Strong and Sexy

by Jill Shalvis

  Leaning past her, he opened his glove box and pulled out a small towel, which he used to hold the gun. Then he did something to it, and a part of it clicked open.

  He was checking to see if it was loaded, she realized, and leaning in, she caught a flash of a bullet.

  Oh, God. She covered her mouth with a shaking hand.

  It was loaded.

  Their eyes met, Shayne’s grim and determined as he wrapped up the gun.

  “It was loaded,” she said very softly.

  “Yes.”

  “I could have shot off my own foot with it in my pocket like that.”

  “Yeah.”

  She swallowed hard. “I could have—”

  “But you didn’t.”

  Right. She’d focus on that. But she had to swallow again. “Do you think it’s the same gun that I saw someone use tonight? At Sky High?”

  He closed his eyes briefly and rubbed his forehead. “What does it say about the way the night has gone that I actually forgot about that part of the evening?”

  “That it’s been a long one?”

  He opened his eyes and shook his head. “If it’s the same gun, and it’s not yours—”

  “It’s not!”

  “Then someone wanted it to look like yours.”

  She just stared at him.

  Swearing softly, he shifted in his seat to more fully face her. He put his hands on her arms, and she could tell by the look on his face that she wasn’t going to like what he said next.

  “Dani, my brother is a cop, a detective, high up in the ranks—”

  “Shayne—”

  “No, listen to me. There’s something going on. What you saw tonight at Sky High, whatever happened in your apartment, and now this. It’s time for help.”

  Staring into his face, she saw the concern there. Not for himself, but for her. And somehow that reached her. “I really did try to convince myself I imagined it all.”

  “Well, you didn’t imagine the gun.”

  “No.”

  “Dani, we have to call the cops. It might as well be Patrick, who can—”

  “Yes.” Her hands went to his chest, because he was solid. He was a solid piece of ground beneath her as she balanced on a spinning, out-of-control world. “I . . .” She closed her eyes. “I need help. Your help.”

  Silently agreeing, he pulled out his cell phone and hit a number. “Patrick. Yeah, it’s Shayne. I have a problem.” He listened, then rolled his eyes. “No, I didn’t call you to take care of a speeding ticket—Look, it’s complicated. You available? Good.” His eyes cut to Dani. “I’m on the 134, between Victory and Zoo Drive, and there’s a gun—That’s right, a gun. It was found in the coat pocket of . . .”

  A crazy woman, Dani silently finished for him.

  But that’s not what he said. “A friend.”

  Dani let out the breath she’d been holding and resisted the urge to hug him. He wasn’t a friend friend. He wasn’t someone . . . someone she could call for help. And yet that’s exactly what she’d done, and he’d come through.

  “She’s never seen it before,” Shayne was saying. “And just a little while ago, she thought someone might be inside her place—Yes, we’ll wait here for you.” He gave his brother the address, then slipped the phone back into his pocket and looked at her.

  She tried to smile, but couldn’t, so she gave up. “Now we wait?”

  He nodded, still holding her gaze in that way he had that convinced her that not only could he read her mind, but he could see right through her.

  Inside her.

  To the real Dani Peterson, the one who felt more comfortable in pj’s than a fancy dress, the one who scooped elephant poop for a job and wouldn’t know a Prada item if it bit her on the ass.

  The most surprising part of that was he seemed to be okay with that woman, as okay as he’d been with the one who’d kissed him in a closet. That felt lovely, so lovely, which was bad because she couldn’t do this with him. Not without getting hurt. “I’m not a good waiter.”

  “It won’t be long.”

  She looked into his eyes, feeling her heart sigh just a little. He’d been so patient tonight. She’d bet he was a good waiter. The best of waiters . . . which brought her mind back to his kisses.

  “Dani.” His voice sounded soft, a little husky, as if he knew where her thoughts had gone.

  And she felt a catch in her chest. He’d been such an amazing kisser.

  His fingers were playing with her coat, and then one of her shoulders was bared as he nudged it, and in spite of herself, she leaned in. “Help me wait, Shayne.” Sliding her hands up his chest, into his hair, she entangled them in the wavy strands.

  His eyes darkened, and her body reacted to that and the unbelievable amounts of adrenaline in her system. “We could talk,” he said.

  “Talk.”

