Wicked Need (The Wicked Horse Series Book 3) (12 page)

I step up onto the
sidewalk that borders the town square, which is nothing more than a
small park with large shade trees that are still full and green, a
few benches, and a small walking path. I head in the opposite
direction of Rand, with no intention of job hunting right away.
Tucked inside my purse is all the jewelry Samuel bought me. Well, I
actually bought it myself, but it was with his money. Even my
engagement ring I picked out and bought, at his insistence and with
him pushing his own personal credit card into my hand since my limit
wasn’t
enough to cover the three-carat rock.

Rand has no clue I’m
doing this, and I suspect he’d try to discourage me from
something so rash, especially since I have a roof over my head, food
in my stomach, and his amazing cock fucking me every night. But the
one thing Samuel taught me, and taught me well, is that no one is
truly looking out for me but myself. I can’t rely on Rand to be
there for me, and while I’m fairly confident he wouldn’t
abuse the trust I’ve placed in him the way Samuel did, I still
have to be ready to jet out of here at the first sign he’s
something less than I hope him to be.

That means I need
money.

I’ll sell my
jewelry, or at the very least, I’ll pawn it. After that, I’m
free, mobile, and I won’t be beholden to anyone.

I won’t
be owned again.

Except…
I have that nagging feeling like I want to be owned by Rand or
something, but that’s just crazy. Samuel owned every part of
me, and I hated it. There’s no way I could possibly want that
from Rand.

Right?

I glance over my
shoulder at Rand receding in the distance as I continue to walk away.
He’s
already got his skis pulled out and the door shut, standing at the
corner waiting for a light to turn green so he can cross. He doesn’t
look back at me as I turn right onto South King Street, which houses
Libertine’s Jewelry just half a block down.

I decided to start
with actual jewelry stores, independently owned and small. I figure
they would be the most likely to buy from me. I
actually purchased a piece here last summer, so I hope the owner
remembers me.

With my gaze lowered
to the sidewalk to make sure I don’t lodge my spiked heels in a
crack or something, I’m
almost knocked sideways by my shoulder colliding with someone.

“I’m
sorry—” I start to say as I turn toward the person, but I
come to a dead stop with my mouth hanging open and my blood turning
to ice.

Kevin Vaughn stands
there leering at me.

I can tell by the
mixture of contempt and challenge in his eyes that he had seen me
coming down the sidewalk and purposely ran into me. He’s
not surprised to see me the way I am him.

“Hello,
Catherine,” he says as he takes a step toward me.

My eyes take in his
appearance. Samuel was old and practically withered with the slew of
medical problems he had, but I could always see in his face that he
had once been a good-looking man. His sons both have the same bone
structure and look.

Kevin Vaughn keeps
his blond hair perfectly cut, styled, and sprayed. Fake tan that is
so well done it looks real.
Thousands of dollars of veneers that make his teeth almost neon
white. Dressed in designer labels. He loves money and he loves
spending it. As the director of operations for Samuel’s hotel
empire, he makes a lot of money.

He also has a small
dick and a large problem with premature ejaculation, so I always
think of that whenever I’m
in his presence. Otherwise, he’d skeeve me out too bad just by
the way he looks at me.

It tore me up to
admit to Rand the other night that Samuel let Kevin have me. I’m
not sure if the offer was ever made to Richard or not, but he and I
never fucked. In fact, Richard was unfailingly polite but reserved
around me. He was married to a nice woman, had two kids, and managed
Samuel’s investments, seeming to enjoy a much quieter life than
his plastic brother.

The first time with
Kevin was my first Christmas with Samuel, which was just an ordinary
day to me. Samuel and I ate breakfast together in almost total
silence—the only sound interrupting us was the doorbell
ringing.

I found Kevin there
when I opened the door. He told me he was just dropping by to give a
present to his father, but I knew it was a lie. I knew it because as
he said those words to me, I could see him undressing me with his
eyes. He was also empty handed.

Samuel wheeled
himself into the foyer. The minute Kevin stepped in and I shut the
door behind him, he made it clear that I was actually Kevin’s
Christmas present.

