by Nana Malone
Tris laughed. "Okay, I know guys are taciturn, but come on, you have to give me something more than that. Hopes, dreams? I know you must have some."
His grin was slow, quirking up on one side first before going full-blown. Tris could only stare. It was probably good that he didn’t smile all the time. No woman anywhere would get anything done.
"Okay, a little deeper then. I get the difficult dad thing. Mine made Tiger Mom look like the Easter Bunny. He had a very specific life carved out for me. He was career military, and since I was a kid, it was drilled into me that I was going to be a Marine. Except, when I hit eighteen, the last thing I wanted to do was take orders from someone. Especially someone like him. I wanted to serve, just not like that. I wanted the Foreign Service. You know, get to travel."
"That's great. And you have to be super smart for the Foreign Service. It's really prestigious."
Shane nodded. "He didn't see it like that. He didn't like my choice so much, so he cut me out of his life. Six months ago, I heard he'd had a massive heart attack, so I went home to see him."
"Oh, my God. Shane, I'm so sorry."
He shrugged. "Don't be sorry. He sure wasn't. He had a secondary event when I was with him. He was so busy screaming about how much he hated me that he didn't give any thought to his heart. Let's just say he hadn’t had any sort of epiphany with his heart attack. Still the same son of a bitch he was when I was a kid."
"What happened?"
He hung his head. "He died. Doctors said his heart couldn’t withstand the strain of the second heart attack."
She knew that look. Guilt. She saw it on her father's face every time he looked at her. "Shane, you can't possibly blame yourself for what happened."
He shrugged again. "Funny how that is. I certainly didn’t like him. Must have wished him dead in that way that kids do, thousands of times. But the moment he was gone, I felt guilty, and somehow heavy, like I should have done something to prevent it all.” He shook his head as if to clear the memory. “Anyway, I came back to San Diego for a fresh start. For a chance to follow my own dreams. To let go of some of that shit." So softly she almost didn't hear him, he added. "Let go of some of the fear."
"How's that working out for you?"
He glanced at her from under sooty lashes. "The outlook has drastically improved in the last week or so."
She flushed. Was it possible he meant meeting her? "Wonder why that is?"
"Wonder why? Must be new friends. So, did your dad ever ease up on you? I don't see the men in black right now."
"Well, a little. I'm still surprised he lets me walk around by myself. But it's for the best. Imagine trying to make friends when you have a three-hundred-pound armed man behind you. It's sort of difficult. But I've gotten used to keeping to myself."
"Well, now you have me as a friend."
She scrunched her nose. "I'm not sure you count."
"What? 'Cause I'm a guy? I can be a friend. Or are you one of those people who thinks guys and girls can't be friends because someone always wants more?"
Yeah, in this case that person was her. "I know the saying in theory, but I don't have any guy friends, so I wouldn't really know."
He popped a piece of melon into his mouth. "Well, now you are up one male friend."
Yes, if by “friend” he meant she wanted to strip him naked and lick chocolate off his abs. "Cool."
"And as your friend, can I just ask what you were doing with that loser last night?"
She covered her face. "Oh, God, please don’t remind me. I'm mortified. Syd will never let me live it down once she wakes up. But I was determined to be normal for once. Meet someone nice and more appropriate to date." She gave him a sheepish smile.
"Well, if you want to do some normal stuff, how about we try something a little tamer, like movies and hanging out? We'll work our way up to dealing with fraternity boys."
"Oh, sober, I know how to deal with some handsy guy. Dad made sure I learned self-defense."
His brows rose. "Wow, then what do you need me around for?"
She popped a piece of sausage into her mouth. "Arm candy."
There was that grin again, and Tris was suddenly blinded. He was too good-looking. And seemingly completely unaware of his effect on her. Or their waitress, for that matter, or half the patrons that had the bad luck of being up at this hour. Every now and again, some googley-eyed woman would slide him a furtive glance. He appeared not to notice.
"Can you give me your phone for a sec?"
She frowned but pulled it out and gave it to him. "Sure, why?"
"I'm just programming myself in there. My reasoning is twofold. First, since we're friends, I should be able to text you at any time the mood strikes."
She laughed. "Okay, friend, what's the other reason?"
He shrugged. "You know. If for any reason that fancy self-defense stuff doesn’t work or you need to talk to someone."
As he handed it back to her, their fingertips brushed. She would have sworn his pupils dilated, but he ducked his head too quickly for her to be sure.
"Sure, I can do that, but just so you know, now that we're friends or whatever, that means you inherit Xia and Syd, too. We're sort of a package deal."
"Three hot girls? Far be it from me to complain."
Chapter 5
"How's it going, lover boy?"
Shane tried to shut the door to his condo in War's face, but his friend just shoved on past him as if he'd been invited with open arms. "Why don't you come on in, War?"
"Don't mind if I do."
Shane was far too tired to deal with War right now. "What do you want?"
"Testy, aren’t you? Is that what happens when you're not getting some regularly? Or is there a reason that you're especially crabby today? Like your new assignment?"
Shane crossed his arms over his chest. "You know, I'm beginning to regret asking Caleb to bring you onto the team too."
