Accidentally Catty (25 page)

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 beneath 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.

This incredible ability he had to make her body smolder with frantic desire left her impatient. Uncontrollable shivers swept over her at the very thought. Never had she been this hungrily desperate, this hot for a man, not even in her untamed youth.

Shaw’s eyes found hers in the velvety darkness, knowing, seeking, then looking deep into her most intimate thought. A thought she’d never voice, but hoped he’d intuitively respond to.

With his deliciously strong hands, Shaw lifted her hips, spanning them with ease, and drove into her, setting her back down hard on his thighs. Her wetness surrounded him, glided against the thickness of his shaft with ease.

Katie’s head fell back on her shoulders with a gasp of such intense pleasure she felt it all the way to her core. His cock was hot inside her, filling her up, making her hands grip his shoulders for support. Her back arched when he drove upward, the divine pleasure rippling on an electric current. Katie’s nipples scraped his smooth chest, the friction delicious and leaving her nerves raw and edgy.

Shaw cupped her breasts while he set a fierce rhythm of driving thrusts, forcing her hips to move in frantic circles.

Need clawed at her. Sharp, sweet, pounding, insatiable need. Her veins flooded with a new kind of heat when his lips finally captured her nipple, tugging at it, pulling it into his mouth only to let it go, then lavish it with his silken tongue. The scrape of his flesh against hers left a well of untapped desire in her belly.

Katie’s fingers dug into his scalp, gripping his hair, driving her breast at him, demanding he satisfy this wild, raging passion.

Her clit scraped the crisp pubic hairs at the base of his cock, adding to the multitude of sensations she was already experiencing. She ground against his lap, driving down on him as though her life depended on it.