eBooks are not transferable. They cannot be sold, shared or given away as it is an
infringement on the copyright of this work.
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are
products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be
construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or
organizations is entirely coincidental.
Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
512 Forest Lake Drive
Warner Robins, Georgia 31093
Shameful
Copyright © 2007 by Amanda Young
ISBN: 1-59998-517-9
All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner
whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied
in critical articles and reviews.
electronic publication: June 2007
Shameful
Missing in Action
Amanda Young
Dedication
For Mom.
Shameful
Prologue
Humid night air whistled through the open car windows, whipping
Shame’s hair into his tired, gritty eyes. The sting served to keep him
awake and focused on his goals. For the first time in too long, he had a
damn good reason to be glad he was alive.
After almost seven years of being cut off from his family, Shame was
finally on his way home.
His gaze on the double yellow line in the middle of the road, Shame
wiped a hand through his overly long hair. Exhausted from too many
days on the road and a vast number of misgivings—everything from the
guilt he harbored over sleeping with so many different people throughout
the years, to not being able to remember the sound of his daughter’s
laugh—the need for a haircut slipped his mind. That small, insignificant
detail had managed to escape his attention until now, when it was too
late to do anything about it. He was too close to his destination to stop.
Though he wanted to look his best when he saw Maria and Sophie again,
beggars couldn’t be choosers. He was too impatient to postpone their
reunion for even the minuscule amount of time it would take to make
himself more presentable.
He could only pray they would overlook his shortcomings. Wasn’t
that what family was all about? The shock they would receive from
seeing him again, alive and well, would be enough to make them forgive
his disheveled appearance.
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At least, he hoped so.
An upbeat classic-rock song blared through the speakers. Shame
crooned along with it, out of tune, but unconcerned about how he
sounded. Blood sang through his veins like molten happy juice. He
leaned forward and turned the volume up as loud as the shoddy
speakers would allow before they began to crackle and pop, needing the
noise to help keep him alert and focused on his goal.
Beneath the thick denim of his blue jeans, Shame’s thighs ached
from the numerous times he’d pinched himself to make sure he was
really awake. It would be all too easy to believe he was trapped in a
dream, still back at the SCS military base, sound asleep on his bunk and
dreaming of the family he longed for, but would never again be allowed to
see.
Emotions he hadn’t let himself feel in longer than he cared to admit
filtered anew into his system. Joy. Love. Most of all, hope. Each mile he
whittled away, between where he’d been and where he was going,
resurrected an onslaught of optimism for the future. A smile tugged at
the corners of his lips, happiness fighting to bubble to the surface. He
pushed his giddiness down, afraid something would jump out of the
darkness to yank it away from him. He could be happy later, after he
held his wife and daughter in his arms where they belonged.
When he finally pulled into the darkened driveway, it was the middle
of the night. As to be expected at three o’clock in the morning, the quaint
Cape Cod house was dark, silent as a tomb.
A fresh plague of doubt rushed over him. Should he leave and wait
until morning to arrive? No. He couldn’t wait another nanosecond; too
much time had already been lost.
He gulped air and slipped from the car, practically floating up the
walk and onto the small, covered porch.
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Although years of practice gave him the ability to sneak into the
house without notifying them of his presence, he chose to ring the
doorbell instead. Being there was going to be surprise enough. He didn’t
want to chance scaring them by stealing into the house like a thief.
From where he stood, he clearly heard chimes ring through the
interior of the house. A smile crawled across his face when he recognized
the doorbell’s theme. Maria hadn’t changed it. It played the same tune
they’d chosen together so long ago when they bought the house—the
theme song from The Wizard of Oz.
Shame tapped his foot impatiently on the wood. Minutes passed and
still no one stirred inside the house. He hit the doorbell again.
God, this…waiting was hard. He wanted to open the door and walk
right in. Wake his sweet wife up with the first of a thousand kisses on
her beautiful, sleepy face.
Wake up, wake up. Open the door.
Still nothing.
A sense of unease swept over him. Hyper-alert senses kicked in.
Something was wrong. The doorbell was too loud, too annoying, not to
have woken them up after being rung twice. Maria was a light sleeper.
She would have come to the door by now, even if only to cuss out
whoever had the nerve to ring the bell in the middle of the night.
Shame swallowed down the sour taste of paranoia. Nothing was
wrong. It was only his uncertainties creeping in, making him think the
happy homecoming he wanted would never happen.
He rang the bell a third time. It was late. He would give them another
minute.
A minute passed, and then three more. He was going in.
With deft fingers and the slim blade of his pocketknife, Shame picked
the lock and eased open the door. He entered into the foyer, his feet
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moving silently over the parquet floor. A mixture of excitement and dread
soared through him. Made him jumpy.
He stepped deeper into the foyer and was overwhelmed by the acidic,
coppery tang of blood. He could smell it, taste it on his tongue.
The hair on the back of his neck stood up.
“Please, God, no.” He moved farther into the house, mumbling
feverishly whispered prayers under his breath.
The smell grew stronger, thicker, as he approached the living room.
He crossed the threshold and pungent bitterness slapped him in the face.
As a trained soldier, someone accustomed to bloody battles that didn’t
always end the way one would hope, the aroma was one he easily
recognized.
Death.
Moonlight filtered in through the uncovered bay window, illuminating
a fraction of the large space. Shame edged deeper into the room, nervous
sweat forming a thin veil over his forehead and upper lip. As he
navigated around the sofa, the source of the stench became apparent.
A dainty foot, adorned with dark toenail polish, peeked garishly from
behind an overstuffed chair. Time slowed to a snail’s pace as he inched
closer.
Maria. Her name screamed through his mind even before he laid eyes
on the mutilated corpse of his wife. Her throat was ripped open. A pool of
congealed blood framed her head and shoulders in a gruesome crimson
halo.
Shame dropped to his knees, unconcerned of the blood that soaked
through his pants and clung to his skin as he pulled his wife’s stiff, cold
body into his arms. Rocking her, he threw back his head and howled.
Nonsensical pleas for her to wake up, for him to awaken from this
nightmare, spewed from his mouth.
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Without thought, he rose to his feet, his wife’s battered body held to
his chest.
Sophie. He had to find their daughter.
A dozen steps away, he stumbled over her. Much the same as his
wife, her thin, lifeless body lay hidden behind a piece of furniture. Her
arms were outstretched, legs akimbo, as if she’d lived for an instant
beyond the attack and had tried to crawl for help. Beautiful brown eyes,
the same shape and color as her mother’s, were wide open, sightlessly
staring up at him.
Shame gently laid his wife down alongside their daughter and
stretched out beside them, his arm extending over them both, cradling
them to him. He squeezed his eyelids down tight, moisture seeping from
beneath his lashes, and prayed for divine intervention. To wake up back
at the base and find that the entire thing was a horrible dream he could
escape. That his family was happy and healthy, as they’d been the last
time he’d dared to look in on them from afar. And when that didn’t work,
Shame broke down and sobbed. Loud wailing cries bounced off the walls
and echoed deep within his soul, blackening his heart.
Night turned to dawn and grainy light began to spill over the floor. As
it neared where they lay, Shame’s eyelids crept open and he focused on
the ceiling.
An eye for an eye was scrolled across the plaster in dark, congealed
blood.
As he read the message, over and over again, Shame’s will to die with
his family fled. In its place, a new plan for his life emerged from the
ashes of his battered soul.
Vengeance.
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Chapter One
Gail sat behind the tall customer-service desk, her gaze trained on
the glass doors leading outside. Beyond them, snow fell fast and hard,
covering what little remained to be seen of the landscape. Great gusts of
wind swept clumps of white from one end of the parking lot to the other,
creating drifts that appeared every bit as deep as she was tall.
Her hawkish gaze moved inward and lazily roamed over the vacant
motel lobby. Keeping with the instructions her boss had left, Gail had
already run the vacuum over the thin burgundy carpet and polished the
faux cherry-wood frame on both the couch and chair. She’d also run the
lint brush over their cheap, dark green upholstery. Everything that
needed to be done during her shift was finished, which left her with a lot
of hours to twiddle her thumbs and stare at the walls.
It was going to be a long night. If the weather didn’t improve soon,
chances were good that she would have to work her regular third-shift
position, plus the following day shift as well. Megan, the ditzy college
student who worked the day shift, wouldn’t want to risk driving her
precious new sports car out in this kind of weather.
Gail snorted and the sound echoed through the silent room. She’d be
lucky if she made it home at all in the next few days. Leave it to good old
Gail. She was reliable and ready to be walked all over at the slightest
request. It was a damn good thing she didn’t have any pets waiting for
her at home, or God forbid, an actual family.
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Having turned twenty-five the week before, she’d pretty much given
up on meeting Mr. Right. Hell, she was lucky to occasionally find a Mr.
Right-now. Shyness paired with the innate quirks and oddities to her
character that she always felt forced to hide from people she didn’t know
well made for awkward first meetings and difficulty in finding someone to
connect with. She’d been told more than once that she came off as cool
and reserved around strangers. Not exactly a good first impression on
people. It’d been so long since she’d seen a real cock, much less felt one,
that she figured she’d probably regrown her hymen.
Gail sat back, propped her feet up on the monstrosity of a printer
beneath the counter and picked up the romance novel she’d purchased
on her way to work. On the front cover, a man and woman embraced.
The man’s long black hair was swept away from his face. The woman’s
flowing blonde locks partially covered her artfully arranged nude body to
hide her naughty bits. In the background stood another man, only the
shadowy outline of his body visible behind a tall tree.
Typically, she would’ve been embarrassed to get caught reading such
blatantly erotic material at work but at the moment she didn’t care. Her
life was the pits and she desperately wanted to escape reality for a little
while. Besides, no one was around to see what she was doing. She could
dance a naked jig on the countertop and nobody would be the wiser.
The motel was deserted. There hadn’t been one reservation on the
computer for that day and no one in their right mind would be out
driving on the roads during the snowstorm. She was all alone and it
looked like it would stay that way.
She settled back on her uncomfortable stool, popped the cover open
and began to read…
Dakota stilled on the back of her black stallion. A man stood in the
barn’s open doorway. Though she couldn’t see his features, she knew who
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he was. Her heart beat a fast tattoo as she took in the long, lean line of his
silhouette.
“Lucian,” she whispered into the cold night air.
Her foot prodded the horse’s flanks, urging him on toward the man
awaiting her. With each bump, her sex grew wetter, more desperate.
Surely he wouldn’t leave her in need as he had the night before. Tonight,
he would take her, finally seal his claim on her body as he had her heart
so long ago.
Climbing down off her horse, Dakota ran toward Lucian. Reaching him
in seconds, she threw her arms around his neck and pressed her lips to
his. He groaned, opening beneath her touch, allowing her tongue to slip
between his teeth and into the moist heat of his mouth.
From there he took over, his tongue plunging deeper, rougher, stealing
her breath.
Lucian pulled back from her, his misty blue eyes filled with heat and
another emotion that looked suspiciously like—dare she think it?—love.
“Missed you, baby,” he whispered against her mouth, nipping the full pout
of her lower lip.
He twirled her around, the hard length of his body pressing her back
into the wall. Dakota squirmed, wanting to be closer, to be one with the
man she loved. “I missed you too, Lucian, so much.”
“I’m glad you missed me, baby, but I bet I missed you more. I have a
little something for you.” The light behind his eyes grew brighter, more
wicked.
“Oh yeah, and just what would that be?”
He gripped her wrist, the pressure around the delicate joint firm but
gentle. Slowly, he led it down to the front of his pants and pressed her
palm over the rigid erection behind his fly.
Dakota whimpered. “It doesn’t feel so little to me.”
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A rush of adrenaline shot through her system. Apparently she wasn’t
the only one with needs gone unfulfilled for too long. She ran her fingers
up and over his length, teasing his penis to grow harder, hotter for her.
She licked her lips in anticipation. “It’s just what I was hoping for.”
A groan spilled from his sensuous mouth as his eyes followed the
movement of her tongue across her lips.
This was it. He was right where she wanted him. And just to make
sure he didn’t back out on her this time… Dakota dropped to her knees.
Her fingers trembled as she undid his britches, pulled the flap in the front
apart. His penis swung up, thick and hard, full with desire for her and her
alone.
The shrill cry of the phone interrupted Gail’s concentration. She’d
been so lost in the story she’d completely forgotten she was at work.
She clenched her thighs together, trying to relieve the insistent ache
between them. Her nipples pebbled, poking against her bra, and her
panties were damp, the folds of her neglected sex awash in lubrication.
She cleared her throat and reached for the telephone. “Thank you for
calling the Dew Drop Inn. Gail speaking. How may I help you?” Silence.
“Hello? Anyone there?”
“Gail? Um, this is Megan. I was wondering… Would it be okay for you
to cover my shift in the morning? I just finished watching the weather
forecast and they’re calling for a lot of snow to fall tonight. I’m just not
sure I’ll be able to make it in.”
Damn! She knew this was going to happen. Before she could answer
Megan hurriedly said, “I know I’m asking a lot of you. It’s just that I
really need this job and you know that if I call Mr. Pascow, he’ll shit a
brick. You’d really be doing me a favor.”
Gail sighed. Why couldn’t she ever say no? “Sure, Megan. I’ll cover for
you.”
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“Thanks, Gail, you’re a doll. I owe you big time for this one.”
Gail opened her mouth to reply, but heard an ominous click and then
nothing. Only dead air. Aggravated, she returned the phone to its cradle.
The lines were down. Again. Who knew how long it would be before they
were back up.
Well, at least she could get back to her book and not have to worry
about being interrupted again…
She gripped the throbbing staff at the base, holding it in place while
she licked him from one end to the other, spending a little longer than
necessary tasting the flushed bell on the end. A small drop of pre-come
oozed from the slit at the top and she greedily sucked it off. Mmm… He
tasted good, a little salty but delicious.
She swirled her tongue over him, sucking the full head of his cock into
her mouth. He began to move against her, his hips rotating as she bobbed
her lips up and down his rigid length, taking him farther and deeper with
each succulent pull on his flesh. His cock grew harder and fatter in her
mouth as she suctioned him in and out.
Lucian made breathy noises in the back of his throat. The sound of his
passion pushed her on, made her want to see how crazy she could drive
him before he gave in to his primal urges and took her in the hay where
she squatted.
A noise behind her had her freezing, Lucian’s cock still in her mouth.
Someone was in the barn with them. She could feel their eyes on her,
boring into her with the intensity of their stare.
A man stepped out of the shadows behind Lucian. His face was
shrouded in darkness, guarding his identity. Her heart pounded in
trepidation until she noticed his bare chest and the thick, ruddy penis he
held in his hand, his fist stroking leisurely along its flushed length. Then
her heart was pounding for a whole different purpose. Excitement.
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Confused, she sat back on her heels. “Lucian?”
Lucian laughed, the husky timbre of his voice deep and wicked. “Did I
forget to mention the other part of your present, baby?”
From beneath lowered lashes, Gail swept a quick look around the
lobby. She knew she was alone, but she couldn’t be too careful. Her
fingers crept underneath the company polo shirt she wore and wormed
their way inside the clinging material of her bra. Pulling and pinching her
nipple between her thumb and forefinger, she let her eyes fall shut.
God, that felt good. For a fraction of a second, she wished someone
else was touching her. A strong, handsome man, like one of the
characters in her book.
No sense in wishing for something that isn’t going to happen.
Replaying the scene from the book in her head, with herself in the
starring role, she let her free hand wander down to where it was needed.
In her pants. Her hand delved under the drawstring waist of her cargo
pants and slipped beneath the elastic band of her panties. Fingers glided
over the swollen folds of her sex. Drawing moisture up, she circled her
clit lightly, teasing herself with the orgasm lingering just out of reach.
With her other hand, she tweaked her nipple, hard, quietly moaning as
the pleasure/pain of it radiated all the way down to her womb, making
her cunt clench emptily.
She slid one and then another finger deep inside, plunging them in
and out in a hurried rhythm. As much as she wanted to drag the sweet
torture out, she needed to hurry. Get it over with before she let herself
succumb to the escalating sense of paranoia that wanted to suck her in
and kill the orgasm she could feel rising just over the horizon.
As her fingers plunged into her pussy, she ground the heel of her
palm down over her clit. She came, and the deep contractions jerked an
involuntary whimper from her throat.
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Eyes flying open, she quickly scanned the room around her. Still
alone. Thank God.
The edge of her hunger sated, Gail pulled her hands from her pants
and stood. Her panties felt squishy as her thighs brushed together. She
turned to walk into the back and clean herself up.
