Strong and Sexy (Sky High Air #2)(43)

“I’m an expensive taxi driver.”

“Shayne—”

“Don’t get me wrong. I love what I do. I was born to do what I do. Being in the air, it…it feeds my soul. I’m just telling you what they think.”

And she knew despite not wanting to, he cared what they thought. How well she knew the agony of that. It had her opening the door.

He was casual as could be, arms lightly crossed, his feet the same, propping up the wall. Yep, easygoing as they came.

Except there was more to him than that lazy confidence, so much more.

“There you are.” He took in her zippered hoodie and the long gauzy skirt, the combination of which covered her from chin to toe. “With your armor intact.”

She managed a smile and tried not to look directly at him, because he was damned distracting. “Thought I might need it.” Her eyes wandered to her bed. Bad eyes. “So…did you always want to be a pilot?”

He smiled. The distraction wasn’t fooling him. “From the moment I first saw a plane. What are you looking at?”

“I always wanted to work with animals,” she said quickly. Not looking at the bed. “From the time I was little, animals were it for me.” As usual, her mouth was running off without permission because she was nervous. And excited. Nervous and excited were a bad combination for her. “When I got my job at the zoo, my mother stopped by on my first day. I was giving an enema to a clogged giraffe.”

“Let me guess. That’s what she thinks you do all day. Evacuate shit.”

In spite of herself, she laughed. How he did that, made her laugh when she hadn’t planned on being amused, was beyond her. “Sort of like taxiing people, huh?”

He grinned too. They grinned at each other, unexpectedly unified in this. “You’re happy in your job,” she murmured.

“Very.”

“Me too.”

“I’m happy in my life,” he said.

In his single life. Right. Got to remember that. She glanced at the bed again. He was happy single.

“But here’s the stickler,” he said quietly. “I’m happier now that I’ve met you.”

Before she could begin to figure out how to process that, his gaze dropped to her mouth. “Much happier.” Cupping her freshly washed face, he leaned in, and this time didn’t stop until their lips were touching. This kiss was different from the wild kiss they’d shared in the last closet they’d stood in, and different from the kisses they’d shared at his house.

This kiss was slow and sweet, and so heartfelt she felt her throat burn, and when he pulled back a fraction, just enough to look into her eyes, hands still on her face, he murmured, “And as to your earlier question…I was worried about you, but I also wanted to see you again. I wanted to repeat. If you meant what you said, yesterday that you don’t, then tell me now. Look me in the eyes and tell me you feel nothing for me, that you don’t want to see where this goes.”

Oh, God, don’t do this. Don’t be so gorgeous and have the heart too. Don’t be the whole package. “You…you want to repeat.”

He offered her a sweet, sort of baffled smile. “Go figure, right?”

This wasn’t good. He stood there looking young and sexy, but also shockingly vulnerable, and the combination was almost too much to take.

She could fall for him.

Hard.

Fast.

And here she was without her handy-dandy, trusty safety net. Not good. Not good at all. Backing out of his arms, she moved back down the hall.

He wanted to repeat. How did she resist that? Answer—she couldn’t, she really couldn’t.

“Where are you going?”

“To the ice cream. I need ice cream for this.”

“For what?”

She plopped down on the couch and resumed her earlier position, holding the spoon and the carton, thinking there might not be enough ice cream on the planet for this.

The couch sank as he hit the spot beside her, his thighs brushing hers. “You got another spoon?”

Turning her head, she looked into his eyes. And just like the ice cream in her hands, she melted a little. “I suppose I can share.”





Chapter 15




“Y ou’re like an onion.”

An onion? Confused, Shayne looked at Dani. “What?”

Her eyes were warm, her face a little flushed, whether from scrubbing off the mask or from being near him, Shayne had no idea, but he hoped like hell it was the latter.

“You have all these fascinating layers.” She dropped her spoon into the ice cream. “When I saw you at my mother’s party, I thought, uh-oh. Pure trouble coming right at me.” She lifted a shoulder. “Sexy trouble, of course. But you were this easygoing, laid-back, too wealthy, too good-looking for your own health guy, you know? Someone who’d probably never lifted a finger a day in his life.”

Hard to be insulted, when most of that had been true at one time or another. “And here I thought all you saw was my sharp wit and intelligence.”

“Nope, just the whole playful playboy thing.” Apparently unconcerned that her blunt honesty had a sharp edge and cut deep, she went for another bite of ice cream. “But the thing is, layers started peeling away almost immediately.” And then another bite. Or rather, a lick. Her tongue delicately ran over the wooden spoon and made his eyes cross.