Bodywork

by Marie Harte

  Nothing like sex in the afternoon to brighten a girl’s day. Now to rid herself of thoughts about seeing Shane again.

  Chapter Eight

  Shelby studied her mother and Ron across the table. Ron wore jeans and dark blue shirt with the logo Vanzant Interiors. He was the perfect foil to her mother’s flamboyancy. A handsome older man with cropped dark hair and Native American ancestry evident in his reddish brown skin, Ron Aandeg would have made any woman proud to hang on his arm. Unfortunately for her gender, Ron preferred men.

  “Tell me again, sweetie,” he drawled. “You’re not coming to our quarterly gala for what insane reason? You’re playing cards with Maggie? You’re dog sitting Denise’s pooch? Oh wait, I know. You’re washing your hair that night, is that it?”

  “No, Ron.” Shelby ignored her mother’s titter of laughter. “I’m not coming because every time I show up to one of your professional events, you and Mom try to fix me up with a date.”

  “That’s not true,” he denied then paused to flirt with the waiter for another slice of lemon. “He is so cute,” he said under his breath before turning his attention back to her. “We simply want to share our lives with you. Is it so wrong that we’re proud of your accomplishments?”

  “No, but—”

  “Or that we’re in effect networking? Our clients could be your clients, and vice versa?”

  “Well, no, but—”

  “Or that we want our friends to know how fabulous Mimi looks considering she has a daughter your age?”

  “There is that.” Mimi fluffed her hair.

  “Okay, okay. Maybe I’m a little too sensitive about my social life.” I just had sex with a man I barely know in his office. Oh my God. I’m a slut, a hot slut, because Shane totally came hard. Twice. Take that, Rick!

  “…Shelby?”

  She coughed and took a quick sip of water. “What’s that?”

  Ron and her mother stared at her. “Is it me, Mimi? Or does her aura look a little different to you?”

  Her mother leaned in and frowned. “You know, I think I see it.”

  Being a slut was one thing, having her mother know about it another. “Oh gee. Look at the time.” She reached into her purse and grabbed her wallet. After digging out a few bills, she tossed them to Ron. “Use this toward lunch. I just remember I have a client coming in. Gotta go!”

  She gave her mother and Ron a kiss on the cheek, trying like hell to forget whom she’d been kissing not too long ago and how it had felt. Ew. Mother. Sex. Together, not good.

  “Bye.” She flew out of the restaurant like the hounds of hell were on her heels. But if she knew her mother and Ron, they likely were.

  “That girl had sex.” Ron didn’t mince words.

  Mimi choked on her iced tea. “Good God, Ron. That’s my daughter.”

  “Mine too.”

  She wished that were literally true. Ron had been a better friend, man, and all around human being than Shelby’s sperm donor, or as Mimi liked to think of him, the inspiration for her inarticulate years. Unlike David, her daughter’s MIA father, Ron had attended the girl’s school events, oversaw her prom, and celebrated her graduations, from both high school, college and massage therapy school. He was loyal, handsome, and creative. Everything she’d always wanted in a man, except for the sex of course. Which brought her back to the discussion.

  “Yes, you’re right. I’m sorry, she is yours.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Don’t pout.” She frowned at him. “I don’t see how you can use the words Shelby and sex in the same sentence. She’s been in a man-hating phase for months because of that imbecile.”

  They refused to say his name.

  “Normally I’d agree. But her horoscope today said she’d find love if she looked for it. I’d say she found it.”

  Mimi frowned. “Love and sex don’t go hand-in-hand.”

  “With Shelby they do.”

  He had a point. Her daughter made her proud in so many ways, except when it came to relationships. The poor girl picked disappointing men and committed her whole heart, only to have it stomped on time and time again. Rick Matinson was the latest in a string of losers. A surface ten, an under the skin zero.

  “But who does Shelby know, that’s male, to have sex with?” she asked.

  “Indoor voice, Mimi,” Ron muttered when the couple next to them gasped in shock.

