“Why didn’t you call the police?” Shane breathed out quietly as he bent down over her, his hands on the arms of the chair essentially trapping her in place. He brought his face to within inches of hers. He saw her pupils constrict, her dark pink lips drop open.
“I’m a very private person,” she said hoarsely.
“It’s because you didn’t want to have to tell the cops about how you loved every second of your captivity. Isn’t that the truth, Laura?”
She shot him a fulminating look. “If that’s true, why’d I leave, Shane?”
He lowered over her an inch, her breath striking his face in choppy, fragrant bursts. “You left because you were afraid.”
“I’m not afraid of you.”
“Yes, you are. More important, you’re afraid of the truth. That’s why you’ve been avoiding me.”
She glared at him mutinously.
“There,” he spat, pointing with his finger.
“What?” Laura asked in rising confusion. She followed his finger. When she saw what he pointed at—the sculpture of a teen aged boy with his hair partially covering his eyes as he intently read a book that was prominently displayed on a column—her face settled into a mask.
“It must be an important piece to you,” Shane challenged. “It’s the only thing you have on display in your studio.”
“I don’t know what you mean. I often put up pieces that I’ve just completed on that column before I sell them. This one is no different.”
“Liar.”
Her green eyes shot up to his face when she heard his cold disdain.
“You made that sculpture over a dozen years ago.”
“How . . . why would you think that?” she asked slowly.
He leaned down farther until he could see the tiny points of green fractured light in her irises.
“I know it. I also know it’s a sculpture of me—reading in Union Park when I was a kid. Why’ve you kept something like that, Laura? Why do you have it displayed so significantly in a place where you spend so much of your time?”
Her eyes went wide. She shook her head. “I don’t know where you got that idea, Shane, but I assure you that you’re mistak—”
“I’m sick of your lies,” he snarled. “What did that asshole Ardos want? What did he give you?” Shane queried as he looked down pointedly to her skirt pocket where she’d secreted the piece of paper.
“I don’t know where or why you’ve gotten the impression that you’re the king of my universe, Shane, but you couldn’t be more wrong,” she grated out between clenched teeth. “Haven’t you done enough damage to my family?”
“If you would have just let me explain about Joey instead of acting like a spoiled little brat, I would have. Those phone records my agents uncovered were solid evidence that Joey was involved in the theft ring, Laura. An informant gave my agents a tip that the members of the theft ring used a common calling card to talk about plans for their jobs. The records show that Joey repeatedly contacted Huey and Vince Lazar, among others, in several cases just before and after successful heists. They show him making calls to known jewelry, fur, and rare coin fences, in addition to a lock company that’s been known to make keys for thieves. What did you want me to do? I told you from the very beginning neither one of us could save Joey if he was truly involved.”
He took in the stunned look on Laura’s face and wondered if Shelly hadn’t fully explained all the charges against Joey.
“There has to be some kind of mistake,” she said.
“There’s no mistake. The judge agreed my agents provided more than ample evidence against Joey for an indictment.”
“He’s been set up!” Laura exclaimed heatedly.
“Set up by whom?”
“I-I don’t know.”
“Ah, come on, Laura. You’re going to have to do better than that,” he goaded.
“Fuck you.”
“If you’re not going to give me anything else worthwhile, that’ll work just fine for now,” Shane muttered viciously before he palmed the back of her head and sunk his tongue between her lips. When she tried to rise up off the chair he pushed her shoulders down and kept her in place for his punishing kiss.
He’d been going mad with worry and anxiety . . . with longing for her. At night when he lay alone thoughts of making love to her would plague him ruthlessly until he’d finally give up and get out of bed, eventually falling asleep on the couch in his den in the wee hours of the morning. He kept seeing her rare, luminous smile when she looked up at him while she lay in his arms, kept recalling in far too much graphic detail the feeling of her trembling in orgasm as she lay in his lap before the fire, giving herself to him despite her nearly tangible fear in doing so.
He’d started to wonder if he’d been born with a hard-on.
She kept a goddamned sculpture she’d made of him ages ago displayed in prominence in her studio, for Christ’s sake. How stupid did she think he was, trying to convince him that he meant nothing to her?
“You told me you were mine,” he accused savagely against her lips when he finally felt her stop fighting the kiss.
“I lied,” she whispered as she looked up at him with shiny eyes. “I would have said anything to get away from you.”
He shook his head slowly. “You would have said anything to escape the truth. I don’t care what you say with that lying mouth, Laura. You are mine.”
She cried out softly when he kissed her again, the muted sound reminding him poignantly of a wounded creature. Despite that sad sound, her hands were all over him, as though she’d been as starved for the sensation of touching him as he was her. He growled at the realization and reached down to lift her skirt to her hips.
A bubbling brew of emotions surged up in him, even more powerful than that night he’d taken Laura on the couch in her living room. As impossible as it seemed, Laura seemed just as wild and desperate as him, making him wonder how big the explosion would be when their erupting emotions combined.
