Author: Jill Shalvis

She faltered briefly. “Yes.”

He took in how carefully made up she was, and his stomach clenched. “On a date?” Not that it mattered, he told himself. He hoped she was going out on a date, because then it would prove that they weren’t anything to each other.

Which is what he wanted.

Totally.

Completely.

Yep—that’s what he wanted, all right. To be free…so it made no sense at all that he held his breath for her answer.

“Not a date,” she said.

He didn’t want to think about the relief that hit him like a Mack truck.

She moved to the door and then hesitated, her hand on the handle, her back to him. “I don’t suppose you sabotaged my car again?”

“Nope,” he said. “If she doesn’t start, it’s because she’s a piece of shit.” He put down his paintbrush and made an executive decision. “How about a ride, Sunshine?”

She glanced back, and he was quite certain she didn’t realize that she looked hopeful. “You have more ass-kicking to do to Jack on your phone?” she asked.

“Always,” he said. “Give me a minute to wash up.”

“It’s okay,” she said, in motion again. “I’ve got this.”

He caught up with her. She’d been good with makeup, but he could see the faint smudges of exhaustion beneath her eyes. She hadn’t been sleeping. She was worried about something, probably whatever she was going to do tonight. “A minute,” he said again, and, to be sure she didn’t leave without him, dragged her with him to wash up.

The bathroom was tiny, but he nudged her into it and then crowded her up against the sink as he cleaned up.

“I could’ve waited out there,” she said, sounding a little breathless.

He reached around her for a towel, and she sucked in a breath and then licked her lips. Ben put a hand on either side of her hips and caged her in between his body and the counter.

“What’s with the he-man act?” she whispered, her gaze on his mouth.

He smiled. “You think I’m acting…he-man?”

“Yes. What I don’t know is why. You trying to impress me, Ben?”

“You’re already impressed.”

She let out a low, almost reluctant laugh. “You think so?”

“Uh-huh.” He leaned in so that they shared their next breath. Her eyes drifted closed, and her lips parted, waiting for a kiss.

But he didn’t kiss her.

Her eyes flew open, and he laughed softly.

“You’re such an ass,” she said with no heat. “And to think I almost admitted that I was going to sabotage my own car so you’d have to give me a ride.” When he laughed again, she gave him a push so she could get around him and out of the bathroom. He followed, grinning, enjoying the fact that he’d coaxed her out of her melancholy mood.

It’d started to rain as they dashed out to his truck, and he grabbed her hand to steady her. “Where to?” he asked when they were inside, shaking off the rain.

“Kingsbury.”

Kingsbury was a town about twenty miles northeast of Lucky Harbor. She gave him an address in an upscale neighborhood, where the houses were big and bigger and the yards were all cared for by hired hands. “Someone from your list?” he asked.

“There. Park there,” she said instead of answering, gesturing to a spot across the street and halfway down the block from the address she’d given him.

It was dusk. In Lucky Harbor, dusk lasted about two minutes, and in those two minutes between light and dark, everything turned a pale blue. When he’d been a kid, he’d always thought it was a magical time, when anything could happen. As an adult, he knew there was no magic.

Aubrey was studying the house intently, not giving much away. But he knew she knew the truth as well—that nothing happened unless you made it happen.

In fact, she was working on just that—working hard—and it touched him. Much more than it should have.

As dark settled around them, a car pulled into the driveway of the house. A man got out from behind the wheel and came around to the passenger side. He opened the door and assisted a woman as she got out of the car. For a moment, the man’s face and the woman’s face were highlighted by the porch lights.

Beside him, Aubrey gasped.

“What?” he asked.

She put a hand to her mouth and shook her head.

“It’s something,” he insisted.

The couple ducked through the rain together, laughing.

“Who are they?” Ben asked.

“Professor Stephen Bennett,” Aubrey said, her voice soft, almost as far away as she seemed from him right now. “He was my English professor.”

Ben got a very bad feeling in his gut. “And you came here to what—thank him for teaching you the classics?”

The couple had made it to the covered porch, where Professor Bennett pulled the woman in close to him and was kissing her with considerable heat.

“Time to go,” Aubrey said tightly.

Ben glanced at her. She wasn’t looking at the couple but rather out into the dark night, her expression pensive. “You okay?” he asked.

“I want to go home.”

Ben started the truck and got back on the freeway, but he exited before Lucky Harbor, taking a winding road. When the road ended, he drove a little bit farther on a dirt fire road until he came to a small clearing. Turning off the engine, he got out and came around for Aubrey.

The night was a dark one. It’d stopped raining now, but the ground was soft and wet and smelled earthy. The trees were still laden and heavy with water, and whenever the wind kicked up, more water fell from them. “You warm enough?” he asked.

“Yes. Why?”

“Up for a walk?”

“Here? In the dark?” She looked around. “Where are we?”

“You’ll see.”

