Out of Control by Shannon McKenna Page B

calculus homework? Miles, who should I go out with, Rob, Rick or Randy?’ ”
    Miles’s mouth set into a hard, angry line. “It’s not like that.”
    Sean cleared his throat in the silence that followed. “Uh…maybe Miles and I should hit the road. You sound like you need a serious time out. We’ll take the Chinese with us, if you don’t want it.”
    â€œYeah.” Miles sprang to his feet. “Let’s go. Like, right now.”
    Davy lifted his glass in silent apology as Sean and Miles left. Waves lapped rhythmically at the pebble beach below the porch in the silence they left in their wake. Usually it was a restful, meditative sound. Tonight, it struck him as soggy, depressing. Repetitive.
    He was ashamed of himself. He had no right to criticize poor feckless Miles. He’d done stupider things himself for a woman. Would’ve done them again tonight, in fact. All night long, if Margot had let him.
    The evening ticked by, impossibly slow. He wandered from room to room, discarding books and magazines. He surfed the net, the tube, but nothing was remotely interesting. It all seemed empty. The silence was so thick, it clogged his brain, but any music he put on irked him.
    Evening stretched into an endless night. He finally wandered into the bedroom and dragged his jeans off to give his relentless boner some air. He sprawled out on the bed, but instead of sleep, he slid right into a series of erotic waking dreams about Margot. Kinky stuff, charged with anger and power games. Struggling against ropes, staring up into her bright eyes as she taunted him, showed him how helpless he was.
    Very weird. He wondered what the hell that was about. Bondage games had never remotely entered his mind in terms of bed play. That was for bored people who needed to shock dulled senses to life. And God knows he went to great lengths in his life to avoid feeling helpless.
    There was nothing dull about his senses. The dream memory of writhing beneath her beautiful body was vivid to the point of pain. He covered his face with one hand and gripped his stone-hard cock with a growl of frustration. There was no reasoning with his hard-on tonight, with the memory of her slim, strong shoulders beneath his hands so fresh in his mind. The fine texture of the skin on her neck. The look on her face, when she was thinking about letting him take her to bed.
    His heart had beat so hard it almost exploded out of his chest.
    If she’d kissed him, he would have gone for it and fucked her anyway, in spite of all the question marks. Everything about her turned him on, even her clumsy lies. They didn’t come to her easily. It was almost endearing. The woman couldn’t tell a decent lie to save her life.
    The way his mind had couched that passing thought sent an uneasy chill down his back. He shrugged it aside.
    Years of interviewing witnesses had made him expert in the study of body language. Margot was prickly and defensive because she was afraid, not guilty. She was no scam artist. She would crash and burn if she ever tried that line of work, the way her feelings were plastered on her face. She was proud, tough, principled. Impulsive. Scared to death, but more scared of the cops than she was of her bloodthirsty stalker.
    Something even bigger and nastier lurked in her past. It would be a challenge to get past her wall of thorns. Challenge stimulated him, though after the Fleur debacle, he made a big effort to avoid challenges in his love life. He tried to keep things simple. Uncomplicated.
    â€œTried” being the operative word, women being what they were.
    Curiosity burned him like acid. It wasn’t his problem or his responsibility, but he wanted to nab this asshole who was terrorizing her. The more he thought about it, the more it pissed him off. He wanted to pin the sadistic fuckhead’s balls to the wall.
    He rolled up off the bed, restless and jittery, and wandered into the bathroom. He