A Low Down Dirty Shane by Sierra Dean Read Free Book Online Page B

bored-sounding, “Hello?”
    “Shane?”
    A pause, then a rustling noise followed by the sound of him clearing his throat. “Red?”
    Her heart thumped traitorously when he used a nickname for her. She’d never mattered enough to anyone before to warrant a nickname.
    “Everything okay?” he asked, his tone laced with genuine concern. “You’re not… Are you okay?”
    She was not—in fact—at all okay, yet she found herself nodding. She stopped bobbing her head when she remembered he couldn’t see her.
    “My father came to see me today.”
    “Oh?”
    “Shane, I hate to do this…”
    “Let me guess.” She could almost hear his cocky grin through the phone. “You need my help?”

Chapter Ten
    Shane lived in Brooklyn, and Siobhan didn’t have the patience to wait for him to meet her near her end of town, so she retraced her steps from the previous night and met him halfway across the Brooklyn Bridge. It was hard not to be impressed with the beauty of New York at night when it sprawled out brightly in front of her. She hadn’t been born in the city. She’d been dumped here at fifteen with the eighteen-year-old Percy to help her find her feet.
    She’d learned to take care of herself fast as hell when Percy died.
    It had happened on an almost identical night, only he’d died in the fall not the spring. They’d finished tracking down a flora-fae that had been making a nuisance of itself by causing ivy to grow over buildings at an alarming rate, to the point of sealing people inside. The fae had been her first live banishment, and she and Percy had been in high spirits.
    They hadn’t realized they were being followed. Not until the goblin had Percy by the throat. In the fight that had followed, Siobhan had honestly believed they would both make it out alive. One goblin against two trained druid warriors? The odds should have been stacked in their favor. They had nearly succeeded too. Except Percy hadn’t looked away when she’d cast the goblin out.
    And Siobhan had forgotten goblins have two hearts.
    When the creature grabbed Percy a second time, there had been nothing she could do to save him. He’d been too close to the circle, and when the banishing was complete, Siobhan had been left alone on the empty street.
    She thought she’d hate New York forever after that. But ten years later she still caught herself marveling at the show her second home managed to put on every time the sun went down.
    When she reached the second set of arches, the ones on the Brooklyn side, Shane was ambling up the bridge’s pedestrian path, his lean form stretched a few inches higher than most of the other tourists. He wore a leather jacket and motorcycle boots, his hair properly styled into a sexy, tousled, almost Mohawk.
    Sexy?
    Siobhan caught herself thinking about the way his hair had looked the night before after she’d practically yanked it all out when his head was buried between her legs. Her freckles must have turned a whole new shade of brown as her cheeks flushed deep scarlet. What the hell was wrong with her?
    He gave her a crooked smile when he came to stand in front of her, and her knees wobbled.
    “Stop that,” she grumbled.
    “Stop…what?”
    “Look.” She jabbed a finger into his chest, and he winced. “You can’t flirt with me, or be charming, and you have to stop looking at me. And…breathing.”
    “You think I’m charming?”
    “This is serious .”
    Shane set his mouth in a firm line and held his hands up in surrender before shoving them into the pockets of his jacket. The lapels fanned open briefly, and she saw the two-gun holster he had strapped on over his white wife beater. The undershirt was thin enough she could see the darker skin on his rib cage where his tattoo was. Her throat got dry, and she had to lick her lips to keep them from cracking.
    This was why sex was dangerous, she suddenly understood. It made people stupid, zombie-like freaks who just wanted more and more