The bell above the door jangled. Wind swept into the room along with
what had to be two of the sexiest men she’d ever laid eyes on. Both men
were tall and broad of shoulder. Each wore a long, black designer trench
coat. One alone was probably worth at least as much as she would pay
in rent over the next couple of months, however, that was where their
similarities ended. In their own way, they were both stunning, but Gail’s
gaze was inexplicably drawn to the taller of the two men.
He wasn’t classically handsome. With his shaggy auburn hair and
square jawline, he wouldn’t have been described by anyone as one of the
pretty boys who graced the covers of a magazine or the silver screen.
Instead, he possessed a raw masculinity that oozed testosterone.
The very way he swaggered into the lobby, his head held high and
proud, the shallow cleft in his chin leading the way, made Gail think of
handcuffs and rough, sweaty sex. The kind where you had to beg and
plead before your partner allowed you to reach an earth-shattering
release. The kind of sex she’d only read about in her romance novels.
Hypnotic, emerald green eyes, surrounded by black-lace-fringed
eyelashes, rose and met hers. Their gazes locked and Gail forgot how to
breathe. She felt like he could see into the depths of her soul, scrounge
out all the secrets she held. Some unexplainable primal need sprang up
inside of her, begged her to lie down at the altar of his lust and slake the
sexual thirst he had yet to quench.
His gaze broke away from her as he turned to say something to his
companion, and just like that she was breathing again. A wiggly tingle
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raced down her spine and Gail shivered, pushing away her strange
thoughts. With his attention momentarily diverted, it also gave her a
chance to check out his companion.
The man accompanying Mr. Hot-sex was beautiful. There was no
other way to describe him. Shiny, iridescent black hair brushed away
from his forehead and hung in a thick braid down his back, ending just
short of where she figured his tight, firm bottom was located. High
cheekbones, dark chocolate eyes and full pink lips rounded out his
angular face. Where his friend screamed of raging testosterone and rough
sex, he whispered of long passionate nights filled with soft kisses and
endless lovemaking.
They complemented each other. One rough and tumble, the other
gentle and coaxing. As far as Gail was concerned, that meant neither one
of them would give her more than a passing glance.
If only she was five inches taller and twenty pounds lighter…
While pretending to type something into the computer, she watched
the men out of the corner of her eye. They spoke in hushed tones, so she
couldn’t make out what was being said, but even without being able to
hear, gazing at them was enough of a treat. It wasn’t often she got to see
men as hot as these two. Just looking would be plenty to fuel her
fantasies for a good, long while.
As she looked on, the dark-headed man nodded in her direction. Heat
suffused her face at being caught staring and she dropped her gaze to
the keyboard just as the men stepped apart, apparently finished with
their discussion. Her cheeks on fire, she didn’t dare a glance up until
they stood on the other side of the service desk. Mr. Hot-sex, who stood
slightly in front of his friend, laid a titanium credit card in front of her.
Not platinum, titanium. Even working in the motel, she’d never seen one
of those.
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She fidgeted as her abnormally strong sense of smell kicked in. As
she rubbed the toe of one shoe over the other, the intoxicating aroma of
male musk tinged with the strong overlay of scented deodorant invaded
her nostrils. “Welcome to the Dew Drop Inn. How may I help you?”
“Need a room,” said Mr. Hot-sex, his voice low and husky. Gail
shivered, imagining that same voice whispering dirty words to her in the
middle of the night while he rammed his stiff cock in and out of her
aching pussy.
Her body throbbing from the mental picture show in her mind, Gail
pasted on a fake work smile and pushed away the urge to whimper.
“Sure.”
She shot a quick glance at the second man before meeting Mr. Hot-
sex’s gaze. “Double beds?”
“King,” he replied, his gaze combing her face, making her feel like he
was daring her to say something about their sleeping arrangements. As if
she would. She’d grown accustomed to all the hot ones being gay or
married. Though she had absolutely no reason to feel disappointed, she
did. “No problem,” Gail muttered. “Just tonight or are y’all planning to
stay longer?”
“Depends.”
She wanted to ask what the length of their stay depended on, but
figured she already knew the answer—the weather. “Um, okay. In that
case, I’ll just authorize your credit card for the funds and we’ll charge
you when you check out. That okay?”
He nodded, his long, slim fingers tapping against the white surface of
the counter.
Gail logged him into the computer and assigned him a room number.
She picked up the plastic on the counter and swiped it from end to end
in the credit-card machine, biting her lip as she waited for it to go
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through. When it was accepted, she turned back to him. “I’ll just need to
see an ID then and you’ll be all set, Mr…”—she glanced down at the card
she held out to him—“uh, Mr. Long.” Something about his name tickled
her and she had to suppress a smile. It was a childish response, but she
couldn’t help wondering if he lived up to his name.
He traded her one card for another, his calloused fingers rasping over
her palm. Electric tingles shot up her arm and zinged straight to her
nipples, making them tighten and peak against her shirt. Mr. Long’s
attention dropped to her chest and she could’ve sworn she felt his gaze
like a touch against her breasts.
Flustered, she quickly finished filling in the personal information the
computer required for registration. She gave them the room farthest from
the lobby, not that the last room was all that far away since there were
only twelve rooms. Done, she pushed his room key across the
countertop, careful not to touch him. “Here you go. You’re in room
twelve. It’s the last one at the end of the hall. Y’all shouldn’t have any
problem finding it.”
He plucked the key off the counter and turned to his companion,
handing it over. “Thanks,” he murmured while bending to pick up their
luggage.
“Have a good night,” she inanely replied as they walked away.
When they disappeared around the corner, she let out a tense breath
of relief. Thank God they were gone. With any luck, she wouldn’t have to
face either one of them again. The way her body responded to their
presence was mortifying. She knew it had been too long since the last
time she’d gotten laid but that didn’t mean she wanted to advertise it to
the world.
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Glancing down, she saw her nipples poking out of her shirt. Traitors.
The horny little sluts were begging for attention and apparently didn’t
care if they humiliated her in the process.
Gail flopped back in her chair, picked up her novel and sank back
into a fantasy world where average women like her saw just as much
action as drop-dead-gorgeous supermodels.
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Chapter Two
His gaze scanning the room, Shamus Long yanked off his overcoat
and flung it over a small wooden chair by the door. It definitely wasn’t
the Ritz, but it was clean and warm. The faux-wood surfaces of the
dresser and armoire shone with recent polishing, the bed was neatly
made and there were no stains or rips in the burgundy bedspread atop
it.
Over his shoulder, he said to Ty, “Decent room. Did you check out
the rack on the front-desk girl?”
Ty skirted around Shame, a scowl on his face, as he made a beeline
for the bathroom at the back of the room. After a brief moment, the
sound of rushing water from the shower filled the air.
Shame scratched his head, wondering what bug crawled up Ty’s ass
and died. They were both cranky from being on the road for so long,
nerves stretched taut from what they planned to do once they got here,
but that was no excuse to be snippy. He had just as much right to be
pissed over the weather forestalling their plans as Ty did, but he wasn’t
bitching about it. Yet. Lord knew, if the weather didn’t clear up soon, he
would be.
He walked across the room and flopped back onto the bed.
Exhausted from the long drive from Florida to Virginia and their
anticlimactic arrival, he yanked a pillow from beneath the cover and
smashed it down over his face. It had been an aggravating few days, and
if the weather forecast held true, the next couple wouldn’t be any better.
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The time they were going to lose wore on already-taut nerves. Though
he tried to keep his morale up, it waned more with each passing day.
Vengeance for the murder of his wife and daughter was so close he could
almost taste it. It taunted him from right outside the range of his
outstretched fingers, near and yet not quite close enough. Each new
obstacle that delayed his revenge, even one as inconsequential as the
weather, chafed at his patience and made him feel listless, caged and
helpless as a zoo animal.
During the day he could focus on other things, keep himself busy
doing something. At night though, when his defenses were down and he
was at his worst, the memories crept in and took over, haunting him.
Six months, two weeks and four days had passed since the night he’d
arrived home to discover the mutilated bodies of his family. Grief, fresh
and sharp, clenched his guts into a tight ball of misery. Images forever
burned into his mind surged to the forefront, playing over the back of his
closed eyelids like a drive-in movie.
His eyes opened and he stared at the underside of the pillow over his
face. What he needed was a distraction, something to take his attention
off his problems. The only thing that came to mind was sex. Preferably of
the hot and sweaty variety.
As if his wish traveled straight from his lips to God’s ears, the
bathroom door swung open on creaky hinges. Shame slung the pillow off
his face in time to watch Ty step out, a billow of steam exiting behind
him. His torso was bare. Water gleamed on his naked chest, making his
skin shimmer under the fluorescent light. Ebony hair fell in a waterfall of
color against the smooth golden bronze canvas of his skin. A miniscule
white towel was slung around Ty’s slim hips. Shame stared as Ty
vigorously scrubbed a matching towel over his hair and chest, the nubby
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fabric cascading down over firm pecs and the taut muscles of his rippling
abdomen.
Shame’s cock began to swell inside his jeans. His mouth watered for
a taste of what he knew lay beneath the tiny swatch of terrycloth. And
yet, some small part of him called out for something different. The gentle
give and take of a soft, pliant female body beneath his.
He forced the image away. Ty’s firm ass may not have been quite
what his dick wanted to sink into, but it would do the job. Had been, in
fact, for months. Fucking Ty was safe. They were friends and
companions in misery, with added benefits. And, more importantly, there
was no chance of him falling in love with Ty.
The arrangement they’d had for the last several months—ever since
Ty had saved Shame’s bacon by thwarting his dumbass attempt to
drunkenly stroll into a well-known supernatural hangout—was a good
one. It was fortunate the man had intervened, literally running into
Shame and knocking him on his drunk ass on the street right in front of
the bar, or else Shame probably wouldn’t have lived through the
excursion. At the time, he’d been out of his mind with grief and just
drunk enough not to give a shit. The liquor had managed to numb down
his body but it hadn’t done a damn thing to soothe the gaping wound in
his soul.
Though barely able to stand on his own two feet, Shame had come up
swinging and picked a fight with the asshole who’d knocked him to the
ground. He vaguely remembered getting in a punch, but after that things
became a blur.
It wasn’t until the next morning when Shame awakened in a strange
apartment that he realized the man he’d attacked had taken pity on him
and dragged his sorry butt back home with him, instead of leaving him
lying in the street to become Lycan chum.
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Sober, Shame apologized for being an ass and thanked the man for
running interference for him. They sat down to breakfast and talked,
oddly finding out they had quite a few things in common.
As it so happened, Ty had his own ax to grind with the paranormal
community. When he’d bumped into Shame, he’d been scouting for
information about his younger sister, Shelby, who had been attacked by
a Lycan and died as a result.
Since then, they’d met and bounced ideas off one another. Used each
other as a sounding board, among other things. And when the mood
struck them, they fucked. Neither man had designs on the other beyond
a meaningless way to come and that was precisely what Shame was in
the mood for—a quick fuck to take his mind off his problems and put
him to sleep. It was much like the relationship he’d had with Tristan,
before things had changed. He missed T, but he wasn’t about to drag him
away from Sara, not when they’d just found each other again. Though he
and Tristan still kept in touch, talking occasionally, Shame was always
careful not to say too much about what he was doing. It would be just
like Tristan to drop everything and come to his aide.
Shame reached down and adjusted his suddenly too-tight jeans.
“Hey, Ty, you want to come over here and help me out with something
that just came up?”
Ty paused in the middle of drying off and glanced up. His deep brown
gaze followed the line of Shame’s arm down to where his hand rested
over the growing bulge of his sex. He scowled and went back to running
the towel through his hair. “Not tonight. I’m not in the mood. Besides, I
figured you would go back up front and try to worm your way into that
cute receptionist’s pants.”
Shame sighed and let go of his cock, scrubbing his hands over his
stubbled cheeks. Man, he needed to shave. “Nah, too much work.” He
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wiggled his fingers. “Guess it’s just going to be me and rosy palm
tonight.”
Ty laughed and flung his spare towel at him. “You mean to tell me
you’re not even going to try? That doesn’t sound like the Shame I know.”
Striding over, he laid his palm over Shame’s forehead. “No, you’re not
sick. Maybe you’re just getting too old to be running around seducing hot
women out of their panties.”
Shame sat up. He ran his fingers through his unruly hair. “That
almost sounds like a challenge, Ty. You trying to say I couldn’t get in her
panties?”
“Not even if your life depended on it, man.”
Shame rose to his feet. “We’ll just have to see about that, won’t we?”
Ty flashed him a smile, his teeth white and even. “Go right ahead and
try your hardest, pal. Even if you crash and burn—and I suspect you
will—you’ll always have rosy to fall back on.”
Shame flung open the door and stormed out of the room. The sound
of Ty’s laughter followed him into the hall. His strides long and full of
purpose, Shame ate up the hallway between his room and the front desk.
Too old, my ass. He’d show Ty a thing or two about how to woo the
opposite sex. Just because he occasionally preferred the company of men
didn’t mean he’d lost his touch when it came to the ladies.
Rounding the corner, Shame saw the front-desk girl sitting behind
the counter, her face buried in a novel. Her cute little freckled nose
scrunched up at whatever it was she’d read before she sighed and turned
the page. With her free hand she shoved an unruly lock of curly blonde
hair behind her ear. Moving closer, he could make out the cover of her
book. A romance, judging by the half-naked couple embracing on the
front. Hell, his job might have just gotten easier. Those novels got women
as hopped up for action as porn did men.
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Amanda Young
Trademark grin in place, he strode confidently up to the counter.
Gail’s neck prickled and she glanced up from her novel. Mr. Hot-
sex… Err… Mr. Long was headed her way, a smile on his handsome face
and a wicked gleam in his vivid green eyes.
He was dressed in a simple black T-shirt and jeans. Without his coat,
she could see the heavily muscled body he’d been hiding earlier. The soft
cotton stretched over his broad shoulders, while the snug denim molded
to long legs and thick thighs.
An image of what it would be like to lay captive under all that tightly
leashed strength flashed through her mind. She pictured her nails
digging into the wide brawn of his back, her legs wrapped around his
trim hips while he plunged the hard length of his cock in and out of her
wet pussy.
Gail shook her head, trying to knock some common sense back into
place. Nope, it wasn’t going to happen. Like a big ole slice of double-
chocolate cake, the man looked way too scrumptious to be any good for
her.
She shoved her novel under the counter and stood just as he reached
the desk. “Is there a problem with your room, sir?”
He grinned at her. “No. The room’s fine. I just thought you might
appreciate a little company. Must get awful lonely when things are as
dead up here as they are tonight.”
Gail’s eyebrows crinkled. “Yeah, I guess, but I’ve always been very
good at entertaining myself.”
He braced his thick forearms on the counter and leaned in closer. He
licked his lips. “I bet you’d have more fun if you let me do it for you.”
Gail fidgeted with the hem of her shirt, unsure of what to say. If it
had been anyone else, she would have thought they were trying to pick
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her up, but this man couldn’t be doing that…could he? No, men who
looked as good as he did, did not hit on someone who looked like her.
Besides, he was gay. He’d clearly requested to share a king bed with his
male companion. There was no way he was coming on to her.
Considering anything else was just wishful thinking.
She exhaled. “I appreciate the offer, Mr. Long, but I’m really quite fine
by myself. There’s no reason for you to go out of your way.”
“Shame, please.”
“Huh?”
He chuckled. His laugh was low and deep, making her wonder what
his voice would sound like in the throes of orgasm. “Call me Shame. Mr.
Long makes me sound like an ancient old fart.”
Gail smiled. The nickname suited him. “As I said before, Shame, I’m
perfectly fine. You needn’t concern yourself with my boredom.”
His brilliant green gaze searched her face, lingering on her mouth
before once again meeting her eyes. “Not even if I want to? I’m sure I
could change your mind, if you gave me a chance.”
There was no way in hell she could misinterpret that. He was hitting
on her. Her heart beat triple time against her ribs while she thought of
what she should say, should do. She didn’t know whether to take him up
on his offer and find out exactly how well he could entertain her, or lie
and tell him she was involved with someone. After all, he was a complete
stranger. For all she knew he could be a serial killer.
Shit, she couldn’t take him up on anything, even if she did want to.
She was on duty for the rest of the night and the better part of the
following day. By the time she got off, he would probably be checking
out. What was most likely her only shot at being with someone so damn
sexy, and she was stuck working. If it weren’t for bad luck, she wouldn’t
have any.
