Superb and Sexy

by Jill Shalvis

  Yeah, Brody already knew that, thanks, but he hated to be told what to do. Hated to be in this situation in the first place. His fingers tightened on the wheel as he slowed down. Really hated this. Not a new feeling for him as he tended to look at the negative side of things. It served him well as a pilot because it meant he was always prepared for the worst.

  In life, however, it hadn’t been quite as helpful.

  “Dani will kill me,” Shayne told him. “You have to go back in.”

  “You afraid of your fiancée now?”

  “I promised her, all right? And Noah promised Bailey. Which means you need to get to the bottom of this. You don’t know what it’s like.”

  “To have my dick in a sling? No, you’re right. I don’t, something I’m grateful for.” Now that Shayne and Noah were both head over heels in love, they thought everyone should be.

  But Brody did not agree.

  So did not agree.

  Now head over heels in lust? That he could get behind. He was halfway there with Maddie, in fact, and had been ever since she’d shoved him against a wall in the lobby at work and kissed him—a slow, wet, deep kiss like maybe her next breath depended on them to keep kissing for a good long time.

  He’d been game for that. So game just remembering flooded his circuits with all that pleasure and need again.

  “It’ll happen to you,” Shayne said confidently. “Some day you’ll want to get married.”

  “Okay, I’m hanging up on you now.”

  “Go back in there, and get some answers from her.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “You have to.”

  “Yeah? Why?”

  “Because if you don’t, I’ll . . . take you down.”

  Brody snorted. Out of the three of them, Shayne was the pacifist, always had been. “Seriously? You?”

  “Okay, fine. I’ll have Noah do it.”

  Shayne couldn’t kick Brody’s ass on his best day, but Noah? Noah could give Brody a run for his money if he put his mind to it. As best friends, the three of them had brawled just as many times as not, and it was always good for a tension reliever. And he was pretty filled with tension at the moment. But then he thought of the look on Maddie’s face and knew he wasn’t going anywhere to fight or otherwise. Not because he was afraid of Noah. Hell, he wasn’t afraid of Noah. He wasn’t afraid of much.

  But he was afraid for Maddie.

  So he tucked his cell phone between his ear and his shoulder and parked in the damn bush where the car wouldn’t be seen by anyone happening by, not that that seemed likely. Maddie had chosen a place waaaay out of the way, and come to think of it, he’d like to know why. “I’m not leaving. I’m going undercover.”

  “Undercover.”

  “I’m going to break in.”

  There was a silent beat. “Okay, hold up. You’ve gone to the bad place. Come back here. I’ll go and—”

  “I’m already here.”

  “In body, yes. In mind, I’m not so sure.”

  “I haven’t lost it.”

  “Clearly you have.”

  “Look, you made me do this, and I’m going to see this through.”

  To prove it, he got out of the Camaro, and walked through the woods to the back of Maddie’s place, and eyed the back deck and, bingo, the sliding glass door. Probably, it was locked. Not a problem for a former juvenile delinquent with talented fingers. “I’m going in.”

  “Brody, you’re crazy. What if she calls the cops? I’m not going to bail you out again.”

  “Once. You bailed me out of jail once.”

  “You still owe me five hundred bucks for that, by the way.”

  “Jesus. We were eighteen years old and in Mexico, and it was your fault I got caught with that open alcohol in the backseat since you were the one drinking it.”

  “Just saying.”

  “We’re miles from the nearest cop.” Brody was well aware of his past sins, many public knowledge, some not so much. After all, he’d been born in a gutter, had lived in one, and would no doubt still be there, or in jail or worse, if at age twelve he hadn’t tried to pickpocket an off-duty cop who’d decided to feed and house him instead of jailing him.

  Later had come Shayne and Brody, and though they’d been codelinquents together for a while, meeting weekly, sometimes daily in school detention, neither of his two new partners in crime had really ever toed the line of the law like he had.

  Somehow, their friendship had kept him mostly free of temptation and on the straight and narrow.

  Except for the occasional fuckup.

  Now that he had the dubious advantage of maturity, he rarely felt the need to create mayhem by doing anything illegal. But he felt it now.

  He eyed the deck. Yeah, undoubtedly, he had a big fuckup coming his way. But come hell or high water, he was getting inside to talk to Maddie face-to-face, without a closed door between them.

