“You’re still hedging. What happened in your divorce that made you run from a place like Manhattan to Piney Creek? You don’t have to tell me, but I figure I should know something personal about you before I have my way with you.” He wiggled his eyebrows playfully and in such stark contrast to his hard good looks.
Despite her protests, Beck-Shaw’s suggestion about having his way with her made her heart race and her womanly parts throb. He was flirting with her, and without warning, she was flirting back by tilting her head at an angle that left her without a double chin. “Do you really want to talk about my divorce?” Because wow, she really didn’t.
“Yeah, I really do,” he said, tracing more maddening circles on her arms.
“Fine. George wasn’t the man I thought I’d married. I knew that emotionally five or six years in, but I was too stupid to realize, morally, he was about as shallow as a dirty puddle. End of.”
“Was he unfaithful?”
Shit. What was it about this man that had her in some midnight confessional? Words spilled from her lips like water flowing from a fountain. “Oh, he was, but even something as awful as that couldn’t hurt me as much as he ended up hurting me.”
“What else tears a marriage apart short of maybe, I dunno, murder?”
Katie’s teeth clenched. “Murder’s close enough.”
His eyes widened, his fingers tightened on her arm. “Jesus Christ, Katie. He murdered someone?”
God, she so didn’t want to go here, but here she was. It wasn’t like he couldn’t Google her and find out anything he wanted to know.
Katie gulped, the words thick on her tongue. “Not someone, no. He murdered animals, innocent animals, and I helped.”
CHAPTER 12
Shaw sat upright, leaning over her by placing one arm along each side of her waist. “Say again?”
“George ran underground dog-fighting rings,” she blurted, fighting the sob that threatened to escape whenever she said those words out loud.
Disgust shadowed his face, seeping into the lines of his frowning forehead. A disgust Katie knew well—had seen on hundreds of faces when George had been tried and gotten off with almost little or no punishment. “And you knew?”
A tear welled in her eye. Just one—a huge improvement on the thousands she’d shed over the last two years. The horrific nature of George’s life outside their marriage still had the ability to make her heart bleed with pain for the animals she’d all but given him to abuse.
“No. I absolutely didn’t know,” she said with the fierce conviction she was so familiar with when she’d denied all allegations over and over. “I had no idea. George and I owned various properties. A house in the Hamptons—one in the Caymans. The cabin where this all took place was his before we married. It’s in some remote region of Virginia. I knew of the cabin, but I thought it was where he went fishing with his lawyer buddies while they lived out their bromances. I was actually glad most times when he’d announce he was spending the weekend there. Our marriage had become stale. I knew it. I just didn’t want to admit it. We were drifting apart long before I found out about what he was up to. Never, ever, in a million years did I think the cabin was where he participated and ran something so sick.”
He stroked her cheek with his thumb, gentle, soothing. “I believe you. So how did that involve you helping him?”
Her chest tightened, constricting her lungs. “Whenever a client had an oops pregnancy that wasn’t caught in time, resulting in litters of unwanted kittens or puppies, or if I found a stray, I always posted notes on my bulletin board in my office and on my website in the hopes the animals would be adopted by another client or someone surfing the Web on adoption.” Oh, God. She couldn’t breathe from the memory of the kind of betrayal George had inflicted upon her. Raw hatred for him resurfaced in a harsh shot to her gut.
Shaw sneered with narrowed eyes. “And the son of a bitch used those strays and unwanted litters of kittens and puppies as . . . I can’t even finish that sentence. The fuck,” he spat through clenched teeth.
Katie pressed a finger to her trembling lower lip before she spoke again. “It’s worse than even that. He was having an affair with my receptionist, Danielle, who conned my clients into giving her the animals with the idea she’d found homes for them, and then she handed them off to George to do with as he pleased. God! It makes my stomach turn when I think about what he did not just to those animals but to the people who trusted me to help them find homes for animals they loved but couldn’t necessarily care for.”
“Now I see the connection. George gave you up as a sort of supplier, didn’t he?”