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Gail sighed miserably. “I’m flattered, really, but there’s no way I can
leave the desk. I would lose my job.”
Disappointment crossed his face and disappeared so rapidly that she
would have missed it had she blinked. “Are you sure I can’t change your
mind, darlin’? It would be good. Damn good.”
As if she didn’t already know that. He could lay back on the bed buck
naked and do nothing but look at her and it would be the best sex she’d
ever had. “I’m sorry, I…I just can’t.”
He smiled but this time it fell short of his eyes. “Okay. If you change
your mind, you know where to find me.”
“I won’t,” she mumbled quietly as he walked away. Something about
the way his shoulders slumped ever so slightly made her feel like a
jackass.
She didn’t know the man and had no reason to feel bad for turning
him away. So why did she feel like she just denied a thirsting man a tall,
cold glass of ice water?
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Chapter Three
When the phone rang a short while later, Gail startled and jumped,
almost falling off her chair. “Guess the phone’s back on,” she said aloud
to herself. She reached over and grabbed the receiver, shoving it between
her head and shoulder, as her gaze skimmed over the page she’d been
reading. “Dew Drop Inn, Gail speaking.”
“You forgot to thank me for calling, Gail.”
She sat up straight and laid down her book. It was her boss. “Sorry,
Mr. Pascow.”
“I’ve been trying to get through to you all evening. Is the phone just
now coming back on?”
As far as she knew. “Yes, sir. Your call is the first to come through.”
“How’s business been tonight?”
“It’s been pretty dead. I’ve only rented out one room.”
Gail winced at the groan echoing from the other end of the line.
“Um…Megan called in again. I’ll be covering her shift in the morning.”
“Fine. That’s just fine. I’ll be in to check up on you as soon as the
state department gets around to scraping the roads in the morning.”
“Take your time, sir. I’ve got everything under control.”
Another grunt and silence was all she heard. At first she wasn’t sure
if her boss had hung up on her or if the phone lines had cut out again.
When she repeatedly pushed the hang-up button and still didn’t hear a
dial tone, she guessed it was the latter. From previous winter storms
she’d been through, she knew the phones would be doing that off and on
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Amanda Young
for the next few days or until the snow stopped, whichever came first.
Sometimes she dreamed about having the money to relocate to a nicer,
warmer climate. Maybe Florida or Texas. She didn’t really care what
state, so long as they didn’t have cold winters. Judging by the deathly
pallor of her skin, she could definitely use some fun in the sun.
A strong gust of wind rattled the front doors. The overhead lights
blinked twice and then winked out completely. Great, just what she
needed—a power outage. Standing still as a statue, she waited
impatiently for the backup generator to turn on. She didn’t mind working
the night shift by herself but she did have a thing about the dark. It gave
her the heebie-jeebies.
Taking deep, calming breaths, she began to count backward from a
hundred in her head. As she reached fifty, the generator kicked in and
the lights stuttered to life.
Thank you, God.
While the generator would keep the lights on, run the hot water
heater so the pipes wouldn’t freeze and keep minimal heat running in the
lobby, it was not powerful enough to run the heaters in each room. That
meant no heat for the two guests in residence. Luckily, they were the
only customers she had in-house, so at least she wouldn’t have to worry
about placating a mob of angry people. Just two sexy men, one of whom
she was sure wanted to get in her pants.
She contemplated not taking them one of the kerosene heaters the
motel kept stored away for just such a situation. It was going to be
awkward, showing up at their door at three in the morning. They were
probably fast asleep—maybe even naked and curled around each other
in the king-sized bed they’d requested—and she had to wake them up.
That or let them freeze.
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She shuddered. There was no way she could do that. As low as the
temperature was outside, they’d both be popsicles before morning. She
was just going to have to suck up the embarrassment and do the right
thing. Just as she always did. Good ole dependable Gail to the rescue.
Gail bent and snatched her oversized black purse from underneath
the counter. She riffled through it, searching for her keys. Her hands
shook as she pulled them out and walked over to lock the front doors. It
was probably a waste of time to lock the doors—she only planned to be
gone a minute—but these days a girl could never be too careful.
She twisted the silver key in the lock and gave the doors a tug to
make sure they were secure before exiting the lobby by the back and
heading down the indoor hallway. She stopped at the first door on her
left, room number one, and unlocked it. For some reason, the owner had
gutted that room in particular and designated it as the junk room. It’d
been that way since long before she’d started working there.
In fact, little had changed in the few years she’d been employed at the
motel. Other than a yearly raise of a quarter an hour, her job remained
exactly the same. If the hotel received anything new, like the carpet last
spring, it was always the same style as before. It was a bit like being in a
permanent time warp. Things moved on in the outside world, but inside
the hotel, things always remained the same.
Which was almost certainly why she was still there, when she should
have quit the dead-end position as soon as the cancer had taken her
mom. Instead, she’d just continued on, too complacent to change
anything about her life. Comfortable in her routine, she’d let one boring
day blur into the next and before she knew it, three years had gone by
and she had nothing to show for it.
Keeping her foot in the open door, she leaned into the room and
grabbed one of the heavy heaters by the metal handle attached to each
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Amanda Young
side and tugged it out. She yanked the door closed behind her and
started dragging the thing down the hall. With each shuffling step, her
heart beat faster. She hoped Shame—even his name seemed wicked—
wouldn’t take her arrival the wrong way and think she was giving him an
open invitation to sin. Not that she would’ve minded indulging in a few
carnal acts with the man. He was yummy, no doubt about it—and it
wasn’t as if she had to worry about catching anything from him, not
when she was immune to most diseases—but the morals instilled in her
from birth kept her from jumping into his arms since she’d only just met
him. Another, deeper part of her hoped he would, longed for him to take
the decision out of her hands and give her what they both wanted, even if
she didn’t quite know what that was.
She stopped in front of room number twelve and let go of the heavy
heater. Adrenaline coursed through her veins as she raised her shaking
fist to knock.
Restless, Shame paced back and forth in front of the bed. Trying to
sleep was futile. Too much energy coursed through his body, his mind
too busy running in circles to allow his body any rest. It didn’t help
matters that Ty had been absent upon his return from striking out in the
lobby. Ty never let the opportunity to rib him about anything slide, so his
departure was strange to say the least. Then again, maybe he hadn’t
expected Shame to strike out with the front-desk girl, and was trying to
give him some privacy. Also unlike him.
Whether he wanted to admit it or not, Shame was worried. While it
wasn’t unusual for Ty to run off in the middle of the night to commune
with nature, or whatever the hell it was he did when he disappeared, he
usually came back and crawled into bed shortly thereafter. It didn’t make
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sense for him to be out so long, especially when it was so damn frigid
outside.
Hell, since the power shut off, it was beginning to feel about the same
way inside. Being naked certainly didn’t help keep him warm, but
putting on clothes would mean he’d given up on sleep. Fuck it, he might
as well admit rest wasn’t going to happen tonight and get dressed. He
pulled open the suitcase at the foot of the bed and rummaged through it,
yanking out the first pair of clean boxers he found. Since he didn’t
normally wear any, they were Ty’s, not his.
He was about to slip into them when a knock sounded on the door.
The idiot must have locked himself out. Breathing a sigh of relief, Shame
reached for the doorknob.
The white door swung inward before Gail’s knuckles could rap on it a
second time. What she saw made her lips gape open and her mouth
water. For once, her heightened senses came in damn handy, allowing
her to see every detail of the man who stood buck-ass naked in front of
her.
Positioned in the doorway, Shame was seemingly unconcerned about
his state of undress. At eye level with his firm, pecs and the taut
caramel-colored nipples that perched atop them, her gaze swooped lower,
past his washboard stomach and the smooth jut of his hipbones, to the
heavy penis and tightly drawn sac hanging between his muscular thighs.
Jesus, he was gorgeous. Gail licked her lips, catching the drool she
feared would escape from the corners of her mouth. This was what she
had turned down. More the pity for her.
Swallowing over the lump in her throat, Gail slowly raised her eyes
and met his gaze. It was a mistake. The heat and sinful need she saw in
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Amanda Young
his expression was enough to make her melt faster than an ice cube in
the microwave. It also made her about as wet.
She opened her mouth. A second went by and then two. No sound
came out. Two words sat on the tip of her tongue—take me—and she
wasn’t about to say them no matter how badly she wanted him to do that
very thing. Then again, if he kept looking at her like she was a hot-fudge
sundae he couldn’t wait to devour, she might change her mind.
He reached out to her, his calloused fingers wrapping around her
wrist and yanking her toward him. In the space of a single heartbeat he
had her inside with her back pressed against the cold door. His hard
body anchored her from the front, a firm cushion for her breasts.
Time slowed to a crawl as his head began to lower. Their mouths
inches apart, his hot breath fanned the moist expanse of her bottom lip
and he stopped. “Is this what you want?”
Unable to form words, her heartbeat pounding in her ears, Gail could
only nod. The downward movement of her head brushed her lips lightly
over his. Tingles, like static electricity, shocked her. Caused her to
whimper and shift closer. Tapered fingers wound their way into the thick
mass of her curly hair and tilted her jaw up, angling her face to receive
his kiss.
And then he was there, his firm lips slanting over hers. Her mouth
parted on a silent moan and his tongue slipped inside, flicked over her
teeth and twined with hers in one scalding openmouthed kiss after
another that took her breath and set her thighs aflame. Her sex flowered,
lubricating and fluttering to welcome him inside. With the little cognizant
thought she could manage, she wished her clothes would disappear, that
the thin layers of fabric between them didn’t exist.
Her hands moved to his chest and kneaded the solid muscle she
found there, reveled in the sharp stab of his nipples in the center of her
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palms. Gone were any doubts about the rightness of what she was doing.
She couldn’t remember why she’d resisted in the first place. How could
anything that felt so good—so sublime—be wrong?
His tongue jabbed deeper, twirling like a cyclone around hers. Damn,
he could kiss. She moaned. Her clit pulsed greedily as she wondered
what else he could do with that long, prehensile tongue of his.
Strong arms enveloped her. His hands zeroed in on her buttocks and
squeezed, kneading her flesh. Her thighs parted, allowing one of his to
slide between them and push against her apex.
“Oh,” she breathed at the pressure against her aching sex. Shame
captured her sigh and swallowed it, deepening their kiss, taking it to an
entirely different level of heat. Supernova.
Gail burned for him. She longed to be able to form the words to tell
him what she needed, but couldn’t force herself to stop kissing him long
enough to speak. Instead she let her hands do the talking. She wound
them around his waist and gripped the steely mounds of his buttocks,
pressing down on them until she could feel the hard length of his
erection prod her belly.
Shame groaned, the sound low and husky. His muscles tensed
beneath her fingertips, and then she was being lifted up and carried
across the room to the big bed awaiting them. Gail wrapped her arms
around his neck, her legs squeezing his hips, and locked her ankles
securely behind his back.
Shame ran hot, wet kisses down her neck and jaw with every step.
She arched her back, pushing her breasts into his chest and angling her
throat to give him more room to kiss her. He obliged, nipping at the curve
of her neck and then running his tongue over the sharp sting his teeth
left behind. “I’m so glad you changed your mind about tonight, darlin’. I
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needed this. Need you. I’m gonna fuck you so good you’re going to feel it
next week.”
Her spine stiffened. Thoughts she’d rather not have infiltrated her
brain and wouldn’t be dislodged. She couldn’t help it. His use of the
endearment, darling, reminded her that he probably didn’t even know
her name. To him she was just a nameless, faceless body to slake his
lust on. Even though it shouldn’t, the thought hurt. Was that what she’d
allowed herself to become—a willing receptacle for his huge penis?
Her pride reared its ugly head and demanded she say or do
something, even if it meant tarnishing the moment and her chances of
being with him. For once in her damn life though, she didn’t want to be a
responsible person. She wanted to feel, not think and overanalyze every
little thing that happened.
No. She wouldn’t say anything. She wouldn’t. “Gail,” she murmured.
His lips paused at the collar of her shirt. “Huh?”
“My name. It’s Gail, not darling,” she said a tad louder, a slight waver
in her voice. Please, let him say something smooth, something I actually
want to hear, instead of something that will ruin this for me.
He sucked her earlobe into his mouth, bathing it in wet heat before
speaking. “I know your name’s Gail. If the pet names bother you, I won’t
use them. It’s just a habit.” He pulled back and met her gaze. “Whatever
you want. I want to make this as memorable for you as it’s going to be for
me.”
Looking up into his green eyes, seeing the sincerity in his gaze, Gail
felt herself relax, the tension in her muscles easing away. She could
happily spend the rest of her life looking into their depths, drowning in
them. He was so damn sexy.
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She sighed and yanked his head down, softly brushing her lips over
his. “It’s okay. I like the way you say darlin’. I just wanted to make
sure…”
His lips pressed against her forehead, then her temple and finally the
corner of her lips, hushing her. “I understand. That you don’t normally
do this kind of thing makes me even more grateful you came.” He swept
her bangs out of her eyes and kissed her. “I’m going to make you glad
you did. Promise.”
She opened her mouth, intent on telling him she hadn’t come for
this. That she’d only come to give him the heater still sitting out in the
hallway. But then he was laying her on the bed and following her down,
his powerful body settling between her thighs and pressing against her
achingly empty core. His welcome weight pushed her into the mattress
and his lips slanted over hers, sealing their mouths together, and all
cognizant thought fled to be replaced by the searing need to have him
inside her. Something about the virile man above her called out to her
like no other and made her feel things she’d never felt before.
Shame’s head was going to explode. Both of them. As soon as he’d
opened the door and seen her standing in front of him, her shoulders
tilted inward and her bottom lip held in a death grip between her teeth,
his cock had woken up and pointed right at her, like a divining rod in
search of her sweet, wet center.
He didn’t mean to damn near ravish her against the door, but he
hadn’t been able to control himself. All he’d wanted to do was wipe the
insecurity off her face and stake his claim on her before she changed her
mind about being with him and fled back to the front desk. Though he
couldn’t put his finger on quite what it was about her, she was
irresistible. He couldn’t think about anything besides getting her naked
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and burying himself to the balls inside her tight, gripping heat. It might
have been the aura of innocence that surrounded her like a cloak,
though he doubted it. He usually went for experienced partners. Women
who knew the score and didn’t expect vows of everlasting love before they
let someone fuck them. And yet, instead of making him run in the other
direction, the innocence he recognized in Gail’s eyes brought out the
beast in him and kicked all his primal, base desires into overdrive.
He wanted to claim her, fuck her and protect her all at the same
time. His response made no sense—he’d just met the chick—but he
wasn’t about to overthink it. Not with his cock as hard as a spike. He
was simply going to roll with it and see what happened.
Tasting her sweet lips, capturing the kittenish whimpers he was sure
she didn’t know she made had snapped the thin fiber of his control. As
fun as it would’ve been to take her against the wall, he stopped himself
from doing it.
Instead, he dropped them both onto the hard mattress and kissed
her, gorging himself on the sweet ambrosia of her lips. Shame nibbled on
her soft, succulent lips and sucked on her tongue until his lungs ached
and he had to break the kiss or risk brain damage from lack of oxygen.
Shame relinquished her mouth and shifted above her, staring down
into her passion-glazed baby blues. In that moment she was more than
the pretty girl he’d been attracted to earlier, she was beautiful. Her eyes
were heavily lidded and framed by the thick veil of dark blonde lashes,
cheeks flushed a deep rose, while her lips were wet and swollen from his
kisses.
Something in his chest tugged—hard—and gave him pause. He
shoved the foreign sensation away without giving it any thought and took
in her heaving chest, felt her long legs clamp around him. A vivid image
of her naked and spread out before him flashed through his mind’s eye
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and he groaned, wanting her that way immediately, before he expired
from want.
He skimmed his hands under the nubby fabric of her shirt and ran
them over the creamy expanse of her belly. It felt softly rounded and
supple. He almost felt bad about using his rough hands to touch her,
afraid to mar the silken perfection of her with the sandpapery calluses on
his palms.
She raised her arms, seeming as anxious as he to be naked, and he
pulled the polo up and over her head. His hands grappled with the
waistband of her pants, fighting the drawstring closure. Her small hands
covered his and took over, undoing the knot and shoving the pants over
her hips. He took it from there and scooted back, peeling them down her
legs and flinging them over his shoulder.
