“Maybe because I’m so badass myself.”

She laughed.

“Okay,” he muttered. “Not so badass. But I see the soft, marshmallow Cristina.”

“I’m not soft. Anywhere.”

“Well, we both know that’s not true.”

There he went with the sexiness again.

He shifted even closer, right into her personal bubble. “I see you, Cristina. I see the woman who feeds the stray cat her leftover sandwich.”

“Only when the bread is stale.”

“The one who always shoves all her spare change in the homeless guys’ hands every time we go downtown.”

“I hate having change in my pocket.”

“The woman who looks at me and her eyes melt.”

“Hell no, they don’t.”

He just looked at her, smiling knowingly.

Ah, crap. “Shut up.”

He did, not because she asked, but because he liked to be quiet sometimes, as she did.

He got her the way no one else did.

All the others would get off their shift and go home to something, someone. She’d go to her apartment and bide her time until she could go back to work. Because, with no real family, work was her life.

Dustin had a great family: his mom, his sister, his brother…he’d lost his dad a few years back to cancer, and clearly missed him so much, but the rest of them were still very close. So close they constantly nosed around in his life and drove him crazy, and yet he loved them madly. Cheerfully.

He and Cristina were polar opposites. He knew this. She knew this. So why did he have to be the one to get her panties all twisted? Why him?

Ignoring her with an ease she’d never quite managed with him in return, he kicked off his own boots and socks and immediately hissed out a shocked breath as the waves splashed over his toes.

She laughed again.

At the sound, Dustin shoved his glasses further up on his nose and took a good, long look at her.