by Leela Ash
“What’s going on with you?” Jack demanded.
Megan glared up at him, her gaze full of what seemed remarkably like hatred.
“What do you want, Jack?” she grated, jaw clenched.
He took a step back in surprise. “Are you serious? I have been able to think of nothing but you all night long. I rushed over here first chance I got because—”
“Because you found a convenient receptacle for your lust and you wanted more sex?” she interrupted. “Fine. Have sex,” she spat viciously.
Megan’s hands went to the buckle of her pants and she unbuckled it and yanked it and her panties down in one swift motion. She leaned against the table and presented her buttocks to him, her gaze locked on the wall across.
Jack was staring at her in shocked silence.
“Well?” she demanded, glaring over her shoulder when he didn’t move a muscle. “Come have sex!”
It was the most sarcastic and unappealing invitation he had ever gotten in his entire life and it left him cold and made him feel dirty, inadequate and unwanted.
Something ground literally to powder in the region of his heart and his voice was hoarse as he asked, careful to keep his gaze on her face, “Is this your way of saying you regret everything that happened between us yesterday?”
Megan yanked her pants and panties back into place with one furious motion and turned back to face him as she did up her zip. “It is my way of saying I know exactly what you are!”
His heart froze. She’d found out he was a shifter? How?
“It is my way of saying you’ve been unmasked for the philandering bastard you are,” she continued.
His heartbeat calmed a little. This wasn’t about being a shifter then. But then, what was it about?
“It’s my way of saying I never want to see you around me again. If I do, I will sic the cops on you! Am I clear Jack Sivan? You disgust me! Now get the hell out!”
Her words cut him to the quick, but he checked his reaction with effort and ventured, “Is there something specific I did? Or was it the lovemaking? I thought you enjoyed it. I know I did.”
She laughed, the sound devoid of humor, “Of course I enjoyed it. How could I not? My naïve virginity didn’t stand a chance against such an accomplished fucker like you. You’ve serviced women from Egypt to China and back, so of course you know how to use your dick. You may leave, secure in the knowledge that your penis is still a master.”
He shook his head not understanding. She spoke with so much pain and anger and bitterness that he almost couldn’t recognize her.
Something had gone terribly wrong and he didn’t know what.
He reached for her, “Megan—”
She yanked herself out of his grip, but she’d pulled too hard and she went sprawling onto her desk before he could catch her. The motion knocked down a file and when he picked it up, several glossy images fell out.
Jack stared in shock at different images of himself with different women in the throes of passion in different countries around the world. What in the world?
He stared hard and dimly recognized almost all of the women. These were indeed women he had bedded! How had Megan gotten her hands on these pictures?
He stared up at her as he voiced the question uppermost in his mind, “What the hell?”
She reached for the file, “Hand it over!
He took advantage of his superior height and held it above his head and out of her reach. “Speak!”
A damning suspicion was blooming in his heart and he stared down at her as though seeing her for the first time, “Who are you? How did you get all these pictures? Some are from as far back as ten years ago. Does this mean you’ve been keeping an eye on me all these years? Marking my every step? Following me around the globe? Who do you work for?”
She glared at him, tears in her eyes, as that last vestige of hope which she had refused to acknowledge existed in a tiny corner of her heart, slowly flickered and died like a candle in the wind. She had hoped against hope that those women were lying. When she had left them at home this morning and driven out, she had hoped they would prove to be liars so she could toss them out on their ears after work. But he wasn’t denying anything!
He shook her, still careful not to hurt her despite how angry he was, “Did the Archstone Tribe send you? Did they?”
Her faced was knitted in angry confusion as she yanked his hands away from her lapel. One thing stood out for her; he hadn’t denied the authenticity of the pictures.
“So, it’s true then. Those pictures are all true,” she whispered, staggering and grabbing her desk for support.
Something in her manner caught Jack’s attention and he tried a new tack, “Who gave those pictures to you?”
“My private investigators. Who else?” she lied.
Jack’s heart froze in anger as he roared, “You had me investigated! Like some prime suspect in a murder case! And for what? How could you do this to me?” he demanded.
Megan didn’t respond but she did continue to regard him out of her beautiful blue eyes with a disdainful curl to her lips.
“What were you after? Let me guess, you found out I had some money so you wanted your share huh?” he demanded, his heart constricting as that old hurt resurfaced. Would he never be free from women who only wanted him from his money? Would he never be free from his past and the one woman, Ericka, who had wanted his money and nothing else? That woman had reappeared in the skin of several other women over the years.
He’d thought Megan was different. He had thought she was an angel come in the flesh. He’d fallen in love with her, he realized in a flash of clarity and genuine sorrow coursed through him at the realization.
He’d obviously never learned his lesson. How could he have been bought so cheap? One whiff of her lying scent and he had turned into putty in her hands. In that moment, Jack hated himself.
Megan’s hands folded across her midriff. “I’ve got work to do Jack!”
She didn’t need to repeat herself. He wanted to be as far from this office and the woman in it as it was possible to get. Jack flung the pictures in her general direction before turning to stride from the office, anger radiating from every rigid line of his body.