When he next looked at her, only two thin scraps of pale pink cotton
stood between him and paradise. With shaky fingers, he traced the
burgeoning swell of her breasts above the bra, ran the pads of his
thumbs into the valley between and latched onto the front clasp that
would release her tits into his waiting palms. He flicked the snap open,
the cups loosening over her breasts, and Gail stilled, her chest rapidly
rising and falling. The overburdened cups parted and slid to the side,
revealing bountiful breasts topped with bubblegum pink nipples already
hard and eager for his touch. His breath stilled as he took in her beauty,
his pulse galloping.
Reverently, he massaged one and then the other, in awe as her
nipples drew up into tight little buds under his ministrations. His
fingertips whispered over her flesh, plucking each nipple, and she
moaned, arching her back. He pressed harder, using the rough edge of
his thumbs to circle around and around the taut areolas.
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Her thighs vised around his waist, squeezing him. Her hips gyrated
against him, rotating harder and faster. “Please, Shame.”
He wasn’t sure if she was asking him to touch her harder or take her,
and at that point he didn’t much care. If he didn’t bury himself in her
heat soon, he wasn’t going to be of any use to anyone. He wouldn’t be
sane.
With shaky hands, Shame reached down and grabbed the slender
straps on either side of her hips. He gave them a yank and ripped the
tissue-thin panties from her body. Finally naked, she lay trembling
beneath him, her thighs open and welcoming.
Soft hands fluttered up and over his chest and cupped his face,
pulling him down into her embrace. She pressed her lips to his chest,
right between his pecs and spoke, her breath whispering over his skin.
“Now, Shame. Take me. Please.”
Her legs twined tighter around his hips and she wiggled until his
cock fell into position between the lips of her pussy. She mewled, her
frustration palpable as she tried to get him where she wanted him.
Shame had had enough teasing. He reached between their bodies
and grabbed hold of his cock, lowering the bulbous tip to her gateway,
and thrust into her. Her pussy was hot and wet. The slick tissues of her
cunt gripped his cockhead and compressed, surrounding him in divine
pressure even as they fought to keep him from entering any farther.
Jesus, she was tight. He moaned, pushing against her, gaining ground
as his cock sliced through her channel one inch at a time. The slow
progress was hell on his libido, but he was determined to take things
easy, not hurt her by barreling forward at the fast clip he wanted to take.
After what felt like an eternity, Gail took the choice out of his hands
and arched up, her hips pushing against him and impaling herself on the
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last few remaining inches of his dick. Shame grunted at the impact,
while Gail cried out, her hands fisting around his biceps.
Damn, she felt good. Tight. Wet. Hot. He shut his eyes and recited the
multiplication table in his head, trying to stave off his climax. When he’d
regained control of his body, he shifted his hips forward and back,
luxuriating in the feel of her cunt suctioning him in. He could feel every
inch of her channel, the walls snug and rippling around his cock. She
felt so damn good. Too fucking good.
“Goddamn it.” He yanked his hips backward, pulling his dick out of
her with a wet squelch.
Gail moaned and dug her fingers into his ass, preventing him from
going anywhere. “No! God, don’t stop now. Please.”
“I have to, darlin’. I forgot the condom.”
Her hands eased up on his behind, but she didn’t let him go. “Screw
it. You’re already there and you feel so good. Please. I’m on the pill, so
you don’t have to worry about getting me pregnant.”
Her fingertips caressed over his behind and into the hollow between,
running over his anus. Shame growled, thought about taking her up on
her offer and decided against it. He may have been guilty of getting a late
start putting it on, a first for him, but he knew better than to continue
without a rubber, no matter how tempted he was or how fucking good
she felt around him without the damn latex. People always said things
they didn’t mean in the heat of the moment and he didn’t want her to
have anything to be sorry about when she looked back on their night
together.
With regret, he reached back and pried her fingers off his ass. “Stay
right here. I’ll be right back.”
She sighed, dropping her hands to the bed, but didn’t argue with
him.
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Amanda Young
Struggling to calm his raging libido, Shame hopped off the bed and
crossed the room. He rummaged through his bag until he found a box of
rubbers. Pulling one from the box, he dropped the rest on the floor and
turned around, looking over Gail, naked and spread out across the bed,
as he tore into the foil wrapper and slid the aggravating piece of latex
down his shaft.
Now that he’d had a chance to catch his breath he thought of all the
things he hadn’t done to her and couldn’t live without doing. He crawled
up the bottom of the bed and grabbed her ankles. Gail squeaked, but
didn’t fight him as he spread her thighs wide. The sight of her small,
pink slit, open and waiting for him, had his mouth watering, hankering
for a taste of her.
Shame stretched out between her thighs. He slid his hands between
her ass and the bed and angled her hips up to meet his mouth. He
extended his tongue and gave a slow swipe through the plump, wet folds
of her sex. He groaned, the bittersweet flavor of her bursting over his
taste buds, and dove back in for more, flicking the tip of his tongue over
the hard kernel of her clit. She cried out, her hips shifting restlessly, and
he traveled farther down, jabbing at the tight gate of her vagina and
lapping up the cream he found there before moving past it to lave over
the wrinkled pucker of her anus. Gail mewled and bucked her hips. He
shifted his attention up and stabbed his tongue in and out of her pussy,
tasting her, swallowing the sweet broth she released for him.
The lips of her sex fluttered. Her clit grew harder, longer, poking out
from underneath its hood to wink at him. Unable to resist his urge to feel
her come against his mouth, he pulled the bundle of nerves into his
mouth and suckled.
She cried out, her fingers digging into his scalp and tugging at his
hair. “Oh! Oh God. Please, Shame, don’t stop.”
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Shame growled against the folds of her sex and devoured her with
renewed purpose. His tongue a whirlwind against her clit, he alternated
fast and short jabs with long, slow licks. Her hips rotated, her pelvis
thrusting at his face faster and faster, while the thighs at each side of his
face began to tremble. Beneath his tongue, her clit throbbed and pulsed,
swelling like a tiny cock. He sucked, applying pressure to the tiny bud,
and she went off in his mouth. A rush of moisture coated his chin and
mouth as she shivered and shook, screaming out her release.
One last long lick, from clit to anus, and Shame retreated, rising up
above her. On his knees, he pulled her thighs wide and brought her
knees up and over his elbows, opening her for his thrust home. In one
desperate lunge he buried himself to the hilt, his balls slapping against
her bottom.
Shame groaned and Gail whimpered.
He began to move, rhythmically driving in and out of her with slow,
deep thrusts. Over and again, his hips arched, pounding the thick length
of his cock into her.
Grabbing the only thing she could reach, Gail’s nails bit into his
forearms, holding on to him. Shame’s grip on her thighs tightened, his
thrusts coming faster as he felt the slick walls around his sex ripple and
begin to pulse.
“Oh yeah. Fuck, darlin’, come on my cock. Come for me. Let me feel
you.”
Gail whimpered again and threw her hips back at him. “I can’t.”
Shame picked up the speed of his thrusts, lunging into her. He let go
of one of her thighs and reached between them to massage her clit
between his fingers. “You can. You will.”
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Amanda Young
Gail moaned, her head thrashing from side to side. A long, low wail
erupted from her mouth and she came, her pussy clamping down on him
like a vise.
It was too much for him. His body went into sensory overload and
shut down. Shame buried himself inside her with one long, deep thrust
and began to spasm, his release pumping into the condom. Gail’s name
slipped from his lips as his orgasm crashed over him.
XW
Damn, she was warm. That was the first thought that registered as
Gail slowly grew aware of her surroundings. She felt snuggly and
comfortable and…there was a dick poking her in the ass. What the—?
The events from the night before hit her with the force of a bag of bricks.
Gail jerked upright, the covers slipping out of her grip to fall around
her waist, and frantically looked around her. What she was looking for
she couldn’t have said.
The sun was up, though how high couldn’t be determined through
the thick drapes. Nevertheless, it was morning and she was in deep shit.
Her boss was supposed to be in and she’d spent the night fucking a
stranger instead of doing her job. Gail groaned. She was toast.
A firm arm flopped over her lap, drawing her attention to the sinfully
naked man beside her. He was dead to the world, fast asleep. All she
could see was the broad width of his shoulders, one muscled arm and
lots of thick, wavy auburn hair shielding his ruggedly handsome face.
The night before, her nervousness, the mind-numbing pleasure he gave
her, had her nipples peaking and her libido revving up for another
round.
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Unfortunately, with her livelihood on the line, a steamy round of
morning sex wasn’t an option. It was a shame she hadn’t taken that into
consideration before she’d agreed to put her responsibilities on the back
burner for an orgasm. Make that two orgasms. Even if they had been the
best she’d ever had.
Focus, Gail, focus.
Gail eased out from underneath Shame’s arm and slipped from the
bed, careful not to wake the man beside her. The last thing she needed
was an awkward goodbye. And it would be. She didn’t have the first clue
what someone said after a one-night stand and frankly, she didn’t want
to. They’d had sex, mind-numbingly good sex, but that’s all it was and
she wasn’t sure how to deal with the aftereffects. One-nighters were not
her thing, though she was confident the man she’d slept with had
probably indulged in plenty. A kernel of guilt over leaving without a word
ate at her, but she dismissed it. He would probably be relieved to find her
gone when he awoke.
Taking a deep breath, she found all her clothes, except for her
underwear, as they seemed to have vanished without a trace, and pulled
them on. As quietly as she could, she inched open the door, wincing as
the old hinges squeaked a little, and slipped out into the hallway.
Maybe if she was lucky, her boss wouldn’t be in yet. Scratch that,
when the hell had she ever been lucky a day in her life? Hmm, let’s see,
how about never?
Heartbeat thundering in her ears, Gail hurried up the hallway when
what she really wanted to do was turn around and run in the other
direction. Each step brought her closer to whatever was in store for her.
Her brain spun in circles as she frantically tried to come up with an
explanation for why she hadn’t been at her post. Nothing plausible came
to mind.
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Amanda Young
Well, she’d wanted some excitement. She was getting it in spades
now.
Opening the door, Gail entered the employee-only room that allowed
one into the area behind the counter. It was quiet. Looking around she
saw everything was just the way she’d left it. Maybe…
The door opened and slammed shut behind her.
Turning around, she came face-to-face with her boss. The expensive
black suit and white dress shirt he wore was pristine. His round face was
flushed a deep red. His beady black eyes bore through her skull, like he
was trying to read her mind.
He spoke, his high voice brittle. “Gail.”
“Mr. Pascow.”
“I’d like to have a word with you.”
Gail sighed. She was so busted.
XW
Shame woke up cold and alone. Shivering, he yanked the comforter
over his head and buried his face in the pillow. Outside of the covers, the
room was the temperature of a freezer. He was also sporting a boner hard
enough to hammer nails.
He lowered his hand and adjusted himself, his palm lingering over
the blunt tip of his cock, stroking it. Damn, it was hell waking up horny
without someone there to help take care of it. You could only beat off so
many times before you gave yourself carpal tunnel syndrome.
It rankled that Gail had snuck out without saying goodbye. Shame
rolled over onto his back and raked a hand through his disheveled hair,
wondering why he even cared that she wasn’t there to wake up to. The
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chick was just a one-time thing, a warm body for the night. So why did
her absence gnaw at him?
Something else suddenly occurred to him, stopping his thoughts of
Gail and her odd effect on him. Even without her in the room, he
shouldn’t have been alone.
Where the hell was Ty?
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Amanda Young
Chapter Four
As she entered the living room, Gail kicked off the black flats she
wore and discarded the constricting black blazer. She draped it over the
back of the chair and flopped down on the blue recliner. Scrubbing her
hands over her face, she blew out a disgruntled breath of hot air. It had
been the week from hell. First she’d been fired, then she’d bombed at the
only two job interviews she’d been called in for, and last but not least,
someone had broken into her car and stolen her stereo. If anything else
bad happened, she planned to crawl into the closet and hide. Enough
was enough already.
What she needed was a vacation. Since she was no longer gainfully
employed, it could be a vacation from life. Unfortunately, she was also
flat broke, so that wasn’t going to happen. Which was a catch-twenty-
two. Now that she was jobless, she had all the time in the world to do
whatever she wanted but she didn’t have any money to do it with.
To her disgust, there was a single place she really yearned to be—
Shame’s arms—and the only thing required to make it a reality was a
miracle. Since he and his buddy were long gone by now, it wasn’t going
to happen. Shoot, even if they were still at the motel, there was no
guarantee he would be interested in being with her again.
While their time together had been hands down the best sex she’d
ever had, for him it was probably nothing special. Having replayed it in
her head, over and over, she was embarrassed to realize that she hadn’t
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done the first thing to make it good for him. She’d just lain there, like she
was paralyzed from the neck down, and let him do all the work.
She was ashamed of her behavior. It was usually her that gave and
gave, receiving nothing in return. She could hardly believe she’d done
something so out of character. Not that she was complaining; the
pleasure he gave her was worth being a tad selfish. She just wished she
could do a few things differently. Like take a turn going down on him.
Her blood heated a few degrees higher at the mere thought of taking
him into her mouth. Sucking on his long, hard cock until he moaned and
writhed, spilling his salty-sweet essence down her throat. The thought of
tasting him had kept her awake more than one night that week.
Only after she felt the tug on her nipple through her plain cotton tee,
did she realize that one of her hands had migrated north of its own free
will and was plucking at the stiff peak. Jesus, she needed to get a life.
How sad was it that she sat in her living room at five o’clock in the
evening thinking about the only real sex she’d had in the last—she didn’t
even know how long—and was playing with herself?
Gail pulled her hand away from her chest and glowered down at it.
Did she have no self-control anymore? Wiping her damp palms over her
jeans, she stood and headed into the kitchen to find something to eat.
Entering the tiny eat-in kitchen made her feel closer to her mom.
This room, with its sunny yellow walls and bright sunflower drapes, had
been her mother’s favorite. If she tried hard enough, she could almost
picture her sitting there at the small wooden table for two, a deck of worn
cards laid out on its surface, playing solitaire.
Of course, that was before she’d been diagnosed with the big C,
cervical cancer. After the diagnosis, she’d not had the energy to so much
as lift her head, let alone play games.
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Amanda Young
God, she missed her. She’d never realized how truly alone the two of
them were until the night she’d learned she was going to lose her mom.
She’d never forget that awful night for as long as she lived. She’d just
come home from community college and found her mom sitting on the
sofa, her eyes glittering with unshed tears. Gail dropped her things onto
the floor and rushed across the room, pleading with her mom to tell her
what was wrong, never expecting to hear what she had. The grim
prognosis crumbled the floor right out from under Gail’s feet. Mothers
weren’t supposed to die. Especially not hers.
Against her mom’s wishes, she’d quit college and took a job working
nights at the motel, so that she could take care of her. Working late
allowed her to transport her mom back and forth to her many doctors’
appointments and spend time with her. Then later, after the cancer grew
beyond help, she’d been able to sit vigil by her mom’s hospital bed so she
wouldn’t ever be alone. Nothing had been more important to her during
those final months than being there for her mom.
In the end, it turned out that she was wrong. Mothers did die and
hers wasn’t any more invincible than the next. She’d fought the disease
ravaging her body, underwent the recommended chemotherapy and
radiation that left her body more damaged than the cancer, but it wasn’t
enough. She passed away quietly in her sleep.
Gail was forced to pick up the pieces of her life and move on without
her mom. She’d let everything fall to the wayside, too worried about her
mom’s health to exert the energy needed to keep up with friendships or
the dating scene. What few fair-weather friends she did have had
disappeared with Gail’s good spirits.
Gail shook her head, trying to pull herself away from her morbid
thoughts, and tugged open the refrigerator. Staring at nothing in specific,
she strived to figure out what to eat. She was starving, her stomach
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practically gnawing on her backbone, but nothing looked appetizing. She
tried to bring to mind the last thing she’d eaten and drew a blank. Could
it have possibly been the cream-cheese bagel she’d devoured while
standing at the sink the night before? God, it probably was. Real
nutritious.
She had to start taking better care of herself. Eat better. Exercise.
Maybe even talk herself into going out and attempting to meet new
people. How was she ever going to find Mr. Right if she continued to hide
herself away like a hermit?
Battery-operated boyfriends aside, she couldn’t remember the last
time she’d had a date. The kind where the guy picked her up and took
her out somewhere other than his bed for the night.
It’d been over a week since she’d had any human contact, besides the
two uptight toads who’d interviewed her and the busy customer-service
reps she’d requested applications from. As lonely and desperate as she
felt, she’d settle for a date including McDonald’s drive-thru and a DVD, if
it meant being able to cuddle up next to someone warm and have an
adult conversation.