  “Uh-huh.” He let their noses gently bump. “Talk.”

  They were breathing each other’s air, just looking into each other’s eyes, and the moment seemed so startlingly intimate, she couldn’t move. “I don’t feel much like talking.” Oh, God. Had she just said that? Really?

  “No?” He tilted his head so that their noses were no longer bumping.

  Now their mouths were lined up perfectly.

  “No . . .”

  “Dani—”

  God, she really loved the way he said her name, all raspy and extremely male.

  “What else did you have in mind?”

  Honestly? There wasn’t a single thought in her head that wasn’t a dirty, wicked little fantasy. Certainly nothing she could mention. “I can think of several things.”

  He smiled, that killer smile that scraped at all her happy spots.

  “Shayne?”

  “Yeah?”

  “How is it that when I’m with you, I don’t feel like I’m losing my mind.”

  “I don’t know.” He ran a finger over her ear and made her shiver. “For me, it’s the opposite.”

  “So I . . . rattle you?” And was that good?

  Or bad?

  But the look in his eyes told her. It was good, very, very good, and it set off all sorts of alarms inside her. “We can’t really do this again,” she murmured.

  “No. Because there isn’t any mistletoe.”

  Be strong. Say it. Believe it. “Because we’re not going to date.”

  “Right. No dating.” He nudged the coat off her other shoulder as well. “Because . . . ?”

  “Because you’re not my type,” she said, reminding herself. So not her type.

  His soft laugh brushed the hair at her temple. “Liar.”

  Oh, God, she thought. Toss me a life vest, because I’m going down . . . He was warm, so deliciously, wonderfully warm, and exactly her type. So much so that her body leaned to his like a heat-seeking missile. And this time, when their mouths touched, it was more like a homecoming than she’d ever experienced, and she opened for him, opened and let out a sound that would have been horrifying for its dark neediness except for the fact that he matched the sound with one of his own.

  All by themselves, her hands slid beneath his shirt—to warm them up, she told herself as she ran her fingers over a set of abs that made her tremble, and though he sucked in a shocked breath at the iciness of her touch and let out a low “holy shit,” he seemed to like her hands on him. Pulling her coat off, he bent his head and took his mouth on a hungry tour over her bared throat, her shoulder.

  Her entire body quivered with anticipation.

  He had all the access he needed. Her T-shirt provided little coverage. It was wet, clinging, and he easily pushed it up as his hand skimmed her belly to cup her breast, holding it for his mouth. His tongue rasped over her nipple, and the only sound was her head thunking back against the passenger seat. And then her moan, along with another of those horrifyingly needy gasps for air, as if she’d just run a 5K.

  “Still not dating me?” he asked against her skin.

  Oh, he sounded smug, didn�
�t he. At least he was breathing heavy too. Yeah, that worked for her, knowing she wasn’t completely alone in this. “No. Still not dating you—Ohmigod.” His thumb had rasped over her other nipple. “Shayne—”

  At the knock on the window, they both jumped so high they nearly bumped their heads on the roof.

  A cop stood there, looking an awful lot like . . .

  Shayne.

  In a moment that summed up all the moments of poor timing in her life, his brother had arrived.

  Chapter 8

  Dani watched as Patrick Mahoney walked through her apartment, jotting notes on a pad of paper. She couldn’t tell if he’d believed a word she’d told him. She couldn’t tell if he thought she was crazy.

  The only thing she could tell was that he really did look like Shayne’s twin, which is to say tall and rangy and effortlessly sexy with that untamed wavy hair and see-all golden eyes. Except his weren’t nearly as warm as Shayne’s.

  She tightened the belt on her coat and tried not to picture exactly what Patrick had seen when he’d knocked on the window of Shayne’s car. Tried not to think what might have happened if he hadn’t knocked on the window of Shayne’s car.

  Seriously, she couldn’t believe she’d—

  That he’d—

  That they’d nearly—

  Strangers. They were complete strangers, she reminded herself. Strangers who couldn’t keep their hands off each other.

  Why was that, anyway? She had no idea, but whatever was happening between the two of them, it had to stop. Immediately. Mostly because she appeared to be in the middle of a breakdown. That, or someone was stalking her. Neither was exactly conducive to a well-rounded relationship.

  Not that she was thinking about a relationship.