  She turned to them and huffed. “Please. You people know what sex is, don’t you? You’re both old enough to have gone a few rounds in the sack.” She wasn’t surprised when they protested and left. “Seattle used to be filled with free thinkers, now they’re all prudes,” she complained.

  “I know, honey,” Ron commiserated. “But really. Focus. Who does Shelby know that—”

  Mimi snapped. “Buns of Steel.”

  “What?”

  “Not a what, a who.” She reminded him of Shelby’s run-in the other day. “The girl is starry-eyed over him, from what Maggie didn’t say. And she’s already seen him naked. Technically she felt him naked too.”

  Ron sighed. “Tell me again why I didn’t become a massage therapist?”

  “You tried it, but the frequent police raids didn’t help business. Remember?”

  “Oh. Right.”

  They shared a smile.

  Mimi continued, “So Shelby is in a tizzy over this man. Shane Collins.” That was the name Maggie had passed on a few days ago. A good girl, that one. They needed to help her find happiness too, just as soon as Mimi nabbed the right man for Shelby. If her daughter had any sense, she’d eschew marriage, the way Mimi had. But Shelby had too much of her father in her. The girl needed permanence and babies and a white picket fence. Which wouldn’t be too bad if Mimi could have the grandchildren she’d been hungering for without an idiot for a son-in-law. Ah well, sacrifices had to be made if she wanted precious babies to cuddle.

  “Do we check him out?”

  “We do.” She gathered her purse and bags and eased the check to Ron. “Pay this, then let’s head to my place. We have some charts to gather and some numbers to crunch.”

  “I’m on it, honey.” Ron whisked the check away, and Mimi soon joined him, eager to pave the way to her daughter’s future. Of course, it would help if they had something personal of Shane’s to use in their readings. Something Ron might use when he worked that magic he’d learned during his New Orleans years.

  Once back at her house, she made a call to Maggie, frowned, then tucked her cell phone back away.

  “Well?” Ron asked as he lit a few candles and herb bundles to clear the energy in the room.

  “She’s not happy about it, but she’ll do it. Now let’s begin…”

  * * *

  Shane spent the rest of his weekend doing chores and cleaning up the mess his brother and Mac had left. He couldn’t get Saturday afternoon out of his mind. He’d had sex. Mr. Vanilla, as he’d been labeled, the plain, uninteresting guy Lisa had thrown over for some schmuck with piercings and covered in tattoos, had fucked a woman in his office on his desk. And he’d come not once, but twice inside the tightest pussy he’d had in a long, long time.

  Just thinking about it made him feel dirty…and turned on. Though proud of his quickies in his office, the emotion attached to the act didn’t jibe with the idea of a one night stand.

  God, he wanted her again. Not some faceless woman in a scene straight out of any guy’s fantasy, but Shelby Vanzant. Talking dirty to her, shoving into her on his desk, where he worked, made him feel like a real man. Stupid, but true. He wanted to be able to leave it as an incredible experience, to be more like Mac and fuck and forget her. But he couldn’t. Shane liked Shelby. He’d loved seeing the expression on her face when she came. Learning what pleased her, how she felt around him.

  He glared down at his constant erection, wishing he could find one of Mac’s many admirers, several of whom had made overtures in his direction, and relieve this ache. But he didn’t want any of them. He wanted Shelby. But t
his time he’d bend her over while they fucked. Or he’d tie her up. He’d always wanted to do that. Or he’d fuck those beautiful breasts…

  “Stop. Let it go.” He tried to thwart his impulse to build a relationship. He didn’t want commitment again, not yet. He knew that. But he couldn’t convince himself he wanted sex with no strings attached either. Damn it. He liked the woman he’d fucked, and he felt bad because of it?

  I am so not normal.

  Sunday blurred into the next week. He worked hard on the Grace project, but he accomplished more at home than at the office. The desk gave him too many reminders that he wasn’t whom he wanted to be. Not a lighthearted Romeo like Mac, or even George. Shane was a stick-in-the-mud serial dater. God, he needed to do more casual sex and let himself enjoy it without getting so attached.

  Didn’t he?

  Thursday night, his brother swung by to drop off the movies he’d “borrowed.”