His friend only grinned and helped himself to a Coke in the kitchen. "You know, that hurts my feelings."
"Shut up, War. What do you want?"
War took a sip, and then put the can down and scanned him over. "Seriously, you look like shit, man."
"Yeah, well, I'm supposed to be sleeping right now, if some idiot I know would leave and let me."
"I saw the girl, Shane."
Fuck. "What about her?"
"Were you planning on telling Caleb that you know her?"
"Nope."
"Any special reason?"
"Not really, besides it doesn’t matter. The fact that I met her once isn’t going to get in the way of doing my job."
"So we're not going to talk about the fact that she's the first girl I've seen you actually interested in since you got back from your last assignment."
"It's not gonna happen, so it's not a problem."
War shook his head. "Still the same stubborn ass, I see. She’s cute though. And now that I've read the report on how she slipped her detail that night at the club and how you got to meet her, I think she's fun."
"You would think she's fun."
"Nothing wrong with throwing off the shackles a little."
Shane cocked his head. "Is that why you came over? To tell me to spread my wings? I'm good, thanks."
War sighed and shook his head. "I'm just checking on you. I saw you with her last night, man. And this morning. It looks like something. Maybe just this once, you forget all the rules and you enjoy your post a little."
Oh, hell no. He knew what happened when he let himself want anything. "It's called friendship. You should try it with a woman sometime. You know you can actually talk to them instead of just having sex."
War's eyes went wide. "You mean they can talk? I think you're missing out on the whole point of women."
Despite himself, Shane chuckled. "Dude, you're such an asshole."
His friend shrugged. "I've been called worse."
"Why did you really come over?"
War leaned against the counter,
hung his head, and cleared his throat. "I wasn't listening in on purpose, man, but I was in the back of the diner, and once you tagged her phone, I was listening in to the signal.
Oh, shit. What had he heard? "I don't know what you're talking about."
He leveled a gaze on him. "At some point you're going to need to deal with the shit with your dad."
"There's nothing to deal with."
"You keep telling yourself that, but I see it on your face. Maybe it’s time to call the Doc again?"
"I’m fine. As much as I appreciate the talk show host routine, I'm good. I don't have anything to talk about."
"If you say so. But just in case you're not fine, I'm around."
"Yeah, I hear you. That it?"
He rolled his shoulders. "No. Actually. The guy we have in the student mail room picked this up." He slid a piece of paper across the counter.
Shane scowled as he stared down at what he assumed was a photocopied version of the note. Be a good girl and try to stay out of trouble while you're at school. Good girls don’t act like sluts and let other men grope them. I’m watching you.
"What the fuck? When did this come in?" he asked.
"Yesterday,” War answered. “There was no return address and no postmark."
If there was no postmark it meant someone had dropped it into the student in mail system. Just like all university correspondence. Anybody could have dropped it in and it would be delivered to the desired recipient.
"Did Caleb share this with Roland and his men?"
War nodded. "Yeah. Already done."
"I guess this changes everything. We need to be looking at active threats to Tris."
"Yeah. Caleb is already analyzing for prints, but we're not particularly hopeful."
It hit him square in the chest as panic and pain took hold. This wasn't just babysitting and keeping her out of trouble. There was someone watching her. Now, she had a legitimate threat against her. And the idea of anything happening to her made him queasy. "Okay. Thanks for the heads up." He swallowed before adding, "And for the backup."
"It's like I said when we were kids—I'm pretty hard to get rid of."
Wasn’t that the truth?
Shane paced the length of his classroom. Protecting Tris was supposed to be easy. Watch the girl, they said. Make sure nothing too crazy happens to her, they said. Easy. Or so he'd thought. He'd completely underestimated how he'd feel about her. He wanted to annihilate whoever wrote her that note. The person clearly knew she'd be spooked, so they wanted to scare her. Asshole.
But more than the active outside threat against her, Shane worried about the threat she posed to him. That shit she'd said to him in the car made him want to forget all about his good intentions.
He'd already been having a hard time keeping his fantasies at bay when she'd hit him with that "teach me" bullshit. In that moment, he'd wished to God he was the kind of man his old man said he was. Selfish. Cruel. Self-absorbed. Son of a bitch. Because then, he could have been able to teach her anything and everything she wanted to know without a second thought. But that's not who he was. I am not my father.
What made it worse was that he could talk to her. He'd spilled his guts over breakfast. He'd never intended to tell her anything real about himself. But she'd been sitting there, and out it all came. He liked her. She was more than some hot piece of ass he'd met at a club.
Don't be an idiot. She is not your girlfriend. He needed this job. It was the only real purpose he'd had since his father died. He needed this chance. So fuck what his cock said.
But in retrospect, there were a million things he could have done differently. For starters, coming clean with Caleb as soon as he knew Tris was his charge. Caleb could have found someone else. Maybe War, with him as support. Now, he was lying to his boss and the girl. He could just see where this shit storm was headed a few weeks or months down the road, and there wasn't too much he could do about it except hope he could get over this shit with Tris fast.
Focus on the job. He'd only kissed her once. It wasn't that big of a deal. He'd kissed plenty of girls. Most of whom he didn't remember now. He could forget that he'd kissed her. Or opened up to her.
