Okay, that was probably true. She might have to recheck that. Maybe first thing, when they woke up…
Good plan.
He was just so great. It was hard not to…
Don’t say the L-word again. Don’t make that mistake! L-l-l-lust. Call itlust. Because that’s what it is. LUST. Yay, lust!
Yay. Lust.
Oh, come on. Peter is a lovely distraction, a nice little stop on the train ride of life. A Navy SEAL. Hoo-yah! Just keep reminding yourself that this is not your forever home.
Shayla wasnota shelter dog, thanks. Also? Kind of obvious, considering they were in a tent.
You know what I mean. Love him hard, have some fun, but when it’s over, it’s over. Just be ready to let him go.
Yeah, and how had it worked out for Harry, whenhe’ddone that?
Badly, because I’m a character in a romance novel. You, however, live in the real world, with its shades of gray.With that, he was gone.
Shayla sighed and muttered, “Man.”
Peter’s arms tightened slightly around her as he roused himself. “Y’okay? Was there another aftershock?”
“No,” she said. “It’s all right.”
He lifted his head. “You sure?”
She turned to see that he was looking down at her, suddenly fully awake.
“We didn’t get a chance to do, you know, a debrief of the earthquake. Sometimes, talking about it can really help,” he said, then asked, “You want to talk?”
Shay shook her head, filled with more of that feeling that she shouldn’t be feeling, damnit. “Just…kiss me,” she said.
And he smiled, and did.
Someone was following him.
Daryl had had that feeling all night, and it was annoying as hell. More so, now that it was three o’clock in the morning and he was heading home on foot.
Fucking Dingo with his fucking jonesing for jailbait Maddie Nakamura. Normally, when Daryl worked this late, he’d call up the Ding-man and toss him a few bucks for gas, get a ride back to Sheryl-Ann’s apartment, where he was crashing on the couch.
But tonight, Dingo had been piloting his boat-on-wheels northward up the Five. Heading for Van Nuys, no doubt, where if he cried loud enough and long enough, Mummy would donate to the Support Dingo Super PAC.
As he crossed the street, there was no traffic moving in any direction, red lights stretching into the distance as far as the eye could see. So that someone’s-following-me feeling must’ve been a figment of his imagination, triggered by that encounter with Maddie’s Navy SEAL father in the mall parking garage.
“Hey, Daryl.”
Daryl jumped and screamed as a shadowy shape emerged from a storefront. It was Cody O’Keefe—not quite a friend of Dingo’s, but more of a work associate. Assuming Dingo’s on-again-off-again consignment-style drug sales for that moron Bob Nelson could be considered a job. “Shit, man, you scared me! What the fuck?”
This was a weird coincidence—except, fuhhhhck, it was probably not any kind of coincidence, considering the whole matter of Fiona stealing ten thousand dollars and trying to pin it on Maddie.
“Sorry, bro,” O’Keefe said without an ounce of sincerity behind his apology. He wasn’t quite as tall as Daryl, but he weighed twice as much, which was intimidating, especially since he had that schoolyard bully attitude.
“A little late to be doing business,” Daryl said, hoping against hope that he was wrong, and that O’Keefe’s being here was a coincidence.
But “No such thing as too late,” said another shadow who’d appeared behind Cody.
Shit, it was Eddie Facciolo, a fucking skinhead, along with his creepy twin brother, Stank Stedman. They weren’t really related, but the shaved heads made them look it. Eddie had a nose ring, and Stank had a neck tattoo. Or maybe it was the other way around…?
