Page 36 of Shark’s Edge

Leading me back to the behavior that, damn it all, proved his point to a freaking T.

“And is this how you keep all the girls close and bunched in the panties, Sebastian? By claiming you’ve actually ‘opened up’ to them?”

What the hell is wrong with me? Why am I purposely provoking the bastard who holds all my cards right now?

He turned the tables on me again as he scrutinized me from down his noble, carved features, just before rocking his head back a fraction—and bursting with one of the fullest, loudest, most unexpected laughs I’d ever heard in my life.

I half expected a camera crew to pop out of the bushes and yell some catchphrase from a television show that hadn’t aired yet. Maybe they were shooting the pilot and Sebastian Shark was an executive producer who agreed to star in the season opener to lure viewers . . .

My confusion had to be broadcast across my features as I waited for him to summon some composure and swing his sights back down on me, seizing me all over again with his intense blues. And immediately intensify the effect with his riveting physical grace and predatory energy.

“Ohhh, Ms. Gibson.”

And that bestial grumble . . . that did equally primal things to every nerve ending in my body.

I shifted my eyes left, then right, and then back to him. “Yes?”

He curled in toward me. Over me. Drove that blue crystal gaze into me while that devil’s smile kept playing across his lips. “You talk to me like nobody else does,” he husked. “Like nobody else dares.”

“Maybe more people should.”

“Maybe we should just keep this between us.”

His mouth returned to its granite line, but his eyes kept up the smile. I was so entranced by their intensity, I forgot to breathe. When I finally did, my senses were filled with his spicy, masculine musk. My sights were consumed by the defined planes of his chest. My sex was achingly aware of its nearness to his.

“What does that mean?” I finally countered. “That you trust me now?” I cocked both my brows. “Or are you holding on to the delusion that I poisoned you?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“But you didn’t say I’m exonerated, either.” I aligned my hands at the center of his chest. “Do I have to stab in here and jerk it out of you?”

His gaze narrowed by a telling fraction. “Not the spot I’d envisioned you jerking, Red.”

I plowed past his filthy inference. I had to stay focused on the important subject here. “If I’m facing a court action tomorrow, I need to know.”

Aha. Progress. At least that was what I hoped as he drew in significant air. “I haven’t instructed the sheriff’s office to keep pursuing things. But I haven’t told them to close the file, either.”

“Which means what?”

As his assessing scowl became an insolent sneer, I wondered if it was the look he gave business rivals before telling them they’d been bested. “It simply means that I may need to be further . . . persuaded . . . about your innocence.”

“Persuaded? How?”

He stretched out his other arm, thoroughly fencing me in with his rippled guns. He waited one more second, as if really-but-not-really weighing options, before murmuring, “Have dinner with me.”

“Ex . . . excuse me?” A laugh spurted out before I could stop it. “You want to have dinner . . . with me? At night? Sitting down and actually talking to servers like they’re human?”

He tilted his head to the other side. “Yes, yes, and no.”

“Sorry?”

“Yes, I want to have dinner with you. Yes, at night. But absolutely no on the civility with servers.” He straightened his head before qualifying, “Actually, no on the servers, period.”

I shook my head. “I . . . don’t follow.”

“It’s simple. You’ll come to my place.”

So this was what frozen dread felt like. “I will?”