Her fists clenched with the anger George’s dirty dealings still summoned. “He’s a slimy prick.Yes!Yes, he said I knew all about it and Danielle backed him up. It was my word against his and hers. The only difference being, they had proof on George and Danielle, but nothing on me. And still, after all this time, I haven’t figured out why he was so determined to see me as ruined as he was. I don’t understand the motivation behind it. Maybe he figured he would lose all of his possessions to me if he was convicted and I wasn’t? George made a lot of money. I can only suspect he thought I’d get everything in the divorce he knew I was filing for.” A sob shuddered, but remained silent in her chest. This had been a bad idea. Very bad.
But Shaw gave her a gentle smile. “So what happened to your practice?”
“I almost lost my license over it, but worse, I lost clients I’d had, in some cases, for ten years. I loved my work. I loved my life, even if I didn’t really love George anymore. He took the respect I’d earned in the community and turned it into pickets and PETA rioting outside my office until I had to close my doors because my practice dwindled to nothing.”
Shaw gathered her in his arms, wiping the stray tears that fell.
Katie’s laugh was a harsh bark against the warm confines of his chest. “Kind of like it is now. Who wants a veterinarian even remotely involved with a dog-fighting ring? I was guilty by association. There was a trial, and George was fined and given community service, but I paid a steeper penalty in the end. I lost everything that was important to me, and I don’t mean my apartment on the Upper East Side or my Benz. I mean my patients. The clients I’d come to love and cherish.”
“So not only did he decimate your practice, but he left you broke?”
Her smile was sly when she looked up at him. That was one front she’d been smart enough to cover, thanks to Aunt Teeny’s advice. “No. Money’s not an issue. I was smart enough to make investments through the years that had nothing to do with George. I was actually entitled to alimony, but I’d rather be flayed alive under the midday sun than take anything from that pig. He killed innocent animals. Babies.” She sobbed. “Little, innocent babies, and he turned beautiful dogs into snarling, drooling beasts—some so twisted and unmanageable, they had to be euthanized. I just can’t believe I didn’t know. I just didn’t know.”
“He’s a dick of much more epic proportions than even I gave him credit for. So you’ve been hiding here and the people in town aren’t just afraid of your fancy city ways, they’re afraid you’ll turn their beloved pets into monsters.”
Tears began to drip in stinging reminder of the scorn she just couldn’t shake. “That’s about the size of it. No matter where I go, that’s what I’m up against. I’ve been officially labeled. Believe me, Piney Creek wasn’t my ideal relocation hot spot. But it was the closest thing to home and comfort I know.”
“And Tater Tot hot dish, I suspect.”
Katie swiped at her tears with the heel of her hand. “Yes—even Teeny’s Tater Tot hot dish couldn’t keep me away. Had I known the Piney Creek people would shun her so severely, I might have reconsidered that hole I’d been digging.”
Shaw rested his chin on the top of her head, smoothing his hands along her spine. “I don’t think Teeny’s sorry at all. I think she’s just proud. There wasn’t a note of bitter in her words when she called someone named Magda an
overfed sow.”
“Aunt Teeny plays the rejection off like she has no feelings, but I know it hurt her to have her friends taken from her. Or the people she thought were her friends, anyway. I just feel like I’ve done nothing but rain trouble on her since I got here.”
“Ah, but you’re family. Nothing’s more important. The gospel according to Teeny,” he said on a chuckle.
“Speaking of family—we were talking about yours.”
“I say we don’t talk anymore, Katie. You’ve had a rough few days, and reliving what brought you here, this journey you’ve been on, was very evidently painful, and I’m glad it was you who told me. I didn’t want to have to wrestle Teeny for it.”
“She’d so slaughter you.”
“I don’t doubt her ability to wrestle hungry alligators and come out the victor. Teeny’s not the point right now. You are. But I have a cure that’s sure to take your mind off Teeny and that ex of yours, whose neck I’d gladly squeeze until he was blue in the face for the shit he’s put you through.”
