Strong and Sexy (Sky High Air #2)(56)
Only he wasn’t little, and no one in their right mind would call him cute. Dangerous, yes. Edgy, yes. Sexy, double yes.
But cute? “Maybe like a cheetah. You know, cute from a distance…”
He blinked. “What?”
“You’re cute.”
He blinked again. “List all the people who would benefit from making you appear crazy.”
“Cute and bossy.” But she sighed and tried to put all the dangerous, edgy, sexy cuteness out of her head. Not an easy feat. “Well, my family has been calling me crazy for a few years now.”
“Because you walked away from an inheritance.”
“Edward wasn’t my dad. It didn’t feel right. Plus Tony and Eliza like all their billions of pennies.”
“Tony and Eliza,” he said, putting them on the list. “Who else?” He nudged her steaming mug up to her lips until she drank.
Earl Grey. Her favorite. She sipped, watching him over the cloud of steam that rose from her cup.
Or maybe that was the fog of nice drugs in her system. “You really are cute.”
“We’ll discuss my cuteness in detail after this.”
She smiled dreamily. “What else can we do in detail after this? And does it involve the hot fudge?”
His eyes landed on hers, scorching. “No. It involves some of that relaxing the doctor insisted on. That I insist on.”
“Oh.” Huh. Yeah, he was pretty damn hot, all bossy and insistent.
“What about the woman from your work? The one you got the promotion over?” he asked.
“Reena?”
“Reena.” She wouldn’t…”
He didn’t erase the name, just looked at her with surprising patience. Patience, plus that scorchness factor, and then the whole cute thing, really made him quite…“Irresistible.” She smiled. “You’re irresistible.”
“You’re high as a kite.”
She grinned.
He sighed. “Who else?”
“No one.”
“I’m sure there’s someone.”
“You’re sure I’ve annoyed more people?”
“Yes.”
She rolled her eyes, and then gasped and reached for her head. “Oh, bad. Very, very bad.”
Tossing the pad aside, he dropped to his knees at her side. “You okay?”
“Not so much, no.”
“I—” He broke off at the scraping sound. “What’s that?”
It’d come from the other side of the front door. Striding over there, he whipped it open but no one was there. Just a package sitting innocuously all by itself.
“What is it?” she asked no one, because Shayne burst out of the front door and vanished from her line of sight.
“Hey!” he yelled, and then he was back in the doorway, holding someone by the scruff of the neck.
Alan, who shoved free and glared at him. “What the hell is your problem?”
Shayne bent to pick up the package and lifted a foil edge as if he expected a bomb. “Brownies?”
“Of course they’re brownies, what did you think they were?” Alan straightened his shirt. “And what are you, an ape?”
“I’m so sorry,” Dani said to Alan. “Ignore him, he’s—”
“Crazy?”
“Concerned about her safety,” Shayne corrected. “Since someone’s been stalking her. You a stalker, Alan?”
“What? Of course not.” Circling Shayne, giving him a wide birth that would have been comical on any other day, Alan came in. When he caught sight of the blood still matted in Dani’s hair, of the white bandage around her head, he stopped short. “My God.”
“A little accident at work,” Dani assured him. “Only five stitches.”
“Stitches?” Going white as a sheet, Alan grabbed out for support, but nothing was there.
Then he flashed the whites of his eyes.
“He’s going down,” Dani told Shayne, who swore and lunged for him, unceremoniously hauling him back to the front door.
“Shayne, wait.”
“Buh-bye,” Shayne said to Alan.
To Alan’s credit, he dug in his heels and tried to see past Shayne. “Dani—”
But Shayne shut the door on him.
“Ohmigod.” Dani pointed to the door. “Open it up. Now.”
Unapologetic, he moved toward her instead. “He’s so going on the list.”
“He doesn’t belong on the list.”
“Oh, he belongs on the list.”
“Shayne, seriously. Did you see the way he nearly fainted at the sight of the blood on my head?”
Shayne’s gaze lifted from the pad where he was furiously scribbling Alan’s name. “So?”
“So you know if he’s queasy at the sight of blood, then he’s not hauling around a dead body to torture me with.”
He narrowed his eyes. “I thought you were half delirious with pain.”
“I am.” She softened her voice, trying to distract him. “Delirious. Helpless. What are you going to do about it?”
“Don’t even try to distract me with that tone.”
“Which tone?”