Disgusted with her train of thought, she shut the fridge and selected
an apple from the wicker bowl in the middle of the kitchen table. Sinking
her teeth into the tart green fruit, she walked into the living room and
sank back down on her recliner.
Maybe she should get a cat. Or a dog. No, she was more of a cat
person. Weren’t all single women supposed to have a feline?
She grabbed for the remote on the end table beside her. Her fingers
froze, hovering over it, as she cocked her head to the side and listened
closely. Someone was pulling into her driveway. She could hear the
unmistakable crunch of ice and gravel beneath the vehicle’s tires as it
started up the steep incline leading to her small house on the hill.
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Amanda Young
The remote forgotten, she rose to her feet and hurried over to the
picture window, pulling back the gauzy white sheers covering it. A large,
black crew-cab truck was coming up her driveway. Who in the world was
that?
Must be someone lost. It was easy to lose your bearings if you weren’t
familiar with the rural area in which she lived.
Gail let the curtains fall shut and hurried over to the front door. She
stepped out onto the porch as the truck rolled to a stop. The cab
windows had a mirrored finish, so even with it parked right in front of
her face, she couldn’t make out who was inside.
Shame stared at the woman he’d only known for one night. His gaze
started at her head, memorizing the way her golden hair caught the
setting sun, and then moved on to the startling baby blue color of her
eyes and her small upturned nose and full pink lips. No longer did she
wear the frumpy work uniform she’d had on the night they met. Instead,
she wore a thin cotton T-shirt that clung to her breasts, the tips of her
nipples clearly visible against the soft fabric, and faded blue jeans that
hugged her long legs like a second skin. Even her bare feet, with chipped
pink nail polish, were sexy.
Damn, she was a knockout. For some reason, he’d expected her to be
plainer, less gorgeous than he’d pictured countless times in his head
since the few short hours they’d spent together. His body’s response to
this one woman was a frightening thing. The touch of possessiveness he
felt toward her was beyond scary. It was downright mind-numbing. He
couldn’t afford to develop feelings for her, and more importantly, he
didn’t want to. He didn’t plan to ever open himself up to caring about
someone again. He wouldn’t survive losing another loved one.
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If he’d had any other choice, knew anyone else in town that he could
turn to, he wouldn’t be there. He would’ve stayed as far away from her as
possible. She seemed like a good woman. One who didn’t deserve to get
mixed up in the shit he and Ty were involved in. Sadly, he didn’t have
any other options.
Ty was missing. No amount of searching during the last week had
turned up the first clue as to where he was. Assuming that their
presence in town had been discovered and that Ty had either been taken
against his will or was deep in hiding, Shame had been forced to leave
the one motel in town.
For the last two nights, what little sleep he’d gotten had taken place
in the cab of his truck. What he needed now was a safe place to hole up.
Somewhere no one would think to look for him as he continued to search
for Ty and tried to figure out his next move. Gaining Gail’s cooperation,
while keeping her in the dark about his plans, was paramount.
She stepped down off the porch as he slid out of the truck. The
dumbstruck look on her face clearly told him that she’d never expected
to lay eyes on him again.
“Shame?”
“Miss me, darlin’?” he asked with a teasing grin. Now was not the
time to lose his charm.
Her mouth floundered open, then curved into an uncertain smile.
“What are you doing here? How…how did you even find out where I live?”
Good question. It wouldn’t do for him to tell her the truth; that he
was a hell of a computer hacker and could pretty much figure out
anything he wanted to about her, with little effort—from last year’s tax
return to which online stores she shopped at. “You’re in the phone book,
right?”
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Amanda Young
She looked confused for a minute, a cute frown popping up between
her arched brows, before what he said seemed to dawn on her. “Oh,
um…yeah, I guess so. That still doesn’t explain why you’re here though.”
In two steps Shame stood in front of her. He wrapped his arms
around her narrow waist and pulled her close against his body. “I missed
you. Wanted to see you again.” That, at least, was the truth.
Her eyes heated, the baby blue of her retinas went smoky and he
realized that she must’ve been able to feel the thick ridge of his erection
pressing into her stomach. His cock woke up and saluted the instant
she’d stepped out onto the covered porch and had yet to go down. If
anything, the damn thing was barking to be petted. Her curvaceous body
was temptation personified. While he could control his actions
somewhat, he couldn’t control his body’s strong reaction to her presence.
“Come on, darlin’, admit you’ve been thinking about me just as much
as I’ve been thinking about you.”
Her lashes lowered and a pretty pink blush slashed across her
cheekbones before she nodded ever so slightly. Her eyes remained
downcast, focused on his chest. “And if I have?”
When he didn’t answer right away she glanced up, her tongue darting
out to moisten her dry lips. Shame groaned, imagining that tongue
moistening the head of his cock, flicking over the slit and swallowing his
come.
He leaned in, unable to resist the lure her lips presented, and kissed
her. As gentle as butterfly wings, he brushed his mouth over hers, felt a
shaky puff of air come from between her parted lips and allowed himself
to sink in deeper, slide his tongue over her bottom lip and the rough edge
of her teeth. He heard a moan, was unsure if it came from him or her,
and decided he didn’t really give a damn.
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The sun beat down on his shoulders, warming him, as he tasted her
and explored the recesses of her mouth, the smooth enamel of her teeth,
the sandpapery texture of her tongue. She tasted like apple pie, warm
and tartly sweet. He couldn’t get enough. Angling his head to the side, he
took the kiss deeper, his tongue pillaging the tender depths of her
mouth. He dragged the kiss out, on and on, reluctant to break away.
Their mouths fused together, and he kissed her until his head spun and
his balls ached. Until he was forced to stop or chance going off inside his
pants like a horny teenage boy.
Shame pulled back. A few scant centimeters of separation stood
between his lips and hers. He gazed into her heavily lidded eyes and
forced himself to drag oxygen into his lungs while at the same time
dipping into hard-won reserves of self-control to keep from laying her
down in the snow and taking her right there for God and all else to see.
Gail shivered, her compact body trembling in his arms, and Shame
knew without a doubt that he was lost. Stupid, shitty timing or not, he
wanted this woman. Wanted her for a hell of a lot more than a quick
fuck, and he intended to have her. He didn’t know the how or why of it,
but it was the plain, unvarnished truth.
Gail closed her eyes and sighed. Her forehead fell to rest against the
curve of his neck and her arms snaked around his throat, holding him. It
gave him exactly the opening he was waiting for. Bending, he tightened
one arm around her lower back and used the other to swoop behind her
knees, lifting her off the ground and into the cradle of his arms.
She squealed and clung to his neck. “What are you doing? Put me
down! I’m too heavy. You’ll give yourself a hernia.”
Shame chuckled. “You’re not too heavy.” He jostled her around in his
arms. “I’d say you’re just right.”
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Amanda Young
He pressed a quick kiss on the top of her head, climbed up the porch
stairs and walked through the open front door, kicking it closed behind
him. His gaze scanned the first room he came to, searching for a soft
place to lay her down. As tight as his balls felt, he didn’t even consider
looking for her bedroom. He had to have her. Now.
The living room was odd. He’d never seen one without at least a
couch or a love seat, but hers only consisted of an entertainment center
covered in knickknacks and an older-model television. Two velour
recliners and a pair of cherry end tables beside each were the only other
furniture. That wouldn’t work for what he had in mind. They probably
could get busy on one of the recliners, but damned if it wouldn’t be
uncomfortable.
Since the living room was out, he ignored the minuscule kitchen that
sat off to his left through an open partition and headed toward the back
of the house. Striding down the short hallway, he had three closed doors
to choose from. He figured two bedrooms and a bathroom.
“Which one?”
“That one,” she said, pointing toward the single door on the right side
of the hall.
She’d just let a stranger into her home. What the hell was she
thinking? Sure, she’d already let him into a lot more personal an area
than her bedroom, but still. Had she gone completely bonkers? He could
tie her down, steal what few possessions she owned and kill her without
a single thought if he wanted to and there wouldn’t be a damn thing she
could do to stop him. Her gut, however misguided, urged her to trust
him. Told her he was safe and wouldn’t do anything to hurt her. At least
not on purpose. If her fragile heart was crushed when he left, it would be
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her fault for deluding herself into thinking he wanted more from her than
a quick fuck, not his.
She decided to listen to her heart instead of her brain. The same
brain that yelled warnings and dire predictions at her as he carried her
into her bedroom and set her down on the cream-colored duvet.
Gail didn’t move an inch. She was too busy watching as Shame
began to strip off his clothes. The black sweater went first, coming off
over his head. Muscles rippled across his smooth, bronzed chest as he
unbuckled his belt and pulled it through the loops in his dark denim
jeans.
Folding the belt in half, he stopped stripping long enough to look her
square in the eye and snap the leather belt between his hands. The loud
crack startled her, making her jump, but it also made her wonder if he
intended to use it on her. She shuddered in dread and also in
anticipation, which surprised the hell out of her. She wasn’t into
bondage, never had been, but the thought of his calloused palm, or even
the belt that had hugged his lean waist, spanking her bottom, had her
already-damp panties inundated with a fresh surge of moist,
uncontrollable lust.
There wasn’t much this one sexy man could do to her that she would
refuse or fail to be turned-on by. There was just something about
him…some indefinable quality that made her inhibitions drop, right
along with her panties.
Shame let go of his belt, his tapered fingers quickly working the metal
buttons of his fly open, one at a time. As he shoved the denim over his
trim hips and down the long length of his thighs, Gail’s eyes were drawn
to his stomach and the upraised scar that bisected his abdomen. Thin
and white, it ended above his innie bellybutton, fell into the indent
between his ab muscles and stopped a couple of inches shy of his
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nipples. If not for the odd placement, she would have thought it was a
stretch mark. That was exactly what it looked like—an old, faded stretch
mark.
His pants hit the floor, stealing her attention. She watched him kick
them away and then he was standing in front of her, gloriously naked.
Soft light filtered in through her bedroom window, enabling her to see
every golden inch of his perfect body, from the wide breadth of his
shoulders to the high arch of each of his narrow feet. What drew her
attention the most, however, was directly in between.
Riveted, she stared at his erect cock. Like the rest of his body, his
groin was smooth, making his penis appear larger, more alive, as it
bobbed under the strain of its own weight. Oddly enough, just beneath
the wide flare of his helmet, there was a tiny navy blue tattoo. She leaned
forward, trying to make it out, but it was too small.
“See something you like?”
Gail swallowed and her gaze traveled the lean lines of his body back
up to the mischievous gleam in his eyes. Hell, yes, she liked what she
saw. More than liked it, but she wasn’t about to tell him that. He was
conceited enough as it was.
She shrugged nonchalantly. “Well, you know what they say—if you’ve
seen one, you’ve pretty much seen them all.”
He stepped toward her, his penis jutting out in front of his body.
“Really now?”
She licked her lips, wondering what his velvety skin would taste like,
feel like sliding past her lips and over her tongue. Would he be salty or
sweet? “Yep.”
“Ah, come on, you’re not even a little bit impressed?”
Gail resisted the grin trying to fight its way to the surface. “Nope.”
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Shame stopped in front of her, his tempting erection no more than a
hairsbreadth away from her face. God, she really wanted to lick him,
make him moan and beg for her.
She stared at the weeping tip of his cock for a moment, pretended to
give it a clinical once-over—and in the process noticed that the tattoo
appeared to be an S and a lowercase L, though she couldn’t be sure. His
initials?—before meeting his eyes once again. “Sorry, it’s pretty, but not
anything special.”
He put his hand over his heart and gasped. “Now you’ve done it.
Broke my heart and hurt my poor prick’s feelings too. Shame on you.”
The goofy look on his face made her giggle. Actually giggle, like the
stupid schoolgirl she’d never really let herself be. Jesus, he was
dangerous. A killer body he knew how to use, and he made her laugh
too. If she wasn’t careful it would be all too easy to fall for him. He was
there for fun, a quick roll in the hay and nothing more. If she wanted to
keep her heart whole, she needed to remember that.
And then he pushed her back on the mattress and she wasn’t able to
think at all. Nothing other than how good he tasted as his lips crushed
over hers, or how hot and hard his shoulders felt under her hands when
she wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled his body down on top
of her.
One hot, openmouthed kiss descended into another. Their tongues
dueled, rubbing and teasing each other, making Gail drag air into her
lungs in short and choppy breaths through her nose. Her fingers delved
into the coarse hair at the nape of his neck and smoothed down his back
to cup his tight ass. She felt his cheeks hollow out as his hips arched
into her.
His hands slipped under her T-shirt, his palms brushing her stomach
as he worked it up over her breasts. Gail raised her arms and allowed
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him to pull it the rest of the way off, leaving her bare-chested and a little
insecure about how her body looked in the light of day. Before she could
give it much thought, he kissed her again and wiped away all of her
concerns about her form. Her lips clung to his as his hands arrowed
down her sides and fumbled with the snap on her jeans. Anxious to feel
his skin against hers, she reached down to help and jerked open the
button closure.
He groaned his appreciation into her mouth and his hands sank into
her pants, palming her bottom. She wiggled, trying to help him scoot the
denim down over her hips and legs. When her jeans hung around her
ankles, she kicked out and slung them the rest of the way off. Left in thin
white cotton panties, she shivered. Not from the cold but from the
anticipation of what was to come. She wanted…needed to feel Shame
inside her, making love to her.
Shame pulled back, coming up to his knees beside her. He stared
down at her, his eyes full of desire—for her—and she thought she would
come on the spot. Each place his gaze landed, her mouth, breasts, the
indent of her waist, the wet cotton that covered her aching sex, tingled
and burned as if he’d struck a match on it.
A tinge of self-consciousness hit her. She wished she’d worn
something besides her usual white cotton underwear. He deserved better,
something sexy like black lace or red silk, not drab white granny panties.
This sexy, rugged, virile man wanted her. Plain old, slightly chunky
Gail Wright. He thought she was beautiful, had said as much when they
were together before, at the motel, and even now she liked to think she
could see it reflected in his eyes. Damn if he didn’t make her feel pretty
too. She felt like a sunflower that’d just discovered basking in the sun.
As if she’d woken up from a long, cold winter and could feel the suns
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loving rays shining down on her. It was a heady sensation, to know that
she was so wanted, even if only for sex.
Gail pushed Shame down on the bed and flipped onto her hands and
knees over him. She desperately wanted to return the pleasure he’d
bestowed on her. Wanted to show him that this time would be different
and that she wasn’t always so selfish or needy. That she wanted to
please him too.
She scooted closer and the light scent of his male musk greeted her
nose. Looking up at him, she extended her tongue and swiped it over the
fat, bulbous head of his cock, tasting the droplets of pre-come that clung
to the tip. His essence burst over her tongue, salt and some
indescribable tangy flavor that was his alone and made her yearn for
more. She ran the flat of her tongue up and down his length, moistening
his prick with her saliva. She paid special attention to the sensitive dip
underneath the head, the tip of her tongue laving it repeatedly as he
growled and bucked his hips ever so slightly toward her face, as if he
couldn’t control his body’s reaction to her touch. Gail took the spongy
crown between her lips and suckled, her palm fondling his heavy balls at
the same time.
Relaxing her jaw, she strived to accept as much of his shaft as she
could manage, loving the feel of his hard, malleable flesh filling her
mouth and rubbing over her tongue. He was too long for her to take him
all in, but damn if she didn’t want to try. His desire, his pleasure was in
her hands and she relished the power it gave her.
She bobbed her head, taking him deeper by tiny increments until he
hit the back of her throat and could go no farther. Seeming to sense her
limits, he fisted his large hand around the base of his cock and began to
slowly thrust, fucking her mouth.
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His pleasure fed hers and fanned the flames of her desire higher.
Each swipe of her tongue, each nibble of her teeth on him, kicked her
need up another notch. The sultry moans that spilled from his mouth
caused her womb to fist and weep. She wanted to stop, to throw him
down on the bed and impale herself on him, but part of her yearned to
keep going and suck his juicy cock until he came down her throat.
In the end, Shame made the choice for her. His hands clenched in
her hair, making her whimper as he forced her to quit sucking him. He
rotated his hips with a groan and pulled his erection from her mouth
with a damp pop.
She only had time to swipe her tongue over the glistening tip of his
cock before Shame rolled her onto her back, spreading her legs wide as
he moved. He jerked her panties down her legs and flipped himself
around, turning his body backwards atop her, and buried his face
between her thighs. His tongue burrowed through the slick, swollen folds
of her pussy, feasting on her with a ravenous hunger that made her
burn.
