by Marie James
The man’s jaw snaps shut.
“I…ugh.” The man has the balls to turn back and look in my direction for support. I merely cock an eyebrow at him. “I’ll come back later.”
TJ walks a few steps closer as the man reaches down to grab the handle on the portable kennel.
“You’ll find another vet,” TJ corrects.
“That’s what I meant.” The guy’s voice has risen an octave, and he can’t seem to get out of here fast enough.
I watch in amusement as he gives TJ a wide berth before opening the door and trying to leave so quickly he clips his hip on the doorframe.
After he’s in his truck and speeding out of the parking lot, TJ turns in my direction. “What would you have done if he came over that counter at you?”
I hold up the knife I’d grabbed out of my bag when the man raised his voice to me the first time. He was dangerously close to meeting the business end of it before he leaned in closer. The dick was lucky TJ showed up when he did.
“Atta girl,” my brother praises with a smile.
“What are you doing here?” Looking over my shoulder, I’m relieved Rosie hasn’t made an appearance.
“I brought you lunch.” He holds up a fast food bag I hadn’t noticed before.
“You’re spying,” I counter.
“And bringing you lunch.” He places the greasy bag in front of me. “Where’s your new boyfriend?”
“He’s not my boyfriend.”
“Is he in surgery?” TJ glances over my shoulder at the door that leads to the surgical suite. “Think he’d know how to sew up a knife wound on a human?”
Glaring at him, my jaw begins to ache from clenching my mouth so tightly. “You need to leave.”
“Is that a no?”
“TJ,” I hiss. “Leave.”
“See you back at the clubhouse.” He says it louder than he needs too, purposely I’m sure. “Love you.”
I’m seconds away from throwing the greasy lunch at the back of his head to get him to lower his waving hand when the door behind me opens.
“Busy morning?”
“Not really.” I turn in Owen’s direction, praying he doesn’t notice the menacing raven on TJ’s back as he climbs on his bike and pulls out of the parking lot. “How is Mrs. Keith’s poodle?”
Owen’s quick smile is beautiful, and I’m drawn to the fact that he shares it so frequently. I don’t have to work for his affection, and the change of pace is addictive.
“Henry is doing well. Mrs. Keith, on the other hand, has seen better days.”
Frowning at the news, I inwardly wonder what would happen to the dog if she passes.
“Rosie is taking the afternoon off. Mind helping me with cages this evening before heading home?” He must be thinking the same thing because his smile fades as he speaks.
“Sure,” I answer.
“It’s a date then.”
“A date?” His quick grin returns. “I can’t think of anything sexier than animal poop and vomit.”
“Everything you do is sexy, Molly.” With that statement he walks away, leaving me to handle the customer who just walked through the door.
“How is she doing?”
Turning in Owen’s direction, I hold the sick puppy closer to my chest. “She drank a little water but wouldn’t touch the food at all.”
“Keep her distracted,” he tells me as he walks over with a needle.
“What’s that?” Cradling the emaciated pup to my neck, I wince when he penetrates her flank with the needle. She doesn’t even whimper, only wiggles a little, trying to snuggle closer to me.
“Vitamins,” he answers. “I’m concerned that she hasn’t bounced back quicker.”
The puppy was brought in over the weekend. One of the city workers found her shivering beside a dumpster outside the small grocery store we have in town. Infested with fleas when she was brought in, nearly all of her fur is scratched off.
“There you go,” Owen says in a soothing voice as he massages the muscle around the injection site.
“What happens to her when she gets better?” I can’t even let the idea that she won’t make it into my head.
“We have a foster family that’s willing to take her until we can find her a permanent home.” He walks away, disposing of the used needle in the Sharp's container on the wall. “Unless you want her?”
My head is shaking before he even finishes his sentence. The last thing we need at the clubhouse is a tiny puppy. The men there never watch where they’re going. I can only imagine what would happen to her under their clumsy boots.
