Strong and Sexy Read online

  She stared at him, taking a moment to swallow. “How is it you’re such a player, and yet such a gentleman?”

  “A player?”

  “I’m not the only one with a reputation, you know.”

  “Ah.” He looked down at his feet, then back up into her eyes, his good humor gone. “Are you crazy?”

  “What? No!”

  “Then maybe I’m not what people say either.”

  Touché . . .

  Slowly, with one last long look, he turned and vanished into the night.

  Watching his tall, lean body move with such easy natural grace, she stood there a moment, rooted by the sudden urge to call him back, to pull him close again. But eventually she turned too, walking the path toward the building that housed the staffing offices.

  All around her was a dark quiet, which was exactly what she usually loved about working at night. There was something about being here in the wee hours, knowing that only a few acres away were hundreds of animals in their habitats. Normally it was soothing, peaceful.

  Natural.

  But tonight, as she let herself in the back door of her building and headed for the stairs, she felt an inkling of unease that made her pick up her steps, eager to get into her office. Hurrying now, she turned down the hallway and found her office light already on.

  Odd.

  Maybe she’d left it that way, but she didn’t think so, and for a moment she hovered in the doorway, uncertain. She hadn’t heard a thing and yet . . .

  And yet she felt as she had in her apartment.

  As if she was being watched.

  Chapter 9

  Shayne was halfway down the hill, windshield wipers proving ineffective against the mist and fog, when the doubt hit.

  Or maybe it’d always been there, from the moment Dani had gotten out of his car. It was just a little niggling, really, but it wouldn’t go away.

  She wasn’t safe.

  He glanced at himself in the rearview mirror. Shook his head. “Don’t do it, man. Don’t go back.”

  But what if...

  Damn.

  He was going back.

  With a sigh, he executed a U-turn. He should have hooked up with friends.

  Hit a bar.

  Or a party.

  There were plenty this late, and plenty that would welcome him. Michelle had been texting him all night, he’d just ignored her. She’d be thrilled to see him and would be willing to show him just how thrilled with that lush body of hers.

  And yet . . . that didn’t appeal, not in the least. Instead, he was heading back to a woman he hadn’t imagined he would be attracted to.

  He’d been incredibly wrong.

  Pulling back into the parking lot, he caught a flash of light. The gate. It was opening. Opening, and a figure running out into the night.

  Right in front of his car.

  Dani.

  And as she glanced back over her shoulder behind her, he caught her pale face and the sheer terror on it as she ran from something he couldn’t see. Jerking the steering wheel, he slammed on the brakes, missing her by an inch, which did not in any way soothe the heart that had just about leapt right out of his chest. Jumping out of his car, he ran around the front toward her.

  “Sorry,” she gasped as she bent over his hood, gasping for breath.

  He pulled her around to face him. Her face was white as she gripped the front of his shirt in her fists. “Are you hurt?” he managed.

  “We have to get out of here.”

  Something cracked the night, shocking his eardrums as it whizzed past them, pinging into one of the tall steel light poles.

  A bullet. A fucking bullet?

  “Hurry,” she gasped. “We really gotta hurry.”

  Pretty much the understatement of the century. Grabbing her hand, he yanked her with him, opening the driver’s door, shoving her in ahead of him.

  On her hands and knees, she scrambled over his seat and into the passenger’s, whirling back to glue her gaze to the direction she’d just come from.

  Where the bullet had come from.

  “Go,” she said tersely. “Before—”

  Another shot rang out into the night, missing his car, though he had no idea by how much. “Get down.” He emphasized this with a hand to the back of her head, shoving it to her knees as he peeled them out of the parking lot with an exhibition of speed that would have gotten him one hell of an expensive ticket.

  “Shayne—”

  “Stay the hell down,” he commanded, simultaneously driving and watching the rearview mirror. “Are you okay?”

  “The light in my office was on. I didn’t leave it on, Shayne, so—”

  “Goddamnit, are you hurt?”