She lowered her eyelids and shut out everything but the sweet
sensations he caused. His hot, wet tongue swirled through each crevice
and fold, leaving a maelstrom of need in his wake. Blunt teeth nibbled at
her labia and sucked. On and on, he continued to lick and tease, no part
of her pussy left untouched. He searched out all the spots that made her
mewl and used them to his advantage. All but the one she needed him to
touch the most. He went out of his way to avoid her clit.
Rotating her hips, she tried to get his tongue where she wanted it. He
sidestepped, flicking his tongue all around her clit, never touching it
once. “Damn it, Shame, please,” she begged.
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He chuckled, the hot puff of breath coming from his mouth bathing
her pussy in added heat, making her clit pulse harder in horny
anticipation.
Gail opened her eyes. Like ripe fruit, ready to be plucked and
savored, his cock and balls dangled temptingly over her face. Fine, if he
wanted to drive her out of her mind with his teasing, she was more than
happy to return the favor.
She licked her palm, getting it good and wet, and gripped his stiff
cock, stroking her closed fist up and down his length before pulling him
closer to her waiting mouth and his punishment for denying her release.
Up and over, she fisted his ruddy stalk, her fingers squeezing the
weeping tip on each upstroke. Her tongue extended, flicked softly over
the taut sac encasing his balls, teasing him.
He groaned into her pussy, his tongue moving faster, harder over her
flesh. Oh, yes. That was the response she was looking for.
Desperate to come, suddenly desperate to make him come with her,
her mouth covered one of his swollen testicles and pulled it into her
mouth. Her tongue worked a tight figure eight over the succulent orb,
laved it and applied gentle pressure. She switched back and forth, from
one ball to the other, lapping at the wrinkled sac while her hand pumped
hard and fast over his penis. With each pass, her fingers swirled over his
wet crown, collecting the moisture he provided, and spread it over his
flesh for a smooth glide.
Still, he refused to give her what she wanted. Refused to touch her
where she needed him to. What did she have to do to get him to lick her
clit, damn it? If her brain hadn’t been short-circuiting on pleasure
overload, she would be able to figure it out. As it was, she wouldn’t be
able to tell anyone her full name if they asked it of her.
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What turned guys on? A naked and willing woman, check. Having
their cock sucked, check. Licking their balls, check. What else was
there?
Prostate.
That one scary, forbidden little word popped into her brain and
lodged there, jumping up and down waiting for her to pay attention to it.
Could she find it? She’d never thought of doing that with the couple of
lovers she’d been with prior to him. Did she dare try? What if all the
descriptions she’d read in romance novels were wrong and she ended up
not being able to find it? Or if she inadvertently scratched something and
hurt him? Hell, what if she did find it and he was repulsed?
Shit. Only one way to find out.
With shaky fingers wet from her saliva, she massaged the space
between his balls and anus. Beneath the fragile skin, she could feel the
hard root of his cock where it disappeared into his core. When he didn’t
stiffen up or yell for her to stop, she moved a little higher. Her fingertips
glanced off the puckered ring of flesh guarding his rectum, testing his
response, before quickly jumping back to his perineum. When all that
garnered was an encouraging groan and not a single pause in his
ministrations to her sex, she began to feel braver, more daring. Spitting
on both of her hands, she resumed her pumping on his cock, this time
pulling the flared rim down to lick and suckle. Her other hand moved
back to massage the pink flesh she was preparing to violate. The more
she rubbed, the more his tightly clenched muscles relaxed. Slick and
ready, she eased the tip of one finger into his bottom.
He groaned. Tensed.
She stopped, her fingertip lodged in his ass, and waited for him to
say or do something to stop her from going any further. Instead of the
rebuttal she expected, she got a low, husky sound of pleasure and felt
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his tongue move marginally closer to her clit. The vigor with which he ate
her pussy increased. So did her need to come.
Emboldened, she pressed on, sinking her finger deeper inside him.
His chute clamped down on the digit, squeezing it, the inside of his body
hot and softer than she expected. It felt like live silk. With one finger
lodged to the webbing, she started to slip in another. Slowly, she twisted
her wrist around trying to find the most comfortable position while she
rubbed the walls of his rectum, searching for the small walnut-shaped
protrusion she knew should be on the side closest to his belly and near
the tips of her fingers.
Shame growled into her pussy and she felt the vibrations rocket
through her body. God, she was so close. All he’d have to do was breathe
hard on her clit and she would shoot off like a rocket. She was
determined to take him with her when she did go over.
She angled her head back and swallowed as much of his cock as she
could in her awkward position. Her tongue, teeth and palate all worked
in concert together to get him off. She pushed up with her fingers and
pressed forward, straining to reach…and then she felt it—the small, soft
mound of flesh that could and would send him over the edge. She
brushed it, just barely, and the hot, silken walls around her fingers
clenched down, resisting her movements.
Shame’s hips bucked, pushing his cock farther into her mouth,
butting up against the back of her throat and gagging her. “Mmm, yeah,
baby. Right there. Make me come.” His moist breath puffed over her
aching clit. His tongue followed, swiping the tiny bundle of nerves before
his lips settled around it and suckled.
Gail’s back arched, pushing her sex harder against his face. Her
mouth sealed around his cock, tongue circumnavigating the swollen tip.
Slender fingers pushed higher, putting more pressure on his prostate.
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Even in her passionate stupor, she was careful not to press too hard and
hurt him.
He growled, sucking harder, feasting on her as if her pussy was the
last thing he’d ever be allowed to taste, and Gail’s world rocked on its
axis. Her stomach muscles tightened. Time froze. All she knew, felt, was
his mouth and the coil of tension inside her that wound tighter and
tighter with every pass of his tongue over her flesh. She wanted to beg,
plead with him to finish her off, but refused to let go of him long enough
to voice her desires. Instead, she sucked harder, pressed her fingers
deeper and pumped her fist faster along his length, suddenly desperate
to taste his essence, have it fill her mouth.
His ass clamped down on her fingers right before the first blast of
semen hit her tongue and exploded over her taste buds. Salty. Addictive.
And then she was coming, his climax setting off her own. The fierce
contractions of her orgasm barreled over her, sweeping her away with the
bittersweet pleasure of release.
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Chapter Five
While he recovered from what had to be the world’s best orgasm,
Shame studied Gail’s bedroom. A woman’s room could say a lot about
her personality and he found that he wanted to know more about the
little minx who currently lay sprawled in a satiated heap over his chest.
Gail’s bedroom was simple. Not a lot of clutter like he’d seen in the
rest of the house. Off-white walls with a pale mint green border. A single
white mirrored dresser and matching nightstand. A few perfume bottles
and a small oak jewelry box sat on one corner of the dresser. On her
nightstand was an alarm clock and two picture frames. The larger frame
housed a picture of Gail and an older woman, both smiling happily into
the camera with an arm wrapped around each other’s shoulders. They
looked so much alike that they had to be family. Maybe an older sister,
or possibly her mother? The smaller of the two held a photo of two
children caught in the awkward stages right before puberty, a dark-
headed boy pushed a smaller girl—probably Gail, judging by the wild
mop of blonde hair—and smirked into the camera. The face stirred a
familiarity within Shame, but he couldn’t place it. He dismissed it,
figuring the boy just resembled someone he’d seen during his travels,
and moved his attention on.
The large canopied bed dominated the room with its immense size.
Instead of letting the sheer pink curtains at each corner of the bed down
like they were supposed to be, she’d wrapped them around the white
cast-iron poles, making him think that her bed, maybe she herself,
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hadn’t seen any action for quite some time. Otherwise, wouldn’t the
curtains have been down, blocking out the rest of the world, swathing
them with the notion that nothing existed outside of the bed and the
passion they found in each other’s arms?
Soft fingertips ran absently over his breastbone, alerting him to the
fact that the woman in question was awake. He glanced down at her and
noticed that her eyes were dreamy, like she was a million miles away.
Judging by the slight upward tilt at the corners of her lips, her thoughts,
whatever they might be, were of something pleasant. He wondered what
she thought about that would put such an angelic smile on her beautiful
face.
Curiosity got the better of him. “What are you thinking about?”
“Hmm…” She looked up at him. “Oh, well, I just remembered what I
was thinking about right before you showed up. I was sitting in the living
room, feeling sorry for myself and wishing that I had someone special to
spend the evening with.” She blushed, her gaze sliding back down toward
his chest. “It’s kind of ironic that you’d show up right when I really
needed someone.”
Shame didn’t know what to say. His windpipe felt stuffed with wet
cotton. He also felt incredibly guilty. She thought he was there solely for
her and he’d let her believe that, thinking it would be easier than
explaining the truth and having her kick him out on his ass.
Was that what he’d turned into—a user?
“Gail, I’m glad I’m here. Even more pleased that you’re happy to see
me, but I have to tell you that part of the reason I’m here is because I
checked out of the motel. I thought, maybe, if it was all right with you, I
would stay here for a few days while I take care of things. If you don’t
want me to, all you have to do is say so and I’ll leave. No pressure. No
hard feelings, I promise.”
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Gail blinked up at him and then smiled. “Of course you can stay
here. I’d be happy to have the company.” She reached down, her hand
fisting around his semi-erect penis. “And I’m already thinking up ways
for you to earn your keep.”
Shame caught her hands and pulled them up over her head.
Laughing, he rolled her onto her back. “Oh you are, are you?” he teased.
“Mm hm.” Her eyes glittered up at him. “My mind’s spinning with all
the possibilities.”
He brushed his lips softly over hers. “I just bet. You want to share
some of those ideas with me?”
She wrapped her legs around his waist and squeezed. “Nope. I think
I’ll keep them all to myself for now.”
Shame nipped her earlobe with his teeth. “Know what I think?”
“What?” she panted, her thighs tightening around him and her hips
wiggling to find the right angle for penetration.
“I think you’re a little tease.”
His cock rubbed over and between her swollen folds. Both of them
sighed as the tip cruised right down to where they both wanted it to be,
the mouth of her pussy.
“You’re wrong,” Gail whispered, her hips arching, her pussy
swallowing the first couple inches of his cock. “A tease doesn’t finish
what she starts. I fully intend to start it”—her wet flesh glided over his
tumescent stalk, punctuating her words—“and finish it.”
Shame groaned. His hips shot forward, burying the remaining inches
of his stiff member inside the tight grip of her pussy. His balls hit the soft
skin of her bottom and it was all he could do to keep from losing control.
Sweat beaded on his forehead as he held still, not yet ready to move. He
wanted to savor the hot, moist clasp of her body around him for a
moment before he tore into her and sent them both into the stratosphere.
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Gail moaned beneath him and her nails dug into his ass, urging him
to move, to thrust. He gritted his teeth, stalling, wanting this time to last,
but she wasn’t making it easy on him.
Leveraging herself up on her elbows, she licked the underside of his
jaw and nipped at his chin. She ducked her head and flicked his nipple
with the tip of her tongue and then sank her teeth into it, biting down.
An involuntary grunt slipped from between his clenched teeth. God, she
was going to kill him. Too many orgasms like the first one and he was a
goner. Death by sexual overload—hell of a way to go, but it worked for
him.
Her tongue moved across his chest, bathing his other nipple in wet
heat. Most women didn’t truly appreciate a man’s nipples. His were
extraordinarily sensitive. Did Gail know what she was doing to him by
sucking on him that way? Her lips tightened around the small bud of his
nipple and he lost his ability to think of anything but plowing into her
tight and willing cunt. His fingers twined with hers and he began to
lunge into her, over and over, each swivel of his hips harder than the one
that came before.
“Oh, yes! Shame. Harder.”
He felt the hot liquid pull of her sex spasm around his cock and
clamp down on him, contracting in rhythmic waves. He thrust once and
then again, burying his dick to the root, and let himself fall over the edge
of orgasm with her. Lightning shot from his perineum to the head of his
cock, his come following right behind it. Thick jets of semen exploded
from the tip and filled her, marking her as his.
Shame rolled onto his back, taking her with him. His shrinking
erection still inside her, she laid on top of his chest, her head brushing
against his chin. The only sound in the room was the ragged inhalations
as they tried to catch their breath.
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Shame smoothed his hands over her back, his fingers leisurely
exploring the crease of her spine and the indent at the top of her bottom.
“Mmm…that feels good,” she whispered into his chest, the air from
her words billowing over his nipples. She moved her body a little to the
right and his semi-erect penis slipped out of her and flopped against his
thigh, wet from their joint release.
Fuck. His fingers stilled on her waist.
She rubbed her face into his chest. Kissed his collarbone. “Don’t stop
now. You keep massaging my back like that and you’re going to put me
to sleep.”
“Gail?”
“Hmm?” she whispered drowsily.
“I forgot to use protection.”
Her muscles stiffened underneath his fingertips. She didn’t say
anything for a long time. Long enough for Shame to start to sweat,
wondering what was going through her mind.
Finally, she pulled up and looked him in the eye. “Don’t worry about
it. I’m on the pill, remember?” Her cheeks blossomed a pretty shade of
pink and he realized they always did that when she was embarrassed or
felt bashful. “Besides, I’m supposed to start in a few days, so even if I
wasn’t, I’m sure your little soldiers wouldn’t find anything to fertilize.”
She sighed and laid her head back on his shoulder. Shame turned
her words over in his head, thinking about what she’d said. His hand
toyed with her hair where it was spread out over his chest. “For what it’s
worth, I’m clean. I know you can’t just take someone’s word for it but—”
Soft fingers covered his mouth, stopping him. “I know. It’s okay. I’m
clean too. We’ll just have to be more careful in the future.”
A vivid picture of Gail’s stomach rounded with his child popped into
his head. It was quickly replaced with another one of a little boy with his
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auburn hair and Gail’s beautiful blue eyes. He swallowed, uncomfortable
with the images and how clear they appeared in his mind. Where the hell
did those thoughts come from? He barely knew her. He sure as hell
didn’t want to knock her up. He’d had a family, a wife and daughter he’d
loved. They were gone. Dead. He didn’t want another one.
He opened his mouth, ready to tell her as much. To let her know that
he wasn’t interested in more than a fling, but his stomach growled,
interrupting him.
Gail rose up on one elbow, her eyes full of laughter, and patted his
abdomen. “I made you work up an appetite, huh?”
He smiled back at her and leaned up to press a kiss to her lips, his
previous thoughts squelched. “Guess so.”
She scrambled off the bed and walked naked across the room, his
eyes trailing her every move, and yanked an old white terrycloth robe off
the back of the bedroom door.
She turned back to him as she pulled it over her shoulders and tied it
around her waist. The graceful dip over her naked breasts peeked out at
him from beneath the robe. “Come on. Follow me to the kitchen. I think
the least I can do is feed you after all the hard manual labor you’ve
done,” she teased with a smile and a come-hither wave before she turned
and walked through the door.
Shame wondered how her teasing and easy manner could so easily
shift his mood. She was good for him, his Gail. Whoa! Wait just a damn
minute. She wasn’t his anything.
A vision of her body, flushed with arousal and straining toward
completion—the completion he’d given her—popped into his head. Okay,
so maybe he had a soft spot for the woman. He would admit that much,
but it wasn’t anything more than hot sex. He wouldn’t let it be.
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Gail puttered around in the kitchen, trying to figure out what she
could cook for Shame. There wasn’t much in the fridge and besides that,
she had no idea what the man even liked. Staring blankly into the half-
empty cupboard, she wondered what was taking him so long in the
bedroom. She’d been standing in the kitchen waiting on him for a good
ten minutes. It would be easier for her to figure out what to make if she
could ask him about his likes and dislikes.
Impatient, Gail turned to go find him, only to see him standing in the
doorway, lean hip propped against the wall and one leg casually draped
over the other. His chest was gloriously bare above tight, faded blue
jeans and though he’d taken the time to pull them on, he’d left them
unbuttoned, allowing her a tantalizing glimpse of soft skin beneath his
ridged abs. When she finally forced her gaze up to his face, she realized
he was staring at her with a weird expression on his handsome face, as if
she had snot running out of her nose or something.
“What?” Gail asked, her hand flying to cover the lower portion of her
face, worried that maybe she really did have a booger showing.
Shame smiled, twin dimples popping out on either side of his full,
supple lips. “Nothing. I was just watching you. Has anyone ever told you
that you look damn cute when you’re concentrating on something? You
start gnawing on your bottom lip and you get this adorable little wrinkle
in the middle of your forehead.”