I’m seconds away from verbally denying him when she jerks in my arms. An awful retching sound comes from her throat just before the warmth of puke slides down my neck.
“I was afraid of that,” Owen says with outstretched arms.
Quickly, I hand over the sick puppy, keeping my arms out and trying not to vomit from the smell.
I’m a statue while he places her softly back into her fresh kennel.
“Come on,” he urges, grabbing my hand and tugging me to the door that leads up to his apartment.
“I don’t have a change of clothes,” I mumble as I allow myself to be led up the stairs.
“I have a shirt and sweats you can borrow.”
My hand remains in his all the way up the stairs, through his living room, and into his bedroom. His grip tightens as he uses his free hand to pull open a dresser drawer and tugs out a change of clothes.
“In you go,” he says as he flips the bathroom light on in his en-suite bathroom. “Clean towels are in the cabinet.”
“I can’t shower here.” The bathroom is tidy, as was the rest of his apartment I was able to glance at on our way in here. “I’d have to get naked.”
“That’s exactly how showers work, Molly.” There’s humor in his voice as he releases my hand to turn on the water. “Lock the door behind me.”
Then, he’s gone.
I’m contemplating leaving his apartment in my dirty clothes when the smell hits me again. One look in the mirror and the decision is made for me.
“I should’ve worn my hair up,” I grumble as I pull off my t-shirt as gingerly as possible as to not get the vomit in my hair.
Wadding my clothes in a ball, I do my best to make sure the mess isn’t on the outside as I place them on the closed toilet seat.
I’m out and clean in less than ten minutes, a record for me. Finding Owen in the living room grumbling over a cluster of candles he can’t seem to light, I fight back a smile, biting my lower lip.
“Hurry,” he whispers to the candles.
“Having trouble?”
He snaps up, cheeks pinking with heat when he turns back in my direction. “I was—” He rakes his hand over his hair, smacking his forehead with the grill lighter still in his hand. He glares at the offending object before looking back at me sheepishly. “I’m no good at this.”
“Lighting candles?” I tease. He gulps, his Adam’s apple bobbing under my scrutiny. “Or romance and seduction?”
“It wasn’t—I wasn’t trying to seduce you.” He turns and with a puff of his breath, blows out the candles he’d painstakingly lit. “I just wanted—”
Walking closer, I shush him with a finger pressed to his lips. “It’s cute, adorable even.”
“Cute?” he mumbles against my finger. “I wasn’t going for cute, unless it appeals to you.”
“What was going through your head to make you light candles?” I step closer, our bodies mere inches away. “What was the end goal? To get me naked? To get me under you?”
His eyes widen as he shakes my finger free of his mouth. “I didn’t have an ulterior motive. I swear.”
“You did,” I counter, stepping closer when he takes a step back. God, he is horrible at this. As handsome and successful as he is, you’d think he’d be better with women.
“Molly.” His voice is almost begging, as if he needs a reprieve from my advances.
“Shhh,�
� I urge as I reach up on the tips of my toes and press my lips to his.
I realize it’s a mistake the second our mouths touch, but I don’t break away immediately. Maybe I just need to give it a few seconds. Maybe the spark will catch fire if I—nope, nothing happens when I open my mouth and touch my tongue to his. The tentative hold of his arm around my waist does nothing. The low whimper in his throat is nothing like the growl Briar blessed me with the second our lips touched.
It’s hopeless. I’m hopeless, and now I’ve crossed a line with my boss. One I can’t retreat back over and pretend like nothing happened. I really like my job, and I’m sad that I have to walk away from it now.
“Please,” he moans, holding me tighter when I break our connection and take a step back.
He doesn’t lean in closer, doesn’t turn me and press me to the wall, taking exactly what he needs in an attempt to persuade me to his will. He doesn’t do anything but plead with his eyes when I wipe at my lips with the back of my hands.
