Night Moves

It had been a rhetorical question, and one he hadn’t bothered answering. They’d never dated in high school or college, unless you counted the string of double dates, including a lot of dates-gone-bad where the two of them had ended up talking together in the bowling alley or on the dance floor while their respective dates had gotten plastered or flirted with someone else.

As the years passed, he dated often and sex was a given, of course. On occasion, he and El would get sloppy drunk and joke about going to bed, but they were never serious. They’d known each other for years—years—so why was he suddenly seeing her in a different light? Desperation born of the fact that he hadn’t yet met another woman who could make him laugh as she did? Another woman he wanted to spend hours with watching late-night episodes of Monty Python?

No, it was more than that. Ella wasn’t a last resort, she was his only resort. It had just taken him an ungodly amount of time to realize it.

And now—this week—he’d realized something else, too: he had to tell her. He had to risk everything and tell his best friend that he loved her.

Of course, a part of him believed that if he told Ella how he felt, it wouldn’t be unrequited. Or, even if it was, that she’d put him in some stratosphere different from the other men in her life. Him she’d surely keep in the Palm Pilot.

Trouble was, he couldn’t be sure. He couldn’t imagine Ella ever shoving him out of her life. But things happened every day that he couldn’t imagine. Like, for example, him moving back to Texas. Who would have thought after managing to escape the hellhole that had been his childhood that he’d willingly go back?

But here he was, two days shy of leaving New York to head back to Houston, Texas, to join a handpicked Justice Department task force. A huge vote of confidence for a second-year attorney, especially when coupled with his superior’s promise that if he did as well as they were expecting, he’d be transferred to D.C. once the task force disbanded.

Working for the U.S. Attorney’s office in D.C. Now that was a gamble worth taking. He’d be a fool to walk away. And where his career was concerned, Shane was no fool.

About Ella, though…on that front, he’d admit to a little foolishness, especially lately. Foolishness with an edge, though. Foolishness with a plan.

For the past two years, he’d helped put away some of the nastiest criminals to face the Justice Department. He’d aced law review, interned for two federal judges and basically kicked butt where the law was concerned. He could plan, collect evidence and cross-examine a witness with the best of them. He might be raw, but he was getting better every day. Honing his skills, building his craft.

Now he was going to put those skills to work for personal reasons. He was going to tell her. Today. And he was going to prove to her that he was the man she belonged with, that she was his and always had been, even before either of them had realized it. He’d procrastinated for six months, but now he was on the verge of heading back to Texas. He couldn’t wait any longer.

But it wasn’t just the trip that was prodding him forward now. If that were it, he could take the coward’s way out, fly to the new job, get settled, then fly back up to talk to Ella.

But there were other factors in play now. From what Ella had been saying recently, Tony was going to propose soon. And Shane couldn’t lose her that way—not because some other man took her right out from under him. Especially when Tony was the wrong man for her. And Shane had no doubt that Tony was wrong. Ella was enamored, that much was true. But she was also trying too hard, smoothing out her own edges so that she could fit into the box that Tony expected her to fit into.

If, at the end of the day, she chose Tony, then so be it. But she needed to know all the facts. And the one big glaring fact was that Shane loved her. He wanted her. And they fitted together smoothly, perfectly without one alteration to her rough edges.

He knew that fact without a doubt, even as much as he knew that Ella might fight that simple truth. She had her reasons for wanting Tony, and he understood them. That understanding gave him an advantage, one he intended to use.

He glanced toward the kitchen, where he’d left his briefcase, smiling when he remembered what it contained. Not briefs and notes and legal memorandums, but still something he’d put all of his skill into creating. A little bit of demonstrative evidence for the plan he’d come to think of as Shane v. Tony, Judge Ella presiding.

He knew he might end up destroying their friendship. But he had to take the risk. Because, for the first time in their lives, another man might claim her for good. And Shane wasn’t about to lose without even being in the game.