She felt her face morph into a scowl but her brain was doing a happy
dance. He thought she was adorable. “Um, thanks,” she muttered, not
knowing what else to say. Compliments always made her uncomfortable.
She’d never quite mastered the art of accepting one gracefully. “So,” she
said, changing the subject. “What do you like?” She pulled open the
fridge and stared at the meager contents for the umpteenth time. “I can
do omelets. Would that be—?”
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Hard, muscular arms snaked around her waist and yanked her back
against Shame’s rock-solid chest. Impossibly, she felt a renewed erection
pressing against her bottom through the thick fabric of her robe. Though
she knew full well what he was up to, she asked anyway. “What are you
doing?”
Soft lips brushed over the curve of her shoulder. “You asked me what
I was in the mood for.” His hands toyed with the belt around her waist,
untying it. One calloused palm slipped inside to cup her breast,
manipulating her nipple.
With a sigh, she leaned into him, the back of her head coming to rest
on his shoulder. “I guess I should have been more clear about what was
on the menu.”
He squeezed her nipple, sending a bolt of heat to her core. “I’m glad
you didn’t.”
“Me too,” she whispered, before twisting and wrapping her arms
around his neck. She stretched up to kiss him. As her lips pressed to
his, his stomach growled loudly, reminding her why they’d come into the
kitchen to begin with. She snickered. “You want to rethink skipping
dinner?”
Shame smiled, his eyes twinkling down at her. “Yeah, maybe eating
first isn’t such a bad idea after all.” He let her go and stepped back. “Do
you need help with anything?”
She turned away and opened the fridge before she gave in to her
body’s demand that she jump back into his arms to insist he finish what
he’d started. “Sure. You any good with a grater? You can grate cheese
and crack the eggs, while I cut up some veggies.”
“I’ve never used one, but I’ll give it a shot, as long as you don’t mind
if I accidentally grate some of my fingers in with the cheese.”
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Gail laughed and began to pull out the ingredients they would need
for the omelets. With her arms laden down, she turned back to him and
handed him the carton of eggs. “Why do you think I don’t want to do it?”
Shame accepted the eggs and carried them over to the table where
she’d set out a bowl and the cheese grater. With his back turned, she
noticed another small tattoo on his left shoulder blade. It was a little
pink teddy bear. Across its chubby tummy, the name Sophie was written
in cursive.
“Who’s Sophie?” she blurted out before she could think better of it.
Shame’s spine stiffened and she didn’t need for him to turn around
and show her his face to know the polite mask of barely leashed civility
had slipped over his features. She bit into her lip, cursing herself for
asking. Gail resolved to change the subject before he said something to
ruin her good mood. Like for her to mind her own business. She turned
away from him and busied herself with chopping vegetables. “I hope you
like mushrooms. I always have to have a lot of mushrooms and cheese in
mine. It just doesn’t seem like an omelet without them.” Could she sound
any more lame?
After several tense moments, during which time she grew sure he
wasn’t ever going to speak to her again, he finally broke the silence.
“Whatever you want to throw in is fine with me. I’m not all that picky
about what I eat.”
The rest of their late-night meal was prepared in virtual silence, only
the banging of implements and the hiss of butter on the skillet to fill the
quiet void. It wasn’t until they sat across the table from each other, no
longer busy, that the silence began to grow uncomfortable.
Frantically, she racked her brain, trying to come up with some
menial small talk to fill in the chasm growing ever larger between them
by the second. Thinking of things to say to him shouldn’t have been so
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hard. She imagined that if they had gone about things the normal way—
forced themselves through an awkward couple of dates before they’d
jumped into bed together—then it wouldn’t take such a stretch of the
imagination to come up with something to talk about.
Though she’d been more intimate with him than any other, she found
herself at an intellectual loss for conversation. The little details one
usually knew about someone they’d slept with were missing. While she
knew all about his body, his sexual wants and needs, she didn’t know
the first thing about his life. And judging by his reaction to her asking
about his tattoo, he didn’t want to share any of those details with her.
The silence was palpable. She opened her mouth to say something,
anything, and drew a blank. To cover her verbal floundering, she quickly
stuffed a forkful of eggs into her mouth. After chewing mechanically, she
swallowed.
Glancing up from her plate, her eyes met Shame’s. He sat back in his
chair, watching her. Unlike hers, his plate was empty. Apparently while
she’d been woolgathering, he’d wolfed down his food.
She pushed what was left of her food around on her plate and
grasped the only opening she could think of. “Are you still hungry? I
could whip you up another omelet.”
“No thanks, I’m good.”
Yes, yes he was. Very good.
When nothing more was said and silence reigned supreme yet again,
she gave up and carried her plate over to the sink. She shoveled over half
of her dinner down the garbage disposal and turned on the water to let it
heat before starting the dishes.
Elbow-deep in suds, she jumped when Shame’s voice rang out
behind her.
“My daughter.”
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She glanced back at him over her shoulder. “Huh?”
“You asked who Sophie was. She was my daughter.”
She couldn’t help but ask, “Was?”
Shame nodded, the fierce expression on his face clearly saying he
didn’t want to elaborate.
Though her curiosity was killing her, she turned back to the dishes.
“I understand if you don’t want to talk about it, but…” She couldn’t help
but leave that “but” dangling on the end. If there was any chance he
wanted to tell her more, she wanted to give him the opening. If not, she
would let it go and try not to pester him into telling her something he
obviously wasn’t comfortable discussing.
After all, she could understand secrets. She had a few of her own she
wasn’t willing to share.
“I’d really rather not get into it right now.”
Gail shrugged like it didn’t matter and decided to cut him a break.
She pulled the stopper from the drain and turned around to face him.
“So, if you don’t want to talk, what do you want to do?”
Before he could answer, she untied her robe and let it fall to the floor.
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Chapter Six
Morning light filtered in through the window, rudely shining down in
Gail’s face. She awoke slowly and groggily flung her arm across the bed,
yearning to feel Shame’s warm body beside her. Her arm slapped the cold
pillow instead. Shame was gone. Again.
It had been the same thing each morning. Over the last four days
he’d been staying with her, she had yet to wake up with him next to her
in the morning. He always disappeared before she woke up. Or maybe it
was during the night. She wasn’t really sure. All she knew was that she
fell asleep with him and woke up alone.
For such a small thing, awakening alone was beginning to get to her.
She longed to wake up in Shame’s arms, snuggled up safe and content at
his side, just as she fell asleep every night. Shame had a way about him,
nothing concrete but more of a quiet presence, that made her feel
entirely too connected to him, too at peace in his company. Almost as if
they’d been together for years.
The first morning she’d woken up to a cold and empty bed her heart
seized in her chest, thinking he was gone for good. She’d spent the rest of
the day moping around the house, feeling sorry for herself. Hating him
for leaving without saying goodbye. Hating herself for being so needy.
When he’d shown up in time for dinner that evening, she’d been
shocked. Unwanted tears had surged into her eyes at the sound of his
truck pulling into her drive. She’d run into the bathroom and splashed
cold water on her face, hoping it would take away the puffiness and ugly
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red blotches from crying. As she’d looked at her reflection in the mirror,
she’d given herself a nice, long lecture about the perils of letting herself
get attached to Shame.
Just because he’d come back this time didn’t mean he planned to
stay. He wouldn’t and had already told her as much himself, though not
in those exact words. Shame was only staying long enough to take care
of whatever business had brought him into town in the first place and
then he would move on and leave her behind.
That thought brought on a fresh round of tears and she’d had to re-
dunk her face in icy water.
She swallowed the lump in her throat and forced herself to get a grip
on her wonky emotions. He was a temporary lover. A mere speed bump
on her way to improving her self-esteem and enabling herself with
enough courage to get out there and meet new people, meet Mr. Right.
Shamus Long was Mr. Right-now, nothing more.
Then what’s with the tears? That one burning question repeated,
unanswered in her mind.
And so the next few days passed. Each day she came home and
started a dinner for two, hoping he would show up to help her eat it, a
part of her brain telling her that this would be the day that he didn’t
come back.
Gail allowed herself to settle into a routine she had no business
getting used to and lectured herself about it constantly, to no avail.
Today was no different. She spent her day fruitlessly searching
through the want ads. Few companies in the area were hiring and those
that were only had positions way out of her league.
She wound up going to a temporary agency, the last refuge of the
jobless. There she spent three miserable hours filling out forms and
taking mundane computer tests, only to hear the usual “We’ll call you
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when we have an opening” line as she left. They may as well have said
“Don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out” for all the hope she
felt toward landing a position there.
When she got home, she showered and shaved, and slathered
perfumed lotion from head to toe. Just because she was down in the
dumps about work, or lack thereof, didn’t mean she wanted to be a
grump when Shame showed up. Their time together was limited enough
and she wanted to enjoy each moment they shared, for it to be special. In
truth, she just wanted him to look back years down the road and
remember her as the catch he’d let get away.
Tonight she planned to cement the memory of her into his brain.
Which was why she spent so much time carefully choosing what she
would wear. She wished she could’ve gone shopping and bought
something frivolous and naughty, perfect for the night of seduction she
had planned. But with no job and few prospects on the horizon, she
couldn’t afford to blow the cash, so she scrounged through what she had
in her closet and made do.
The best she could come up with was a short black skirt, with a hem
that billowed out around her knees, and a long-sleeved pink blouse thats
plunging-V neckline showed off a bit of cleavage. What she wore
underneath was a no-brainer. Sexy lingerie just so happened to be one of
her personal weaknesses. Some people hoarded shoes or purses. She
collected panties and bras. Lingerie was her equivalent of most women’s
chocolate binges, though she only pulled out the good stuff when she
really needed it. Like tonight.
After serious consideration she decided that less really was more and
settled on black, lace-top thigh highs with a matching black garter belt
and nothing else. The garter belt disguised the slight roundness of her
belly, while highlighting her newly denuded mound. She wasn’t sure
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what had prompted her to shave off her pubic hair while in the shower
but she’d gone through with the impulse.
Her fingers skimmed over the baby-smooth flesh between her legs. It
was strange not having the blonde curls she’d grown used to seeing
between her thighs. Her pussy looked so different. And the sensations—
Wow. Barely touching her outer lips caused a shiver to skate down her
spine and her womb to clench in anticipation. She couldn’t wait to see
the expression on Shame’s face when he got a load of what she’d done.
Couldn’t wait to see how much better his touch felt on her sensitive skin.
Over most of the next hour she primped and preened in front of the
bathroom mirror, trying to make herself presentable. She rolled her long
hair in curlers and left it lying in loose waves over her shoulders. She
even applied a little extra makeup. Gail added mascara and a touch of
bronzer over her cheekbones, in addition to her usual face powder and
raspberry lip gloss.
Satisfied that she looked the best she could, Gail hightailed it into the
kitchen to start dinner.
XW
The overcast sky spat out random spurts of snow and hail, casting an
eerie pallor over what looked to be a beautiful landscape of rolling knolls
and wide-open plains. Shame crouched with his knees bent at an
uncomfortable angle and his back pressed against one of two frozen
cement pillars. Each pillar framed one side of the heavy iron gate,
monitoring who came and went from Master Vampire Lucian Tremaine’s
palatial country estate. There he waited.
And what an estate it was. From his vantage point, smashed between
the pillar and a bushy hedge, Shame had a great view of the huge house
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that looked like a gothic version of Gone with the Wind’s Tara. With its
sprawling layout and six tall columns holding up the massive covered
porch, it could have been an identical replica of the film house had it
been white instead of a sickly gunmetal grey.
To either side of the house, land stretched as far as the eye could see.
There were no trees to provide cover for him if…when he made it through
the gate. It was going to be dicey getting from where he was to the house
without being seen by the flunkies on watch or the cameras he’d spotted
strategically placed around the grounds.
Dicey, but doable. He’d been in tighter spots and come out ahead. All
he needed was the perfect opportunity to fall into his lap and he would
be in.
Unfortunately, if something didn’t happen soon it would have to be
put off until another day. It was getting late, somewhere around five, and
the sun would set soon, taking with it his chance of doing any
reconnaissance that day. He didn’t dare make a move to enter the
vampire’s dwelling after sunset. During the day the vampire’s powers
would be slightly beyond that of a humans, but after the sun went down
and the moon rose high in the night sky, they became damn near
indestructible. Entering after dark would be as good as signing his own
death certificate.
Shame heard a car approaching over the rise. Even before he spotted
it, he knew it would be a sports car. The seductive purr of the engine was
too mellow, too strong to be anything else. Sure enough, less than a
blink later, a candy apple red Lamborghini Diablo rumbled up to the
gate. As it rolled to a stop, the driver-side window whirred down a bit and
the man behind the wheel spoke into the box, seeking admission.
The near-black windows prevented Shame from being able to make
out who was behind the wheel, but he knew it must be someone
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important. Perhaps even Tremaine himself. No flunky would be entrusted
with a machine that easily sold for well over three hundred grand.
His pulse beat double time as he moved, quick and silent, from his
hiding spot to stay in line with the car as the gate swung open. When the
car began to inch forward on the bumpy, snow-covered ground, Shame
walked hunched over beside it and slipped undetected through the gate.
Bent at the waist, he hustled alongside the car into the attached
three-bay garage beside the house. Vehicles filled all but the bay closest
to the house—a Ford truck in one, two ski mobiles in the other. Before
the owner shut the engine down Shame was falling to the floor, his body
tucking and rolling underneath the 4x4 truck.
He lay still beneath the truck. A pool of liquid, which smelled like
transmission fluid, soaked into the back of his jacket, masking his scent
better than the deer piss he’d sprayed on his boots earlier for that very
purpose.
He held his breath as the driver crawled from behind the wheel and
exited the vehicle. The voices inside grew louder, closer, and then the
door leading into the house was flung open. The force from behind sent it
slamming into the wall with a loud bang that ricocheted through the
room like a gunshot.
Two pairs of sneakers appeared in the doorway, along with the glossy
black dress shoes belonging to the person who’d exited the car a moment
before. Their voices rose, their tones furious. Shame idly wished he’d
paid closer attention in high school, when he’d had the displeasure of
taking French, as that was the language they appeared to be speaking.
Unless one of them asked the other for a romp in the sack—Voulez-vous
coucher avec moi?—the only phrase he’d ever memorized in the language,
then he had no hope of understanding a word they uttered.
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As they argued and fought—about what he didn’t know—Shame took
a moment to collect himself, taking the time to regroup and prepare for
what was to come. He was going into the house, of that he was certain.
What he would find once he was deep into the interior of Tremaine’s
nefarious world was impossible to guess.
With slow, controlled breaths he stilled his thumping heart and
calmed himself. It wouldn’t do to hyperventilate while he was in the
vipers nest. Even in their pre-vampire forms their hearing was superb
and they would notice the unsteady wheezing of someone in hiding trying
to force air into their over-expanding lungs.
Shutting his eyes, he pushed everything from his mind and tried to
concentrate on his reasons for being there. Maria. Sophie. Possibly even
Ty, though he prayed there was still hope for his lost friend. That
somehow, someway, he was still alive and fighting. If anyone could face a
horde of creatures as evil as these and come out swinging, it was Ty.
For once it wasn’t the image of his sweet wife’s face he pictured to
calm his raging nerves. It wasn’t even Sophie’s face he saw. It was Gail’s.
He saw her as she looked the night before, her luminous blue eyes
staring up at him over his cock as he forced it inch by swollen inch into
her hot little mouth. The trust that she placed in his hands when he’d
breached the tight seal of her throat and moved deeper, the bulbous
head of his cock slipping into her throat and cutting off her air for those
few precious seconds.
When he left Gail, lying warm and snug in bed that morning, he
hadn’t thought that today would be the day he’d hit pay dirt in his
search. If he had, he would’ve taken the time to treasure her, give her
one last kiss and snuggle, before he forced himself out of the warm
cocoon of her embrace. He was always careful, using his extensive
training to his advantage, but only God knew the outcome of skirmishes.
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Living in the moment, appreciating each day to its fullest, had been his
personal motto at one time, but was something he’d let fall to the
wayside after losing his family. Being near Gail—basking in her care and
sunny disposition—resurrected all those old feelings and made him want
to grip life by the horns again. He was sorry he hadn’t put forth a little
extra effort to show her his appreciation.
It was too late now, but as soon as he made it out of this in one piece,
he vowed to do something nice for her that didn’t involve the two of them
getting sweaty and horizontal. That was the best he could do right then.
Being so close, only to turn back, wasn’t an option. Reconnaissance was
dangerous and sometimes messy, but it had to be done. The chance of
being discovered was one he would have to take in order to get the
information he sought. Being good at what he did didn’t make him
invincible.