The pictures flew upwards in a high arch before descending to scatter around her still form. Megan held a hand to her lips thinking that the scattered pictures depicted her emotions right now.
She would not cry over Jack, she decided, even as the silent tears streamed down her cheeks. She’d kept her virginity for twenty-eight long years only to hand it over to the least of all men on a whim.
She’d thought it was love. But she realized now that there was no pure love in the world, only dirty lust wearing different coats.
* * *
“Mother? You are the cleverest,” Alcacia chortled, throwing back her head and letting her luxurious fiery red hair hang down all the way to the back of her knees.
She couldn’t believe her mother had pulled off her plan with such relative ease.
Nabradia grinned back at her daughter, “Oh, you mustn’t be too impressed my darling. It was as easy as taking candy from a baby,” she declared, as she waved a hand at her monitoring mirror and the image in Megan’s office vanished from view.
They had planted a small hex-bag in her briefcase and it worked in the same way as a surveillance camera would. So long as it was there, they could watch and monitor her every word and action on the mirror.
“So now we’ve created that rift between them, what next?” Alcacia asked.
“We go back to Noela and Lily,” Nabradia laughed.
“When do we kill her?” Alcacia asked impatiently as she stuffed her hair back into a bun and waved her hand over it, casting a simple spell to make it look more dirty red than vibrant red.
“We wait until Jack realizes how important she truly is to him and then we kill her.”
14.
Jack stared at the people gathered about him with bleary eyes trying t
o focus. He had driven from Megan’s office straight to the only 24/7 Bar and Diner in town, O’Malley’s. Weston O’Malley, its Irish owner, was a jolly fella and he had clapped Jack on the back so hard it would have sent a lesser man to his knees.
Then, when he had discovered that Jack had arrived just to drink, he’d left his duties to join Jack in drinking in an unspoken match. Jack had managed to out-drink the man before staggering into his car. He’d been unable to drive and he had staggered into the forest, shifted into his mountain lion form and prowled through the forest until he got home. He had fallen into a stupor at the front door of Joshua’s house and he wasn’t quite sure whom had taken him inside.
Now, however, he’d woken up with a devil of a hangover, which was one hell of a way to start his trainings on fighting fire for the residents of Weirna.
“Fires are gonna be starting up a lot these days, which is why we’ve called this meeting,” Jack began.
A hush fell over the entire meeting and he began to speak and teach them, managing to focus despite his hangover. Fires were something he understood and loved; they were harmless so long as you knew just how to control them. When you lost control though, they burned you nastily.
That train of thought made him think of Megan and he groaned inwardly. What was wrong with him? Megan had betrayed him in the worst way possible and yet she had been flashing across his mind all day.
As though he had conjured her with his thoughts, the door opened and Megan traipsed in, like a breath of fresh air. She was dressed today in a sleeveless hot-pink blouse, tucked into short black skirt with the hem ending at her thigh. Her heels accentuated the slim curves of her legs and made her look taller and more sophisticated.
What was she doing here?
He looked over at Jeanine; she didn’t look back with a mischievous grin. She was busy taking notes. It wasn’t her doing then, he decided.
Megan sank onto the seat at the very front of the audience, her gaze locked on his. Jack couldn’t take his gaze away from hers as he spoke.
She enchanted him. He loved her.
Perhaps he had over-reacted? He asked himself.
She’d after all just lost her virginity; she was bound to feel insecure and a tad irrational seeing all those pictures. It didn’t matter if she investigated him a thousand times over, he realized. He was hopelessly in love with her and there was nothing he could do about it.
Once there was a slight break, he promised himself, he would sneak off to talk to her and set things straight. He couldn’t bear to have this quarrel between them.
The door opened again and a burly, banker-type man in a suit that clung to his muscular frame in a flattering mold, entered the room. He looked around briefly before making his way directly to the empty seat beside Megan.
Jack continued to watch as they exchanged the greetings of strangers, then cards, and then smiles. What in the hell?
He’d barely gone half-way when he spotted the man’s hand creep to rest on Megan’s knees. He had lost his train of thought after that and the rest of the speech had passed in a blur.
When the time for questions came, Megan’s hand was the first up. Jack pointed at her with marked reluctance.
She batted her eyelashes at him as she asked her question, but Jack didn’t hear a word. He was listening to the roaring in his ears as he watched the other man’s hand slide up her thigh and then down as though testing…
When the large masculine hand started to press towards the skin underneath her short skirt, Jack lost it.
“Stop that nonsense right this instant!”
The words, spoken in icy fury, fell with clipped precision into the sudden silence of the room. Jack glared at the couple feeling his lion straining to break free. He left the stage and strode down to confront them.
The other man rose to his feet and Jack realized the man towered above him.
He started to say something when a flash in the man’s eyes caught his gaze and he stared in shock at the huge brown werebear staring back at him from the man’s eyes. The man was a shifter! He was an Archstone werebear!
