Strong and Sexy

by Jill Shalvis

  “I just want to get this straight. First you were upset because you thought I was calling for a—as you so eloquently put it—booty call. And now you’re upset because I wasn’t?”

  “That’s right. I’m just doing my best to live up to my crazy reputation.” She walked to the door and opened it in invitation for him to leave. It was hard to maintain her dignity with the mask cracking all over her face, her hair falling out of its tenuous hold and into her face, and also into her face mask, ew, but she did her best.

  “You really want me to leave?” he asked in shocked disbelief. Clearly, this was another first for him. “Why?”

  Not expecting the question, she could only stare at him as he rose to his feet and slowly walked toward her. When their toes were touching, he reached around her and shut the door.

  Locked it.

  Okay, this was where she said something. Anything . “Um.” Oh, um. Yeah, that was brilliant. Really.

  He ran a finger over her temple, pushing a strand of hair from her face, tucking it behind her ear, then taking that finger on a slow, seductive tour down her throat.

  “S-Shayne—”

  “Why, Dani?”

  “Because.” She cleared her throat. “Because I’m not interested.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “Okay, because you don’t repeat.”

  Finger still on her, he went still, gaze lifting to hers.

  Yep. That should do it. Any second now he’d walk out. It made her heart hurt to think of it, because despite her horror at being caught in the middle of a pity party, she didn’t want to be alone.

  More than that. No matter what she’d told him, she wanted his company. His. “Right?” she pressed. “You don’t repeat, and I tend to do exactly that, so really, this thing is done.”

  “Dani.”

  Holding her breath, she locked her gaze on his. “Do you repeat, Shayne? Yes or no.”

  “No, but—”

  “No buts necessary.”

  “But,” he said again, softly. “I have a feeling this is different. You’re different.”

  She stared at him. “Is that good or bad?”

  “I haven’t gotten that far yet.” He glanced back at the ice cream. “So this whole ice cream and movie thing. Is it a party for one?”

  “A pity party, you mean. And yeah. It’s for one.”

  Holding her gaze with his for a beat, his mouth quirked, a dimple flashed. Then he broke the eye contact and leaned in so that his mouth brushed her ear. “How about one plus one?”

  Oh, yes, her body said. Great idea. “I don’t have enough facial mask for you.”

  He laughed low in his throat, a sound that was just as damn sexy as the rest of him. Setting his hands on her hips, he backed her into the living room, back to the couch, and as she walked, his big, bad body nudged into hers on purpose, letting her feel that she was not alone in this uncontrollable surge of need and desire.

  “I’m not sharing my ice cream.”

  “Are you sure? Because . . .” Again he put his mouth to her ear, taking a second to nibble. “I’ve got a much better use for it than you could possibly have had . . .”

  Oh, God. She’d just let in the big, bad wolf. “Well.” She swallowed hard. “That’s a very intriguing thought.” She felt the couch at the back of her thighs, and just as he smiled again, she found herself falling back onto the cushions.

  He followed her down, stretching his long body over hers, and there, towering above hers, with his wonderfully warm, hard length pressed to her, he still didn’t kiss her.

  And that’s when she remembered. “The mask.”

  “I’m sure it tastes very yummy, but maybe it’s best if you . . .”

  “Yes. God.” Shoving free, she leapt up and ran down the hallway to her bedroom and into her bathroom, where she stared, breathless, at herself in the mirror. Her eyes were bright, but it was hard to tell about the rest of her face beneath the cracked green mask. The one that made her look like a seasick smurf.

  He’d looked at her looking like this. Nearly kissed her like this.

  She scrubbed clean. Vanity had her adding some lip gloss. Great. Now her lips looked fabulous, but the rest of her? Not exactly at her best. She ran into her room and into her closet, ripping off all her clothes. Naked, she scrambled for something to replace the sweats with, but she hadn’t done her laundry. “Damn it.”

  “Everything okay?” Shayne asked from the other side of her bedroom door.

  God! She shoved the closet door closed and stood inside it, naked. “Don’t come in here!”

  “Why, because you might be wearing sweats and a mask?”

  “You’re a funny guy, Shayne.” Crap. He’d come into her bedroom. In the dark closet, she fumbled through the pile of clothes on the closet floor for a new pair of panties. What was it with her and losing her panties lately? She didn’t find any, but did locate the brush she’d lost weeks ago.

