by Laura Wright
No. Not stopped—froze.
Like a statue.
“Oh, Christ,” he uttered.
Sheridan instantly looked up, her mind still trying to fully return to reality. She still had sink, soap fight, wet clothes, wetter Sheridan, want James running through her brain.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
James released her and stepped back. He looked horrified and guilty, strained and pissed off. None of the ways he should be looking after making her feel the way he had. He ran a hand through his hair. The same hand that just been down her pants, making her sigh and moan. Making her come. “I’m an animal.”
Sheridan stared at him. What was going on? “I don’t understand. What are you talking about?”
She tried to reach out for him, but he nearly growled at her. “You just got out of the hospital and I’m all over you.”
Oh, for goodness’ sake. “I’m fine. I told you.” She moved toward him. “What you did—”
“Was wrong,” he said blackly. “So motherfucking wrong.” He turned away, dropped his head into his hands. “What the hell is wrong with me that I can’t control myself around you?”
Sheridan’s first instinct was to go to him and put her arms around him, try to comfort him in some way, assure him again that she was fine. More than fine. But she didn’t think that would help. In fact, she believed it would only perpetuate the confused state James Cavanaugh had found himself in. She’d made a decision tonight, when she was in this man’s arms, to drop the what ifs—stop letting voices and fears from the past dictate her choices and run her life. It wasn’t easy to do, wouldn’t be easy going forward. That voice was inside her cells. But the truth was, she wanted what she’d felt with him tonight.
And she wanted it more than she wanted to protect herself.
Her body still reeling from climax, she kept her voice controlled and calm. “I had an incredible time with you tonight. You made me feel amazing. Not hurt. Not in pain. Amazing. Do you get that?”
His jaw tensed, but he didn’t answer her.
“I suggest you take a nice cold shower, Cavanaugh, and fix your head. See what’s really in front of you before it’s not there anymore.”
Then she walked past him and headed for her room.
• • •
Fix his head?
How did he do that exactly? he wondered, standing beneath the lukewarm spray. Was it this? He leaned down and cranked the ancient handles to cold. Ice mother-fucking cold. He hissed as frigid water pelted his skin. Was shock and pain the way to get him to remove his long-standing beliefs? To see what was really in front of him before it wasn’t there anymore, as Sheridan had said?
He didn’t know. Shit, he didn’t know much of anything anymore. Except that he was done pretending he didn’t want Sheridan. It was pointless. He wanted her badly. Desperately, even. Like a starving thing needs food. Like an exhausted thing needs rest. It was all there on a primal level. And how did someone control primal?
He didn’t take the woman he’s trying to protect in his arms and kiss her, touch her, make her come against a goddamn sink!
He turned and lifted his face to the water, hoping the frigid rain would do something to calm down his body.
Behind him, the shower door opened, and he turned around just in time to see the very reason his cock was hard as a metal pipe walk in.
Naked.
Ridiculously, head-spinningly, gloriously, come-dripping-from-the-head-of-his-dick naked.
“Sheridan,” he said, his voice laced with warning.
“You fix your head yet, cowboy?” Her eyes flickered to his erection, then lifted again. “The one on your neck, I mean.”
His hands balled into fists at his sides because if they didn’t he was going to grab her and lift her up. Place her down on his throbbing cock and tell her to ride him into next week.
“Honey, you gotta go,” he ground out. “Get out of here.”
“No.” She placed her hands on her hips. The action made her breasts jut out. James hadn’t seen them as clearly earlier as he could right now. They were a perfect handful, with nipples so tight and pink his mouth watered at the sight of them.
“You’re not pushing me away,” she said defiantly. “You’re not doing that to me again.”
He sighed heavily. “I’m not doing anything to you. That’s the point. I’m trying to leave you alone.”
“Why?” she demanded. “Obviously I don’t want you to leave me alone.” She lifted her arms, giving him a full view of her spectacular naked body. “How much clearer can I be?”
The cold water at his back felt like spring fucking rain. “Sheridan . . .”
“Please tell me.” She moved toward him, her hips swinging gently. Her shaved mound calling to him. “Why are you so afraid of this? Of us?”
If she drew any nearer . . . “I just don’t want you to get hurt again.”
“Goddammit, James,” she said with heartfelt passion. “You’re not responsible for what happened to me. Palmer is the only one who’s responsible. He hurt me, not you.”
And then she was standing before him, the hard tips of her breasts touching his chest, the bones in her hips pressed to his groin.
“All you’ve ever done is make me feel good,” she said. “And free.”
As water rained down on them both, James’s eyes never left hers. Until she reached between them and took his cock in her hand.
He looked down and groaned at the sight of her smooth, pale hand stroking him.
“The only way I’m going to be hurt is if you reject me right now,” she said. “If you ask me not to touch you, not to make you come like you made me come tonight.” Her soft, capable hand worked him up and down. “Are you going to hurt me, James?”
His eyes lifted to lock with hers, and his damn broken heart spoke for him. “Never. Fuck. Never, Sheridan.” He threaded his fingers into her wet hair and pulled her in for a kiss.