Laura gasped when he worked his fingers beneath the silk panties she wore, seeking out her delicious heat. She bit like a wild, trapped animal at his lips, chin, and jaw when he tried to gain entry to her body, her small, scraping teeth hurting him a little and arousing him a lot. She shifted her hips in the chair, altering the angle of them so he could plunge into her slit.
Their desperate groans merged in the humid air next to their parted, touching lips. She’d been moist on the exterior but inside her pussy was filled with warm cream. He held her gaze as he stroked her and they panted into each other’s mouths. A fine tremor arose in her flesh when he whisked his finger out of her pussy and spread her abundant juices onto her erect clit.
“Shane? Please?”
He shook his head incredulously when he heard her beseeching tone. “You ask me? You beg? I’m yours, Laura. None other’s. I always have been.”
Her beautiful face stiffened into the determined lines of a warrior. She reached for him, unbuckling his belt and unfastening his pants, her movements hasty and frantic. She pushed the pants down over his hips and shoved her hand into his boxer briefs.
Shane clamped his eyes shut at the feeling of her hand closing around the root of his swollen cock. He regretfully removed his fingers from Laura’s weeping sex and straightened slightly. She watched herself as she withdrew his erection from his boxer briefs, but Shane couldn’t keep his eyes off her face as she stared at his cock. She licked her lower lip as she stroked him, her green eyes glowing with sensual hunger. She spread a hand on one of his tensed ass cheeks and squeezed, pulling him closer to her.
He moaned when she flicked her wrist, pistoning his cock rapidly with her fist, smearing her fingers in a stream of pre-come and spreading it on the head until it glistened. Shane pushed his boxer briefs down his thighs and gripped the root of his cock, pumping himself with short strokes while Laura focused on the end. They carried on like that for a moment, the silence broken by Shane’s grunts of pleasure as Laura became more i
nsistent.
“I want to come inside your pussy so bad I can taste it. But I don’t have a condom,” he muttered miserably as she continued to jack his cock with cruel precision.
“I just finished my period. The chances of pregnancy are negligible. Just don’t come inside of me.”
“Ahh, baby, don’t tempt me,” he implored, already imagining the sheer nirvana of what it would be like to be naked in her hot, shrink-wrapped pussy.
Her pumping fist on his cock slowed and then stopped altogether. Something slid across Laura’s features . . . something he didn’t understand.
“You’re worried I’m going to give you something, aren’t you?” she asked.
“What?” Shane mumbled.
She let go of his cock. “You think I might have a disease or something . . . because of those tapes you heard . . . because you think I’m so promiscuous.”
Shane blinked, recognizing her expression as hurt. He shook his head incredulously.
“Why deny it? What man in his right mind would have unprotected intercourse with a woman who had sex with so many men? Isn’t that what you were thinking?”
“Laura—”
“You are such an asshole, Shane,” she bit out viciously.
He gaped at her as he tried to wrap his mind about what was occurring. She’d been more than eager—even suggesting he fuck her without a condom—and now . . .
“I’m an asshole because I thought of protected sex?”
“No,” Laura whispered at the same time that she shoved hard on his stomach with a sharp elbow. He grunted in pain and stepped back from the chair. She stood and darted around him.
“You’re an asshole because you never miss a chance to lecture me about trusting you and giving in to what’s between us . . . and all along, you have no compunction about giving me nothing . . . not even the benefit of the doubt. You have no difficulty painting me as a slut in your mind. You want me to trust you completely and then call me a whore with your next breath, isn’t that right, Shane? Every man wants a whore in his bed.”
“I never called you that.”
“No, but you think it,” she shouted. She moved several feet away from him, her stance wary. “ ‘That’s right, Laura, suck him nice and deep like a good little wife. Show him how nice we treat our guests.’ Sound familiar, Shane?”
He panted shallowly as he stared at her. Jeez, how had this gone from heaven to hell in five seconds flat? Shane wondered in bemusement. He slowly drew his underwear over his throbbing erection.
“I was wrong to taunt you with my knowledge of those tapes. I was furious . . . hurt,” he conceded.
She crossed her arms beneath her breasts defensively.
“Do you actually believe that even if that was me recorded on those tapes you could really get past the idea that I’d done those things with other men? You’re supposed to be the expert on human behavior. How likely is that, Shane?”
He just gaped at her. She shook her head in disgust. “Like I said, you are such an asshole,” she added, her contempt so thick he could have sliced it with a knife.
But Shane’s mind was fixated on something else entirely.
“What do you mean, ‘even if that was me recorded on those tapes’?” he asked slowly.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Laura dropped her arms and held them rigidly at her sides, her nails biting into the palms of her hands. She welcomed the pain. It helped clear her vision from the blinding haze of fury she experienced.
God, she hated Shane in that moment . . . even more so than she had when she heard him tell Shelly that Joey was being charged with a federal crime. Yes, hated him, despite the fact that she was crazy in love with the jerk.
It felt as if her rage could set her hair aflame.
“It . . . means . . . that . . . it . . . wasn’t . . . me . . . you . . . ass,” she explained, enunciating each word succinctly. “It means that Huey must have known the FBI was listening and thought it’d be a good joke on you. That’s what it means.”
