Owen drove slowly along the ocean road, using his good hand and trying to ignore the deep, toothache-like pain in his injured shoulder. An awkward silence had fallen since he’d gotten Lainey’s address, broken only by her soft hiccups. He glanced at her as they waited for a light to turn. She was leaning against the window, her thick, honey-blonde hair covering the left side of her face.

Without realizing he was doing it, he let his gaze flicker down her body. The light blue, business-casual blouse gaped just enough, given her sprawled state, to allow him a killer view of her boobs. Which were impressive. But Owen was an ass and legs man, and this girl had those things in spades. He sighed as he drank her in, and his good hand gripped the steering tighter as he imagined running his palms up her calves to her thighs, to her hips, and around to her full, tight, perky ass.

“Take a picture, it’ll last longer,” she muttered, sweeping that thick fall of hair back and clipping it at the crown of her head. “Pig.”

“I stand accused,” he admitted as he waved to the guy who’d given him a warning honk and gunned the Jeep through the intersection. Somehow, the moment that should have been awkward wasn’t.

He’d spent the last two months getting comfortable in his new life. The nice apartment with the beach view he could afford, thanks to the jaw-dropping salary the GAPS guys had agreed to pay him. The new wheels. The way he felt at home among the former and current military guys who peopled his new workplace. And, of course, his closest workmate, the super-competent Lainey.

The girl whose physical attributes were bandied around the gym and the men’s room outside of her hearing with regularity. So much so, Owen had steeled himself against them, all of them, so they could work well together.

Hot As Fuck.

Brick Shithouse.

An ass you could bounce a quarter off.

A rack that would put Victoria’s Secret out of business.

Cupid’s bow mouth that would look even better wrapped around my dick.

He’d refused to acknowledge any of it, or the fact that the more he heard it the more it pissed him off. But he’d also refused to take a real look at her. On purpose. That bitch Hannah had done a serious number on his psyche. That much was a hard truth. He didn’t trust himself not to lash out at the first woman he could get his hands on.

A strange sort of protectiveness about Lainey had reared up in his psyche, shocking him into silence in the face of the sort of shitty, misogonistic, locker-room talk he’d participated in plenty in his younger days. But today, he’d seen her. Really, truly taken in her unbelievable, physical magnificence and it had rendered him damn near useless. Probably why he’d gotten pegged in the fucking shoulder by the stupid computer nerd who’d turned on his big boss man within seconds.

The last hour or so he’d spent observing her, eating and drinking and laughing and being so utterly perfect had pushed him to act, finally. He smiled to himself, hoping he’d done the right thing, for both of their sakes.

He made the turns she indicated and pulled up at a two-story house with five cars parked in the drive, a couple of dudes lolling on the front porch, and a mangy dog tied to a tree. Frowning, he turned to her, but she was already opening her door.

“Wait,” he said, putting a hand on her thigh. The heat of her skin baked through the fabric of her jeans and made him jerk away from her as if she’d lit him on fire. “I mean, hold on a second.”

She hiccupped and looked even more miserable than she had before, which did nothing to dispel the fact of her jaw-dropping beauty. Owen licked his lips, got out, and walked around to her side of the car. Ignoring the blatant stares of the assholes on the porch, he planted a hand on the small of her back and guided her through the broken gate, up the cracked sidewalk, and to the front door.

“Nice hardware,” one of the d-bags said. “Didn’t know it was Halloween already.”

Owen tightened his grip on Lainey’s elbow as she fumbled with her keys. “Door’s open, hot stuff,” one of the other guys quipped as he tossed an empty beer can down on the porch floor with a loud clank. She sighed and opened it, then turned to face him.

Owen felt every hackle he possessed rising at the thought of leaving her here, in her current state, at the mercy of these losers. “Let’s go,” he said, pulling the door shut behind her and taking her arm again. “You are not staying here.”

“Let go of me,” she insisted, shaking him off. “I don’t need your damn help.”

“Yeah, G.I. Gimp,” the peanut gallery chimed in. “You heard our little hottie. Beat it and take your PTSD with ya.”

He could hear them slapping high fives over the roaring sound that was rising in his ears. “You’re not staying here, Lainey. Not tonight.” He could feel the tension rising off his skin, permeating the air between them. She crossed her arms over her lovely chest and glared at him.

“I’m fine. I just need to sleep it off.”

“Oh, baby, I thought you promised me a date,” one of the drunks said, before making sloppy kissing noises. “I like my dates good and loaded.”

Lainey rolled her eyes. “They’re all talk, trust me.”