Somehow, the vision of Shaw wringing George’s neck brought with it a deep feeling of being sheltered—protected, and it made her blush. “I say okay.”
His lips grazed her hair. “Do you want to know what I think we should do instead?”
“Play World ofWarcraft?”
The rumble of his laughter against her cheek made her body tingle. “Lay off the teen jokes. What I have in mind has nothing to do with video games. It’s all adultlike, in fact.”
“You wanna balance my checkbook, don’t you?” She clamped her mouth shut, mortified she’d been so forward and flirtatious.
“Metaphorically speaking, I’d really just like to see your checkbook again.” The smile that followed was lascivious.
Instantly, Katie was nervous. She’d had a semi-active sex life in college and before marrying George, but it’d been a long time since she’d engaged in something this spontaneous, and she’d never engaged in anything so forbidden. No matter how long his mother’d been around, Katie couldn’t get past the part that quite possibly, when she’d been graduating college and drinking beer from a bong, he’d been riding Big Wheels and snarfing a Capri Sun.
She began to push Shaw away, even if doing so left her still wanting him. “We shouldn’t do this.”
He hauled her over his length, leaving them pressed together, their noses touching. “I can’t think of one good reason not to. I like you, you like me. It’s like that show Barney, but with some hanky-panky.”
“Because we hardly know each other.”
His mouth whispered over hers, making her nipples bead to tight knots. “In all fairness, you can’t really know me because I don’t know me. Therefore, the getting to know one another point is moot, which means we can skip right to the dirty without any residual guilt.”
His lips against hers, light, caressing her mouth, left her breathless and as giddy as it had in the woods. “I ca . . . can’t get past the idea that I could be old enough to be . . . your mother.”
“Let me help you,” he whispered, cupping her breast. A breast that was covered only by a sheet and now the heat of his hand engulfing it in flames.
Warmth spread to her belly, creeping along her thighs to settle between her legs. Shaw’s mouth captured hers, hot, fierce. The slut in her, the one that wanted to clamp her thighs around him and never let go, just wouldn’t stand up to the adult in her, who was going all sensible in her head right now. “We’ve known each other for three days. One of which I slept through.”
His chuckle was thick. “I’ll tell you all about today when we’re done. Every detail. Promise.”
Katie braced her hands on his chest, fighting not to dig her fingers into his hard pecs and indulge in this overwhelming desire to peel his clothes off. “That’s not what I mean.”
“Ah,” he said on a laugh, placing his hands around her wrists. “You mean we should get to know each other. Do you want to know things like what my favorite color is? I’m sort of undecided between green and blue. Wanda tells me blue is perfect for my complexion and totally in my color wheel. Though, Nina said to fuck the color wheel and wear whatever I want. They left me very uncertain about myself and my fashion choices.” He grinned and winked before rolling so he sprawled on top of her.
Shaw’s heavy weight was bliss, hard, strong, pushing her into the cushy mattress with decadent pressure. “That’s not what I mean, either. I just mean I usually don’t engage in casual sex.”
“Well, I don’t know if I do, either. Oh, the dilemmas. But as crazy as this sounds, or maybe it’ll just sound like I’ll say anything, either way, I’m pretty sure that’s not who I was. I watched an episode of Jersey Shore with Teeny. All that bed-hopping made me fear for their health,” he teased while his mouth found the sensitive spot on her neck and began to nibble, driving her to a slow, mad descent into hell for what she was about to agree to.
Still, the responsible adult in her just couldn’t let this bone go. No matter how luxurious his lips were sliding along her neck. No matter the rush of heat he created just by molding her to him, allowing the rigid outline of his hard shaft to grind against her. She had to at least look as though she had a misgiving. If she didn’t, he’d think she was an easy lay—which certainly appeared to be the case today. Then there was the idea she could be contemplating sleeping with another woman’s boyfriend.
“What if we do this, and in the end we find out you have a girlfriend? That’s not okay, Shaw. It’s called infidelity, and I won’t be a part of hurting someone who could be looking for you.”