“Catherine,
darling,” Samuel said in that weak voice made so by congestive
heart failure. “Be a good girl and wish Kevin a very Merry
Christmas.”

I only spared a
moment to stare at Samuel in completely stunned disgust, but I saw
the resolve on his face. When I turned back to Kevin, he was already
undoing his belt and breathing shallowly as if he hadn’t
been laid in months. I suspect that was true because his wife looked
a little uptight and they didn’t have any children, so
something wasn’t working right.

“Get on your
knees,” Kevin ordered me, pushing his pants and underwear down,
that tiny little dick popping free. I almost laughed, but I didn’t
because what I was getting ready to do wasn’t the least bit
funny.

I shudder over the
memory and take an involuntary step backward, my ankles wobbling just
a bit.

“I’m
surprised to see you still in Jackson,” Kevin says as he rubs a
finger over his chin in a thoughtful manner. His voice is mildly
polite, but I can sense an underlying vibe of distaste for me. While
Kevin never had a problem fucking me, I knew he hated the fact his
dad married me. Hated he had a stepmother younger than him and who
would potentially carve into his inheritance one day. I know this
because he would sometimes mutter that to me while he was banging me.

“Not sure why
you’re surprised,” I tell him calmly. “You left me
without a dime to my name when you had that attorney kick me out of
my home and shut my credit cards off. Just how did you expect me to
get out of town, Kevin?”

He shrugs
dismissively. “Not
my problem really. Figured you could fuck your way back to Vegas or
something.”

I have to curl my
fingers inward and press the nails deep into my palms to restrain
myself. It’s almost impossible to hold myself back from kneeing
him in his tiny nuts and following it with a right hook to his smug
face.

But I decide to
choose a different way to change his attitude. “I
want a signed copy of the will, Kevin. Apparently, that attorney had
only an unsigned copy. It seems a little suspect you’d have me
evicted based on that alone.”

“You weren’t
there for the actual reading in Vegas,” he says calmly, that
smug smile still in place. “That’s where the signed copy
is.”

“I figured as
much,” I tell him with a pointed look. “That’s why
I’m going to call Richard and ask him to send me a copy with
the signatures, so I can have my own attorney look at it.”

And…
there it is. That superior-than-thou attitude melts as his lips
flatten into a grim line. He has no clue if I’m bluffing, and
I’m totally bluffing. I can’t afford an attorney, but I
am going to do whatever I can to see a copy of that signed will. I
also have no intention of calling Richard because even though I think
he’d be fair to me, I can’t be sure. It’s best not
to trust either of Samuel’s sons at this point.

“Listen,”
Kevin says in a conciliatory tone as he steps closer. His eyes are
glittering with something I can’t quite put my finger on but
which sets off all my internal alarms. His arm reaches out and he
grasps me by my shoulder. “If you need a place to stay, you can
come back to the house here. I’ll even give you some cash to
help you out.”

Twisting my upper
body to dislodge his hand, I laugh at him. “And
let me guess… in return, you want me to fuck you?”

His eyes light up
with the prospect. “I
wouldn’t be averse to that.”

“Well, I
would,” I sneer, surprising him by taking a step forward into
his space. I poke a finger in his chest while molten rage fuels my
words. “I wouldn’t let that needle dick you have anywhere
near me. And if I find out you’re lying to me about the will,
you’re going to regret the day you ever fucked with me.”

Kevin’s
arm shoots up and he grabs my wrist, squeezing hard and pushing my
hand from his chest down his stomach. “Come on, Catherine. You
know you’re good for one thing only, and I’m offering you
an easy ride. Jump on board, and I’ll keep you here at the
Jackson house. You’ll be my little piece on the side.”

Just as my knuckles
brush against the edge of his belt, I rip myself out of his grasp.
“You’re
a sick, fucking—”

He moves so swiftly
that I don’t
have time to react. His arm wraps around my waist and he pulls me in
tight to his body. His other arm comes up so his hand can grip me at
the back of my head. It looks like a lover’s embrace, even
though I manage to get my hands to his chest in an attempt to push
him away. But he’s stronger than I am and he holds me rigidly.
Tourists are walking by, oblivious to what’s going on.

