a reason to live(84)

“You’ll learn,” he whispered. “And I’ll enjoy explorin’ you inside and out while I’m teachin’ you.”

My head was spinning, but I managed to get out, “Learn what?” between breaths.

He pulled back and held my hooded gaze. “What it means to be mine . . . Don’t you get it? After months in the dark, you’ve woken me up. I’m shakin’ in my boots for the first time since I left the war. All I see now is you.” He placed his hand over my heart then leaned in and ran his nose next to mine. I melted like butter. “I can hear your heart beating from across the room. It calls to me. Beats for me. This, this right here is all that matters. Nothin’ else. Only you,” he whispered, then caught my bottom lip between his teeth, tugging gently before taking my mouth again.

Tears welled behind my closed lids. His soul was so beautiful, and it humbled me to the bone that he let me see inside it after all he’d been through. I would have told him, too, but his focus now seemed to be on seduction instead of expressions of love.

Gone was his sensitive side, in its place was a passionate force.

I whimpered, “Shane,” when he rubbed against me, his erection pressing into my stomach. I was coming apart in a stock room and didn’t care. He could take me hard against the door and I wouldn’t have protested.

Pulling my shirt from my jeans, Shane pressed his mouth to my neck as he ran his hand up my side, whisper-soft, weakening my resistance further. But someone tried to open the door as he pushed my bra aside and tweaked my bared nipple. He paused, pulled back, and looked at the doorknob.

A female voice could be heard asking for the keys to the stock room, so Shane pulled my shirt down.

“We’ll finish this later,” he murmured, his warm breath caressing my ear. I could barely walk when he pulled open the door. He grinned smugly at the wide-eyed server, to my mortification, and escorted me back to my table.

Before he joined Jack and Max, he kissed my forehead and whispered, “Be good.”

I stared at his retreating back as he met up with Max and Jack. Then I sat down hard, still a little dazed, and watched them leave the restaurant.

“You were gone a while,” Maxine grinned.

“Um, yeah, I had to talk to Shane before they left.”

“From the looks of your hair and clothes I’d say you did more than talk,” Mia chuckled.

I reached up and found my ponytail loose and half my hair spilling around my shoulders. Then I looked down and saw my shirt was cockeyed.

“Animal,” I sighed. “He was trying to make a point.”

“Really? And what point is that?” Jenn asked.

“That I’m putty in his hands and resistance is futile.”

“And did he make this point?” Mia grinned

“Of course, he did. Sage likes to be topped.”

“Maxine! You don’t have to tell everyone.”

“If that’s the case, we need to keep her close. If Max or Jack suspect anything about tonight, they’ll send Shane in for information,” Jenn said.

“I held firm, but given more time, he would have cracked me like a dried-out nut under a boot if he knew there was anything else to learn.”

“So we’re safe. They don’t know about tonight?”

“Nope . . . they’re completely clueless!”





Twelve


Sorry Seems to be

The Hardest Word





“Where’s Bailey, Jenn? I expected to see her by now,” Maxine asked as we headed to the Jeep. “I bet she’d be game for a night of chasing ghosts.”

“She and Grady went camping this week and it’s just as well, too,” Jenn stated. “Grady has learned from Jack how to get his way and Bailey is proving she can’t resist him like I can Jack. She’d rat us out in a second if Jack set Grady on her.”

Maxine snorted then mumbled under her breath, “You resist Jack like a dog resists meat.”

I thought about what Shane had said in the stock room and stopped in my tracks.

“Wait, you think Jack set Shane after me, don’t you?”

Jenn looked back at me as we climbed in and smirked.

“Of course he did. Jack can smell deception a mile away. He may have acted like he believed us, but he knows me too well and is always on the lookout for my shenanigans.”

“I may be in over my head with this man,” I sighed. “I’m used to dealing with kids. They can’t hide their feelings, even when their word contradicts what their faces say.”

“That’s easy enough,” Mia threw out as we buckled up. “Let them roar until they get it out and then do whatever you want.”

Maxine snorted.