Collide by Juliana Stone Page B

her chin
out and glared at him. “I’m going to fix it.”
    Shane snorted and cocked his head to the
side. Something black stirred inside him. “How the hell are you
going to manage that?”
    Her eyes flashed and he knew she was annoyed
at his tone. “I got nervous. It happens. And I’ll explain all of it
to him and he’ll be fine.”
    Her blue eyes were shiny, her mouth wet where
her tongue had darted out. In that moment the only thing Shane
wanted to do was pull her into his arms and taste her. Taste her
and rip his T-shirt off along with the sexy black panties he knew
was underneath.
    Instead, he gave himself a mental smack
down.
    “You think Dooley will be fine with the fact
that you left him at the altar and made a fool out of him on his
wedding day?”
    She stared at him and said nothing, though
she nodded slightly.
    “In front of half the town?”
    She winced, but damn, she had the audacity to
nod again.
    Shane snorted. “You’re crazier than I
remember.” She opened her mouth but he stopped her cold. “No, not
crazy…you’re deluded.”
    “Gerald loves me and I’ll make him understand
it was just a mistake.”
    “You expect him to believe that your decision
to not show up was a mistake.”
    Her bottom lip trembled and he wasn’t exactly
sure why he was pushing her so hard. He didn’t care about Bobbi or
Gerald anymore. Bringing her here was a mistake. A lapse in
judgment and he was going to blame it on….Fuck he didn’t know what
he was going to blame it on, but he sure as hell knew whatever
they’d once shared was gone.
    It was in the past..
    He was done with her. Sure he still found her
hot as hell but that was it. It had to be, or he was screwed.
    “I expect him to give me a chance and I know
he’ll listen to me, I mean he’s a decent guy but first…”
    “But first?” he prodded.
    “Well,” she exhaled nervously and bit her
bottom lip, a sure fire sign she was uncomfortable .
    Suddenly he knew where she was headed and
that blackness that was stirring sharpened and intensified.
    “You want to know if we slept together.”
    She swallowed but didn’t answer, her eyes
shiny and wide.
    “Would it matter?” he continued, as he moved
closer and didn’t stop until there was barely a whisper between
them. He felt her body heat and that insane smell of summer
assaulted him as surely as if she’d laid her hands on his
chest.
    “What do you mean?”
    “If we did,” he leaned down. “If I screwed
the hell out of you last night, would you run to Dooley and tell
him that you did the nasty with your ex, ex-con? Or would you keep
it a secret.” He couldn’t keep the bitterness from his tone.
“Because we both know you like keeping secrets.”
    He bent low, and moved her hair away from her
neck leaving her Gaelic tattoo exposed. He traced the lines with
his forefinger, aware the air between that had changed. Her breaths
were falling faster, harsher, and that blackness inside of him
threatened to spill out.
    In that moment he wanted to hurt her in ways
that he’d not thought of since that awful night, several years
back, when they’d broken up. When they’d trashed each other’s
hearts and souls with ugly, dark things—things neither one of them
would ever forget.
    Suddenly he had enough. He had no desire to
do this dance with Bobbi. To revisit a past that would do nothing
but hurt them both. If she wanted to spend her life with someone
like Gerald Dooley, who was he to stop her?
    Shane stepped back and nodded toward the
stairs.
    “Don’t worry princess. Nothing happened last
night.”
    She stared at him for several moments, chest
heaving, her pale cheeks now flushed a deep rose color.
    “I’ll call Billie. I don’t need a ride,” she
said finally before turning and disappearing back up the
stairs.
    Shane wasn’t sure how long he stood in
silence, gazing at the top of the stairs. Finally, he moved,
inserted his ear buds, grabbed the sander and once more ran it
along the huge