“Don’t be a sap,” I said, smiling despite myself. “Besides, it couldn’t be a meet-cute seeing as we already met.”
“Hunter and I have a meet-cute,” she said, then went on because I gave her the space too. “He moved in next to me and I used to be up all night so I slept in and his fucking ass kept hammering early in the morning. So I went over. Meet-cute.”
“Okay, that is pretty cute,” I admitted, having seen them together and knowing how well they turned out as a couple and a family unit making it even cuter. “But you’re forgetting one big thing.”
“What’s that?”
“You were interested in Hunter. I’m not interested in Shane.”
“Yeah, okay,” she snorted. “Please. If nothing else, you want to do him. There’s not a woman eighteen to eighty who would turn down a chance at any of the Mallick brothers. So what happened? Come on, I need a little romance in my life. Becca and Izzy have the stomach flu. And no matter how much you love your partner, there is no such thing as romance between a man and a woman who have been taking turns cleaning up puke for two days.”
“My shower broke and there was water going everywhere. You know this building; it’s a hellhole. So I called the machine and flipped shit about the owner being a slumlord.”
“Oh, this is good,” Fee said and I could mentally see her propping her stilettos up on the desk as she reached for her coffee. “Did you guys do it? No. Scratch that. You couldn’t have done it. You’re too surly.”
“Gee, thanks,” I laughed. “He fixed the thingy in the pipe…”
“Oh, I bet he did.”
“Shut up, Fee,” I laughed, shaking my head. “And then we cleaned up the water. And then we kissed. That’s it.”
“If that’s it, what are you so pissy for? A kiss can mean as little as a handshake sometimes.” Yeah, it definitely wasn’t a handshake. I was pretty sure I never creamed my panties over a nice firm handshake. “Unless it’s more than that and you just don’t want to admit it.”
“It’s not going to be more than that,” I said with as much finality as I could muster.
“Then why are you calling me bitching?”
“I didn’t want him knowing where I lived.”
“Because your pants start screaming ‘take me off!’ around him, perhaps?”
“I hate you,” I said, shaking my head at my ceiling.
“You love me and you know it.”
“I guess I am used to being the bad influence friend. It’s weird to be on the receiving end of this.”
“Get used to it. I am going to be on your case until I know you guys have bumped uglies.”
“Bumped uglies?” I repeated on a laugh. “You are a retired phone sex operator and the best you can come up with is ‘bump uglies’? I’m disappointed in you.”
“Gland to gland combat? Slytherin in the Hufflepuff? Doing the monster mash? Verbing the adjective noun?”
I was genuinely laughing then, my cheeks strained from my smile. “That’s much better.”
“Okay. Just so we’re clear. You’re fucking Shane. Case closed. Take the day to get used to that fact. Girl to girl here, you need to get laid,” she said.
“I’m having a period of celibacy.”
“You’re having a dry spell,” she corrected. “Don’t try to fancy it up like it’s some religious shit. You haven’t had a good pickle tickle in too long and if you don’t get that taken care of soon, you know what’s going to happen. You won’t be able to stop thinking about sex. You’ll have wet dreams. And don’t try to tell me girls don’t get those. We totally do,” she said dismissively. “And then all that will be in your head all the time is sex. Sex sex sex. Which is good for your job until one day one of the doms get you on the phone and get all alpha badass sexy on you and you come just from him telling you to.” She paused. “It could happen.”
She didn’t need to tell me that. Just the idea of one of those doms, and maybe one of those doms being Shane, oh yeah, there was some definite pre-orgasm tightening going on.
Damn it.
“So maybe I will pick up a guy at a bar,” I mused. That was a safer bet in the long run.
“Drop into Chaz’s any night of the week and you’re sure to run into some Henchmen. I swear to all that is holy that this town has no ugly men. Those Henchmen though…”
“Henchmen?” I repeated, guts twisting a little.
“Local bike gang. Not,” she emphasized as I stiffened, “the weekend warrior variety. They’re one-percenters. Gun runners, actually. I have a feeling you’re into the bad boy types.”
“Just not bikers,” I clarified.
“Oh, well. Better it’s not one of them anyway. You go into Chaz’s and start flirting, it will only be a matter of minutes before that gets back to Shane and he comes in and shuts that shit down.”
“Oh my God,” I said, rolling my eyes. “You’re acting like we’re a pack of dogs. He can’t claim me.”
“Sure he can. You’ve met them, right? They will all band together and make sure your muffin doesn’t get any stuffin’ until you’re eighty.”
“Your euphemisms are ridiculous.”
“I have three children. I can’t be throwing fucks and sucks and orals and anals around all the time. I have to get inventive. Now it’s just habit. But yeah,” she went on, “I can pretty much guarantee you won’t be getting laid in this town. Like it or not, your lady cave will have cobwebs unless you let Shane in there.”
“Maybe I will just invest in a really good vibrator.”
“You don’t have a really good vibrator?” she asked, sounding appalled at the idea. “What are you doing the day after tomorrow? Whatever it is, cancel it. We’re hitting the sex store. Shenanigans will be had. Be ready at three. Okay byeeeee,” she said, rushing to hang up before I could object.
