Page 58 of Crossed Wires: The Complete Series

Is that why you’re nervous now, Dylan? You’ve been caught with your pants down? In the metaphorical sense? Here for one woman and kissing another in front of a crowd?

No, he was nervous because he didn’t know what to say to Monet. What to do when they crossed the threshold into her apartment and the door closed behind them. Because try as he might, and for Annie’s sake, he was trying bloody hard, he couldn’t forget how amazing Monet felt in his arms.

The soft chime of the lift told him they’d stopped, as did the sudden clunk of the twin doors sliding apart.

Dylan’s heart smashed into his throat. He drove his nails into his palms.

Walk into her flat, ask to use the phone and call home. That’s what you’re going to do. Walk in, call Hunter, ask him about Annie, talk to Annie and then take a shower. And once you’re under the water, take matters into your own hands and flog the shit out of your dick until all these traitorous, wrong thoughts about Monet are gone. That’s what you’re going to?—

“Dylan? Are you going down again?”

He blinked at Monet’s question, and before he could stop it, an image of him burying his face between her long thighs filled his head. His cock pulsed in his jeans, more than happy with the idea of going down on her.

“Dylan?”

She stood outside the lift, holding the doors apart with one hand, wearing an expression he’d call apprehensive.

Stay in the lift, Sullivan. Say “see ya later, Monet”, hit the down button and get your arse back to Farpoint.

“Monet,” he began, blood roaring in his ears. “I…”

“I’ll make us a cup of coffee and you can have a shower while I call the airline,” she said. “See if I can locate your luggage for you.”

He should have stuck to his guns. He should have said, “No, I’ll get a hotel room.” But he didn’t. With a nod, his chest so tight he could barely draw breath, he stepped from the lift.

What are you doing, Sullivan?

He didn’t have an answer. Not one he wanted to consider, anyway. He followed Monet down the hall, past a row of doors that, like the buildings outside, highlighted the fact he was a fish out of water. Behind every door was a different home. A different family. All living side by side with their neighbors, almost in each other’s hip pockets. So close you’d be able to hear them shout at the telly while watching the latest cricket match. The closest neighbors Dylan had back home were a thousand kilometers away, six hundred and twenty-one miles as the crow flies. You could have the whole of this apartment complex come watch the backyard game of cricket and his neighborsstillwouldn’t hear the shouts and cheers.

Every step he took closer to Monet’s door drove it home. He was somewhere he wasn’t meant to be. What the hell was he doing? Even if things had worked out with Annie, he was an Australian bloody grazier. Not a city boy. He was meant to be rounding up cattle, not punching out art collectors. He shouldn’t have come. This was lunacy. Lunacy.

“This is it.” Monet stopped at a door at the end of the hallway. Dylan drew in a shaky breath, staring hard at the gold metal number screwed onto what looked like polished oak—42D.

“And that’s Annie’s home just there.”

Monet pointed behind Dylan and he turned, a thick lump forming in his throat at the sight of the closed door opposite Monet’s.

41D. Annie’s home. The apartment he was meant to be sleeping in tonight.

The sound of a lock releasing, followed by the soft clunk of a door opening, turned him back to Monet. She had crossed the threshold into her home and was standing a few feet inside, watching him.

It’s now or never, Dylan. Are you going to tempt fate? Or run?

He stepped into Monet’s apartment.

An unreadable tension pulled at her features. She took a quick breath and then turned away from him, crossing the simply decorated room. “The bathroom is through there,” she threw over her shoulder, waving a hand toward a corridor that disappeared behind a state-of-the-art kitchen. “There are clean towels hanging on the racks and new soap in the cupboard under the basin. I’m sorry I can’t help you with clothes. You’ll just have to?—”

She stopped talking, as if what she was about to say next refused to leave her throat.

Go naked?

Dylan ground his teeth at his mental completion of her sentence. A shower was definitely in order. A cold one. Icy in fact.

Shucking out of his beat-up denim jacket, he placed it over the back of the closest armchair and headed for the bathroom. “Thanks for this,” he said, trying not to watch Monet’s path through her apartment. “Won’t be long.”

He had to get a grip. Hell, if nothing else, he had to clear his head. Apart from the quick nap he’d had on the flight from Sydney to LA, he hadn’t slept for over twenty-four hours. Perhaps that was the explanation for his bloody disgusting behavior?

Bullshit. And you know it. As much as you don’t want to admit it, you’re attracted to Monet. The kiss was just the tip of the iceberg.

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