Wicked Dirty (Stark World 2)

She'd refreshed her makeup, so she no longer looked freshly kissed, and he was tempted to kiss her again, just to mark her as his.

Except she wasn't his. Couldn't be his.

But that reality didn't erase the desire.

"Come on," he said, more gruffly than he intended, but the small house felt suddenly claustrophobic. "You don't want to be late."

"Right." She fell in step beside him, and he was impressed to see she didn't carry a purse, a rarity with women in his experience.

When he told her as much, she just shrugged. "What's the point? I have my ID and a credit card in my back pocket. And it's not like I can freshen up at work--we're always too busy--and I don't need to carry a key since I'm not driving."

"Still," he said as they left her yard and started down the sidewalk to the intersection. "You're clearly not from planet Hollywood."

She laughed. "Is that a good thing or a bad thing?"

"In my book? A good thing."

For a second, she just looked at him, as if he was a puzzle. He anticipated a question, but when it didn't come, he asked her how she liked the neighborhood.

"Are you kidding? I love it. Of course, I've never lived anywhere else, so..." She trailed off with a shrug. "But unless the 'anywhere else' has a beach, I don't think it would suit me."

"Do you surf?"

"Nope."

"Morning swims for exercise?"

"God, no. If I manage yoga twice a week, I feel like I'm overexerting myself. Besides, I'm on the two-waitressing-jobs fitness plan. Trust me when I say it's one of the best training regimens ever."

She paused in a circle of yellow light cast by one of the streetlamps and looked him slowly up and down, the approval he saw on her face pleasing him more than it should. "Your training regimen seems pretty good, too."

"I'll tell Riley you said so. And you're changing the subject. Why the beach?"

"I don't know." She started walking again. "It just suits me. I've always known it." She tilted her head, looking at him. "Haven't you ever felt that way about something? Just knew in your gut that something was right?"

God, yes.

He felt the thrust of the answer, so quick and firm, like he'd walked smack into a wall. Her. She felt right. She'd slammed into his life like a bolt of lightning, and the world hadn't been level since.

All true. Not to mention confusing as hell. His life was a damn mess, after all. Hell, he was a mess. And right now he was on the crux, his career about to explode. He didn't have time for the messiness of a relationship. He needed to keep his eye on the prize.

"Really?" She was looking at him with interest, and he was mortified to realize he'd said yes out loud. "So what was it? Your thing that struck you as right?"

"Acting," he said, because that was true, too. He hadn't come to Los Angeles to be an actor--that had been Jenny's dream. But when he'd landed that first job, he'd been enchanted by the process. The ability to slide out of his own life, even if only for a while. To become someone else. To see the world through their eyes. To take all of his emotional crap and filter it into something not only different, but good. Something that entertained or moved people.

"Then I guess we're both lucky," she said, and he felt a frisson of connection when she casually took his hand. "I'm by the beach, and you have your dream job."

"I guess we are," he said, ignoring the little twist in his stomach that he felt every time he thought about the upcoming years of the Blue Zenith franchise. Three more movies they wanted him to commit to, plus an option for two after that.

Now, however, wasn't the time to ponder career planning. Not when the night was as beautiful as the woman holding his hand. A woman he wanted to know thoroughly.

"How old were you when your mom and brother died?"

"Eighteen," she said. "And don't bother doing the math. That makes me twenty-three now. Twenty-four in the fall. And you're twenty-nine," she said, then grinned. "I told you I looked you up."

"Very industrious. But I'm interested in you. You were in school when they died?"

"First semester at UCLA. I was a history major, but only because I threw darts at my course selection book. So after the accident, I dropped out. Seemed smarter than racking up student loans when I couldn't even see a career path."