I hung up feeling lighter, a smile still on my face, full of the realization that I missed that. I missed friendships. I missed having people to talk to. Coming from the environment I had been in before, the isolation was taking its tole on me. I needed connection.
But the whole point of moving and cutting ties had been to keep myself and everyone I cared about safe. I couldn’t create new circles. I couldn’t get wrapped up with people who could end up hurt or worse because of me.
And I certainly couldn’t make friends with Fiona.
She was my boss.
Worse yet, she was the sister-in-law to the guy I was trying very hard not to get involved with.
And it was her mission to get us together.
As if I needed more things pushing me toward him.
My sex drive was hard enough to overcome.
I just had to hole up and not go anywhere near the places I might run into him.
That was all.
Easy.
FIVE
Lea
My avoiding Shane plan started with agreeing to go with Fee to the sex shop where we had loads of fun, but refusing to go back to her place for lunch because that sounded like it had ‘ambush’ written all the heck over it.
From there, it was easier since Fee was married with a litter of kids and therefore not exactly an ‘out on the town’ kind of friend. So I stayed away from Chaz’s and I checked for his bike in the lot of my apartment building.
It was smooth sailing.
Yeah, that was until the following week when I walked into my new gym, a little too excited to wear out my new galaxy yoga pants and the obnoxious purple racerback tank that boasted a picture of an avocado on a treadmill with a sweatband on his head, intent on getting my body moving.
I had never been, and would never be, a fitness freak. I just wasn’t built that way.
But that being said, I had an inactive desk job. I needed to get my ass in motion before it went from an appealing kind of jiggly to a tapioca pudding kind of jiggly. Plus, it got me out of my crummy apartment for a few hours. It was my way of treating myself.
That was until I stuck my earbuds in after a grueling
session with the stair climber and punched up the speed on the treadmill. Just when I started getting into it, a motion at the corner of my eye stopped me. Why it drew my attention, I had no idea. But it did and I turned my head to see none other than Shane freaking Mallick walking toward the mens’ locker room.
“Of course,” I grumbled, turning off the machine with a mix of relief and annoyance. Relief because, well, it was my personal belief that anyone who actually enjoyed running was a fucking masochist. Annoyance because, masochism aside, I was pumped up for getting a good workout in.
Maybe more than a small part of that had to do with the fact that I was about as sexually frustrated a person could get before it drove them plum crazy. I thought the gym would be a good outlet for all that as well as the chronic worry I had about someone finding me, dragging me out of Navesink Bank, and then what would happen after.
On top of all of that, it got me out in the public for a little while. Which I needed. I lived alone. I worked alone. I slept, ate, showered, shopped, I everything’d alone. It was nice to be around people.
But not Shane.
Hell no.
I hopped off the treadmill and made my way down the hall toward the womens’ locker room, keeping my head ducked as I did so.
I would just have to find a different time of day to workout. Chances were, the afternoons were just his time. I had been in gyms enough to know that guys who worked out as much as Shane must have worked out, generally kept a tight schedule. They went in at such and such a time and did such and such things and talked to such and such people, then they left. So if I maybe switched my workouts to after my overnight shift, I would be good. Or maybe even right before my shift. With no one in the office, there was no one to care if I showed up sweaty.
With that, I grabbed the stuff out of my locker and headed toward the long row of closed doors that were the shower rooms. Really, it was a nice gym. All the equipment was state-of-the-art. Everything was clean. But the shower rooms, oh yeah, they went all out on them. You closed and locked a door that led into a very small seating area with a mirror, vanity, and blow dryer. Then through that room there was another door that led into a full shower room with a drain in the floor and warm sand-colored tile.
I stripped out of my sweaty clothes, taking my clean ones out of my gym bag so I could toss the old ones in, grabbed a towel and my bath products, slipped into my shower flip-flops, and let myself into the shower room.
In there, I let almost an hour pass, enjoying the fact that it wasn’t a shitty building with a shitty hot water tank that made my showers turn glacial after eight minutes exactly.
And, as all women knew, a shower was a cure-all. I swear as the soap circled the drain, so did all the stress I had been feeling.
I toweled my hair a bit then dried off and wrapped up in the white towel the gym offered that smelled comfortingly of heavy bleach, and made my way out into the dressing room.
“Going for the shower world record, baby? How fucking dirty could you be?”
I shrieked as I jerked backward, my spine crushing into the door jamb as my eyes landed on Shane across the small room from me, leaning back against the wall, arms crossed, as if he had all the time in the world.
“Get the fuck out of my dressing room,” I snapped, too shocked to be anything other than angry, not really factoring in the danger thing. Not because I thought he would hurt me, but because he would do just the opposite of that. And I wanted that a bit too much.
“No.”
“No?” I sputtered. “What do you mean, no? Get out or I will scream for management.”
“Won’t do you any good.”
“Why not?” I asked, my belly clenching a little, having a feeling I knew what was about to follow.
“Because I am management. I own this gym.”
Of course he did.
The man owned everything in my fucking life.
“Regardless, you’re being a creep right now. Get out.”