  “Dani? You okay?”

  She tossed the brush aside. “Peachy.”

  He nudged the door and she held it shut. “Don’t you dare come in here.”

  “That’s not what you said the last time you got into a closet.”

  “I mean it!”

  “You sound out of breath. What are you doing in there?”

  She found a hoodie zip-up sweater. Because she couldn’t find a bra, she zipped it up to her chin. “I’m out of breath because—Never mind!” She groped for a pair of jeans and came up with a gauzy skirt she’d worn to a Renaissance Fair last summer. It was loose, with a drawstring waist, and she’d just managed to pull it up and tie it when the door was nudged again.

  “Damn it, Shayne Mahoney.” Why was she always commando around him? “You don’t listen very well.”

  Completely unaware of her dilemma, he spoke with a grin in his voice. “That’s what my mother always says. ‘Shayne Mahoney, you don’t listen.’ ”

  She gripped the door, holding him out while she desperately straightened her clothes and tried to regain her breath. “So what did she do about your listening skills?”

  “I was the last of six boys. As a litigation attorney, she was far too tired by the time she came home from work to deal with me.”

  Still in the dark, Dani lifted her head. That didn’t fit into the mold in which she’d placed him, the one of a pampered, spoiled kid, the absolute apple of his mother’s eye. “So your brothers raised you?”

  “More like beat the shit out of me, regularly.”

  “No way. You’re too big for that.”

  “I was a puny kid, trust me.”

  She pictured that, him a helpless little kid, no one to really protect him, and without her permission, her heart squeezed and engaged. “Your mom allowed that?”

  “Like I said, she was tired. Of us. Literally.”

  “What about your father? Surely he—”

  “A very busy brain surgeon. Not around much either, but when he was, he usually only encouraged my brothers to toughen me up.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Because I was a classic underachiever.”

  She turned to face the door of the closet, even putting her hand to the wood as if she could touch him. “But you’re a pilot. You run a private airport. You fly all kinds of planes and people, all over the world.”

  “I’m an expensive taxi driver.”

  “Shayne—”

  “Don’t get me wrong. I love what I do. I was born to do what I do. Being in the air, it . . . it feeds my soul. I’m just telling you what they think.”

  And she knew despite not wanting to, he cared what they thought. How well she knew the agony of that. It had her opening the door.

  He was casual as could be, arms lightly crossed, his feet the same, propping up the wall. Yep, easygoing as they came.

  Except there was more to him than that lazy confidence, so much more.

  “There you are.” He took in her zippered hoodie and the long gauzy skirt, the combination of which covered h
er from chin to toe. “With your armor intact.”

  She managed a smile and tried not to look directly at him, because he was damned distracting. “Thought I might need it.” Her eyes wandered to her bed. Bad eyes. “So . . . did you always want to be a pilot?”

  He smiled. The distraction wasn’t fooling him. “From the moment I first saw a plane. What are you looking at?”

  “I always wanted to work with animals,” she said quickly. Not looking at the bed. “From the time I was little, animals were it for me.” As usual, her mouth was running off without permission because she was nervous. And excited. Nervous and excited were a bad combination for her. “When I got my job at the zoo, my mother stopped by on my first day. I was giving an enema to a clogged giraffe.”

  “Let me guess. That’s what she thinks you do all day. Evacuate shit.”

  In spite of herself, she laughed. How he did that, made her laugh when she hadn’t planned on being amused, was beyond her. “Sort of like taxiing people, huh?”

  He grinned too. They grinned at each other, unexpectedly unified in this. “You’re happy in your job,” she murmured.

  “Very.”

  “Me too.”

  “I’m happy in my life,” he said.

  In his single life. Right. Got to remember that. She glanced at the bed again. He was happy single.

  “But here’s the stickler,” he said quietly. “I’m happier now that I’ve met you.”

  Before she could begin to figure out how to process that, his gaze dropped to her mouth. “Much happier.” Cupping her freshly washed face, he leaned in, and this time didn’t stop until their lips were touching. This kiss was different from the wild kiss they’d shared in the last closet they’d stood in, and different from the kisses they’d shared at his house.

