Mine Until Morning (10 page)

Kern had met Sheldon in the beginning and deemed him harmless. He was actually a very nice man. She’d seen him a couple of times a month until she’d needed to stay home with Kern. He’d been solicitous, generous, and understanding.

Mac finally seemed to decide on the tack he’d take. Crossing his legs, he folded his arms and stared Sheldon down. Even if Sheldon wasn’t quite looking 62

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him in the eye. “I trust you’ll take good care of Dani.”

“Of course,” Sheldon agreed, removing his glasses to wipe them with a cloth he pulled from his pocket.

“I’ve instructed her to call me during the evening so that I know she’s all right.”

“Your concern is commendable.” Sheldon pushed his glasses back up the bridge of his nose.

Mac raised one brow. “She tells me you require only half an hour.”

It could have been a slam, but Sheldon didn’t react. His only reactions took place during their session when he begged her not to make him do all those naughty things. Other than that, he showed no emotion whatsoever. Now he simply said, “Half an hour is the perfect amount of time.”

Mac glanced at her, a curve to his lips that only she would recognize as a smile. “Shall we transact our business, then?”

“Of course.” Sheldon slid his eyes to Dani. She opened her purse, pulling out a small tin box, and handed it to him. Wedging it between his thigh and the padded arm of the chair, he surreptitiously removed a wad of bills from his pants pocket, laid them inside, snapped the lid shut, then slid the box across the coffee table toward Mac. Square and bright blue with a field of tiny forget-me-nots, it was well used, scratched, and dented. Filled with her payment, he’d given it to Dani the first time they’d met and told her to bring it back the next time. Her clients often had rituals they needed to perform in order to get off on the experience, things they couldn’t ask of their spouses. Part of Sheldon’s ritual was that tin box. Sometimes she thought he left it with her for safekeeping. If there was ever a time their relationship were to end, she would give it to Isabel to return to him.

Mac stared at the tin, then lifted his gaze to hers. She didn’t expect him to understand, but courtesans played into their client’s fantasy. Sheldon never told her what the box meant; she never asked. Though she had her suspicions, especially based on the nature of his sexual preferences. With the passing of the tin, she was now in charge. “Sheldon, it’s time,” she said sternly. “You know what to do.”

His breath quickened as he rose. Dani followed.

“Sheldon,” Mac said.

Sheldon’s head jerked up.

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“Half an hour. That’s all you’ve got. One second more, and I’m coming up to get her. And you won’t like what I do.”

Sheldon shuddered. Dani knew that shudder. Excitement. Anticipation. Mac had upped the stakes in the fantasy. Sheldon might actually take thirty-one minutes tonight.

Hopefully the extra minute would drive Mac crazy. 64

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10

AFTER DANI CALLED WITH THE ROOM NUMBER, MAC STEWED. HIS

imagination ran away with him, and the heat of his blood rose with his ire. Sheldon might be meek, mild-mannered, and odd, but Mac hated the idea that he was up there touching Dani as much as he would were Sheldon some handsome, young stud who’d stolen his girl.

How had he managed to get himself into this position? A goddamn cuckold—

wasn’t that what she’d called it?

He closed his eyes, and he could see that little man touching her, and it made him crazy.

The waitress was busy with a group of businessmen. A gaggle of office workers gossiped. There were couples, heads together, talking intimately, and men trying to do the pickup thing, their glances darting about the bar, landing on a quarry momentarily, then a flurry of discussion between them as they set up the game plan. No one paid Mac much attention. He flipped open the tin box, hitched his hip to pull out his wallet, and wrapped his own set of bills around the wad already in the box. Did Sheldon always pay the same? Would Dani notice?

Mac didn’t give a damn. Let her fight him on it. He was spoiling for a fight. The guy was weird. He’d liked Mac’s he-man act. To each his own. Mac glanced at his watch. He’d been brooding for more than fifteen minutes. His phone hadn’t rung. If Sheldon intended to finish in his requisite half hour, he’d better get started soon.