Kevin leans his head
toward me, puts his lips near my ear, and in a low but deadly serious
voice, he says, “
You
do not fuck around with
me
,
Catherine. You can either walk away intact or in pieces. Your choice.
But I seriously suggest you forget about that will.”

He pulls his head
back so he can look down at me, his eyes flicking back and forth to
see if what he’s
said has sank in. I don’t respond, but I don’t break eye
contact either, gritting my teeth together in anger and some fear.

“I can see you
understand me,” he says confidently, releasing his hold. I take
two stumbling steps back.

Kevin merely tucks
his hands into the lightweight jacket he’s
wearing and says, “I’ll make these two offers, and then
I’m done with you. I’ll give you five thousand in cash
and you move on with your life. Stay away from my brother and me. Or
move back into the Jackson house—I’ll give you a monthly
allowance and you’ll be at my beck and call when I come to
visit.”

Straightening up to
my full five-foot-seven—thank you, Fendi—I stiffen my
spine and lock my knees in figurative battle. I forget about the fact
that not only does Kevin disgust me, but he also slightly scares me
too. But I don’t
get caught up in that. Instead, I tell him with as much sarcasm as I
can muster, “As tempting as those two offers are, I’m
going to decline.”

Kevin’s
eyes harden, his lids lowering until I see just tiny slits of brown
irises peeking out at me. He inclines his head at me in
acknowledgment of my position and says in what can only be taken as a
clear threat, “So be it. But don’t say you weren’t
warned.”

He takes away my
ability to walk away from him, making a casual turn on the sidewalk
and meandering off in a carefree saunter. I can tell by the set to
his shoulders and the almost jaunty step that he’s
not worried about me at all.

But he should be.

Because I just
learned something very important.

There is no new will
where Samuel cuts me out.
If there were, Kevin would have offered up the signed copy to me
without hesitation. Instead, he tried to buy me off, relying on his
faulty instinct that I am still a woman who can be owned.

It’s
a mistake to underestimate me, and I know exactly what I need to do.

Rand

“I can’t
believe we essentially live in the same house and I only get to see
you when you have a few minutes to pop into my place of business,”
Jake says as he walks into the back breakroom of his ski shop.

I’ve
been here for almost two hours waiting for Cat to finish up her job
hunting visits, shooting the shit with some of Jake’s employees
or other locals who stop by for some sporting equipment needs.
Although his shop is named Teton Ski and Snowboarding, it’s
actually morphed over time into a sort of one-stop shop for all of
your Wyoming outdoor needs. He runs guided fishing trips in the
summer, hunting trips in the fall and winter for big game such as elk
and moose, as well as black bear in the spring. He even has guides
who will just drive you around and show you where you can see all the
wildlife. Jake sells everything from skis to guns to fishing lures to
sporting apparel, and he’s been quite successful at it.

I don’t
respond directly but throw a teasing jab while looking at my watch.
“Must be nice to have a job you can roll in at close to lunch
time. Wish I had as easy a life as you.”

Jake laughs. As well
he should, because he’s
one of the hardest-working men I know, and he knows I’m joking.
He’s normally in the shop at least an hour before it opens, and
while he may go home so he can have dinner with his family, I know he
works in the evenings too to stay on top of things.

“Lorelei had
an ultrasound this morning,” he explains as he walks over to
the coffee pot on the counter and pours himself a cup.

“And how is
the little niblet?” I ask, leaning back in my chair so the
front legs come off the ground a bit.

“Looking like
a chip off the old block,” he says before taking a chair at the
table opposite of me. “He’s got the look of a snowboarder
for sure.”

“It could be a
girl,” I point out since it’s still too early for the
ultrasound to show that.

“Nope. Gonna
be a snowboarding boy. Amber’s going to be the skier.”

I laugh and shake my
head, but, secretly, I’m
a little envious of him. Beautiful wife, gorgeous kid with another on
the way, and leading a spectacularly full life. Once I figure out
what I want to do with my own, I’m hoping things shake out for
me like they have for Jake.