  Oh, no. No, no, no. Because Shayne? He was a walking, talking heartbreaker if she’d ever seen one. And if she was stupid enough to even think about taking this to the next level, a level that she hadn’t been to in an embarrassingly long time, then she had no one to blame for that certain heartbreak than herself. Because once she slept with someone, she tended to get her heart involved, and . . .

  Oh, hell, who was she kidding? She hadn’t slept with him, at least not yet, and already her heart felt involved. She couldn’t help it, Shayne Mahoney was a combination of some of her favorite things—sharp and quick-witted, willing to put himself on the line for whatever he believed in, not to mention an even more attractive willingness to help a perfect stranger.

  Or in this case, a not-so-perfect stranger.

  God. She pushed back her hair and wondered how much longer she could stay awake on her feet.

  And wondered something else too, something she’d already voiced to Shayne. “What if it’s the same gun that I saw at Sky High?”

  The two brothers, taking up all the spare room in her living room with their big, built bodies and undeniable presence, exchanged a long look.

  Had she thought she couldn’t read Shayne’s thoughts? Because she knew exactly what he was thinking.

  That she was as crazy as everyone said.

  They spoke softly to each other, so softly she couldn’t hear the words, and then Shayne walked Patrick to her front door, and when she looked up again, Shayne was standing in front of her, hands in his pockets, hair still wet from the rain, expression unreadable. Through all of this, his proximity had always been able to affect her, and now was no exception. He still smelled good, delicious in fact, and though he wasn’t looking at her with his usual heat, it didn’t matter because he was looking at her with a gentle kindness.

  Devastating, really. She wanted to put her hands on his incredibly soft shirt and feel his incredibly hard body beneath. Instead, she tried to joke. “Let me guess. He recommended you run far and fast from me, right?”

  He didn’t respond to that, but pulled his hands out of his pockets and set them on her arms, stroking up and down over her coat. “You look beat.”

  “A very true statement.” She resisted setting her head on his shoulder, barely. “So what did he say?”

  “Who’d want to scare you, Dani?”

  “Well . . .”

  “You piss anyone off lately?”

  “You have a lot of questions.”

  “Are you going to answer any of them?”

  She let out a shaky breath. “Are you asking me if I have any enemies?”

  “Or friends that aren’t really friends.”

  “So . . . you believe me,” she said, shocked to find her throat tight over that. “You believe that something is going on here.”

  “Something, yes.”

  “Okay.” She concentrated on breathing. Breathing was good. “Okay, now I’m really scared.”

  “You should be. Enemies, Dani? Pissed-off family members? Scorned boyfriends? Jealous coworkers?”

  Taking a step back so she could lean against the couch, she nodded.

  “Which?”

  She tried to smile and failed. “Well, would you believe all of the above?” When he arched a brow, she let out a short laugh. “I know, it sounds ridiculous. I mean, look at me.” She spread her hands. “I’m a mess. But it’s shockingly true.”

  “Tell me.”

  “I was promoted today—yesterday, now,” she corrected, looking at the clock, finding it well after midnight. “To head mammal keeper. It’s mostly just a title, with a joke of a pay increase, really. I’ll still be poor as dirt, but I get to make management decisions and I get the good schedule.”

  “Anyone upset about that?”

  “The only other person eligible was Reena, and she’s a close friend. We got hired at the same time, so the promotion could have gone either way, but she’s happy for me.”

  Crossing his arms, he sent her a get-real look.

  “She is,” she insisted.

  “She can be happy for you and still really pissed off about it.”

  “Pissed off enough to kill someone? Enough to break into my place? To plant a gun on me? Seriously, this is ridiculous. What happened tonight has nothing to do with my work.”

  “Okay, so what about family?”

  “You know my mother. She’s a stuck-up, narcissistic snob, but she’s not a gun owner. And she’s not a murderer.”

  “Siblings? Stepsiblings?”

  “I—” She closed her mouth. Tony’s and Eliza’s faces flashed across her mind.

  “What?” Shayne murmured, watching her carefully, an unsettling thing because the look in his eyes implied he cared. A lot. “What are you thinking?”

  That she was going to have a hell of a time resisting him, that’s what. “I think my stepsiblings would like me to vanish, but they like their cushy trust funds too much to actually off me.” She tried to smile, but didn’t feel especially amused.