“But—”
“There’s no buts about it. It wasn’t me. So it’s not too much of a stretch for me to believe it wasn’t Joey making those phone calls either! If they could set me up, try to hurt me . . . why not Joey? Huey purposefully staged that little scene in the basement—probably with one of his many whores colluding with him—knowing that Shane Dominic would eventually hear the tapes. He and his friends probably thought it was great fun, even if they did feel you breathing down their backs for their crimes. You yourself told me that you never learned anything of consequence from the surveillance in the basement. You didn’t discover anything because he knew you were listening.”
“Do you mean to tell—”
“Get out.”
He paused in the process of moving toward her. Laura took advantage of his moment of hesitation and dodged past him. She rushed to the front door of the gallery and flung it open, knowing Shane dogged her heels.
“Get out and stay the hell away from me,” she shrieked, knowing she hung on the slick fibers of the last strands of her final rope. “If you want to get yourself killed, so be it, but I won’t have you hurting anyone else that I love because you want to get your rocks off.”
Laura experienced a moment of regret and trepidation for her hurtful words when he flashed a dark glance from beneath his lowered brow as he zipped up his pants. Knowing she’d accused him of selfish lechery when she was just as guilty hardly helped her frothing emotions. His cock still looked thick and full. She could even make out the rim beneath the mushroom-shaped head pressing tightly against the fabric of his dark gray dress pants. It’d felt so good stroking him in her hand, having him at her mercy while he stared down at her with hot, wanting eyes.
Then he’d had to go and ruin it all by reminding her that he thought her promiscuous enough to act in the way she did with him with any man. With one doubtful look he’d ripped away the special quality, the uniqueness of how she responded to him out of a love she could never hope to deny . . . despite the undeniable necessity of doing precisely that.
Laura couldn’t take waging this constant battle anymore. So many emotions warred inside her breast she felt as though she’d literally explode from the friction.
“Why didn’t you just tell me it wasn’t you on the tapes?” Shane asked when he’d finished buckling his belt.
“Because you’re so sanctimonious and cocky you wouldn’t have believed me. Just like you don’t believe Joey.”
“Joey’s not claiming his innocence, Laura. The agent in charge of the investigation thinks she can get him to plead guilty and give evidence against other people who were involved in hopes for a lighter sentence.”
Laura’s heart seized. “You lie.”
“Why would I lie about that?” he asked bitterly.
Laura didn’t have the wherewithal to respond. Joey had given no indication of anything like this when she’d visited at the house for the past few days. Of course, she’d hardly given him the opportunity, being cheerful and optimistic about his eventual acquittal. He’d been pale and withdrawn, but that hardly surprised her given the circumstances. The concept of Joey being guilty, of him colluding with Huey and Moody made her feel like vomiting.
It had to be a setup.
Shane placed his hand on her jaw and stepped closer.
“I would have believed you, Laura. I would have loved to believe you. You didn’t tell me the truth about that orgy in your basement for a reason, and it wasn’t because you thought I was too smug to believe you. You let me believe it because it aided your cause for me to believe it.”
“Leave!” She was mortified when she sobbed, the noise sounding ragged, harsh, and miserable to her own ears. She shut her eyes tightly, wishing like hell he would just walk away . . . tormented because she also knew that was the last thing she wanted.
“I don’t think so,” Shane murmured, his tone no longer cold and angry. Oh no, she couldn’t mount a resistance against his compassion,
against his tenderness. Not at that moment, she couldn’t. She was too raw . . . too confused.
“Open your eyes, Laura.”
Slowly she pried open her eyelids. A shudder went through her when she read the message in Shane’s fiery blue eyes. She felt her emotions bubbling at the back of her throat, burning and scoring the tissues. She feared they would literally explode out of her mouth in a rushing torrent of love, fear, fury, and honesty.
“Shane, I’m afraid—”
His head went around like a hound’s that had caught the scent.
“Shit.”
A series of sounds, sensations, and images impinged on her consciousness all at once. Shane grabbed her and pushed her into the gallery, falling heavily on her body. A sound like two firecrack ers popped in quick succession before a car’s tires screeched as they bit into the pavement, the elevated metal tracks of the L making the noise echo eerily on the empty street.
Laura stared at Shane in rising confusion as he withdrew his weapon from his shoulder holster, wincing as he did so. He grabbed her and slid her body across the slick wood floor, leaving her to rest at the wall between two windows.
“Stay down and don’t move.”
“Wha . . . what . . .” Laura never got out a coherent question before Shane had army-crawled over to the door, then shut and locked it.
When he reached for his cell phone Laura saw the blood on his white shirt.
“Shane!” she shrieked. She slid up on her knees and started to crawl toward him.
He moved quickly. The next thing she knew he was back on top of her, both of their bodies against the wall. Laura stared at the spreading crimson flower on his shirt. She could smell his blood—sweet and metallic. Horror rushed through her veins like ice water.
“Oh my God, oh my God, you were shot.”
“Laura.”
She couldn’t remove her eyes from the growing stain of blood. She’d done it once again. The first time she’d killed Peter and now Shane—
Beth Kery Page 23