  “Thief.” Shane snatched his Lord of the Rings trilogy from his sticky-fingered brother the moment he walked in the door.

  “Dude, relax. I’m sure your Aragorn fan club buddies will forgive you for lending them out.” George rolled his eyes. The kid did exasperated better than anyone, even Mac.

  “Don’t be a jerk. Next time ask before you take.”

  “Yeah, whatever.” George hopped onto Shane’s kitchen counter, despite being told a million times to use a chair. “So what’s going on?”

  “Nothing. Work. Why?”

  George shrugged, but he had that look in his eye, the one he wore when he was up to something.

  “What did you do?”

  “Me? Nothing.” George fiddled with the magazine next to him. “So, you talk to Lisa lately?”

  Shane just stared. “Lisa?” He hadn’t heard from that woman in eight blessed months, since she’d dumped him for Mr. Tattoo. Yet hadn’t he been thinking about her just now? “Why ask about her?”

  “I know she broke your heart, man.” George looked into his eyes with an odd determination. “And I want you to be over it.”

  “Uh, I am.” I’m getting there, at least. “It’s obvious she and I would have been a bad mix.”

  “So if she came to you tomorrow, begging you to take her back, you wouldn’t?”

  An image of Shelby, on her knees, begging to suck his cock, appeared in his mind’s eye. He hurried to replace it with thoughts of his mother and cut off the erection before it could manifest fully. Jesus, he had issues if just the idea of Shelby could get him hard.

  “Dude?” George looked worried.

  “No way. Nope. I’m over Lisa. Permanently.” Disloyalty, and the things she’d said about him while trying to steal half his shit when she moved out, had killed whatever tenderness he might have felt toward her.

  “Good. That’s great, man.” George hopped down to the floor. After a moment, his knee buckled, and he groaned.

  “Are you okay?” Shane hoped like hell his brother hadn’t damaged his knee again. Though he’d healed fast, it wouldn’t take much to set him back, not with football season coming into swing.

  “I think so. Just a twinge.” George sighed. “Too bad Shelby isn’t seeing me anymore.”

  Shane jerked to a stop, his mind and now George talking about the woman. “Huh?”

  “Shelby, my massage therapist? The woman you’re so hot over?”

  Shane frowned. “I am not.”

  “Whatever, dude. I just came by to drop off those discs.” He limped to the door. “Don’t tell Mom about this, okay? In fact, maybe you could do me a favor.”

  “Here it comes.”

  “Could you let me see Shelby here this weekend, if I can get her to see me? I swear I’ll pay you back. If Mom knows my knee hurts, she’ll make me quit the team. And it’s my last year. Dad will be so disappointed. The scholarship…” Tears glistened in George’s eyes.

  Shane nearly bought into it before he remembered who he was talking to. “Emotional blackmail. Creative. The tears are a nice touch.”

  “I thought so.” George blinked and his sadness vanished. “But seriously, bro. I’m gonna ask her to meet me here Saturday. Could you make sure you clean the place up? And maybe wear something nice and act less pathetic than usual so she can get those healing hands on me without feeling awkward around you.”

  How much more awkward would she feel to see the man she’s had sex with alongside his brother? Yet it was the perfect way to see her again. He could justify bringing her to his house to heal George. It wasn’t at all needy to want help for his brother.

  “Okay, George. You set it up, and I’ll host.”

  “Great.” George hurried to the door. “But you can’t tell Mom.”

  “Trust me. I won’t.”

  “Thanks, man. You’re the best.” George hugged him then hustled out the front door so fast Shane suspected foul play. If his brother could move like that, how the hell did the little faker think he could fool Shelby into fixing his knee?

  For some reason, George wanted Shane and Shelby together. Shane didn’t know why, but he’d find out. After he had a taste of his Amazon again.

  “Did he buy it?” Mac asked as he drove George away from his brother’s.

  “I think so.” George kicked his feet up on the dash before Mac shoved them to the floor.

  “Respect the car, nimrod.”

  “Sorry, sorry.”