How could a man take only half an hour? It wasn’t possible. Well, it was, but not with a woman like Dani.

Mac had never been a jealous man. True, he’d never imagined giving a girlfriend to another man, but he also hadn’t watched a lover for any telltale signs of too much interest in someone else.

Jealousy over Dani had, quite simply, slammed into him like a Mack truck going a hundred miles an hour.

He sipped the remainder of her white Russian. Sweet and creamy with an afterkick. Just like Dani. Everything came back to Dani. Would Kern understand how the feelings had gotten away from him? When he asked Mac to take care of her, had he thought it might become more? Had he intended it?

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With a raucous burst of laughter from the male businessmen who had now combined their sofa and chairs with that of the female office workers, Mac realized he’d lost another five minutes.

Dani still hadn’t called. Dammit, she was leading him on, teasing him, testing him. Would he follow through on his threat to come looking for them if they were one minute late? Or would he sit and take it like a cuckold?

The white Russian was down to ice cubes. He threw a bill on the coffee table, shoved the tin in one pocket and his cell in the other. When you make a threat, you have to follow through. Even if he’d done it partly because he got the impression a little hard-ball was Sheldon’s preference. In the elevator, he stabbed the button. The evening with the Stamoses had been hot for more than just watching Dani. He’d gotten her off, not Spryo. Stamos and his wife were peripherals. It had been about Dani and him. Tonight with Sheldon was different. He’d never had his control stripped from him like this. Dani had a whole host of reasons for doing this that had nothing to do with Mac.

That was what fucking pissed him off and made him nuts. He exited the elevator with three minutes to spare. Stalking the hall, he felt like a grizzly bear just out of hibernation and Sheldon was in the way of his first meal. A passing woman gave him a wide berth. He admitted he probably looked a little crazed.

He found the room number and raised his hand to knock. And . . . Jesus. That was a moan. A sweet, feminine voice moaning in ecstasy. Goddammit. He put his head to the door because, really, he’d lost complete control of his faculties, acting like a jealous idiot . . .

The door gave an inch. It hadn’t been latched. The goddamn door was unlocked. He should have been angry, but the faint moans were higher now, louder, calling to him. He looked up and down the hall. No one else, no one heard. Two fingers to the door, his heart pounding, Mac pushed it open. The room was standard, bathroom and closet as you walked in, desk and TV

cabinet straight ahead. And a man’s feet hanging off the end of the bed. Mac closed the door as softly as he’d opened it.

His heart stuttered to a stop as he took the two steps necessary for a full view of the room. And the bed. And Dani.

Auburn hair strewn across the white pillow, her eyes were closed, luscious 66

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red lips parted. Sight, sound, scent overwhelmed his senses; long, smooth expanses of creamy skin, the room perfumed with her citrusy lotion and sexual musk, Sheldon’s head between her legs as she moaned and writhed. Her hips rose, wordlessly begging for more. He’d never beheld a more gorgeous woman or a more beautiful sight. All woman, taking her due, savoring it to the fullest. Nipples pebble hard, skin flushed as climax drew closer, her legs began to tremble.

“Filthy man, you love being so naughty, don’t you,” she murmured in a husky, sultry voice that strummed Mac’s cock. Sheldon seemed to go at her with renewed gusto.

“Don’t stop, dirty man, don’t stop,” she chanted, “or you’ll be punished.” With one last arch of her hips, she cried out, then her body shook and shivered. Her beauty in orgasm mesmerized him, each aftershock a little lighter, less intense, as she drifted back down from the pinnacle. She was never more desirable to him than she was in a state of orgasmic bliss. Mac was so fucking jealous he couldn’t see straight, think straight. He went with his gut and all the emotion roiling there.

“What the fuck are you two doing?” he barked into the near silence as her moans faded away.

Dani shrieked and shimmied up to the headboard, closing her legs, her cheeks a brilliant red. Sheldon scuttled backward off the bed, his tumescent cock bobbing, the crown purple with need before he covered it with his hands in terror.

