Just One Night(20)
“Pretty sure the only creep on this block is my present company.”
He glanced down at her familiar profile. “Not your best comeback. You okay?”
She glanced away, and his chest tightened. Not okay, then. Damn it.
“Trying the other big-brother role on for size?” she asked, still not looking at him.
“Okay, I’ll bite. What’s that mean?”
This time she did glance at him, and since she was wearing her usual skyscraper
heels, their gazes were nearly level. Sam wasn’t short, but Riley had the tall, long-
legged figure of a model, putting her close to six feet with the right shoes.
“You’re putting a new spin on your big-brother routine,” she explained, her voice
flat. “Usually you take on the little-boy tormentor role. Pushing my buttons, pulling
my hair—”
He nearly laughed. “I have never pulled your hair.”
She gave him a tiny smile. “You’ve wanted to.”
“Only because you’re a brat.” He smiled back.
“See, that,” she said, spinning toward him now that they’d made it to the top of
the stairs leading down to the subway. “That is your usual shtick. Calling me a
brat, pissing me off. Just stick to that.”
“I thought I was,” he said, feeling completely flummoxed by her.
“No, you asked me if I was okay,” she said, jabbing a finger at his chest.
Christ. “So?”
“So don’t,” she snapped. “It’s not your business.”
Sam felt his temper begin to fray. “How do you figure? I’m practically part of your
family.”
“Exactly,” she said, taking a step closer. “Almost, but not.”
It was true, but it stung all the same. He wasn’t related by blood, but the
McKennas were everything to him. This McKenna in particular. And Liam. Liam,
who would really not appreciate there being less than a foot between Riley and
Sam at the moment.
“Fine,” he asked. “I won’t ask if you’re okay. I’ll just go on pissing you off and
making you cry.”
Her nostrils flared. “You didn’t make me cry.”
Sam felt a little jerk of surprise. He’d been joking about the crying thing. He
couldn’t imagine Riley crying, much less crying because of him.
But her nostrils had flared.
You didn’t spend a decade studying someone and not know when they were
lying. And just then when she’d said he didn’t make her cry?
She’d been lying.
He’d stumbled on the truth by a lucky guess, and the truth sucked.
“Talk to me, Ri,” he said, unable to stop from reaching for her hand. “I don’t get
what’s going on with you tonight.”
She snorted. “Oh, it’s just tonight you don’t know? Like you know what’s going on
with me the rest of the time?”
He took a deep breath. “I think I’ve got a pretty good idea, yeah.”
Riley gave a little shake of her head, dislodging a strand of hair from its messy
bun. His fingers itched to reach out and touch it. Just once.
Instead he shoved his hands into his back pockets. Which turned out to be damn
fortuitous, because she took a step closer and the urge to reach for her was
instinctive and fierce.
“You don’t know the first thing about me,” she said, her voice going husky and
dangerous. “Not the real me.”
“Don’t I?” Damn it, he couldn’t think straight when she was standing so close,
drowning him in her sweet and spicy scent.
“No,” she whispered, her eyes meeting his before they moved to his mouth. “But
you’re about to find out.”
She pulled back just as he was leaning forward, and she was gone and walking
down the steps to the subway platform without a glance back.
He closed his eyes briefly and forced himself to turn around instead of going after
her and showing her exactly what happened to women who added a lit match to
an already volatile relationship.
For years Sam had been bracing for the inevitable moment when he and Riley
would cross that line, and while they hadn’t quite gone there, she’d strolled pretty
close to that line with her sex-kitten shoes.
“Damn you, Riley,” he muttered to himself, completely alone on the peaceful
Brooklyn street. “Don’t go complicating things.”
Only he was pretty sure they’d been on the road of complicated ever since he’d
walked into the McKenna kitchen for the first time at nineteen and seen her sitting
on that stool looking way better than any seventeen-year-old girl had any right to
look.
Ten minutes later he’d looked his best friend in the eye and agreed that Riley