He’d win her over. He’d do it tonight.

Because in this game, Shane didn’t intend to play fair.

2

ELLA PRESSED HER LEGS tightly together, determined not to let her imagination get the better of her. Were the fantasy about Tony—or anyone else, for that matter—she might have just gone with the flow. Even better, she might have headed home, drawn a hot bath, then lay naked on her bed and…

But this was Shane in her head, and he really had no business being there. More to the point, she had no business putting him there. He was her best friend, not her lover, and these wild thoughts were nothing more than the product of an active imagination. Really.

It took a more or less superhuman effort—and a Diet Coke from the machine on the first floor—but Ella managed to get her mind off Shane. Or, more to the point, off the vision of a hot and sweaty Shane who was doing absolutely delicious things to her body.

Her Shane wasn’t dangerous. This imaginary Shane, however…

Ella let out a low, involuntary moan, hiding the reaction by taking the last swallow of soda, then tossing the can into the garbage. She headed back to her study carrel, her mind wandering back to her friend despite every effort to shift her thoughts to something less dangerous, like, say, nuclear holocaust.

No such luck, and with a sigh she gave in, accepting the fact that, for whatever reason, Shane was on her mind.

That wasn’t even the problem, actually. He’d certainly been on her mind before. He was her best friend, after all. She thought about him all the time. But thoughts of a hot, naked, sexy Shane…a Shane whose rough fingers touched her and stroked her…

She shook her head, settling back into her seat. That Shane didn’t belong in her thoughts. More importantly, she didn’t know where the thoughts had come from. He was her friend. He had never even been on her nonplatonic radar. Not even one little bit.

They knew each other too well, too intimately, and nothing had ever once happened. In college, they’d slept over at each other’s dorms, camped out in hotel rooms when they’d traveled back to Texas and been in every type of closed-quarter sort of situation. She’d never wanted to sleep with him.

Until today.

No, she corrected. She did not want to sleep with him. And even if she did—a teeny, tiny little bit—she wasn’t stupid enough to go through with it. Shane was too important to her. And so, for that matter, was Tony.

Frustrated, Ella shoved her books aside, then rubbed her temples. As Saturdays went, this one was really not going well.

“I’ve got some Advil in my purse if you need it.”

Ella jumped at the calm voice behind her laced with just a bit of humor. Veronica Archer, her professor for Lit 317, Erotica and the Victorian Society. And her friend.

When Ella spun around, she saw that Ronnie was smiling, and she returned the grin. Veronica Archer was stunningly beautiful and extremely self-assured, but she’d never seemed unapproachable.

“What are you doing among the stacks on a Saturday?”

“Looking for you, actually,” Ronnie said. “I called your apartment and Shane told me you were camped out here working on a paper for my class.”

“You talked to Shane?” Ella fought to keep her voice from squeaking.

“Like I said, he told me you were here.”

“Oh.”

Ronnie’s brow furrowed and she looked over Ella’s shoulder at the open page of text. A slow grin spread across her face. “Well, that explains why you looked so distracted when I walked up.”

Ella snapped the book shut. “Don’t tease me. I’ve got an academic interest only. You should know. It’s your class I’m working on.”

“I’m not teasing. I’m totally serious. You’re the one who told me Tony’s about to pop the question. Is it really that big a stretch to assume the direction your mind is going when reading erotica?”

“Oh. Right. Tony. Yes.” She drew in a breath and told herself to just shut up because babbling really wasn’t working for her.

“Weren’t you—oh.”

Ella closed her eyes and counted to five. “There’s no ‘oh’ about it,” she finally said when she looked Ronnie in the face again. “My mind was just wandering. That’s all.”

“To Shane,” Ronnie said. She nodded sagely. “Interesting.”

“Excuse me? What are you talking about?”

“Admit it,” Ronnie retorted, “you were thinking about Shane when I came up. That explains that little catch in your voice.”

“There was no—”