Strong and Sexy

by Jill Shalvis

  having it with someone else until we’re finished with all the sex.” She said this, then held her breath, as if she might be asking for too much.

  Lifting his hands, he sank them into her hair, holding it off her face as he made himself hold her gaze. “While I’m sleeping with you, Dani, I don’t want to be sleeping with anyone else.”

  “So that makes us, what? Sexually exclusive?”

  “The last time we got anywhere close to this conversation you told me you weren’t going to date me.”

  “But then we slept together.”

  “As I recall it, there wasn’t much sleeping.”

  She blushed. “I know. But the rule thing? You’re okay with it?”

  “I spent most of my life screwing the rules.”

  “Of course.” Smile gone, she turned away. “It’s okay. That was ridiculous of me. People having just sex don’t use rules.”

  He managed to catch her before she ran down the hall. “Wait—”

  “I’ve got to—”

  “Wait,” he said again, softly, pulling her back against him, wrestling a little with her because damn, she was strong and she did not want to look at him. “Just wait.”

  She didn’t move, just looked at him with those eyes. Killed him with those eyes. “I like you,” he said carefully. “I like you a lot. I realize I sound about twelve, but give me a minute.” He gulped in some air. “I want to spend time with you,” he corrected. “I want to see where this is going. But if you’re asking me for a final destination, I just don’t know it yet.” Again, he smoothed back her hair and found himself inexplicably nervous, waiting on a response. “Is that okay for now?”

  She stared at him for a long heartbeat, during which time he didn’t so much as blink. Her heart seemed to be in her eyes, and it was damn hard to look at them because they made him feel things he hadn’t expected to feel.

  Finally she nodded, and he could breathe. “Okay.” He felt this odd, overwhelming sense of relief. “Okay . . . So now it’s my turn to name a rule.”

  She eyed him warily. “Oh?”

  “I was thinking we should have a no-clothes rule. You know, when we’re here or at my place.”

  Her eyes lit with shock, then humor. “A no-clothes rule.”

  “Yeah. Is that a problem for you?”

  “No.” She smiled, and he felt like he’d just won the lotto. “Especially since I can’t seem to find any underwear around you.”

  He kissed her. And then again. And when they were both breathless, he raised his head. “Your turn for a rule.”

  “Okay.” She nodded. “Rule number three,” she said very seriously. “The next food item we use during sex has to be a heated item.”

  His heart actually stopped. Then kicked hard. And right then and there, he felt himself fall just a little bit. “Deal.”

  Dani woke up just before dawn to elephants bleating at the top of their lungs.

  Her alarm.

  Heart racing, she slapped the snooze button and turned over with a smile already in place for the man—

  Not next to her.

  He’d left. Which, she supposed, was only fair. After all, she’d done the very same thing to him the night before. And just because they’d talked about rules didn’t mean they were going to continue this thing. So him leaving? No biggie. In fact, as far as good-byes went, it was a fairly gentle one. Gentle, and yet somehow, at the same time, a little sad.

  Okay, a lot sad.

  Get over yourself. In that vein, she got up and looked into the mirror. Her hair stuck straight up on one side (courtesy of the ice cream) and was flattened completely to her head on the other (also no doubt courtesy of the ice cream), making the no make-up status just that much worse. She had a beard burn beneath her jaw, which she could live with, and something stuck to her shoulder.

  A condom wrapper.

  Good God. She was a walking Don’t Be This Girl ad. No wonder he’d run off. Any sane person would have run off.

  But next time, no matter what, she wasn’t going to let him in. Next time she’d—

  Ah, hell, who was she kidding?

  She’d let him in. She’d probably let him in and strip him out of his clothes so fast his head would spin.

  Clearly, she was depraved.

  She showered. It took three shampoo applications to get rid of the ice cream, and when she came out, her phone was ringing. Running for it, she stubbed her toe on her nightstand and went down like a brick. “Damn it, don’t hang up, don’t hang up!” she yelled as she crawled the last few feet to the phone. “Hello?” she gasped, a small part of her hoping it was Shayne.

  God. She needed therapy. “I’m here, don’t—”

  Click.

  “—hang up.” Damn it! She sagged to the floor, her forehead to the carpet that definitely needed vacuuming. When the phone rang again, she nearly parted ways with her heart. “Hello!”

