Page 84 of Shark’s Edge

“I said we, and I meant we.”

I punctuated my declaration with a solid thump to his sternum. He just glared as if I’d just flung a foam dart at him. “No,” he growled. “And I mean it, Abbigail. This is a solo-spun mess. And so—”

“It’s going to be a solo-spun disaster, as well. Unless you stop marching in your pigheaded parade and accept a little help from someone who cares.”

The way he blinked, then stared, and then huffed out a breath was as though it were the first time he’d ever come face-to-face with the concept.

Through a bemused smile, he said, “Good Christ. Someone . . . who cares.”

“That’s what I said.” I folded my arms and tried to temper my satisfaction. He wanted to like the idea of going at this together as much as I liked the idea of helping him through a crisis.

“I don’t know what . . . I don’t know how . . . It seems so unnecessary.”

“Why? This shouldn’t be a shock to you, Sebastian. All you have to do is look around. People probably offer to help you all the time. You just have to let them.”

My instincts had my brain bracing for any number of reactions—none of which included his clasp of my body followed by his kiss.

Not that I was complaining. Not one damn bit.

By the time he was done massaging my tonsils with his tongue, I was ready to propose that desk fuck again . . . if it weren’t for the glaring pages still centered on its surface.

“How was that?” he drawled, adding an enticing nip at my bottom lip for good measure. “Were you helping me just then, baby?”

The balls of his shoulders got the brunt of my smacks this time. “Well, I’d like to be the only one who helps you that way. But focus. We need your mind in better places now.”

His gaze still hinted at mischief, but I didn’t waste time on more correction.

Without ceremony, I nodded down at his keyboard in an implied request to access his computer. He swept out a hand, wordlessly granting the permission I sought. I smiled and swiftly typed into the search window.

Spotlight News Los Angeles

After scrolling down the news channel’s main page, I released a whoosh of relief. “All right. We still have time. If she’d really done it and implicated you as this letter states, it’d be the first or second item on the page.”

But when I straightened, Sebastian was waiting with a full glower. “We have time?” he charged. “For what? Abbi, what the hell are you—”

“Not me. We. We’re in this together, remember? And we need to stop her from doing this.” My God. Was I really the cockier one in the room right now? “If we get lucky and find her quickly.” But cocky went away when I faced the gritty truth of what I had to say next. “But we have to start at the beginning. Do you remember this girl, Sebastian? What is her name?” I scanned the letter again. “Cinnamon?”

Sebastian pivoted. Stabbed his hand through his hair. Most noticeably, he left the vicinity of my personal space. That alone warned me to prepare for his answer.

“I have no idea who she is.”

And thank God I’d prepared.

“Well, if her name is Cinnamon, that means she’s probably a redhead.” Freaking great. Did this mean he had a type for his one-night stands? One I fit perfectly into? Why was Rio’s face popping into my mind so easily? “Does that help narrow it down at all?”

“Barely,” he gritted. “Especially because the hair’s probably a wig. Strippers change their hairpieces more often than their underwear.” He pulled his hand out of his hair and waved it in a dismissive arc. “She’s probably the Little Mermaid one night, then a desperate housewife, and a naughty nurse the next.”

I dashed my gaze back down to the top of the desk—though for what purpose, I was clueless. I’d already listened to the certainty with which he rattled off that colorful role-playing list—and as a result had already envisioned him being a willing fuck buddy for every one of them. The island prince to her mermaid. The gardener to her bored housewife. The dominating doctor to her illicit nurse.

And I’d just been insisting we do this together . . . why? Or, more accurately, what the hell had I been high on? Yet here I was, still grilling LA’s most famous lothario about a conquest he couldn’t even remember—less than fifteen minutes after I’d tried seducing him to screw me on his desk.

But I could worry about getting psychotherapy tomorrow. Right now, there were much more dire things to stress about. Like a woman’s life.

I pulled out my phone for my next web search. No need for the Shark Enterprises system to see that Sebastian’s computer had been used to look up LA’s leading gentlemen’s clubs. “If there really is any way for us to find her, we have to track down where she might work.”

“Now that I can answer.” He almost looked proud to be useful again.

I looked up as he slid closer to the monitors. And focused on breathing as he fixed the blue flames of his gaze back on me—