“Owen,” I say softly. I can’t even look him in the eye, and the warm atmosphere turns chilly in an instant.
Chapter 16
Briar
The open sign is off in the clinic by the time I arrive, and Molly’s car is the only one left in the lot by the time I park across the street.
The man inside of me, the one I’ve always wanted to be but wasn’t destined to become wants her to find love, to make things work with the straight-laced vet. The devil in me, the one that strips her of every scrap of clothing each and every damn time I lay eyes on her, wants to make sure she’s safe, then burn the fucking clinic to the ground. The constant war inside of me is exhausting, draining me of the willpower I’ve collected over the last couple of months.
A flicker of movement draws my eyes to the second floor. They narrow immediately when I see the douche holding up a lighter. I’m close enough to see his lips moving as he scowls at the lighter. Fucker can’t light a damn cand—
The growl from my throat at the realization of what he’s doing rumbles in the empty cab of my truck. My blood heats, thickening in my veins when Molly steps up closer to him. Her mouth is teasing, eyes bright with mischief as she steps closer to him and places her hand over his mouth.
“Please don’t,” the devil in me hisses as she inches even closer.
My eyes dart from the window to the glove box. With quick movements, I hit the latch and pull out the glock, tucking it into the waistband of my jeans just in time to turn and see her pressing her lips to his.
Red.
It’s all I can see.
It’s the color of the only emotion I can manage right now.
The color of his blood when I shoot him between the eyes for touching my fucking girl.
I’m out of the truck and rushing to the front door of the clinic in seconds flat. Just before hitting the front steps, a quick decision carries me around to the back. He has to have another entrance, and even in my anger, I know kicking in the front door of the clinic while it’s still daylight outside is a very bad idea.
Images flash in my head as I stride around the building. Her coy smile. The glint in her eyes as she steps closer.
I stop in my tracks.
She closed the distance between the two of them.
She reached up and kissed him.
The knot in my throat is impossible to swallow.
She’s doing exactly what I urged her to do, exactly what I know in my heart she should do, the one single thing that will kill me if it comes to fruition.
I’m turning and back in my truck before I realize I’ve even moved. The key turns in the ignition, firing the Chevy to life. The gear shift is moved to drive, and it’s as if I’m having an out of body experience because it’s not my hands on the steering wheel or my foot on the gas pedal as I drive away from her. It can’t possibly be. I’d never leave her. I’d never drive away knowing she’s going to seduce him, give him what she’d wanted to give to me, what I turned down in the hallway last week.
Somehow through muscle memory and pure dumb fucking luck, I end up back at the clubhouse. Things don’t seem real until I’m sinking into one of the couches with a drink in my hand and a numbness in my throat that tells me it isn’t my first.
“Hitting it kinda early aren’t you?” TJ’s voice draws my attention, and I look over to find him with his eyes on my hand.
The bottle in my hand seems more appealing than the two fingers worth of whiskey in the other. I throw back the contents of the glass before dropping it heavily on the table in front of me.
“I saw Molly at the vet’s office today.” TJ is looking for an ass beating at the rate he’s going.
Ignoring him, I raise the bottle to my lips, drinking until I can’t breathe.
“She seems to like him, I mean likes working there.”
He’s needling me, trying to get a reaction out of me. The gun still in my waistband heats against my skin, urging me to make him shut the fuck up.
A woman, nothing like Molly, breaks my line of sight and glares in TJ’s direction. “Hey, baby.”
The filthy coo in her voice does nothing for me.
“You’re wasting your time,” TJ says behind her. “Briar doesn’t—”
“Hey, doll,” I slur, patting my lap for her to take a seat.
“Well then.” Surprise marks TJ’s voice as the brunette settles on my lap, but he looks almost angry when I grin over at him.
“I thought he didn’t—” TJ holds his hand up, cutting off Legs’s words before she can finish her sentence.