He paused teasing her flesh, his gaze direct. “I’ve given that as much thought as anything else, and the only thing I can tell you is this—I just know there’s no one else in my life right now. That fits. It makes sense, and I’m not saying that because I’m so desperate I can’t walk away. I’m saying it because I feel it. Just as sure as in my gut I knew my name was Shaw.”
His response was so quietly honest, Katie relaxed for a moment until another concern she needed to voice cropped up. “I don’t have condoms, but I’m on the Pill to keep me regulated.”
“You read my mind,” he murmured.
Shaw’s mouth was driving her to distraction, curving to her skin, nibbling in all the right places. Ground rules—always a good precaution. “This by no means is a commitment of any kind.”
“Were you concerned I’d propose we hit Vegas?”
She arched her neck against the wetness of his tongue, rasping against her flesh. “No. I just don’t want you to think—”
“That you’d be my prom date?”
Katie nudged his shoulder all while she arched into his exploration of her collarbone. “There’s just no talking to you, is there? You take almost nothing seriously.”
“I’m taking this bid to get in your panties very, very seriously,” he husked, tugging at the sheet and pulling it to her waist. She might have protested, but her breasts stood proudly in an upright position instead of sagging to either side of her upper torso like in days of yore.
Win!
Shaw kissed his way along the curve at the top of each of her breasts, his breath hot and his mouth silky soft. Pinpricks of awareness sprung up on every square inch of her flesh, making a moan slip from her lips.
Heat raged in her veins, the slick feel of desire between her legs almost unbearable.
“So are we a go?” he rumbled, husky against her nipple.
Well, her nipples were giving the thumbs-up.
Katie dragged him to her lips, unable to fight the crazy roar of her hormones anymore. “Do me, cougar man,” she demanded, sounding much more like the woman she’d once known—before George.
With that, Shaw tore the sheet from her, exposing her flesh to the cool of the room. Chills skittered along her flesh, followed by a molten swell of fire coursing through her veins at the hungry gaze he pinned her to the bed with.
His eyes glowed in the dark of the room, amber pinpoints shooting from b
eneath his long lashes as he consumed her with a long, hard glance.
Katie shivered—embarrassed and titillated in one fell swoop. She decided she wanted to see him sans clothes, too. The anticipation of revealing all that hard flesh made her mouth water and her heart crash almost painfully against her ribs.
Her fingers reached for the T-shirt he wore, pulling it up over his head. Her first glance at his abs, defined, sleek, left her fingers itching to touch each solid ridge.
He wasn’t overly developed muscularly. In fact, his body was exactly what had always appealed to her—lean, smooth, with just enough muscle to glisten when sweat fell upon it.
Katie let her fingers drift to the belt at his jeans, pulling it, forcing herself to slow down so her fingers wouldn’t tremble as though she were some inexperienced kid.
Shaw rose and yanked his jeans off, letting them fall along his thighs, thick with sinew and a sprinkling of dark hair. Her throat closed at the sight of his erection, pushing against his boxer briefs.
When he slipped those off, too, her heart entirely stopped.
Shaw, standing before her naked, could quite possibly be one of the most erotic sights she’d ever seen. He was male personified, every inch of him a treat to the eye. Every plane, dip, and valley on his long frame was worthy of some kind of praise she had no words for.
He sat at the edge of the bed, grabbing her thighs and hauling her over his lap to settle her there. Katie wrapped her legs around his lower back, waiting, her throat constricted, her stomach a knotted jumble of butterflies. His cock brushed her cleft, wet and aching, his hard shaft pulsing against her clit, throbbing and wet.
Shaw slipped a hand between them, using a callused thumb to stroke her clit, the stiff nub a mass of wet desire.
Katie groaned, so turned on, she was dizzy with need. For the first time in any of her sexual encounters, she wanted to skip foreplay and get right to the business at hand. Shaw driving his cock so deep within her, he ripped the breath from her very lungs.
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