What Chris Wants. Lori Foster

to ride along?”

      Surprised by the offer, Matt looked up, then over him, his attention snagging at the waistband of Chris’s low-hanging, sodden shorts. Voice going lower, he murmured, “Sure.”

      Chris wasn’t immune to that heated study. “I guess we’re grilling dinner afterward—”

      “I know.” His gaze met Chris’s again. “Priss already invited me.”

      Priss again. Their friendship could prove a problem.

      But not now. Not tonight.

      “She did, huh?”

      Matt’s eyes narrowed. “She likes me.”

      “Yeah, I know.” Chris liked him, too. More than liked him, but he wouldn’t say so. Giving up on thoughts of the future, at least for now, he looked around at his friends—who all made a point of not looking back. “So. You want to spend the night with her, too?”

      Busy draining the water out of his shoes, Matt jerked his head up. “What?”

      Chris took a step closer and lowered his voice. “Or would you rather stay the night with me?” It wouldn’t be the first time, but now it felt different, maybe because Matt had pressed things.

      Tension built. “Are you saying…?”

      “That you can stay over.” And even though Chris had just acknowledged the difference to himself, he said, “Don’t make any more of it than that.”

      The seconds ticked by.

      Trace announced, “We’re ready to go.”

      “Me, too.” Chris started to wade away.

      Grinning, shirt and shoes in hand, Matt slogged through the water behind him. “I’ll stay.”

      “Good.” And though Chris didn’t want to admit it, relief lifted the tension from his chest.

      Now what?

      CHAPTER TWO

      Dressed in his usual aged and faded T-shirt with comfortably loose shorts, his feet bare and his hair finger-combed, Chris stared at the bed.

      Or more precisely, the man in his bed.

      On his stomach, dead to the world, the rumpled sheet covering only a small part of his lower body, Matt slept on undisturbed. He was so damned different from Chris. Precise in his style and attitude. A hairdresser, for crying out loud—though Matt insisted on being called a Master Stylist.

      He was good, no two ways about it. He owned his own upscale salon and catered to the elite—people who were, again, nothing like Chris.

      Maybe that was what drew him to Matt. More appealing than the good looks and fit bod was his outlook on life. Matt was different, exciting, fun and easy to be with.

      But the big problem remained: Matt had no idea what Chris really did for Dare. He didn’t—couldn’t—know the high-level, influential and powerful reach of Dare’s assignments.