  With a stealth that came from a whole lot of years getting himself in and out of situations he shouldn’t have been in in the first place, he got to the deck.

  Tested the door.

  The sliding glass door was, indeed, locked.

  Not a problem. Old habits died hard, and sticky fingers never forgot how to be sticky.

  Chapter 4

  Maddie leaned out her bedroom window so far that Leena let out a terrified squeak and raced forward, grabbing her legs. “Don’t jump! Ohmigod, don’t jump!”

  “I’m not!” Maddie pushed Leena’s hands away. “Are you kidding? I’m not crazy.”

  “Okay.” Her sister gulped in air with a hand to her chest. “Okay, that’s good. You scared me.”

  “I just wanted to see if he was really gone.”

  “Is he?”

  “Yes,” Maddie lied. She’d lied more today than she thought she’d ever have to lie again. She sure hoped Karma wasn’t paying attention because she could be a vindictive bitch.

  Leena took a peek out the window as well, still breathing unevenly. “Sorry. I might have overreacted.”

  Maddie shot her a look. “Really?”

  “I’m nervous, okay? The Plan and all.”

  Yes, The Plan.

  They’d first hatched it when they were young, getting serious on their sixteenth birthday—run away and start a new life.

  Only on the fateful day of execution, Leena hadn’t gone with Maddie.

  Nope, it’d taken her ten years to decide to catch up, ten years during which Maddie had made a new life for herself. Now here Leena was, petrified, finally ready for The Plan, and Maddie was going to have to do it, have to start all over because she’d promised.

  “It’s just that he’s so . . .” Leena shrugged helplessly.

  Big? Bad? Gorgeous? Pick one.

  “Intimidating.”

  “Not when you know him,” Maddie murmured.

  “He was scowling at me. Like he wanted to eat me for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.”

  Maddie had seen that look from him before. Only, she hadn’t found it scary, but unbearably erotic. “He wouldn’t hurt you.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “How?” Leena took a deeper look at her twin. “How do you know that for sure? Are you into him or something?”

  Or something. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “You are,” Leena breathed, shaking her head in disbelief. “You’re totally into him.”

  “Trust me,” Maddie said with a laugh. “The two of us can’t even be in a room together without riling each other up. I drive him crazy. He drives me crazy. We both drive—”

  “Each other crazy. I get it.” Leena continued to study her thoughtfully. They hadn’t spent much, if any, time together in years. Maddie lived in LA, Leena in Florida and the Bahamas. Maddie supported herself and kept her distance from her past. Leena clung to their past . . .

  Or had.

  Until now, when she’d come to Maddie for help.

  “I thought you gave up me
n.” Leena was looking at her in surprise. “Back when—”

  “I did,” Maddie said quickly, not wanting to go on a trip down memory lane. “Mostly.”

  “Good. Because he’s . . .” She gave a helpless shrug.

  Yeah. When it came to describing Brody, words failed Maddie, too. “He’s actually very nice.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Okay, not necessarily nice, but he’s a good man.”

  “I thought good and man were oxymorons.”

  “Not all men are assholes, Leena.”

  Unable, or unwilling, to believe, her sister shrugged. “It doesn’t matter anyway, right? We’re leaving?”

  “Yeah.” Maddie rubbed the ache in the center of her chest. She understood her sister’s fears about needing to vanish, but Maddie hadn’t lived in that world in a long, long time.

  She intended to never live there again and hoped to make sure Leena didn’t either. “Listen, why don’t you go take your shower and that nap you wanted? Everything’s going to be okay.”

  “Everything’s never okay.”

  “A little positive thinking here, Leen. It goes a long way.”

  “Okay.” Leena managed a smile and feigned a toast. “To positive thinking. To our plan.”

  Maddie returned the smile, pretending for both of their sakes that it was real. She realized nothing about The Plan was the smartest thing, at least not for her, but she didn’t have a choice. A promise was a promise, with her sister’s life on the line. “To The Plan.”

  Looking relieved, Leena nodded and grabbed her cell phone off the nightstand, sticking it in her pocket as she headed to the door.

  Maddie waited until she was gone before turning back to the window and letting out a long breath. Lying . . . making promises she couldn’t keep. . . . Yeah, she was on a roll today.

