Strong and Sexy

by Jill Shalvis

  Maddie, clipboard in hand, earpiece in, looking more like a superhero than a concierge, was smiling in return.

  The man, clearly dazzled by her, leaned in and said something that had Maddie tipping her head back in laughter.

  Brody frowned. “What the hell is he telling her?”

  “Something funny.”

  “He’s flirting with her.”

  “Jesus. Would you ask her out already? Or better yet, kiss her. Something. Please.”

  Brody stared at him as if he was insane. “Why? Why would I kiss her?”

  Shayne lifted a brow, but as he took in Brody’s horrified, guilty expression, it came to him. “Holy shit. You’ve already kissed her.”

  Brody let out a sound as if his head had just gone flat. Then the six-foot-four ex-linebacker and all-around badass shoved his hands in his pockets like a teenager and kicked the ground. He glanced into the terminal again and shook his head.

  Shayne laughed. “You did.”

  “Shut up about it.”

  “What happened? She slug you?”

  “Don’t make me kick your ass.”

  “Hell, you could try. But then you’d have to tell Maddie why you sucker punched her favorite pilot.”

  “You are not her favorite.”

  “I am so.”

  “You’re an idiot is what you are.”

  Shayne grinned. “That might be. But I’m not the idiot with a crush on our Maddie.”

  “Stop saying ‘our Maddie.’ If you were her favorite, why did she kiss me?”

  Shayne’s eyebrows rose. “So it really happened?”

  Brody shoved his fingers into his hair and turned in a slow circle. “I think she did it because she was pissed off at me. Trying to prove a point.”

  “Yeah? Did she prove it?”

  Brody dropped his forehead to the cool steel of the plane. “I have no fucking clue.”

  Shayne’s grin spread as he burst into song. “Maddie and Brody sitting in a tree. K-i-s-s-i-n-g . . .”

  “Shut up, you ass.” He added a shove to the demand.

  Shayne would have happily shoved back, but he didn’t. Maddie might be flirting with the guy at the desk, but she also had an eagle eye on them, even though Brody was too miserably self-involved to notice. No way was Shayne going to piss her off, not when she had a temper like the natural redhead she was beneath all that dyed hair.

  So he let Brody’s shove take him back a few steps, making sure Maddie noted that he didn’t fight back, and eyed the sweet plane. “You want to buy this baby?”

  “It’s way overpriced, but I think we can get him down.”

  Shayne stuck his head into the engine compartment and took a good look around, his heart sighing. “I’d marry her.”

  “No way. I saw her first.”

  Shayne looked at his lifelong friend, the brother of his heart. “What do you think it says about us that we run like hell from commitment to a woman, and yet this plane melts our circuits?”

  “Shit. I have no idea.”

  Shayne nodded, and sighed. “We suck.”

  Brody lifted a shoulder. “At least we accept our flaws.”

  “Do you think the women in our lives could ever accept them?”

  Brody stared at Maddie, then slowly shook his head. “Not if they know what’s good for them.”

  Chapter 21

  Late that afternoon, Dani entered Sky High’s building. The place was nothing like the last time she’d been there. There were no festive decorations, no drunken revelers, no gorgeous man in the closet, and most importantly, no dead bodies.

  No dead bodies.

  She repeated it to herself so it would sink in. She was fine, she was good, she was—

  Nervous as hell. How had she let this happen? Flying ? She hated to fly, she really did. Why had she let him talk her into this? He was just a fling, a great fling, yes, but any second now he would fly right out of her life and—

  “Hi. Dani Peterson, right?”

  Dani looked at the gorgeous young woman who’d come out from behind the huge front desk and immediately felt like tucking in her own wild hair, not to mention tugging down the hem of her shirt to straighten out the wrinkles, but that might only emphasize the dollop of ketchup she had below one breast from the fries she’d not been able to resist at lunch. “Um, yes. I’m Dani Peterson.”

  “Nice to meet you,” said the vision in black leggings and boots, with a silvery curve-hugging sweater that screamed cover model. “I’m Maddie. The concierge here. I saw you at the party the other night.”

  “Oh.” Dani tried to remember seeing Maddie, but the evening was pretty much a blur, what with the mistletoe situation and then the dead body.

  “With Shayne,” Maddie clarified, perfectly evenly, without a single inflection, but somehow Dani knew that Maddie knew she’d spent most of her time in the closet.

  But hell, Shayne probably spent lots of time with lots of different women in lots of different places. Maddie was probably completely used to it.