This was all about the assignment. It was his job to get her to trust him. If she thought they were besties, then so be it. That was good.
Thankfully, she wanted to bury the fact she'd asked him to show her things. Maybe they could actually be friends. As a bonus, he not only had her phone number, but he'd also placed a tracker on her phone. All he had to do now was not think about all the things he wanted to teach her. She wanted freedom. And while she didn’t know who he really was or what he was really doing, he might be able to help her find some of that freedom. In a way that didn’t involve him touching her—naked. Easy...
When she walked into the classroom with her friend, Sydney, they were giggling over something. Their heads bowed together, dark hair covering their faces. The taller, lanky one, glanced up first and smirked when she saw him and alerted Tris with a tug on her sleeve. When Tris looked up, her eyes flared wide for a moment.
Yeah, go ahead and forget everything he'd just said about being her friend. He’d thought he was mentally prepared to see her again, but no. Apparently that zing of electricity that went straight to his dick every time he saw her wasn't going to let up.
Tris blinked twice than offered a small smile before taking a seat in the back with Sydney. Fine by him. He didn't need to be any closer to her.
When the rest of his students were seated, he smiled and went over his script. When he'd been given this cover ID, he couldn't believe he was supposed to essentially give pimping points to a bunch of college kids. Granted, it was a lot more than that, but he was pretty sure it was a hell of a cruel joke someone somewhere was playing on him.
"So, for today's session, we're going to talk about chemistry and why some people have it and some don't. Can some people give some factors that play in?"
He kept his gaze off Tris as much as he could. But hell, he couldn't exactly help it when his gaze drifted over her; there were only ten students in the class.
Some people called out the answers he expected. "Proximity." "Scent." "Attractiveness." And finally, Tris's friend called out, "Game."
"Game," he repeated. "Can you clarify, Sydney?"
For a second, she looked confused, but then she cleared her throat. "Well, yeah, some of it is physical, but for girls anyway, we can talk ourselves into almost anything. I mean, someone says the right thing to us, and we start looking at them in a different way. If we think other women want him, he's also more desirable. And his ability to charm is his ticket."
He smiled at her, and her mouth dropped open a little. He shifted on his feet at the scrutiny. "Can anyone tell me if charm is going to work for every pick-up artist?"
One of the guys in the front row muttered under his breath, "I wish."
Shane bit back a grin. "Elaborate for us, Colin."
"Well, I mean, with some girls you think you're being charming, and they hate it. Or they think you're doofy or a dumbass, or worse, annoying. So what is the trick to getting an in?"
Tris called out from the back. "Adaptability and sincerity. If you can gauge your target's response then shift accordingly, you'll have better luck. It's good if a guy is a chameleon in a way, but still himself."
Shane nodded. "Tris is right. Adaptability is key. So partner up. We're going to practice. And for the purposes of this activity, make the pairings male and female."
For the next half hour, they used their best pick-up lines on each other. The women having better results than the guys.
Shane shook his head. "All right. All right. Where do the ladies think the guys are going wrong?"
Sydney rolled her eyes. "For starters, they're using lines. Like tired, dumbass, pick-up lines."
"What else?"
Tris said, "The main problem is they're not sincere, they're acting."
Colin spoke up. "Okay, Shane, the TA, why d
on't you show us how it's done?"
Fantastic. The only girl in the front row now was Tris, thanks to the little exercise.
Be cool. You can do this. "Fine, watch. And Tris, don’t make it easy on me."
She blinked wide, dark eyes up at him as a slight smile played on those pretty lips. "Oh, I won't."
His dick, determined to get him into trouble, twitched. What was it about this girl? Maybe because you know how she tastes.
He slid into the seat next to her and dropped his voice low. "Excuse me."
She slid him a glance and ignored him, but he wasn't going to be deterred.
"I know you probably already know this, but you're stunning."
On cue, her lips twitched into a tiny smile, and she muttered an automatic thank you.
"You're even more beautiful when you smile."
Tris tucked hair behind her ear, and a full, wide smile broke onto her lips. "Thank you. But you probably say that to all the girls."
He cocked his head. "Only the pretty ones."
Tris's laugh broke, and the sound of it warmed his insides.
"At least you're honest."
He put out his hand. "I'm Shane."
Their gazes met as she slipped her hand into his. "My friends call me Tris."
It was too easy to do this with her. The electricity hummed along his skin. "Well, we're practically friends now, so may I call you Tris?"
She narrowed her eyes. "I'm not sure we're friends exactly."
"Well, we could be. I could be your long-lost best friend. Why don't you tell me what prompted you to take a human sexuality class, and we'll find out."
She inclined her head toward Sydney. "The devil made me do it."
This time he laughed as he stood. His eyes on Tris, he addressed the class. The idea is to disarm. Appear harmless. No one wants to be hit on by a creeper."
Colin, scoffed. "Well, not all of us are all chiseled and shit."
Sydney rolled her eyes. "You're not listening. Women don’t care. If you’d used that on me and made me smile and feel pretty, you would have had a shot."
Colin waggled his eyebrows. "You're fucking hot."
