?”

  She stopped with her hand on the doorknob. What was he doing? Why wasn’t he just letting her go? “No, thanks.”

  “Dani—”

  “Look, Shayne.” Damn it, she went with frustrated to hide her sadness. “Just go back to bed, okay? And pretend you don’t hear me leaving.” She faced the door. Stared at the door. “It’ll be a lot easier if you do that.” Feeling him come up behind her, she closed her eyes. Shayne . . .

  “Are you sure you don’t want to talk about it?”

  His mouth just barely grazed the sensitive skin beneath her earlobe. Which meant the rest of his fab bod was nearly touching, but not quite. She could feel his heat and had to tell herself not to press back and absorb it. “There’s nothing to talk about.”

  As if on cue, the cab pulled into his driveway and honked.

  “You might want to do a panty sweep before your next sleepover,” she told him.

  “Dani.”

  “Bye, Shayne.” She pulled open the door. Yep, that was her. A mature one-night stand. With her shoes in one hand and her purse in the other, she smiled over her shoulder at him, albeit a weak one. “Have a good one.”

  And before she could weaken and give him one last kiss, which might result in her taking off her clothes again, she shut the door behind her.

  In the cool morning, she gulped the air for courage and got into the cab, catching sight of herself in the rearview mirror. Her hair? Rioted. Her skin? Dewy and glowing. All of it pretty much screaming that she’d just had sex, and lots of it. She wasn’t exactly looking her best, which of course directly contrasted with the fact that she felt her absolute best.

  Two hours later, Shayne got out of bed for the second time and into his shower, acknowledging that he’d rather it’d have been a shower for two instead of solo. It was just that last night, with Dani, had been so unexpectedly amazing.

  Which sounded as if he hadn’t expected her to be amazing. But truthfully, he’d been so busy trying to hold back that he hadn’t had any expectations at all.

  That had been his mistake. And now, he felt something else unexpected. He felt . . . alone.

  But then Bella nudged the bathroom door open, woofed a quiet “hello,” one that had “feed me” all over it, reminding him that life went on. He had to feed the dog and get into work for a noon flight to Santa Barbara. “She dumped us, Bell,” he said, soaping up. “Can you believe it? I’ve been dumped.”

  Unconcerned, Bella turned around in circles on the mat and plopped down with a contented sigh.

  He rinsed off, trying to get his mind wrapped around the fact that it’d happened. He’d lost his touch with women. Even the crazy ones didn’t want him. Getting out of the shower, he grabbed a towel and his phone, and called his brother.

  “Yo,” Patrick answered. “I was just going to call you. The gun Dani allegedly found?”

  “She did find it, in her pocket.”

  “Whatever, dude. It’s not registered.”

  “Which means?”

  “Illegal purchase. We’re trying to trace the bullets now. Still no leads on who shot at you last night.”

  “They were shooting at Dani.”

  “Yeah, well, I’d stay away from her.”

  “Wow.”

  “Wow what?”

  “You’re a cop, telling me to stay away from someone who’s obviously in danger?”

  “I’m a big brother telling my little brother to watch his back. Look, she was just a girl at a party, Shayne. Let her be someone else’s concern. Let her be my concern.”

  Which made complete sense, given who Shayne had always been and how he’d lived his life. He steered clear of attachments and all that entailed, always, so of course Patrick would suggest he do the same now.

  Except he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t walk away this time, not while he knew she was in danger.

  “Shayne? You’re going to leave this in the hands of the police, right? In my hands?”

  That wasn’t the cop talking, that was the older brother, the one who’d bullied him and pushed him around most of his childho
od, only to grow up and still think of him as the screwup.

  “Shayne?”

  “We’re friends. I’m not walking away from her.”

  “Friends?” Patrick laughed. “Come on. You just met her. Besides, you don’t do friends, not with women, not unless you’re planning on having sex with her.”

  “Jesus, Patrick.”

  “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,