  “No.” She gulped for breath. “No.”

  He let out a long breath of his own. “Okay.” He nodded. “Okay. So what the hell was that?”

  “Someone shooting at us.”

  “Yeah, I got that much.” At the bottom of the hill, he pulled into the gas station on the right and got out his cell phone.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I’m thinking if Patrick was interested in taking a look at the gun you found, then he’s going to be extremely interested in this.”

  There were questions to answer, and then the same questions to re-answer. First with Shayne present, and then without him. Dani walked through her entire evening for the police, over and over again, until she started slurring her words from sheer exhaustion. “No, I didn’t see anyone, just the light in my office,” she said for the hundredth time. “Then I got that tingly sensation of being watched, and I ran. And then someone was shooting at me.”

  Proving her words, there was a bullet embedded in the light pole in the zoo parking lot. Not to mention Shayne’s earlier statement concurring that someone had indeed been shooting at her.

  Finally, she was given the okay to leave, and she walked out the gates of the zoo into the damp, chilly dawn and found . . .

  Shayne propping up his car, arms and feet casually crossed as if he was at a party, content as can be.

  That is until she got a little closer, and in the predawn light saw the tight, grim set of his mouth, and the way his entire body was rigid with tension.

  If she wasn’t so exhausted, this unusual show of decided un-laid-backness from him would have fascinated her. “Hey.”

  Pushing off from the car, he stepped close enough that their toes bumped. Cupping her face in his hands, he looked into her face with such scrutiny she squirmed.

  “What?”

  “You okay?”

  The genuine concern in his voice had her discomfort fading away, replaced by a suddenly tight throat and burning eyes. “Good news. I think the police are taking my craziness seriously now.”

  “You didn’t imagine those bullets.”

  True. In spite of the terror of the night, she had that. Something was going on. There was no longer any doubt of that.

  Shayne looked into her face for another long moment, then he slid his thumb over her lower lip. In spite of her lingering fear and unease, not to mention sheer exhaustion, the touch felt like a lightning bolt to her good parts. Man. She had no idea what was malfunctioning, exactly, but she needed to get it fixed pronto.

  And then he surprised her yet again. Still holding her face, he leaned in and kissed her. Not the sensually heated kiss like they’d shared in the closet at Sky High, or the heart-stopping one he’d given her when she’d been squished between her own front door and his body, but a sweet, warm connection that told her she wasn’t alone.

  When he pulled back, she found she couldn’t speak. He didn’t either.

  “You didn’t have to wait for me,” she finally said.

  He just opened his car door for her.

  “You probably have flights tomorrow. Today,” she corrected as dawn broke over their heads, cold but blessedly rain free.

  “Come on. Get in.”

  “I can call Reena.”

  “I’m right he
re. Willing and able.”

  “Right.” Admittedly relieved to have him there, she collapsed into the seat, leaning her head back against the headrest, closing her eyes.

  He’d stayed.

  For her.

  She stole a peek at him as he drove, silent. Unbelievably, he still looked as amazing and put together as he had when she’d first seen him standing in the midst of the party last night, watching her with an amused quirk of his mouth.

  After all they’d been through since then, she knew she looked like a complete wreck.

  Hell, she’d started out a complete wreck.

  But not him. Nope, he was still as innately sexy and calm and . . . perfect as he’d started out, and she could hardly stand it. “Shayne?”

  “Yeah?”

  “What would it take to ruffle you up?”

  He cast her a quick glance. “What?”

  “You’re always so calm and easygoing. Laid-back. Do you ever lose it?” Until tonight, she’d been a stranger to him, a stranger who’d claimed to have seen a murder, then an intruder, and then been shot at.

  And still he’d remained cool and collected.

  But she really wanted to see him unhinged, see him let go. “Do you?”

  He slanted her another glance, which she took as a definite no.