“See, that’s the thing. I don’t. Let’s go.” He took her by the elbow and frog marched her back to his Jeep. She made a few splutters of protest, but he could tell she was fading. Her big blue eyes were half closed, and her words slurred. The hiccups returned with a vengeance.

By the time he’d parked in front of his much nicer and more expensive living space, she was asleep. And snoring, which made him smile.

Never in his life would Owen be mistaken for a nice guy. His sexual history was littered with one-night stands, one-offs, and quickies. Granted, he’d been taught well and always honored the ‘no means no’ rule. But as he glanced over at the lovely, competent, funny woman snoozing away in his passenger’s seat, he was reminded of a few times in his early days of female conquest that he’d done things he wasn’t proud of to girls in a similar state as Lainey was in right now.

No, he wasn’t a bad guy or some kind of a date rapist. On the flip side, he’d never allowed himself to get emotionally attached to any one of his girlfriends-of-the-moments, either. It didn’t take a damn Ph.D. in psychology to figure out that he was protecting himself thanks to the people he’d loved as a little boy, who had abandoned him, emotionally and practically, and had left him to fend for himself in a filthy mobile home.

He was almost nine years old when his mother had gotten hooked on hillbilly heroin after Owen’s father left town, ostensibly to find work, but really, to be shed of his husband and father responsibilities. He’d managed on his own, more or less, for an entire year before Lindsay Love, accompanied by her husband, Anton, swooped in and took him out of the roach-infested box on wheels that passed for his home.

She’d plunked him down in the middle of her brood for a solid week before his own mother figured out he was gone.

Owen shook his head. Dwelling on past crappiness did nothing but piss him off and make him want to drink and hit things. At that moment, Lainey let out a combined snore-snort, mumbled something, and tried to roll over. When her nose connected with the window, she yelped and sat up. “Holy . . . I mean . . . wow. I’m, um . . . drunk.”

“Ya think?” he asked, keeping his voice neutral.

She shot him a dirty look, which lost some of its effect given the unfocused nature of her gaze. “You aren’t some kind of a creep, are you?” She poked his biceps with her finger. “I mean, seriously. You’re kind of kidnapping the drunk girl right now. That can’t be for any kind of a good reason. For the girl, I mean.” She hiccupped twice, then slapped her hand over her mouth and closed her eyes with a moan.

“Hang on one second,” he said as he jumped down and ran around to open her door before she blew chunks all over the inside of his nice new ride. But she just sat with her hands on the dash in front of her, as if bracing herself from puking. She shook her head when he tried to take her arm. He gave her a solid sixty seconds to get a hold of herself. When he brushed a thick lock of her hair back from her face, he saw tears streaming down her face.

With an inner shrug, he tugged her arm until she was out and slumped against him. “Relax, Lainey,” he said as he tossed her over his good shoulder and started walking towards his door. “I’ve got you.”

Figuring that shoving her into a shower would simply leave him with a wet drunk, he eased her down onto the leather couch in his living room overlooking the ocean. She muttered and flailed around, managing to smack him pretty hard in the nose before he got her settled under a blue and white afghan Lindsay Love had given him as a going away present.

Of the many things he could do with his fancy, metal lower leg, kneeling was not one of them. But he wanted to stay near her, to watch her perfect face and those pretty Cupids-bow lips as she drifted off, which was so very weird. He second-guessed himself as he pulled a leather ottoman close and sat on it so he could do just that.

As he studied her face, her eyes opened wide, startling him so much he leaned back and nearly toppled off the ottoman. She glanced around, confusion apparent on her face. “Who are you anyway,” she demanded, fixing her ocean-blue gaze on his face. “I mean . . . you know what I mean.”

Unable to resist, he brushed her hair off her forehead and pressed his lips there for a few seconds, relishing the warmth of her skin. When he looked back at her, her eyes were closed again, and her breathing had evened out once more as if the question had never been asked. With a sigh, Owen leaned back, unwilling to stop watching her.

“I’m nobody,” he said after a few seconds. “Or better yet, I’m the guy who’s been watching you for six weeks, trying to decide if he was in anywhere near your league.”

She rolled onto her back and threw her arm up over her eyes. The cover shifted downward, revealing that tempting gap in her blouse once more. With a shaking hand, Owen pulled the blanket up so she was covered then headed into the kitchen. He’d been brewing a batch of dry-hopped India Pale Ale and figured it was time for a taste test, if for no other reason than to remind himself that this was exactly the right time to be a nice guy.

He used the beer he’d made to wash down a few over-the-counter painkillers, then leaned on the counter and watched Lainey Jackson sleep.