Hot Night. Shannon McKenna

      Keep driving. Straight home. Don’t even think about going back to Abby’s place to see if it was true—that she’d wanted him to take things one step further, and whee, off they’d go, down the slippery slope.

      But the poor woman had just been assaulted. If he was really interested in getting involved with her—and oh, was he ever!—then he had to take things slow. Show her that he was one of the good guys.

      What’s a decent interval?

      He laughed to himself. Dangerous question to put to a guy with a raging hard-on, sweetheart. Ten seconds, maybe?

      Weird. He made a point of being sensitive to the fears of women who called him for late-night lockouts. He never came on to them, no matter how cute they were. But he hadn’t wanted to make Abby feel safe. His instinct had been to back her up to the wall, follow up every advantage, and plunder all that sweet bounty. Maybe it was the effect of the fight, if one could call that a fight. He could have hammered that dickless clown in his sleep. It was his glands talking. If he saved the female from the saber-toothed tiger, that meant he got to fuck her, right?

      He could’ve handled the situation with less force, but the sound of her head smacking the wall had severely pissed him off. He’d broken the guy’s nose for sure, maybe sprained his wrist. Dickwad deserved it.

      Hell of a first impression to live down, though.

      Zan pulled up by the old factory building he and his brothers had bought and restored. Granddad and Zan’s youngest brother, Jamie, shared the apartment on the first floor. His sister Fiona’s room was there, too, though she’d been traveling across Asia for months. Free-spirited Fiona. It made him sweat to think of his baby sister wandering through the teeming cities of the world, but he couldn’t chain her down.

      His mother had lived on the first floor, too, before she’d boogied off to Vegas to have her midlife crisis in style. His other two brothers, Christian and Jack, had divided the second floor, although Jack was currently in hermit mode and preferred his eyrie up on Bald Mountain.

      The top floor was Zan’s lair. Arched windows reached from floor to ceiling on both sides. Exposed brick, hardwood floors, open spaces. He hadn’t partitioned it, except for the bathrooms, since he liked one huge, breezy room. The kitchen was at one end, locksmithing equipment at the other. Then there was his work zone, his leisure zone with couches and TV. His motorcycles were parked in a corner. Lots of space left over in the middle to do tai chi. It was tough to heat, but what the hell.

      He killed the motor and pulled out his cell, punching a few buttons that would permanently save Abby Maitland’s number in his phone. He glanced up at the windows of his apartment.

      Shit. That flickering light could only mean one thing. Granddad was awake, and was lying in ambush. He groaned. He didn’t want Granddad to bust his balls tonight. He just wanted to sprawl on his bed, dick in hand, and think about that girl.

      Those slanted, wary brown eyes looked like they’d seen a lot. She had amazing lips, too. Such a unique, sexy shape: the sulky swell of the bottom, the delicate contours of the upper. And that swirling swish of auburn hair, just like the girls in hair conditioner commercials. He’d always figured that ultrashine effect was computer enhanced.

      Abby’s hair was for real. He’d touched it. As soft as it looked.

      And her body. Jesus wept. He didn’t go for female bodies that were stringy and taut, aerobicized down to nothing. He liked them like Abby, tall and strong, but round, too. Full tits and a round, gorgeous ass. The seams of her stockings drew the eye upward to shadowy glories beneath the short skirt. His hand tingled with longing to stroke that luscious curve. He hadn’t actually done it, but it had been a near thing.

      His fantasy took on the form of a classic porn vignette. Horny locksmith comes to the rescue of hot babe, saving her from the evil bad guy. She invites him in, flushed with gratitude, and checks him out boldly, eyes lingering on his lips, then his chest, then his crotch. Her pink tongue flashes out to moisten her bottom lip…and whoa. He should save this one for the shower. Torrents of hot water and a soapy hand.

      The fantasy played on, despite his efforts to squelch it. He pushed the low-cut dress down over her shoulders—just the lightest twitch should do it. Her tits would be propped up in some frilly bra. His mind hung up briefly on her nipple color scheme—pale pink, hot red, beige?

      A light flicked on. Damn. The freight elevator rumbled open, revealing a tall, stooped figure behind the mesh gate. Granddad gave Zan a questioning jerk of his grizzled chin.

      Zan sighed, and yielded to the inevitable. He got out and sauntered to the elevator. “Hey, Granddad. What are you doing awake?”

      “A man don’t need much sleep at my age. I just been thinking.”

      Always a dangerous development, Zan reflected as he stepped into the huge, battered elevator. “What made you decide to do your thinking in my apartment? I don’t remember giving you a key.”

      Granddad glared out from under bushy eyebrows. The elevator began to creak and groan, hauling them up. “I got keys from Chris. Chris ain’t so uppity about his precious privacy. You got some lip, kid.”

      “I’m thirty-six, Granddad,” Zan said patiently. “I’m not a kid. And yeah, I know, Chris is the good grandson these days.”

      “Cut the crap.” Granddad’s voice was snappish.

      The big doors ground open. Granddad had left the TV on. An old black-and-white movie flickered on the screen. “What have you been thinking about that’s keeping you awake?” Zan shrugged off his jacket and sprawled on the couch. Granddad shuffled over to the fridge, returning with two beers that exhaled a fine plume of cold vapor from their open necks. Zan accepted his gratefully and took a long pull.

      “You.” The old man poised himself over the couch and thudded onto the cushions with a grunt. “I been worried about you, Alexander.”

      Zan leaned back, closing his eyes. When Granddad called him Alexander, there was a lecture in the offing. “Here we go again,” he said.

      “You been working too much,” Granddad announced. “You hide in here all day, playing on that goddamn computer—”

      “Working on the computer,” Zan said, with rigid patience. “People pay me money to do it. I bill them. By the hour. Through the nose.”

      “Playing,” Granddad insisted. “It’s like Nintendo. Kids play them things until they don’t know the difference between games and reality. That’s you. You never see normal people. You’re like one of those vampires on those TV shows. It ain’t healthy, and it ain’t normal.”

      Zan ran the icy cold bottle across his forehead. “I promise, I’m not a vampire,” he said. “And you should be glad that business is good.”

      “Business?” Granddad waved his bottle around. He was getting all cranked up. “I’m not talking about business! I’m talking about your life! You make good money, and that’s dandy, but it won’t do you a damn bit of good if you don’t have anything worth spending it on!”

      “Why did you pick me to worry about?” Zan asked. “Why not Jack? He’s more antisocial than I am. Or Fiona. The last call we got was from Katmandu, weeks ago. And Jamie’s got a