“I don’t think you mean that,” he said, pushing off the wall and closing the four or so feet between us. He seemed to suck up all the air in the room, making my chest feel tight and my head feel light. He moved into me, but didn’t quite make contact, his entire body a mere whisper from mine. One of his hands braced on the wall beside the top of my head. I swallowed hard, trying my best to stand my ground, not duck down under his arm and run from the building in my towel and shower flip-flops. “Right?” he asked and I literally could not remember what he was supposed to be wrong about. Though I wasn’t too stupid to know that he was definitely, definitely wrong.
“Shane, I…”
“Skipped out on that incredibly transparent set-up after your outing with Fee?” he asked, his free hand sliding down the side of my ribs. “I saw that bag she came in with. Phallus-opy, huh? Wonder what you might have picked up there.”
“Nothing,” I lied, my skin buzzing where his fingers drifted, across my belly, then down toward my hip, sinking in slightly.
“And I bet I can tell you who you were thinking about while you were pressing a vibrator against that pussy,” he said, voice low, rumbling; the sound reverberated through my body and settled with a very strong pressure in my lower stomach. “Tell me I’m wrong,” he said, his face getting closer to mine. At my hesitation, his lips pressed into mine hard. His tongue pushed forward and parted my lips, sneaking inside to toy with mine. My body arched into his, my hands going up and around his neck, angling my head up to give him better access. His hand moved down, toying with the skin of my knee before sliding upward, inching the scratchy material of the towel up. His finger slipped inward up my inner thigh. My sex clenched hard just a second before I felt his finger finally move to where I needed it most, sliding up my slick cleft.
And it was right that second that I realized something.
And it was an ice bath to my overheated system.
Because his hand was between my thighs.
Where I hadn’t shaved in months.
Months.
Jesus Christ.
“Stop,” I demanded against his mouth, dragging my hands from around his neck, and pressing them into his chest until he went back a step.
Shane’s brows drew together as he looked at me. “You alright?”
My hand moved up and clutched at the tuck in my towel, resisting the urge to die of complete and utter mortification. I had been shaving since I was freaking twelve years old. Never, never did I miss a day. Not even when I was between men. “I’m… fine. I just don’t want this,” I said, my voice cracking a bit in the center at the obvious lie. He had felt how much I wanted it. I had moaned how much I wanted it against his lips.
“Lea…”
Oh, God. He needed to not say my name in that sex-gruff voice of his.
I pressed my thighs together hard and took a deep breath. “Please go,” I said and my voice held a sort of sadness that I couldn’t really understand. But Shane’s shoulders went a little slack at the sound and he nodded, moving toward the door.
“Alright,” he said before turning back to me. “See you around, Lea.”
The door closed behind him and I slumped back against the wall, fighting back the completely irrational sting of tears at the backs of my eyes. What was wrong with me? I wasn’t the crying type. I had left everything and everyone I loved to move across the country to live in fear, in destitution, and completely and utterly alone in the world and I hadn’t cried about it. That wasn’t how I was raised- with softness, with nurturing of my feelings. I was taught to nut-up and deal with whatever came my way. So that was how I handled things- with a stiff upper lip, squared shoulders, and a middle finger up.
I was pretty sure the last time I cried was in middle school.
And I was damn sure not going to cry over a little embarrassment and unfulfilled desire.
That was not the kind of woman I was.
But I was, apparently, the kind of woman to change her schedule to avoid a man she needed to not give into
. Which was, in and of itself, a little pathetic. But that was a fact that I was trying to ignore.
SIX
Shane
“Was that Lea hightailing it out of here?” Mark asked when I walked back into the weight room. “What? Did she finally get a good look at that ugly mug of yours?”
“Fuck off,” I said, in no mood for the ribbing. My dick was still half fucking hard after that interaction in the changing room. She’d wanted me. Everything about her had been a testament to that fact: her breathing, her arms encircling me, her lips responding to me, her throaty moans, her wet fucking pussy. Everything. She wanted me. And nothing about Lea seemed to imply she was the kind of woman to deny herself things she wanted. So the issue wasn’t as simple as not wanting a good fucking. It wasn’t even her unexplained urge to try to deny the attraction between us. It was something else, that was clear.
Because she was a shit liar. Her eyes gave her away every time.
“Still not getting any, huh?” Mark asked, either oblivious to or unconcerned by my shitty mood. “Maybe she isn’t into the Hulk thing. I should give her a…”
“I swear to fuck, Mark…” I started, moving toward him, my body tight. Normal men would have shrank away from a man like me closing in on them in anger. But Mark wasn’t normal. Mark grew up in the same house with me where we weren’t exactly discouraged from using our fists to solve problems. I’d kicked his ass countless times; he had kicked mine just as many.
“Do you really think it’s good business to bring your personal shit in here?” Ryan asked from behind me, making me exhale hard. Partly because he was right and partly because him showing up in the middle of the day could only mean one thing.
“What’s up?” I asked as I turned to find him standing there in a gray suit, gray shirt, and red tie. That was Mark, a loan shark enforcer who looked like a fucking lawyer.
“Mo.”
Shane (The Mallick Brothers Book 1) Page 5