  This kiss was slow and sweet, and so heartfelt she felt her throat burn, and when he pulled back a fraction, just enough to look into her eyes, hands still on her face, he murmured, “And as to your earlier question . . . I was worried about you, but I also wanted to see you again. I wanted to repeat. If you meant what you said, yesterday that you don’t, then tell me now. Look me in the eyes and tell me you feel nothing for me, that you don’t want to see where this goes.”

  Oh, God, don’t do this. Don’t be so gorgeous and have the heart too. Don’t be the whole package. “You . . . you want to repeat.”

  He offered her a sweet, sort of baffled smile. “Go figure, right?”

  This wasn’t good. He stood there looking young and sexy, but also shockingly vulnerable, and the combination was almost too much to take.

  She could fall for him.

  Hard.

  Fast.

  And here she was without her handy-dandy, trusty safety net. Not good. Not good at all. Backing out of his arms, she moved back down the hall.

  He wanted to repeat. How did she resist that? Answer—she couldn’t, she really couldn’t.

  “Where are you going?”

  “To the ice cream. I need ice cream for this.”

  “For what?”

  She plopped down on the couch and resumed her earlier position, holding the spoon and the carton, thinking there might not be enough ice cream on the planet for this.

  The couch sank as he hit the spot beside her, his thighs brushing hers. “You got another spoon?”

  Turning her head, she looked into his eyes. And just like the ice cream in her hands, she melted a little. “I suppose I can share.”

  Chapter 15

  “You’re like an onion.”

  An onion? Confused, Shayne looked at Dani. “What?”

  Her eyes were warm, her face a little flushed, whether from scrubbing off the mask or from being near him, Shayne had no idea, but he hoped like hell it was the latter.

  “You have all these fascinating layers.” She dropped her spoon into the ice cream. “When I saw you at my mother’s party, I thought, uh-oh. Pure trouble coming right at me.” She lifted a shoulder. “Sexy trouble, of course. But you were this easygoing, laid-back, too wealthy, too good-looking for your own health guy, you know? Someone who’d probably never lifted a finger a day in his life.”

  Hard to be insulted, when most of that had been true at one time or another. “And here I thought all you saw was my sharp wit and intelligence.”

  “Nope, just the whole playful playboy thing.” Apparently unconcerned that her blunt honesty had a sharp edge and cut deep, she went for another bite of ice cream. “But the thing is, layers started peeling away almost immediately.” And then another bite. Or rather, a lick. Her tongue delicately ran over the wooden spoon and made his eyes cross.

  “Dani.”

  And then another lick. Without conscious thought, he urged her closer, then closer still, pulling her onto his lap.

  “Shayne—”

  He slid a hand up her back and she arched into his touch, even as she was careful, very careful, to keep her skirt modestly tucked around her knees as she settled in. The contradiction between that and the fact that her nipples went hard, pressing against the material of her sweater, combined to create a sensory overload.

  Up and down went his hand, to the back of her neck and down again, farther this time—

  And then he suddenly realized the reason for her modesty.

  It was entirely possible that she wasn’t wearing any underwear.

  She gave the spoon another lick, which in turn gave his body a quick shudder of pleasure from just watching her. He wanted to shove up the skirt and see if he was right about her being commando . . .

  “Do they?” she asked, feeding him a bite of ice cream.

  What? He’d missed the question.

  “I asked if all your women see right through you.”

  “Hope not.” His hands slid down her arms all the way to the backs of her thighs.

  No panties.

  “I do,” she whispered. “I see right through you. Past that outer layer to your inside, where you’re sweet and funny and smart. I like that layer best. I decided that in the closet at the party.”

  “I thought you liked the mistletoe the best.” His voice was just a little thick and a lot hoarse as he ran his hands up and down her outer thighs, to her hips, her waist, and back down.

  Nope. No panties anywhere. What happened to the blue thong?

  He was having trouble getting past that, past the fact that if he shoved up her skirt, there’d be nothing to stop him from feasting on something much, much better than ice cream.

  And sitting on him as she was, she couldn’t miss what else was happening with his body . . .

  “The mistletoe,” she murmured. “That was fun.” She paused for a bite of ice cream, and wriggled her butt just a tiny little bit, so that the very core of her cradled the absolute core of him.

  Yeah. She hadn’t missed a thing. She knew.

  “And the kissing,” she added. “That was a very nice layer indeed.” She fed him another bite, opening her mouth as he opened his, making him smile even though he was hard as a rock.

  “But I can’t help but wonder . . .”

  “What?” he asked.