Wilde for Her (A Wilde Security Novel) (Entangled Brazen) by Tonya Burrows Page A

out about it, and he had no idea how to put her at ease.
    He cast around for something comforting to say…
    And settled on lying through his teeth.
    “What are you talking about? We’re not gonna lose anything.” Even as he laughed it off, he felt like a complete ass. She hated liars, and here he was feeding her the biggest line of bullshit ever. “That night in Key West? It was one night of drunk sex. No big deal.”
    She dropped her arms to her sides and the splashes of color he loved so much drained right out of her complexion. “I thought…with the things you said…you don’t want more than that?”
    Fuck yes he did, but not until she was comfortable with the idea. He forced a chuckle, relieved when it came out sounding natural and not like a frog had taken up residence in his throat. “C’mon, you know me. Am I the type of guy to settle down and do the relationship thing? Nah. We’re good. Still friends.”
    …
    Ouch.
    No. She shoved away the completely ridiculous spike of pain his words sent spearing through her chest. This was a good thing. He didn’t want any kind of relationship with her beyond their friendship. She should be relieved. Dammit, she was relieved.
    So why the hell was her throat tightening up?
    Exhaustion, that’s why. She was too damn tired to be having this conversation with him. “I need to go.”
    As she spun away, his sigh was noisy and full of resignation. “Let me get my jacket.”
    “What?” She whirled around in time to see him open the closet and pull out a pair of beat-up Nikes, which he slipped his bare feet into, and his new winter coat. Oh, hell no. The whole point of leaving was to escape him. “I’m perfectly capable—”
    “It wasn’t an offer,” he interrupted with a scowl as he stuffed his arms in the sleeves. “It was a statement of fact. You’ve been awake too many hours to be driving anywhere and I’ll feel like shit if you fall asleep at the wheel and kill yourself.”
    Well, that was a cheery thought. And, she realized, a very real possibility since her eyelids now weighed about fifty pounds each. “What about my car? I’ll need it tomorrow for—”
    “I’ll drive yours and take a cab home.” He picked up his wallet from the foyer table then opened the door for her and stood aside, motioning her to go first.
    No sense in trying to talk him out of it. She recognized the mulish expression on his face. His mind was made up and talking him out of anything right now would be like trying to stop the sunrise. Impossible.
    Resigned, she walked to the door—and came up short, awed at the blanket of white greeting her. Snow dumped from the sky in huge, heavy flakes, completely covering the street. Already, power lines and tree branches sagged with the weight of it. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
    Cam peeked around the edge of the door and clicked his tongue against his teeth. “And the Snow-pocalypse has arrived. We’re not going anywhere tonight.”
    He shut them in together again and a rising sense of panic sent her pacing across the foyer. This cannot be happening. She was only here for twenty, maybe thirty minutes, tops. How could there possibly be that much snow on the ground? “What Snow-pocalypse?”
    “Haven’t you seen the news?” Sliding out of his coat, Cam strode back to the living room and found the television remote. She followed, dreading what she’d see when he turned on the screen mounted over the fireplace.
    Sure enough, the local news featured 24-hour coverage of the winter storm, and from the looks of the radar, it was a big one. Someone needed to smack the Hollywood-handsome meteorologist, who took way too much delight in informing his viewership he expected ten to twelve inches in the next twenty-four hours. Across the bottom of the screen, names of closed buildings and canceled events scrolled by on a red banner. Hell, even a few schools had already decided the mess wouldn’t be cleaned up by Monday and had called a snow