  Because everything was not going to be okay, not by a long shot. Not unless she personally made it so. And it looked as if maybe she’d have no choice but to do just that or live in constant fear again.

  Not going to happen.

  Still, she had another, more immediate problem. Brody had left, yes, but she hadn’t been born yesterday, and neither had he, damn him. And suddenly, she knew. She left the bedroom at a run, skidding to a stop at the top of the stairs, craning her neck to peek out the high, rounded beveled glass window that allowed extra light to beam down the steps and into the living room.

  Yes, there. The glint of something not natural parked in the woods.

  A Camaro.

  Driven by an avenging angel in tough-guy clothes with tousled hair and a badass attitude.

  Her heart skipped a beat, and she got goose bumps. He was coming for her.

  Damn it. Damn him.

  She went running down the hardwood stairs, racing through the living room to the sliding glass door she’d kept locked since she’d gotten here, the door she’d been double-checking ever since the moment her sister appeared out of the blue after several years of no contact. Locked, but the shades hadn’t been pulled. She needed to get to them before—

  Too late.

  Breathless, she gripped the shades as if they were a lifeline, staring at Brody standing on the other side of the glass.

  He slowly arched a daring brow at her. Really? his expression and stance said. You really think a locked door can keep me out if I want in?

  “I’ll call the police,” she said through the glass.

  He let out a half smile and shook his head. She wouldn’t. She knew it, and so did he. And as he stepped closer to the glass, there was a deceptive and unnerving quietness to his movements, to the way he looked at her, which told her that she wasn’t getting out of talking to him until he’d gotten whatever answers he sought.

  Damn it! She should have just dealt with him, answered the front door herself and taken her paychecks, told him whatever he needed to hear, and he’d have been long gone by now.

  Instead, he was on to her—not knowing exactly what he was on to, but on to her nevertheless. His smile might be laid-back and easygoing, but his body shimmered with tension, and also a strength and a solidity she knew she could count on.

  He eyed the locked door, then lifted his head so that their gazes met. “Let me in.”

  Oh, God. A part of her wanted to. Wanted to more than anything. But she shook her head.

  “Then tell me what’s wrong.”

  She found her voice, even managed to inject a tone of irritation in it. Not too difficult when she was irritated, not to mention frustrated, exhausted, and the doozy . . . terrified. Hell of a combination. “Nothing’s wrong, except you’re bugging the hell out of me.”

  His eyes narrowed as they took her in from head to toe, which once upon a time, would have positively stolen her breath because he had a way of looking at her, really looking. She actually did experience some of that usual breathlessness, but it was because she realized she’d really screwed up. She and Leena weren’t wearing the same thing.

  Appearances were important to her. Very important. Her life could be in the toilet along with her self-esteem, but with the right makeup, the right clothes, and the right expression, no one would know it.

  She’d spent the past year wearing such façades at Sky High Air, looking completely on top of her world, when in reality, it could all crumble at a moment’s notice.

  As it had with Leena’s appearance.

  She should have known. Karma was a bitch, and inescapable. Especially since unlike Leena, she wore only a pair of loose sweats low on her hips and a sports bra, and nothing else. No makeup, no armor of any kind.

  Brody eyed her limbs, specifically her left shoulder, which had three scars—one a six-inch surgery incision, a second where they’d slid in a camera probe, and a third where the bullet had gone in and shattered her collarbone.

  At the sight, Brody’s jaw tightened visibly, and his mouth went grim.

  She already knew he blamed himself, which was ridiculous, and she fought the urge to run for cover.

  “You changed quickly,” he said through the glass.

  She lifted her good shoulder.

  “And your hair . . .”

  Shit. “I was wearing a wig before.” Or Leena was. She’d had fun going through Maddie’s wigs. As for herself, she was her own natural auburn for a change.

  He nodded, though she couldn’t tell if he bought the lie or not. Couldn’t tell a damn thing behind those mirrored sunglasses. Then he slid his hands into his pockets and rocked back on his heels. “I’d really like to talk to you.”

  Yes, but she didn’t want to talk to him. Not now, not until she solved all her other problems, the biggest one being her identical twin in the other room. “How did you find me?”

  “It wasn’t easy. You ever hear of returning a phone call?”