Between the Sheets Read Online Free

threat of that wrench. Immediately he dropped his arm and smiled, sheepishly. It was a disarming smile on a man so big. Gave his fearsome size a softness.
    “Sorry.” His voice was low and deep. Gravelly, likehe’d just woken up or hadn’t been speaking for a while. It was an intimate voice. Private. “You scared me.”
    He was over six feet tall, packed with muscles and power, wearing a tee shirt that probably said I’ve done five years for assault .
    Scaring him seemed ludicrous.
    “Yes, well, you’ve been scaring us for the last three nights.”
    “I’m sorry?”
    “I live across the street.” He glanced over her shoulder at her big white farmhouse as if it had just magically appeared for the first time.
    “Hey, we’re neighbors. Nice to meet you,” he said. He put the wrench in his pocket and stepped out of the garage, across the driveway toward her with his hand out. “My name is Ty. Short for Wyatt. Wyatt Svenson. People just always call me Ty.”
    “I’m … Shelby. Shelby Monroe.” She shook his hand, looking into his face for any reaction from him. Any recognition of her name or what had happened to her on national television six months ago. But his expression was blank, genial. As if it were noon instead of midnight, and neighborly small talk at this hour made sense.
    “Can I get you something?” He jerked his thumb back at the garage. “A beer? Never had a house with a garage before, much less a garage with a beer fridge, and I had no idea what I was missing.”
    “It’s midnight, Wyatt,” she said. She wouldn’t use his nickname. Ty. And even his full name felt too familiar, but this man with the grease stains on his hands was hardly a Mr. Svenson. “I don’t want a beer.”
    “It’s midnight?” A furrow appeared between his wide blue eyes. “You’ve got to be kidding. I thought it was ten.”
    “Maybe you should put a clock over your beer fridge.”
    “I suppose you can hear the bike, huh?” He rubbed his hand across the back of his neck and smiled at her, looking at her through his eyelashes. Like every high school sophomore who didn’t do his art assignment and came looking for a pass.
    “Yes. I can hear the bike. I have heard the bike. Last night until three in the morning. And it’s a weeknight. Some of us have to work.”
    “I’m sorry.” His wide mouth kicked up in a crooked, boyish grin. At some point someone must have told him he was charming, because he was waving that grin around like it was a get-out-of-jail-free card. “I am. I lost track of time. I found this old Velocette and the carburetor—”
    “I don’t particularly care. Please.” She gave him a raking look. From his blond hair to the frayed cuffs of his jeans, just so he knew she wasn’t scared of him or charmed or impressed by his muscles and frankly … she just wanted to be awful. It went against everything she was taught, all the things she believed, but at the moment, she was flat out of grace. The pressure valve on her life hadn’t been loosened in a very long time. And being awful to this guy … for very little reason, it let off some of that steam. She wasn’t proud of it, but for the moment it felt good. Like eating cheap chocolate.
    She crossed her arms over her chest and backed out of the light into the shadows toward her house. “Just keep it down.”
    Blank-faced, he nodded, and she turned, walking home.
    She was nearly at the road, acutely aware that her baby toe had gone numb in her slipper, when he spoke again.
    “Pleasure meeting you, neighbor.” He wasn’t so charming now, and the next word was not a surprise.She’d heard it more times than she could count, from older students she wouldn’t let charm her into a better grade. From strangers who didn’t see past her prickly and cold surface.
    From her father, once he gave up the ruse of loving her.
    She’d heard it so much, with far more venom than this man could muster, that it didn’t come close to piercing that