Page 24 of Crossing Every Line

“Oh, no, he’s plenty bitchy.”

Laughing, she sat back, then swallowed another bite. “Good to know.”

“But he’s a good guy. Just too serious sometimes. And now if you guys move to New York, who’s going to be around to keep him in beer and pretzels? Who’s going to drag him out of his workshop and make him watch a ball game?”

She twisted the spoon in her mouth and licked the bowl of the spoon clean. “You’re going to miss him.”

He made a production of scraping the inside of the carton. “Yeah, I’m going to miss the grouch.”

“And I gather from earlier that Shane doesn’t want you to be a backer for a shop of his own?”

“Yep.”

So he was going to be her problem. And somehow she had to convince Shane that selling the Heron wasn’t an option. Oh, and figure out what to do with the overwhelming attraction between them at the same time.

No big deal.

“All we have is each other right now,” she said quietly.

“That’s true. Are you sure you want to add sex into the mix? Never mind. By the look on your face, I just answered my own question.”

What? Was she wearing an “I had sex” T-shirt or something? “Look, I appreciate that Shane’s got someone like you in his corner, but in the end we’ve only got each other to figure this out.”

“Tomorrow is soon enough for that. It’s nearly ten, and you’re on East Coast time.”

One a.m. was well past her bedtime. “I’m sorry we ended up crashing here.”

“That’s fine. You can crash in my sister’s room.”

She nodded. Maybe with some sleep she could actually make an intelligent decision in the morning. “Let me help you clean up.”

He shook his head. “Go on up. I have a few more hours of work to do, and I can do that down here.”

She sighed and climbed the stairs. The house was silent. The carpeting muffled her footfalls as she reached the landing. The first room’s door was cracked open, but the lights were off. The dull scrape of glass over wood made her pause. She could hear the low crash of surf from an open window.

She pushed the door a little wider. “Shane?”

Her eyes adjusted to the dim light. An ivory panel fluttered around the sliding door. There was just enough moonlight to show the half-empty bottle and heavy tumbler with a shot’s worth of amber liquor inside sitting on the desk. She moved into the room, then closed the door behind her.

“Sure you want to do that, babe?”

The husky tone of his voice didn’t sound slurred, but the insolentbabebrought that firefly back to life in her chest. She followed his voice out the door and gripped the doorjamb, stepping back into the room. The balcony was glass and steel like the rest of the house. The ocean roared beneath them as the tide battered the rocks spitting spray into the night. Moonlight shimmered across the breakers—wild and beautiful like the man who leaned against the railing. Dress pants hung low along his tapered waist, and his dress shirt was long gone.

“Shane, why don’t you come inside?”

“Why don’t you come out here?”

Everything inside her wanted to move closer, to touch the smooth expanse of his back and feel those muscles bunch and glide under her fingertips again.

He looked over his shoulder, his eyes glittering in the dark. “You want another fuck, Miss New York?” His voice rumbled, barely rising over the crashing waves.

Her nails bit into her palm. “You’re an asshole.”

His wide hands flexed around the steel railing. The muscles of his shoulders rippled under the strain. “I’ve been an asshole since you met me. Didn’t stop you from climbing on me before.”

No, it hadn’t. Hell, it had ramped up the lust. Not that she’d tell him that. She took a deep breath and stepped out onto the glass platform. She swallowed against the quick shock of vertigo. Cool air whipped her hair around her face. “Are you just going to sulk in the dark?”

He shrugged and looked back out at the water. “Not bothering anyone. But I don’t think you came in here to check on me for that, now, did you?”

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