  The kid was a natural around women, but still a kid. All the Collinses were decent people. Shane’s old man had been a Marine, the inspiration for Shane’s service to the Corps. And probably Geo’s. That’s if the kid wasn’t drafted to play pro out of college. He already had a bead on a full scholarship to Washington next fall, after he graduated high school.

  “So what did he say?”

  “He’s not giving anything away, but I’m telling you, something went down. At dinner Sunday night, he zoned out. Shane never zones. And he’s been goofy. Grinning for no reason. It’s a woman, I swear.”

  “But he hasn’t mentioned anyone to me.” Not that Shane had to, but he and Mac were tight. Best buds for years. They had the Corps in common, as well as a basic decency too many civilians lacked.

  “I didn’t know you two girls shared everything.” George batted his eyelashes, and Mac grinned.

  Then he cuffed the kid in the back of the head.

  “Ow. Okay, so he didn’t share.”

  Which was Shane’s MO when it came to a woman he liked. Mac had to pry the information from him. Unless there was no woman, and Shane zoned for some other reason.

  “Tell me again about Shelby. Don’t leave anything out.”

  As George described the woman, Mac’s curiosity grew. She sounded too good to be true. And if she had his buddy’s dick in a knot, she needed to be investigated. He’d be damned if he’d watch Shane go through the hell of a bad relationship with some bitch again. Lisa had been more than enough.

  The next morning in the gym he was busy doing paperwork when one of his trainers entered with an odd expression on his face.

  “Yeah?”

  Ed shook his head. “This is gonna sound weird, but there’s some woman here who needs to see you.”

  Not so weird. “So?”

  “Oh. Not like that. This one says she needs to get into Shane Collins’s locker.”

  “Why?”

  “Says she’s his ex girlfriend, and he has something of hers. I thought I’d bring it to you.”

  Lisa was here? “Good. Bring her in.” Mac wanted nothing more than to give the bitch of piece of his mind.

  But the woman who entered his office wasn’t the cheating redhead his buddy had once fallen for. This chick was a platinum blonde with a petite frame and beautiful breasts. Just his type. And man, those cornflower eyes were killer blue.

  He had a hard time remembering his manners when she entered and glared at him. No way Shane had tagged this babe and Mac didn’t know about it. Or had he? If Mac had been with her, he’d have been zoning and goofy for days. Weeks. Hell, ye
ars.

  “I want in Shane Collins’s locker. He has my old hairbrush, and he told me I could grab it. Your trainer didn’t believe me, but I’m not lying. You can get it for me if you want. I’ll wait here. I’m not out to steal from him, just to find what’s mine.”

  Mac stood and moved from behind his desk, pleased when the woman’s mouth opened and she looked up. Way up when he loomed over her.

  “Okay, honey. Try again. Who are you, and why are you really here?”

  “First off, my name is Maggie, not honey. Second, it’s not your business, He-Man. Just point me to Shane’s locker, or better yet, get my brush. And if you think I’m making all this up, think again. I know all about his brother George, his mother Lorraine, his father Colonel Collins, Harmon & Sons, his time in the Marine Corps, all of it.”

  So she had information. How did she know Shane, because he sure as shit hadn’t mentioned her?

  “So then you’ve seen his tattoo.” Mac crossed his arms over his chest, amused at the flare of panic that lit her eyes.

  “Ah, right. His tattoo.”

  Shane, the pussy, would never desecrate his body with ink. The woman zeroed in on the snake on Mac’s bicep, as well as the eagle globe and anchor on his opposite forearm. She swallowed audibly. “How tall are you?”

  “Me?” He narrowed his eyes. “Who the hell are you?”

  “Damn it. I knew this was stupid. Get the hair from his brush. It’ll be easy. Ha!” She drew in a deep breath and let it out in a rush. “Look, isn’t Shane your best friend?”

  “He is. And I won’t let anyone screw with him, no matter how hot and stacked she might be.”

  “I’m all aflutter with your compliments,” she said dryly, then moved around him to sit in a chair across from his desk. “Sit down and we’ll talk.”

  Intrigued and turned on by the woman who didn’t appear cowed or enamored, he sat and listened. And smiled.

  Chapter Nine