Whimpering, Sheridan kissed him back. So fiercely, he felt precome leak at the head of his dick. She rubbed her nipples across his chest and reached for the spot behind his testicles with her other hand. Despite the cold water blasting him—blasting them—heat raged inside him. He wanted to climax. He wanted to come, then take her against the wall, bury himself inside her and fuck her as he grew hard again.
And he was close. Hell, he’d been close ever since he’d slipped his fingers into his mouth and tasted her sweet pussy juices when they were in the kitchen.
When she quickened her pace, when she ripped her mouth from his and dipped her head to his chest—when she licked and sucked his nipple—he broke. His will, and his need to keep control. His head dropped back and he groaned as he pumped into her furiously, pumped his seed into her hands. But she didn’t stop there, didn’t still. She kept stroking him, gently, lightly, using his come as lubrication until he was gone, so out of his mind, so over the moon for her that he didn’t realize how truly cold the water was until he felt her shiver against him.
He turned away from her and quickly adjusted the temperature, waiting until he heard her sigh to know what level of heat she wanted. Then he came back and wrapped his arms around her. She snuggled against him under the spray and he released a weighty, satisfied breath. Could he? Could he tamp down his fear, his beliefs about himself and what his presence in a woman’s life meant? Could he block out the past so maybe, just maybe, he could enjoy the present?
When she dropped her head back and looked up at him and smiled, he knew the answer. It wouldn’t be easy. Hell, he’d been carrying the weight of what felt like an unbreakable curse around with him for more years than he wanted to count. But for her, he was going to try.
No. He was going to hope.
“Do you want to sleep alone tonight, James?” she asked over the pounding of the water.
His eyes moved over he
r beautiful face. “Not tonight.” He leaned in and kissed her. “Not tomorrow night.”
“Now that’s the man who stands in the path of a herd of wild horses, the man who stays by the bedside of a woman in fear for two days straight—the man who took what he wanted by the kitchen sink earlier and made the fearful woman not only fly, but feel incandescently safe.”
Her words crashed into him like a wrecking ball.
Before he could say anything back, she lifted one auburn brow and asked in a cheeky tone, “Dry me off?”
A smile playing about his lips, James released her, turned off the water, grabbed a towel from the hook on the shower door, and wrapped it around her shoulders.
“I dunno,” he said, rubbing her skin gently. “Sounds pretty counterproductive to me.”
“Why’s that?” she asked.
“Dry you off only to get you wet again?”
She started to laugh. And the moment she did, James picked her up in his arms and carried her out of the shower, out of the bathroom, and down the hall toward his bedroom.
Sixteen
Cole walked into the veterinary office five minutes before closing time. He knew Dr. Grace Hunter had late hours on Thursday evenings, and he also knew that the place had emptied of patients about twenty minutes before. After the meeting he’d had earlier with his brothers, Cole just wasn’t content to hang around anymore and wait for orders or a consensus or a plan from his two big brothers. While they were tending to their women, he was going to get shit done.
Starting with the woman seated behind the reception desk.
All Cole saw was the top of her dark head as she went through a bunch of paperwork. But when he drew closer, that head came up right quick and those pale green eyes narrowed.
“Mr. Cavanaugh?”
“Evenin’, ma’am,” he drawled, taking off his Stetson.
“Did you lose your way around town?” she asked, standing up. “Or is this a social call?”
“I’m actually here about an animal.”
She let her gaze very dramatically move around the room. Then she came back to him and shrugged. “Is he imaginary?”
“Don’t think so.”
“Do you see him now?”
Cole grinned. He might like this girl if she wasn’t purposely keeping secrets from them all. “It’s the one you have advertised, Doc.”
All sarcasm and humor faded from her features. “The abandoned basset hound?”
“That’s right.” Just that morning he’d seen a few flyers up around town. “I’d like to see her.”
She came around the desk, really interested now. “Why?”
“What do you mean, why? Maybe I have a mind to adopt. I’m a very lonely man.”
“I believe you.”
He tried to look insulted. “Well, that ain’t very neighborly.”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “Seriously, Mr. Cavanaugh, what’s this about?”
“I just told you, Doc.”
She was quiet for a moment, probably thinking he was playing her somehow. Probably wondering why. “You really want to meet her?” she asked him.
“Why the hell else would I be here?”
“Don’t make me answer that,” she said blackly. Then she gestured for him to follow her. “Come into my office. I’ll see what she’s doing. See if I can coax her out to sniff at you.”
As soon as they were inside the small office, Cole pulled out a plastic sandwich bag. “I came prepared.”
Her mouth dropped open. “Is that bacon?”
“’Course. I know how to speak canine.”
“Again, I believe you.” Her eyes moved over his face, and then she sighed and gestured to the chair in front of her desk. “I’ll be back in five minutes. I’m going to take her for a quick bathroom break so she doesn’t try anything in here. Sit tight.”