  Proving it, the woman smiled easily, as if it was no big deal at all.

  Because it wasn’t, Dani reminded herself.

  “He mentioned you’d be coming by. You’re taking a flight this afternoon. To Tahoe. We’re lucky the storm moved on. Weather’s all clear.”

  “Oh.” Goodie. “Great.”

  Maddie cocked her head to one side. “That was a loaded great.”

  “Yes. It was. Sorry.”

  Maddie had her dark brown hair artfully disheveled, the kind of disheveled that said she’d probably put a small fortune of hair product into it to make it look that way. The kind of disheveled that looked amazing—unlike Dani’s own special brand of disheveledness, which came from genuine . . . well, disheveledness. Maddie’s clothes were glitzy and wow, and because she had a body also straight from a magazine, she seemed glossy and perfect. Way too perfect for Dani to admit her fear of flying to.

  “Are you okay?” Maddie asked.

  Perceptive too. And most likely not afraid of anything, especially not of flying. “I’m . . .” Terrified. Out of my element. Pick one. “Fine. Terrific, really.”

  “Afraid of flying, aren’t you?”

  Dani sighed and gave up the pretense. “Unbelievably terrified.”

  Maddie smiled in sympathy just as the phone at her hip vibrated. She looked down, hit a button as she held up a finger to Dani. “Sky High Air, how can I help you?” She glanced out onto the tarmac, and Dani followed her gaze.

  Shayne and another tall, good-looking man stood together. The wind was blowing, and they’d bent their heads close, clearly talking about the airplane they both stood next to.

  Maddie shook her head. “I’m sorry, Michelle. Shayne’s booked for a different flight right now, but Noah’s free. We’ll get you where you need to go. Yes, I’ll tell Shayne you called.” She clicked off. “Or not.” Catching Dani’s expression, she smiled grimly. “Don’t worry. I only lie to people with crushes on one of my bosses. Where were we? Oh, yes. Your terror of flying. If you’d like, I have a cure for that.”

  “You do?”

  “Oh, yes.” She led Dani through the lobby, at the end of which was a small lounge and bar area, just as elegant and sophisticated as the rest of the place, complete with a large flat-screen TV showing a basketball game. Maddie moved behind the bar and pulled out a decanter and two shot glasses. “Would it help to hear that Shayne is an excellent pilot?”

  “He’s excellent at a lot of things,” Dani muttered.

  “Yes, he is. It was his influence with the investors that got Sky High up and running. And then there’s his way with the clients. You’ve seen him. He could charm a tightwad out of his last penny.”

  Or the panties off a woman who’d told herself sex was overrated. “He’s not quite as easygoing and laid-back as he seems, is he.”

  “Good for you.” Maddie smiled. “He fools most people with that one. I’m glad you see past that ridiculous good-old-boy thing he put
s out there to protect himself.”

  “Protect himself from what?”

  “From getting hurt, of course.”

  Of course. Only . . . only she’d been the one protecting herself. Right? Because he didn’t need to protect himself, not when he hadn’t invested anything.

  Or so she tried to convince herself.

  “Sit,” Maddie said to Dani, and pushed one of the glasses in front of her. “This whole place is really nice.” Dani took a slow spin on the bar stool beneath her, taking in the atmosphere. “Ritzy but somehow cozy.”

  “Thanks.”

  “You?” Dani asked in surprise.

  “I’ve always had a secret love of interior design. The guys let me have my way in here, or we’d be sitting on big beanbags. Single or double?” She lifted the decanter. “Might help when you get in the air.”

  Oh, God. She was going in the air.

  With Shayne. “Double.”

  Maddie smiled and poured. “Can I ask you a question?”

  Dani sipped, coughed, then sipped again, absorbing the warmth that slowly spread down her esophagus. “Okay.”

  “Is it flying putting that look on your face, or Shayne?”

  “Flying,” Dani said, finishing off her drink with a gasp. “No. Shayne—flying—God.” She covered her eyes when Maddie laughed. “I have no clue. Men are like this big box of puzzle pieces, you know? Only I can’t find all the edges.”

  Maddie refilled her glass and pushed it back to Dani. “I like you already. Cheers.”

  She slid her a sideways glance. “You expect me to believe that you have man troubles?”

  “Honey, you have no idea.”

  Dani studied her a moment, saw the pain lurking behind her gaze. She lifted her glass and touched it to Maddie’s, and then they both knocked them back.

