"They won't."
His confidence annoyed me. "How can you be sure?"
"I hired drivers," he said. "Always do."
"Really?"
"Yeah. A local company. Mostly college kids. It gives me one less thing to worry about." He gave a short laugh. "Plus, it keeps people from trying to crash at my place. It's a lot easier to kick 'em out when I'm paying someone to drive them home."
"Oh."
"Although," he said with a laugh, "I don't normally kick them out quite so suddenly."
Heat rose to my face. "I'm really sorry about all this."
"Don't be." His voice was quiet in the shadows. "I'm not."
"You sure?" I gave a nervous laugh. "I literally took the shirt off your back." I swallowed, thinking how nice he looked – and felt – without one. "You're probably wishing I'd just go away already."
He leaned forward, and I swear, I felt heat emanating off him in waves. "Whatever I'm wishing for," he said, "it's not that."
My heart fluttered at that certain something I heard in his voice. It was something I hadn't heard before. Not from him, anyway. We'd been together a lot lately, but never like this, and never in the dark. "Butyoumust be freezing," I said.
"Nope."
"Liar."
"No lie here." He wrapped his arms tighter around me to whisper in my ear. "Here a beautiful girl falls from the sky right into my lap, and you think I'm gonna let something as stupid as the temperature bother me?"
"Beautiful?" I said with a little shiver that had nothing to do with the cold.
"Don't forget half-naked," said a guy's voice from somewhere in the shadows.
With a gasp, I pulled away.
The dick was back.
Muttering a soft curse, Lawton glared in the general direction of the guy's voice. "Don't you have a bunch of people to get rid of?" he asked.
Slowly, the guy appeared out of the shadows. "Already done," he said.
I looked up. "That quick?"
"Yup," the guy said, turning his gaze to Lawton, "but I wouldn’t be expecting any thank you cards, if you know what I mean."
"I can live with that," Lawton said.
"I'm heading out," the guy said. "See ya in an hour." As we watched, he turned away and disappeared silently into the shadows.
"Well, he's interesting," I said.
"You don't know the half of it."
"Where's he going, anyway?"
Lawton shrugged. "Who knows."
"Is he like a security guy or something?"