  But in her ear came another click.

  Huh. That wasn’t Shayne. He would definitely not hang up. No one she knew would hang up on her, unless—

  Oh, boy.

  Unless this wasn’t just a random annoying hang-up. Maybe it’d been from her special psychotic stalker. A little creeped out, she rushed her morning routine and left for work as soon as she got dressed, needing to get out of her apartment before her fear gripped her.

  The zoo’s employee parking lot wasn’t nearly as empty as it had been the night before, but she still didn’t dawdle. Halfway across, her cell phone rang, making her jump. Shayne’s name on the ID caused some other reactions entirely. Be cool. “Hi,” she said as casually as she could with all her parts clamoring for his attention.

  “Hi yourself. I just landed in sunny Las Vegas.”

  “Oh.” He’d had a flight. Of course he’d had a flight. “So . . . you’re calling because . . .”

  “Because.”

  “Because what?”

  “I’m calling just because, Dani.”

  That had a silly grin splitting her face. He hadn’t dumped her. They were still on for their Just Sex. Her body let out a sort of shiver.

  “Anything odd going on?” he asked.

  Other than her heart had tightened at just the sound of him? And her nipples too? Oh, yes, her nipples were very happy to hear from him. “Nope.”

  “No more dead bodies?”

  “Nope.”

  “No more break-ins?”

  “Nope.”

  “How about hang-ups?”

  She winced. “Well . . .”

  “Tell me.”

  “A few hang-ups,” she admitted. “I figured they were just a wrong number.”

  He didn’t say anything, but she could practically hear him thinking. “I’m okay, Shayne.”

  “Actually, you’re amazing, but that’s another story altogether. Look, just be careful, watch that sweet ass of yours. I’m fond of it.”

  God, look at her. Grinning. Just sex, she reminded herself. But she couldn’t stop grinning. This was so bad. “I can do that. Have a good flight back.”

  “Will do.”

  “Good.” She paused, then let it out. “Because I’m really quite fond of your backside too.” Shocked at herself, she closed her cell—then laughed.

  Her cell immediately vibrated with an incoming text message that had three words: “Tonight? Hot fudge.”

  Oh, God. This was ridiculous, this flow of euphoria that sex caused. Too bad it couldn’t be bottled.

  Dani’s day was crazy. It didn’t take her long to discover that scheduling and managing the other keepers, each with their own thoughts and agendas and temperaments, was a hell of a lot more challenging than she’d ever imagined. By that afternoon she’d listened to three grievances, broken up two fights—not between any animals but between two other keepers—and had redone the month’s employee schedule four times.

  Oh, and everyone hated her.

  It wasn’t until most of her staff had left for the day that she managed even a single moment t
o herself. It was six o’clock, time for food, her stomach proclaimed, but she couldn’t leave, not yet. So she stood in front of the vending machine trying to decide between a relatively harmless bag of pretzels or the bag of cholesterol-crippling Twix bites. She slapped her pockets for change, but came up empty.

  Damn, she needed her energy for the hot fudge. Just thinking it had her insides going all tight and tingly, and anticipation rushed through her. What could he do with warm fudge that they hadn’t done with the ice cream? She couldn’t even imagine the possibilities, and that made the rush of lust even worse.

  Definitely she should have the pretzels and save the calories for later. “Bob,” she said when one of the night keepers rushed by her, “do you have change?”

  Bob was fresh out of college on the East Coast. He was six feet five, weighed maybe one hundred and fifty pounds soaking wet, and dressed like he was still in middle school. This meant his jeans sagged to nearly his knees and his sweatshirt was at least a triple-extra-large on his extremely not triple-extra-large frame. A good wind could, and had, blown him over. Hell, just yesterday, one of the baby rhinos had knocked him on his ass when the thing had sneezed.

  He didn’t even glance at her.

  “Bob?” She touched his arm, which jerked into the air as he fell backward to his butt. Looking up at her in surprise, he pulled out the earplugs to the iPod she hadn’t seen.

  “Sorry! I didn’t mean to scare you!”

  “Jesus.”

  “Do you have any change?”

  He arched a brow. “You look desperate.”

  “I am.”

  Reena came down the hall and handed her two quarters. “How can you be desperate? You’ve got a hot guy giving you orgasms at night, and the dream job of a lifetime.”