She stared at him for a long moment and then put her hand in his. He led her to what looked like a thirty-foot rock, then pulled his keys from his pocket and flicked on a small penlight he had attached to them. “Watch your step,” he told her, but quickly realized that was impossible in her high-heeled boots. “Never mind.” Taking her arm, he lifted her and twisted himself around so that he was carrying her piggyback.

“Ben,” she gasped, throwing her arms around his neck so she didn’t fall. “Put me down.”

Ignoring that, he took the steep hill in front of them.

Her breathing hitched. “I’m wearing a skirt!” she said, sounding panicked.

“I know,” he said. His fingers were intimately wrapped around her thighs, which were in turn wrapped around his waist. Mmm. He let his hands slide northward until she squeaked.

He laughed, but stopped moving his hands.

“It’s not funny,” she said. “I’m flashing my goodies to the world back here.”

“It’s dark, and there’s no one out here but us. But if you want me to keep you covered…” Once again his hands went on the move, sliding upward until he squeezed her sweet ass. The only thing between his palms and her skin was her panties, which—God bless them—felt thin and skimpy. His very favorite kind.

“Ben!” She squirmed, nearly climbing over his head. “I’m serious!”

“So am I. Are these lace?”

“Stop it!” She wriggled some more, still trying to climb out of his reach, which only made him crack up again. But he stopped copping a feel. Mostly because he was going straight down the incline now, and concentrating was a good idea.

Worried noises were still sounding in his ear from the anxious Aubrey, who was gripping him for dear life. “Oh, my God,” she whispered, dropping her head to his shoulder. “Oh, my God.”

“Don’t worry,” he said. “I hardly ever fall here. Of course I haven’t done it while sporting a hard-on before…”

She bit his ear, and he groaned. “I like that,” he said. “A lot.”

She blew out a breath.

“And that…”

“Oh, for God’s sake. You like everything.”

“True.”

A few minutes later, he let go of her legs, letting her slowly slide down his back.

She quickly straightened her skirt. “You’re impossible,” she said.

“So I’ve been told.” Taking her hand, he tugged her close, showing her the view in front of them. They stood on the top of the bluffs, on the far east side of the harbor. From here they had a perfect postcard view of the little Washington State beach town, cozily nestled in the rocky cove. The main drag—a quirky, eclectic mix of the old and new—was lit up. Looking at it from here never failed to be a comfort for him.

No matter how far and wide he’d traveled, this was home.

He could see the pier, also lit, jutting out into the water, lined with more shops and outdoor cafés. And the Ferris wheel. He’d loved that damn thing as a kid.

He and Aubrey sat side by side. Eyeing their scenic view of the Pacific Ocean, swirling and pounding the rocky shore three hundred feet below, Aubrey shook her head. “It’s so gorgeous. I’ve never been up here.”

“Never?” He found this hard to believe. “You’re telling me through all your teenage years here in Lucky Harbor, no guy ever brought you up here to make out?”

She smiled. “I wasn’t as easy as I looked.”

“I found that a lot with girls back then,” he said on a disappointed sigh that made her laugh.

He loved the sound of her laugh. Her eyes lit and her face softened. Not that she wasn’t always beautiful, because she was. But when she smiled like that, she relaxed and…let him in.

He knew she wasn’t good at it. He got that he was one of the chosen few. He had to admit he liked that and found himself wanting even more.

“How did you ever find this spot?” she asked.

“Luke found it years ago, out of necessity.”

“Necessity?”

He smiled. “You were never a teenage boy.”

“That is an accurate statement.”

He laughed. “As a whole, the breed tends to need a lot of unsupervised time away from authority of any kind. It makes it easier to get in all sorts of trouble, which is incredibly attractive to the breed in general.”

She smiled. “What did you all do?”

“Probably best to ask what we didn’t do. For one thing, we’d steal Luke’s sister’s stash of pot. Or booze from Jack’s dad. We weren’t choosy. Whatever we could get our klepto fingers on. Then I’d tell Dee that Jack and I were going to spend the night at Luke’s, and Luke would tell his grandma he was going to Jack’s.”

“Ah,” she said. “The switch and bait.”

“Yep.”

“And then you would…” She arched a brow.

“Hike up here. We’d make a campfire—also illegal—and then get drunk or high and sleep out beneath the stars. We were complete idiots.” But those times, just the three of them against the world, were vivid in Ben’s mind. They were some of his fondest memories.

“You ever get caught?” she asked.

“Bite your tongue.” He smiled. “Nope, we never got caught.”

She shook her head, smiling a little bit, too, enjoying the story. “Hard to picture Detective Luke Hanover and Fire Marshal Jack Harper being juvenile delinquents,” she said.

“But not hard to imagine me as one?” he asked mildly.

Now she laughed outright. “Benjamin McDaniel, you were born a delinquent.”

This was true enough, and he smiled at the sight of her relaxing a little bit, enjoying herself at his expense. “Some things are in the blood, I guess,” he said.