  But that couldn’t be. Everyone lost it, at least occasionally.

  Some more than others . . .

  In any case, she spent a few minutes trying to imagine how it would happen. Since it hadn’t while they’d been shot at, it couldn’t be danger that triggered him . . .

  Maybe . . . maybe it happened in bed. Just the thought made her a little tingly. Yeah, in bed . . . She was just putting together a fairly X-rated scenario where he lost it entirely, involving him being extremely naked, when she realized he wasn’t taking her home, but down a very lovely oak-lined upscale street in the hills, where she probably couldn’t afford to breathe the air. “Where are we?”

  “My place.”

  She stared at the large modern house. “Oh.”

  He got out of the car and came around for her before she’d gathered any brain cells.

  His place.

  As he pulled her to her feet, she stared up into his face. “I realize that you probably have to stay in control under any circumstances when you’re in the air,” she said. “But—”

  “Still on that?”

  “Well nothing ruffled you tonight, so, yeah. I guess I’m wondering . . .”

  With a little smile, he took her hand and led her up a gorgeously paved walk, pulling a key out of his pocket with his free hand.

  “Maybe you lose control over food . . .” she said, fishing for insight. Also fishing for something to soothe her sudden nerves.

  Laughing softly, he unlocked his front door. “Yeah. A fully loaded pizza really throws me over the edge. Oh, you should probably brace yourself.”

  “Um, what?”

  But as he opened the door, a huge brown ball of fur launched itself at Shayne, knocking him back several feet with a pair of paws to the chest. A pair of paws the size of polar bear paws.

  “Bella.” Shayne stroked the animal, who panted happily and drooled. “Miss me, huh?”

  Bella panted some more, then dropped to the floor in a boneless heap of joy and exposed her belly.

  Shayne obliged her, hunkering down with a smile, giving her a long, hard rub. “Sorry I was gone so long. But Jan came and walked you twice.”

  “Jan?”

  “My neighbor, and dog walker. There, Bella, that feel better?”

  Dani had never been jealous of a dog in her life until that moment. Stepping close, she crouched down too. “Is that a dog or a bear?”

  “Yet to be determined.” But Bella let out a welcoming doggie smile, and with a huge tongue, licked Dani’s hand.

  “She’s sweet,” she murmured, staring at the biggest paws she’d ever seen. “Aren’t you something?”

  “Something,” Shayne agreed.

  Unable to help herself, Dani petted the dog, who panted with great cheer. “She must be a great watchdog.”

  “She’s an attention slut is what she is. If a burglar came to the door, she’d show him all the good stuff for a belly rub.” But he smiled affectionately down at the dog as he said this, still stroking, sending Bella into fits of moaning ecstasy.

  A guy who melted over a dog . . . “Sports?” she whispered, trying to get back to their conversation instead of nursing a sudden and dangerous crush on an out-of-reach playboy pilot. “Do sports make you lose control?”

  “Love sports,” he said. “Play them when I can.”

  “But they don’t make you lose it.”

  With a smile, he shook his head.

  Nodding, her thoughts raced as she tried to find a foothold on a slippery slide right into Serious Crush-ville. “Nothing makes you lose it. Got it.”

  Straightening to his feet, he tossed his keys into a little bowl on a table in the foyer. Then he pushed the door closed and turned to her.

  Oh, boy.

  Bella scrambled up to her feet just as Dani’s stomach did a little tap dance. Other things tap-danced, too.

  Like every single erogenous zone she had.

  With Bella running circles around them, Shayne leaned in until his nose just touched Dani’s.

  She opened her mouth to press on the whole losing-it thing, but he crooked his head to the side, then rubbed his jaw to hers. And then his mouth was near her ear, and he was breathing into it. “So you want to see me forfeit control?”

  “I—” God, she couldn’t think when he was breathing in her ear. “I think so.”

  “But you’re not sure.”

  “No.”

  She felt him smile against her skin, and then for the briefest