Hot Winter Nights (Heartbreaker Bay #6)(16)

Tonight, he was just as warm. And hard with lean, sinewy muscle. She had to remind herself not to wrap around him again. “And if I don’t agree?” she murmured.

His gaze never wavered. “Then I bring in Archer and he takes over. Joe as well.”

She stared up at him, wanting to call his bluff but not wanting to risk it. Lucas was a man of his word. He would do exactly as he’d just said. He’d rat her out in an instant and Archer would bench her. Of that she had no doubt. “Fine,” she said. “Deal.”

He nodded and backed up a step, leaving her body feeling annoyingly bereft. His gaze slid over her features, stopping for a beat on her lips, and as if he was magic, they trembled open.

His hot gaze lifted to hers, and then with a slight quirk of his lips, he was gone.

When she finally went to sleep that night, it’d been to dream about a future with a man she couldn’t, wouldn’t, have.



The next morning she was up early and at the gym. She had a specific routine she put herself through, given to her by her physical therapist and designed to keep the strength up in her weakened leg.

“Ready?” asked a male voice behind her.

She got up and swiped the sweat from her brow, facing Caleb. Besides being a client of Hunt Investigations, he was some kind of a tech genius, a venture capitalist, and . . . her secret sparring partner.

Caleb had his reasons for keeping the secret. He was a closed book for one, a complete mystery to everyone, and kept his own counsel.

Molly had never told anyone about the training he gave her, because she’d started working out to regain her strength after her last surgery and it’d become almost a religion for her. A very private one. Keeping strong physically kept her strong mentally. No one could touch her.

Or so she liked to tell herself.

Stepping into the ring with Caleb, she smiled.

He went brows up. “You look like you’re looking forward to kicking my ass today.”

“I am.”

He laughed low in his throat and planted his weight when she came at him. She swept his legs out from beneath him, but at the last second he snagged an arm around her calf and took her down with him.

“Damn,” she said breathlessly from flat on her back.

“You had a good move,” he told her, immediately taking his weight off her and reaching a hand down to pull her up. “But you led with your eyes, so I saw you coming.”

Holding his gaze in hers, she nodded and . . . went for him again.

This time he went down like a sack and lay there, grimacing.

“Oh shit,” she breathed and dropped to his side, putting a hand on his chest. “Are you okay—”

The rest of her sentence vanished with an “oomph” from her as he rolled and flattened her.

“That’s just mean,” she said on a laugh.

“That’s real life,” he said seriously. “Don’t get taken advantage of because you’re soft.”

“Hey!”

“I mean that in the best way possible,” he said and did one of those moves only really fit people could do; he popped up to his feet without using his hands.

A low whistle had them both turning. Sadie stood ringside. “Thanks for recommending this gym. Just bought a day pass.” She then looked at Caleb, her eyes going hooded and unreadable.

He looked right back but didn’t say a word, which was impressive in its own right. As far as Molly knew, the two hadn’t had much, if any, interaction, which made this interaction all the more fascinating.

“Sadie,” Caleb said lightly in greeting.

“Suits,” Sadie said back, not nearly so lightly.

At the moment, Caleb was wearing basketball shorts and a tight long-sleeved performance t-shirt over his extremely well-honed body, but it was true that, away from the gym, he was rarely seen in anything but a suit.

“That insult’s getting old,” he told Sadie.

Sadie lifted a shoulder. “Just making sure you realize that one of your suits would probably feed the entire homeless population in San Francisco for a year.”

Caleb’s eyes went a little hot, and not in a good way. “Making assumptions about me?” he asked quietly.

Sadie shrugged.

Caleb studied her for a long beat. “Maybe we could start this little game over. What are the chances of that?”

“I’d say a pretty solid zip,” she said and moved to the weights.

“Wow,” Molly said, watching her go. “She’s usually got a really long fuse. What did you do to piss her off?”

“Breathe air.”

She didn’t believe that for one second. Clearly there was something in their past. No one got that better than Molly. Her own past had affected her in a very large way, which she thought about as she showered and headed to work.

She’d grown up with two bossy males, so she was naturally pushy and always willing to fight back. In fact, not knowing when to back down had been a lesson she’d learned the hard way at age fourteen.

Joe had gotten himself in with a bad-news group of guys, one of whom was Molly’s first crush. Darius had been charming and way too old for her at age eighteen but he’d flirted with her and she’d been ridiculously smitten. What she hadn’t known was that Darius’s buddies had wanted Joe to steal a car for them and when he’d refused, they’d decided to force his hand.