Without stopping to think about it, Jack swung with his fist. His fist connected solidly with the other man’s jaw but before the other man could retaliate, Derek’s intervening fist connected with Jack’s chin in a solid blow that sent him sprawling.
“Jack!” Megan screamed before she could help herself. She had already started to run towards his prone body when she caught herself and paused.
Jack staggered to his feet, “What’s this all about Megan?” he demanded.
She glared at him in frigid silence. Everyone’s attention was focused on them and no one noticed when Nabradia, in her disguise as Neola, sneaked towards the back of the room with Alcacia.
“Can we grab Jeanine in front of all these people?” Alcacia whispered worriedly to her mother.
“We could turn her into a rat first, and it would be easy,” Nabradia cackled.
She lowered her wand to the region of her knees to avoid attracting attention as she waved it towards Jeanine and began to mumble the words of the spell.
As the trail of smoke began to emerge from her wand, Kelly chose that exact movement to move and stand beside Jeanine placing one hand on her sister-in-law’s shoulder as they both watched the drama between Jack and Megan with wide-eyed interest.
Kelly had always been immune to all forms of magic, so the moment she stood beside Jeanine, the magic was deflected and it bounced back and hit Nabradia’s hand with enough force to make her hiss in pain. Nabradia stilled as she fought down the ricochet effect of the magic and the ensuing pain.
Alcacia stared at her mother with worried eyes until the pain passed and Nabradia ground her teeth as she glared at the two women with dislike. “Let’s go Alcacia. We can’t carry out our plans today.”
No one noticed as they left again but when the door opened to let them out, Derek paused to sniff the air. That scent was familiar, he thought. It smelled a little like…Nabradia.
A quick, frantic glance around the room showed him she wasn’t in the room and he relaxed a fraction. Perhaps he had imagined it?
Derek turned in time to see Jack grab Megan’s hand as he asked, “Do you really hate me this much? Even if you want to be with someone else, not him!”
“Why not?” Megan demanded, tossing off his hand from her wrist. Then she shook her head at him, her gaze alive with disdain. “You’re hopeless. Come on, Sloan,” she said to her new friend and they both exited the room.
Jack rushed after her. He didn’t care if she cursed him out or did whatever she wanted to do to him; he wasn’t letting her be alone with that shifter. Who knew what the man had in mind? Perhaps Nabradia had sent him?
He caught up with them just as Megan was opening the passenger’s side of her door. Obviously, she hadn’t come with her car. He sprinted towards them at the same time she slammed the door and ordered Sloan to “punch it.”
Jack rushed to his own car and dived into it. He stayed on their tail following them all the way across town in his very conspicuous Lamborghini. When Sloan parked in front of Megan’s office, Jack jumped out of his car and rushed towards her.
He grabbed her elbow unceremoniously and lifted her into his arms.
“Hey,” Sloan began.
Jack glared over his shoulder at him, letting him see his shifter mountain lion roaring in the depths of his own eyes. The effect was very subduing and Sloan fell into immediate silence. Jack ignored Megan’s furious sputters as he carried her past the lobby, past her gaping employees and all the way up to her office.
The moment he deposited her on the cushion in her office, she came up sputtering furiously. “How dare you? How dare you even touch me?”
Jack grabbed both her shoulders, and gave her a slight but gentle shake, “Cut it out okay? It’s just both of us here and you don’t have to put on an act?”
Her slap whipped his head backwards and left an imprint on his cheeks. Red welts immedia
tely appeared on his cheek and Megan determinedly squelched the guilt that threatened to swamp her. She would not apologize, especially when Jack totally deserved it.
“You think I’m putting on an act? I find out you’re Casanova in the flesh and everything that was between us was just a game and you think I’m putting on an act?”
Put that way, he had to admit that was the most arrogant thing he could possibly have said to her.
“Megan. When we made love that day, I left happier than any man alive had a right to be. I was eager to see you again. But the next time I saw you, you acted like you hated my guts. I just want to understand. Help me.”
“I met Neola and Lily alright? They gave me the pictures and I realized what a philandering, heartless bastard you were.”
“Megan—”
“You made love to me by the side of the house in broad daylight just so you could prove to her that you were over her! Who does that!”
He blinked, looking confusion. “Who?”
“Lily! Your little Puritan! I met her!”
“Listen, Megan, you’re going to have to help me understand you,” he whispered as though she were an imbecile. “What Puritan? Do you mean literally? I’ve never met a Puritan in my life!”
He looked so earnest that she paused. What did she really know about the women in her house? Something seemed off. But then they had pictures and pictures didn’t lie. But then how could they have gotten pictures from ten years ago if Lily had only met Jack a year ago as she claimed? Who were the women?
Her doubt and confusion must have shown in her face because Jack held both her shoulders in a gentle grip, “I know you’re angry with me Megan. But please try to think carefully about what you’re saying and let me know what you mean. What women are you talking about? Where did you meet them?”
Megan started to speak when a memory intruded of Lily saying, ‘He made love to you against the wall in the exact same position he had used his first time with me. He knew it was my favorite position and he only did it to spite me.’