  Maddie set down her empty glass, blew out a long breath, and smacked her chest. “Yowza.”

  Dani choked and coughed and gasped so hard that Maddie had to come around the bar to smack her on the back. Finally she lifted her hand, signaling that she was going to live, swiping away the tears streaming down her face. “I’m okay,” she wheezed. “It’s hit my belly now, and it’s no longer a fire but a nice toasty heat.”

  They drank to that and both looked out onto the tarmac, where the two obnoxiously handsome men still stood. After another long sigh, Maddie refilled their shots and lifted her glass in a toast. “To stupid, gorgeous men and the women who love them.”

  Again Dani choked. “Oh, no. No, no, no. You’ve misunderstood. I’m not in love.”

  Maddie poured herself another drink.

  Dani shook her head. “It’s not love.”

  Maddie just looked at her, and Dani looked back, and then sagged and tossed back her drink, down the hatch. “Damn. This sucks.”

  “Trust me. I know.” Maddie filled Dani’s glass. “I just turned down a most excellent date because I’m pining away after a most excellent idiot who did not ask me out on a date.”

  “Do you know what the problem with men is?” Dani asked, slurring more than a little bit. She was also warm, very, very warm. Toasty. Warm. Toasty, happy warm. “It’s that they don’t have enough blood to operate both heads at the same time.”

  Maddie laughed good and hard over that one, and so did Dani, until she fell off her bar stool. “Whoops,” she said from the floor, which was surprisingly comfortable.

  Maddie peered over the bar. “You okay?”

  Dani grinned up at her, feeling a little flushed and a whole lot looped. “I’m good.” She held up her glass. “One more, please. And maybe then I’ll be able to face the flight and the gorgeous pilot.”

  “Gorgeous pilot?” Shayne stood in the doorway of the lounge, looking a little shocked.

  Dani swiped a hand over the back of her mouth and stood, only she wobbled and then tripped over her own feet, and would have gone down if Shayne hadn’t come forward and caught her.

  She laughed and threw her arms around him. He was so tall, so warm.

  So sexy. “Hi.”

  “Hi yourself.” He sniffed her breath, then craned his neck in Maddie’s direction, giving her the evil eye. “She’s drunk.”

  “Not quite,” Dani told him cheerfully, then stared up at him, slightly cross-eyed. “You’re so pretty.” She slapped her hands on either side of his face. He hadn’t shaved today, maybe not yesterday either. His hair had been finger tousled at best. She helped it along by moving her fingers through it. “So very, very pretty.”

  “And you’re so very toasted. Dani, did you take any more of your pain meds today?”

  “Of course. The doctor insisted, ’member?”

  “Oh, I remember. And did you remember the part about not mixing those meds with alcohol?”

  She blinked. “Uh-oh.”

  “Yeah. Uh-oh.”

  “Doesn’t matter.” She winked at Maddie. “Because I am ready to fly.” She threw her hands out to simulate being an airplane, and nearly went down again.

  Shayne swore and scooped her up against him.

  “My hero,” she sighed. “Always ready to slay my dragons.” She set her head on his shoulder. “Someday I want to slay your dragons too, Shayne. All of ’em.”

  He looked down in her face in shocked awe. “What?”

  “Fly me, Shayne. Or should I fly you?”

  He seemed to lose his words for a minute. “How about I fly you this time, okay?”

  “Okay.” Snuggling in, she closed her eyes and yawned. “Wake me up when we get there.”

  Maddie watched Shayne carry Dani out the door. He looked a little bowled over and a whole lot gobsmacked, and she couldn’t blame the guy. If what she suspected was true, he was falling every bit as much as Dani clearly had, and falling hard. He wouldn’t go down easy, that was for sure, but she did envy him the fall.

  Thinking it, she set her spinning head to the bar, letting the cool wood hold her upright. God, she envied the fall. But it was just as well.

  She didn’t have anyone to catch her. No hero, no one to slay her dragons. Nope, she was entirely on her own.

  Nothing new, she reminded herself, and with a deep breath, lifted her head.

  Look at that. She wasn’t alone after all. Nope, Brody stood in the doorway where Shayne had been only a moment before.

  Watching her.

  She lifted her chin and pretended she could see straight. “What can I do for you?”

  They hadn’t spoken since The Incident.

  AKA the kiss.

  Actually, kisses, as in plural, because there had definitely been plural kisses. And correction. He hadn’t spoken to her. In fact, he’d downright avoided her.