  She said the first part of the sentence evenly enough, but the last part didn’t come out quite as much so, and guilt plagued Dani. “Reena—”

  “Plus, there’s the raise that goes with that dream job,” Reena continued. “Which means that at least one of us won’t be counting pennies at the end of every single month, or begging fellow keepers for change in front of the vending machine.”

  Recognizing trouble, Bob put his earplugs back in and hightailed it out of the hallway.

  “The raise is minuscule,” Dani told Reena quietly. “You know that.”

  Reena sighed. “I know. I do. I’m just a jealous bitch. Ignore me.”

  Dani slipped an arm around her, but instead of the hug that only two days ago would have been real and natural, Reena shifted so that there was some space between them. “It won’t be long for you,” Dani said quietly. “You’ll get a promotion too.”

  Reena snorted. “Are you planning on leaving any time soon?”

  “No.”

  “Then it will be a long time.” Reena punched the vending machine and a bag of peanut M&Ms fell out. Snatching them, she walked away.

  Dani bought the pretzels, then munched on them as she headed back to her office.

  Candy, the floor’s assistant, stopped her in the hallway. “I’m leaving, we’re all leaving. Don’t forget your meeting.”

  “What meeting?”

  “I don’t know. Someone from Global Supplies showed up with vitamin samples. They need your order.”

  “I didn’t ask for any samples from Global. I don’t use them anymore, I use ZooIts.”

  Candy lifted her shoulder. “Just relaying the message here. Oh, and you’re the last one up here, so this is me, reminding you to lock up behind you.”

  “No problem.” Dani moved back to her office, trying to formulate a gentle letdown for the Global rep. In front of her desk was a large case on wheels, signifying that the rep was here, somewhere, but Dani couldn’t see anyone. “Hello?”

  No answer. Maybe he’d stepped out to the restroom. Pulling off her sweater, she opened the closet door to hang it, and felt her entire world skid to a stop.

  A body lay on the floor of her closet. An unmoving body.

  “Ohmigod.” She dropped to her knees. Was it a man? A woman? She couldn’t tell because the closet wasn’t lit and her own body blocked the light. “Can you hear me? Are you okay?”

  The body didn’t move.

  “Oh, God, oh, God.” She had to do something. She’d taken a medical class in college, she had the basics. Panicking was not on the list of things to do in an emergency, though she was doing a great job at that. Swallowing hard, she reached out to see if she could get a pulse, because that’s what they did on TV.

  The skin was cold.

  Icy cold.

  Jerking to her feet, she stumbled back, but then tripped over something she hadn’t seen before, something that felt like . . . like a leg and foot. She had just enough time to feel her panic surge—she wasn’t alone—but before she could process the thought, there was a burst of stars in her head and then blackness.

  Dani opened her eyes. She was flat on her back in her office, legs draped over a stack of reference books she’d been meaning to pick up and reshelve. With a gasp, she sat up. There was no one in the office with her, or at least no one she could see.

  But there was a sharp, grinding pain in her head, and she lifted her hands to hold it onto her shoulders as nausea rolled through her belly. Getting up? Such a bad plan. In fact, if she so much as breathed too quickly, she was going to lose all the pretzels she’d just inhaled.

  Not good. Then she realized one of her hands was sticky.

  With her own blood.

  And that’s when she remembered the rest—dead body.

  She managed to crawl to her closet, and—

  “Not again,” she whispered, staring at the empty space.

  No body.

  Because even being on her hands and knees made her dizzy, she sank back to the floor and stared up at the ceiling.

  She really was going crazy.

  Chapter 17

  Maddie set the phone down and glanced out the windows at the tarmac, where Shayne stood talking to their mechanic, and felt a familiar surge of affection and worry.

  Familiar, because worrying about these guys, it was what she did. And in the past, she’d had good reason. Just last year, on a routine trip to Mexico, Noah had run into weather troubles and had crash-landed on a mountainside where one of their clients had died in his arms.

  It’d changed him, that crash, and Maddie had worried herself sick about him. All of them had, for months and months, until he’d finally agreed to get back on the horse and start flying again.

  Then, on his first flight out, he’d been hijacked by another of their clients, the desperate, terrified, cornered Bailey Sinclair.