Sit tight? Cole mused as she walked out of the office. Oh, Dr. Hunter, there’s no chance of that. As soon as the door closed, he was up and out of the chair. He rounded her desk and started with the drawers, looking up every few seconds. Vet forms, prescriptions, Marabelle’s menu, no, no, no. He opened another drawer. Bank accounts. Checkbook. Bingo. Forget Deacon and his Internet detectives. If you wanted to find important shit, all you had to do was look in someone’s drawers.
With another quick glance at the door, he fingered quickly through her checkbook until he came to a copy made out to a Barrington Ridge Senior Care. He scribbled the name down on a piece of paper, stuffed it into his pocket and returned the checkbook to the drawer. His butt was just landing back in the seat of the chair he’d occupied earlier when the door opened and in walked Grace Hunter and the saddest-looking dog Cole had ever seen. She’d been wearing a festive vest and a goofy grin in the pictures around town.
He got down on the floor, patted his lap, and said, “Well, who do we have here?”
“Her name is Belle,” Grace informed him.
“Like the princess,” Cole remarked, glancing up.
She looked at him strangely. “Uh, yeah. I guess that too. I named her after Marabelle’s. It’s where she was found. Trying to knock over one of their Dumpsters.”
Awww, poor thing. Being alone and hungry. It was something Cole understood. Being all by yourself and trying to figure out where you belonged—that he got. His gaze connected with the dog. “Come over here, girl,” he cooed.
The doctor released Belle from the leash, and the hound lumbered his way. When she stood directly in front of him, Cole reached out and started scratching her ears. As he did, she made this crazy sound, like a cross between a howl and a groan. He laughed. He’d never thought about having a pet. He traveled too much, but the truth of it was that he didn’t know if he was capable of being a responsible parent. And he wasn’t one of those dopes who thought taking on an animal was anything less.
“You smell the bacon in my pocket, don’t ya?” he said, pulling out the bag and opening it.
As soon as Belle got her first whiff, she dropped her head back and offered him a real howl.
Cole laughed again. So did Grace Hunter.
He looked up at her. Her green eyes were bright and her face was lit up with pleasure. Most of the times he’d been around the woman she’d been frowning, nervous, her eyes all clouded with worry or suspicion.
“I’m shocked, but I think she likes you.”
“Shocked?” Cole repeated. “Come on, Doc. What’s not to like here?”
She rested her hip against the desk and regarded him with serious eyes. “Are you really here to see about adopting? See if Belle’s good for you?”
Guilt wasn’t an emotion Cole allowed himself to feel. It only made you vulnerable and weak. In the life he’d chosen for himself, there was no room for either.
“She’s a special girl,” he said, rising to his feet. “And she may very well be good for me. Just not sure if I’d be any good for her.”
• • •
Sheridan lay on her side in James’s bed and gazed out the large picture window. There were no lights on, but the moon’s glow filtered into the room, casting everything it touched in pale silver. James was behind her, naked—just like she was—running his fingers so gently across the bruises on her back it almost tickled.
“Tell me what you were like as a kid,” he said to her.
They’d been lying like this for a while, their bodies drying from the shower’s vigorous assault. At first when James had placed her down on his bed, Sheridan had thought they were going to continue what they’d started in the shower, but then she’d accidentally flinched in pain when her back touched down on the mattress. She’d assured James she was fine, more than fine, but he’d insisted they wait.
He’d been gently stroking her ever since.
Sheridan grinned. Problem was, instead of soothing her, it was only makin
g her more desperate to be touched. It was why she’d rolled to her side. So he couldn’t see how tight her nipples were or how wet her sex was.
“Were you always so tough?” he continued, pulling her back to the moment.
She laughed softly. “I don’t think of myself as tough.”
“You are,” he insisted, his fingers snaking down her spine. “You’re not afraid to say how you feel or ask for what you want.”
“In everything but relationships, that’s probably true,” she said, unable to control the arch of her back and the jut of her buttocks as he touched her.
“You had no problem telling me what you wanted in the shower, darlin’.” This time, his fingers traced the curve of her hip to the indent of her waist.
“No, I didn’t. Because tonight I decided I wasn’t living in someone else’s past anymore.”
His hand stilled just above the curve of her ass. “Whose past are you talking about?”
“My mom’s.” She inhaled deeply, stared out at the moon. “My dad left us when I was little. My mom worked really hard to keep us going. And she did. But I think to keep her going she used her anger and her bitterness as fuel.”
“Was she angry with you?” James asked.
“No. She loved me—very much. She just wanted to protect me, make sure I never lost myself to anyone the way she did. But in doing that, her cautionary tale became my life’s narrative.”
For a few seconds, all Sheridan heard was his breathing and her own. And then his hand traveled back up her spine.
“Did you end up losing yourself in anyone, Sheridan?” he asked.
“No,” she said, her breasts aching for his touch. Why couldn’t he just move closer? Press himself against her? Was he turned on? Hard? She wanted to know, wanted to feel him. “I never allowed myself to get close to anyone,” she continued, swallowing the saliva that pooled in her mouth, “Not friends, and definitely nothing serious with guys.”
“Do you regret it?”
“I don’t believe in regrets,” she said in a serious tone despite her heated skin, pulsing sex, and heavy breath. “They’re a waste of time. All I can do is something different, you know?”