She’s sitting beside him on the sofa instead of in his lap, or on her knees at his feet like usual. Agitation tightens his shoulders as he glances between his girl, me and his damn phone.
“Can I suck your dick?” The huskiness of the girl’s voice does nothing for me. It’s too harsh, too used to be appealing. It doesn’t have the girlish lilt of Molly’s sweet voice.
The click of a camera catches my attention, but my eyes are slow to turn in the direction of the sound.
“What are you doing?” Glaring at TJ as he holds his phone in my direction, I nearly push the girl off of my lap.
“I’m documenting your return to manhood,” TJ says with a wide, devilish grin.
“I’m next,” Legs says, calling dibs like I’d even consider sticking my dick inside her.
If TJ’s newest plaything goes missing, it will raise suspicions. The new girl on my lap, however— “Hey, doll.” I look up at her, doing my best to ignore the way her sharp fingernails have made their way under the hem of my t-shirt. “I haven’t seen you around here before.”
“It’s my first time.” She shoots for a seductive purr, but the ease she manages when she offers up the information says she’s anything but a newbie to this game. “Wanna show me a good time?”
I ignore TJ’s snort of indignation. I know he doesn’t believe I’ll go through with it, but he needs to think again. Molly is off giving my gift away, and I’ll be damned if I don’t feed my devil tonight. The alternative isn’t something I want to even consider.
Taking another long swig from the bottle of whiskey, I let my eyes train on her slender neck. The monster inside of me twitches, coming to life slowly from over a decade of dormancy. I can do this. It’d be simple. I urge him to take over, but my cock is flaccid in my jeans. Even the girl grinding on my lap and offering herself up like a prized turkey on Thanksgiving isn’t enough to entice him fully to life.
“Want to fuck out here?” I pull my eyes from her neck to her over-painted face. “Or maybe we can go to your room?”
I take another swig before responding.
“Do you have any family?”
Her head tilts as if she’s confused with the odd question, but the last thing I need is her dad or asshole brother showing up on our doorstep looking for her.
“Only an aunt in Michigan,” she finally answers, smiling when my grin spreads.
“Perfect,” I mutter, letting my eyes drift c
losed as she wiggles harder on my lap.
Warmth washes over me as the whiskey finally takes hold. The half dozen or so voices around me meld into a single low drone as my mind slowly flashes through the events of the last couple of weeks. My cock thickens at the memory of Molly’s lips in the hallway and grows even more with her angry outburst in her bedroom the following morning. Pain crushes my soul with our conversation and my confession in the park. Witnessing the kiss she shared with someone other than me is the final nail in my coffin.
I might as well belt out my feelings for her to the entire clubhouse. The idea of what she’s doing right now is worse torture than anything Lynch or TJ could rain down on me with my confession. The pain from them would blessedly end eventually. The agony of keeping my mouth shut while she falls in love with another man isn’t something I can endure.
The lure of the woman on my lap entices me one last time, and as my eyes flutter open, I find her looking down at me with her bright red lip pinched between her teeth. She’s become aware of my erection, but even if it’s because of Molly it doesn’t mean I can’t feed my demon’s need with this woman’s body. He’s been woken up, and there’s only one way to lay him back to rest.
Chapter 17
Molly
“I’m sorry.” I turn away from him, rushing to the bathroom to grab my clothes before making it back to his living room and the door that leads back downstairs.
“Molly?” Confusion marks his voice, but he hasn’t moved from the spot I left him a moment ago.
“I can’t do this with you.”
“Okay.” He startles me when his hand reaches over mine before I can grip the doorknob. “Okay.”
He’s calm, not the reaction I expect from a man who has just been rejected.
“Look at me,” he urges, and eventually I manage to turn my eyes up to him. “It’s fine.”
“I didn’t mean to lead you on.” My words rush out, jumbling together. “I hope you find someone to replace me.”
“Replace you?” His head shakes, rejecting the words. “I don’t want to replace you.”