His pulse throbbing in his ears, Mac grabbed Dani’s hand and yanked her across the bed. “Get your clothes on, you little tramp.”

“Please don’t be mad,” Sheldon stuttered. “It was all my fault.”

Mac speared him with a look as Dani tugged her dress over her hips. “Shut”—

he enunciated slowly, sharply—“up.”

Dani barely had her shoes on when he hauled her toward the door. At the last moment, almost as an afterthought, he turned, pointed at the cowering Sheldon. “You’re in so much fucking trouble. Get dressed, go home.” He narrowed his eyes. “And be prepared to pay big-time for what you’ve just done.”

Closing the door behind him, he made sure it was locked, then dragged Dani all the way down the hall to the bank of elevators, where he stabbed the button. It dinged almost immediately, the doors opened, he yanked her inside. 67

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The moment the elevator moved, Dani threw her arms around him. “Oh my God, that was perfect. You were magnificent.”

She grabbed his face between her hands and kissed him, smacking her lips so hard to his he had to brace himself against the wall. He knew he was lost when he pulled her tight to his chest and kissed her back.

DANI’S LIPS STILL TINGLED FROM THAT BONE-MELTING KISS IN THE

elevator. “How did you know exactly what to do?” Her seat belt secured, she pulled her feet beneath her and turned to him. She enjoyed watching his capable hands on the wheel. They were equally as capable on her body. His sandy hair was dark amber in the shadowed confines of the car, the lines of his face almost harsh along his handsome features.

“It was a predictable assumption.” His tone was flat. “Who left the door unlocked?”

“It must have been Sheldon.” So yes, Sheldon had wanted Mac to find them. He had taken a bit longer than usual tonight, too, stretching it out.

“That was stupid,” he said. “What if someone else walked in?”

“But they didn’t. And,” she purred, “if it hadn’t been unlocked, you wouldn’t have been able to watch. You know you loved watching.”

He reached out, tweaked her chin. “Smug, aren’t you?”

She stared at him as he negotiated the freeway on-ramp. “You’re really pissed.” After his acting job, she’d thought he’d had fun. Now she could see she’d been wrong. The air heated and sizzled around him.

“You didn’t call,” he said, teeth gritted.

“I phoned with the room number.”

“In the middle.” He paused. “There was no call.”

She laughed. “I followed your instructions to the letter. Sheldon doesn’t actually do me. We just play orally the way you saw.” She raised a brow and smiled smugly for him. “So I had no reason to call.” It had been so good; her body was still humming. She’d heard the door—yes, for a moment, she had a teeny-tiny spark of panic it might be someone else—but then she’d seen Mac, the dazed, glazed expression on his face. Watching him through mere slits, she’d given him the performance of her life. Swear it, with Mac watching, it had ceased to be a performance. His fists clenching, unclenching, the rise and fall of his 68

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chest as he took in every inch of her naked body—oh yeah, when she’d come, she’d come hard for Mac.

But he was stuck on technicalities.

“The rules are for your safety.”

She wanted to climb across the seat into his lap. She was high, drunk on power and sex, and she’d wanted him to repeat Saturday night; drag her into the stairwell and do her fast and hard. The elevator wall would have been fine, too.

“Screw the rules,” she said, her voice low and seductive in the heat of the car.

“Kern tasked me with protecting you. I can’t do that if you take unnecessary risks.”

With his mention of Kern’s name, Dani suddenly heard herself, her thoughts. Kern hadn’t been gone a month and she was panting after Mac. She closed her eyes, leaning her head against the seat’s rest. She shouldn’t want Mac this way. Shouldn’t play with him. He was Kern’s brother. She was trying to turn him into Kern. No. Worse. She wanted to turn him into her lover. Anyone but Mac. She was a fool, a tramp, a shameless hussy, a bitch in heat. They completed the rest of the drive in near silence. “You don’t need to walk me in.”

He popped his door anyway. “It’s my job.” His voice oozed sarcasm. When she pulled her keys from her purse, he took them from her hand and unlocked the door. He didn’t give them back until he was inside with her, the door closed behind them.