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take you home. No problem.”
    Without thinking, she put her hand in his and was shocked by the electricity that crackled along her arm and into her body. She yanked her hand back.
    “I don’t…that is…I can’t…”
    “Jinx?” Amy joined the growing crowd outside her vehicle. “Like Matt said, stuff like this happens all the time. Fortunately there’s no shortage of taxi services right here. Come on. Let Dillon drive you home.” She grinned. “I promise he won’t jump your bones.”
    “Jesus, Amy,” Matt swore.
    Jinx saw Dillon take a step back. “Yeah, Jesus, Amy,” she echoed.
    Dillon stood with his hand still held out to her. “Forget them. They’re just yanking your chain. It’s my pleasure to see you get home okay. And I’ll be on my best behavior.”
    Somehow, before she could unscramble her brain, Jinx found herself in Dillon’s truck, buckled in as he backed out of the parking space. They sat in a thick silence until they were well out onto the highway into town. Jinx was like a statue, hands folded tightly in her lap, eyes staring straight ahead through the windshield.
    Dillon’s laugh broke the silence. “No bones jumping, I promise,” he teased.
    She couldn’t help but laugh. “Could they have been any more obvious?”
    He shrugged. “I thought I was the obvious one. I wanted a chance to spend some alone time with you.”
    She turned to look at him. “Why? I got the feeling I annoyed you.”
    “Maybe at first. I may not have been here long but enough to know a naked body in a ditch around here brings out all the loonies. Trying to keep order and preserve the scene was driving me nuts.”
    “And I came along demanding my rights as a reporter.” She swallowed a smile. “Sorry. Old habits die hard.”
    He was silent for a moment. “I believe in cultivating the goodwill of the press. But I’ve spent my life in big cities where most of the media is cutthroat and just looking for blood. Literally and figuratively.”
    She nodded. “I can understand that. I spent ten years in New York and we had to shove elbows to get a story most of the time.”
    “So.” He cleared his throat and Jinx sensed a discomfort with what he was planning to say. “Apology accepted? New beginning?”
    Wow. The last thing she’d expected. She imagined apologies didn’t come easily to him.
     
    Dillon did his best to focus on the road and his driving, but Jinx’s voice as she gave him directions had the sensation of velvet skimming his skin. Desire was a low simmer beneath the surface and he had to clench his jaw to force it back. He could swear a magnetic force field had suddenly snapped into place around them, ramping up this unexpected sexual reaction. It was taking every ounce of his discipline to contain the feelings doing a riotous dance through his body.
    It wasn’t as if he hadn’t had strong sexual reactions to other women. He wasn’t a monk, for God’s sake. And certainly he and Naomi had burned up the sheets.
    Naomi.
    Just the thought of her made the inside of his mouth taste like cold ashes. That last night was burned into his mind as if etched into it with acid. What a fool he’d been, falling for her the way he did. Letting her use him and then knock him to the side of the road.
    Don’t think about it and ruin a perfectly good evening.
    Right. Better he should think about how he wanted to strip every bit of clothing from Jinx Malone’s body and fuck her senseless.
    He swallowed a groan. Offering to drive her home had seemed like the right thing to do, but sitting so close to her, the light scent she wore drifting across his nostrils, was turning out to be the worst kind of torture.
    Buck up, Dillon. You can behave.
    He’d had reservations about accepting the invitation to dinner at the Montgomerys’. Socializing wasn’t at the top of his list at the moment. And having Jinx included was a surprise. His stupid body had gotten the same flush of lust he’d felt the day before. Trying to