The three men retreated into the house, the door slamming shut
behind them. Shame heard a click and a whirr and the garage door
began to descend, sealing him in. He moved with animal grace and rolled
from beneath the truck and climbed to his feet. He grabbed the first
thing he could find, a wooden step stool, and wedged it between the
garage door and the floor, preventing it from reaching the ground.
He didn’t want to eliminate any possible escape routes for when the
time came to boogie out of the place. If he was in a hurry, and he had no
doubt that he probably would be, it was going to be important to save
time. Having to open that metal monstrosity would cost him precious
seconds he might not be able to afford to lose.
Since the only entrance into the house from inside the garage was the
one the three thugs just entered, Shame had no choice but to wait them
out, give them a few minutes to get to wherever it was they were headed
and clear the way for him to sneak in. Waiting grated on his already
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overextended nerves, but it was preferable to going back outside and
making himself vulnerable to any security cameras on the property while
he scouted for another way in. Shadows were growing longer under the
door, the sun lowering over the horizon. He only had so much time before
the sun set completely and he was royally fucked.
There was no way he could make himself sit back on his thumbs and
chill. It was now or never. He approached the door and eased it open a
few inches, peering around the edge. A small mudroom, approximately
the size of a large walk-in closet, was deserted. Shame slipped inside,
leaving the door behind him ajar.
A handful of steps brought him to the other side of the room and the
open doorway that led into a wide foyer with white walls and even whiter
marble flooring. Beyond that he could make out what looked like a
sunken living room to the left and a huge state-of-the-art kitchen on the
right. Everything he saw was in shades of white and chrome. An odd
color scheme for creatures who thrived on darkness.
A tinkling noise that favored someone twirling keys sounded to his
left, from the direction of the living room. Shame darted into the empty
kitchen and ducked behind the center island. There he held his breath
and waited.
The keys rattled closer, accompanied by the sound of heavy footsteps
echoing through the hall. A short, stubby man passed the open door
leading into the kitchen. As wide as he was tall, with straggly, greasy
brown hair, the man was a sight to behold. Though it was obvious that
he didn’t take care of his body, the clothes he wore—a perfectly tailored
black pinstripe suit—were pressed and clean.
He wasn’t one of the two flunkies Shame followed to the house. Nor
was he the man who’d been behind the wheel of the Lamborghini. Shame
wasn’t sure who he was.
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A business associate, maybe?
The man bypassed the kitchen and headed into the mudroom Shame
had just vacated. Damn good thing he’d gotten out of there when he did.
Now he just hoped the guy didn’t head into the stall where he’d propped
open the garage door.
He heard the loud rumble of a vehicle starting up, what was clearly
the truck’s big block engine, and felt his tense muscles relax a fraction.
So far so good.
Slipping from behind the center island, Shame slunk across the room
and stopped to listen closely as he approached the door. Hearing
nothing, he eased around the corner and was met by a choice. A double
set of stairs. He could go upstairs or down. Taking into account that
people usually hid their dirty laundry in the basement, Shame chose the
latter and began the slow, dark descent into the basement.
He paused at the bottom landing, his eyes scanning the darkness in
all directions. There were three hallways branching off from the foot of
the stairs—one to his left, right and directly in front of him. Two of the
hallways were dark and appeared to open into a single room at the end.
The hall in front of him was dimly lit by antique wall sconces and had
several closed doors on each side.
Shame stepped off the landing, ready to explore the various doors
down the long hallway in front when he heard something that sounded
like chains rattling. He stopped moving and listened. More clanking,
followed by the echo of low, pain-filled grunts reached his ears.
The sounds seemed to be coming from the hallway to his left.
Following the noise, he inched down the unlit corridor, carefully keeping
his back to the wall lest someone try to get the jump on him from behind.
His night vision was good, but a supernatural’s was undoubtedly better.
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An arc of dimmed light spilled from the opening, not enough to
illuminate his journey, but enough to guide him in like a homing beacon
to whatever reprehensible goings-on took place within. Each step, each
heartbeat, drew him closer to his goal. As he crept nearer, the sounds
grew louder—the whirr of a piece of leather slicing through the air, the
resounding slap against soft flesh, the sickening rattle of chains and
subsequent groan of the person being tortured.
Shame stilled outside the ring of light and molded his back to the
wall. Through years of practice, he was able to slow his respiration to an
even keel, the better to improve his hearing and keep his presence
undetected while he tried to figure out what was happening inside.
From his vantage point he could see very little inside the room. What
he could make out confused him. He’d expected a torture chamber—
doom and gloom. What he got was—exercise equipment? That made no
sense. He could see a weight bench and the corner of a treadmill.
He stood against the wrong side of the hallway to see into the other
side of the room. The side where all the action was taking place. Was it
possible that the room was half gym, half dungeon? Jesus, that thought
sounded stupid, even in his head.
The men inside the room—two of them, by his guess—the one
performing the torture and the one taking it, started to talk and Shame’s
thoughts ceased as he eavesdropped.
“You had enough yet, fucker? You ready to talk now?” a low, scratchy
voice taunted.
Chains rattled and then a hoarse, almost sexless voice whispered,
“Fuck you.”
“I’ll take that as a no. You know—” The sharp sound of something
cutting through the air reached Shame’s ear a second before he heard
the loud, wet slap of leather hitting flesh. “—the boss is getting a might
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testy that you haven’t spilled your guts yet.” Another sickening slap
followed by a ragged, long-suffered grunt. “I’m thinking maybe you like
the way this whip cuts into your pretty skin. Maybe you get off on the
pain.” The man wielding the whip laughed, the sound hollow and
emotionless.
The person being tormented moaned, low and broken, as he was
repeatedly hit, the slick slap of flesh echoing loudly.
Shame gritted his teeth, forcing himself to stay put and listen, not go
charging into the room like he wanted to.
Time was running short and he needed to learn everything he could
before the sun set and he was forced to leave. In consolation, he
promised himself that he would help this person before that time came.
His conscience wouldn’t let him live in peace if he left without doing what
he could.
His muscles tensed, locked up as he heard the man being struck
again, crying out in agony. Something about the sound, the first one he’d
clearly heard that was more than a broken whisper, sent chills of
recognition down his spine.
The taunts began anew, cutting off Shame’s ability to think of
anything besides his mounting anger and the need to thrash the sadistic
bastard with his fists until there was nothing left of him but a bloody
stump. See how he liked fighting someone who wasn’t bound and unable
to defend themselves.
A soulless cackle echoed around him. His muscles bunched, urging
him to surge into action.
“What’s a matter, boy, you don’t like the cat-o’-nine tails as well as
you do the whip? That’s a real shame, since you’re going to be tasting a
lot of it until you give us the location of that good-for-nothing slayer
you’ve been traveling with. The boss will have his ass one way or the
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other, with or without your help. You could make this easy on yourself.
Give in. Tell us what we want to know and I’ll finish you off real quick. A
bullet to the brain, instead of the slow draining you’re begging for by
keeping silent.”
The low, gravelly voice answered back. “Never.”
The one word was loud enough for him to recognize the voice. Ty. Joy
filled his chest at the realization that his friend was alive. It was quickly
followed by the knowledge that he had also spent the past weeks
undergoing God knew what kind of torture.
If he was going to make a move, and he damn sure planned to, then
now was the time to do it. Man-to-man he could kick the flunky’s ass, no
matter how big he was. Shame was a firm believer in the old saying—the
bigger the man, the harder he fell, but timing was imperative. Once the
sky darkened and the thug’s powers increased, underling or not, Shame
wouldn’t stand a chance. And if they got their hands on him, neither
would Ty. Once they had him, they’d have no reason to keep Ty alive. He
had to move and he had to do it now.
“Why do you want to be like that after I was trying to be nice to you?
Tell you what—how about I start cutting off limbs? Maybe start with your
toes and work my way up. I’ll get the master’s dogs down here and feed
the little pieces of you I cut off to them for supper. We’ll see how long it
takes you to start singing like a canary once you see the Rots chomping
down on your shit.”
A sharp gasp of outrage and fury filled the room. “I’ll kill you first,
you bastard.”
Shame couldn’t stand to listen anymore. He sprung around the
corner and burst into the room, his Glock in his outstretched hand.
“Freeze, fucker, or I’ll splatter your head all over the wall.”
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A tall, reed-thin man stood over the bloody form of his friend. Shame
knew that it was Ty lying there, chained to the floor, but if he hadn’t
recognized his voice he most certainly wouldn’t have known it was him
by looking at him. Not a single inch of skin on his body remained
unmarred. Blood covered him from head to toe. The long fall of black hair
the man had prided himself on was shorn off, small uneven clumps
puffing in random spurts around his head. Always slender, now his ribs
protruded grossly from his chest, like he hadn’t eaten a single bite in all
the time he’d been gone. Shame figured he probably hadn’t. The human
body could go a long while without food before it shut down from neglect.
Shame wanted to close his eyes, block out the visual proof of what
his friend had endured, but couldn’t. Even as the desire crossed his
mind, the thug with the cat-o’-nine tails moved a fraction closer, an evil
gleam of deadly intent in his black eyes.
“Stop.”
“Fuck you. You and I both know a bullet won’t kill me. Slow me down
for a minute, maybe. Besides, you shoot that thing and you’ll alert the
entire house. You won’t stand a chance.” An evil, toothy grin spread
across his face. “Not that you’re going to make it out of here in one piece
anyway.” And then he was moving, quick as lightning across the room in
Shame’s direction.
Shame didn’t think. He pulled the trigger. The recoil shimmied up his
arm as he watched the look of surprise register on the vampire’s ugly
face an instant before he crumpled to the ground, a mound of ash where
his body should have been. Regular bullets might not do much damage
but the special-made, UV-gel-filled ones he’d purchased did the trick real
nice. Vampires may have been able to go out into the sunlight during the
day, but having a concentrated infusion of ultraviolet rays introduced
directly into their bloodstream was another matter.
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Shame withdrew his pocketknife and dropped to his knees beside Ty.
“Hold on, buddy. I’ll have you out of these in no time.”
Ty’s deep brown eyes looked up at him. They were glazed and
unfocused as if he didn’t know who Shame was or what was going on
around him. The excruciating pain he must’ve been in had obviously
pushed him deep inside himself, where he could hide from the damage
being done to his body. Shame’s heart clenched, going out to his friend,
while at the same time anger coursed through his veins. If only he’d been
able to get to Ty a little sooner, maybe… Shame shook his head and
leaned down to work on Ty’s bonds. He wouldn’t do anyone any good by
kicking himself over this right now. They weren’t out of danger yet. He
needed to stay focused on getting Ty and himself out of there and then
he could worry about making amends to his friend.
In less than thirty seconds, Shame had the locked shackles around
Ty’s arms and legs open. He picked his friend up off the floor, careful not
to hurt him any more than he had to and slung him over his shoulder in
a fireman’s carry, running toward the stairs.
XW
Gail’s gaze strayed to the white enamel clock above the kitchen door.
Eight-oh-five. Exactly three minutes since the last time she’d glanced at
it.
Her vision wavered, falling down to her short, unpolished fingernails
that beat an unsteady rhythm on the red-checkered tablecloth.
He wasn’t coming.
The meal she’d so painstakingly perfected sat untouched in the
middle of the table. The pasta noodles were no longer just the right
consistency, more like mush amid the thick marinara that surrounded
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them. The two long white pillar candles she’d set on either side of their
meal were burned down to extinguished nubs in their crystal holders.
She could sympathize. Her heart felt much the same way. Cold and
extinguished inside her rib cage. Numb from the neck up, the sharp,
agonizing sting in the middle of her chest was the only thing that
registered. She rose and walked from the room, flipping lights off left and
right as she headed for the sanctuary of her bedroom.
Standing at the threshold into her bedroom, Gail stopped. Her breath
hitched in her chest. Her bed, usually so peaceful and comforting when
she was upset, now stared at her in contempt. Like it was her fault only
one body would be sleeping in it instead of two. Hell, maybe it was.
Maybe he’d caught the needy vibes rolling off her and bolted before he
otherwise would have.
The rest of the house was peppered with memories of meals eaten
and quiet chats, peaceful time spent lounging and relaxing at the end of
the day, but it was in her bedroom that the most powerful of their
moments had been shared. For the last four nights she and Shame had
slept in her bed, talked and teased there, made love. The thought of
crawling in it now, when the shape of his head was still etched in one of
the pillows and his mesmerizing scent still clung to the sheets was not
an option.
Then she realized that what little of him remained in her house was
all she’d ever have of him. Shame was gone. This time he wasn’t coming
back. She’d foolishly thought she’d steeled herself for the eventuality, but
obviously she hadn’t. What an idiot she was. She’d done the one thing
she’d sworn to herself that she wouldn’t do—she’d fallen in love with
him.
Gail turned and raced for the bathroom. She made it to the sink
before her stomach gave a great heave into the ceramic basin.
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Chapter Seven
Wired up, his muscles vibrating from the excess of adrenaline
coursing through his veins, Shame pulled into the driveway and threw
the truck into park. Beside him, in the passenger seat, Ty sat slumped
over, his face resting against the window. The worry and fear that they
wouldn’t be able to escape, that Tremaine or one of his flunkies would
catch up with them, began to fade away as he stared at the darkened
windows of Gail’s house. Home.
Glancing over at his friend, Shame was dismayed to realize that it
wasn’t the first time he’d thought of Gail’s place as home. He’d only been
staying there for a few days, less than a week really, but being there,
with her, did make it feel very much like home. Uncomfortably, he tried
to figure out whether it was the house itself that spelled out home for
him, or Gail. Somehow the blonde spitfire had managed to worm her way
under his skin and right into his heart. Reluctant to put an actual name
on his feelings, he knew what he felt for her was deeper than friendship,
deeper than like.
Shrugging the caustic meanderings away, he wondered how she
would react to seeing Ty, as hurt and banged up as he was. Would she
freak out, or lend a helping hand? It was hard to tell how someone would
react to stress until they were right in the thick of it.
He felt bad about bringing Ty back here with him, but what other
choice did he really have? It wasn’t like he could take him to the nearest
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emergency room. Doctors asked too many questions he couldn’t answer
without putting them at even greater risk, forcing him into a corner. He
had to take care of Ty himself.
After taking up precious time circling through back roads in a zigzag
pattern to discern whether or not they were being followed, Shame had
risked stopping and pulled off the road into a copse of trees. There he’d
done his best to examine Ty in the watery light from the overhead bulb
and patch up the more serious, life-threatening wounds—sterilizing the
deepest slashes with rubbing alcohol and sewing them with stitching
thread to prevent his friend from losing any more blood. It wasn’t the
neatest or most sanitary work, way less than Ty deserved, but it was the
best he could offer under the circumstances.
Shame exhaled and threw open the door. He hopped down from the
cab, his boots biting into the hard-packed snow under his feet. Though
he wanted to carry Ty in, out of the cold, he needed to prepare Gail for
what she was about to see. It wouldn’t be fair to throw her in the middle
of what was happening without some sort of explanation.
Leaving Ty in the idling truck, he walked up the front porch steps
and reached for the door. His hand wrapped around the brass doorknob
and turned. The knob didn’t budge; it was locked.
Odd. Why would Gail lock the door?
It wasn’t that late, only about half past eight, so she shouldn’t have
gone to bed yet. He was used to her waiting up for him. Of course he
hadn’t been getting in quite this late, but still.
Pulling out his trusty pocketknife, he jimmied the lock and slipped
quietly into the dark interior of the house, already beginning to second-
guess himself. Maybe she had gone to bed. If so, it was probably for the
best. He would be able to get Ty into the house and cleaned up before
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she awoke and started asking questions. A pang of disappointment hit
him, knowing she’d gone to bed without him.
Shame made his way easily through the unlit rooms until he stood in
the open doorway of Gail’s bedroom. The bed was empty, the cover’s still
mussed from the night before. If she wasn’t in bed, where was she? The
house was as dark as a tomb, not a single light on.
Was it possible that she’d gone out for the evening? No, he thought
he remembered seeing her vehicle in the driveway. He walked back to the
front of the house to make sure it was there. Sure enough, when he
pulled back the drapes in the living room, there was her car.
His brow broke out in a nervous sweat as he retraced his steps
through the house, looking for some clue as to where she was. He flipped
on the light in the kitchen. An untouched meal sat on the table. The
candles for what was obviously a romantic dinner for two had burnt out
long before. Both plates on either side of the table were clean, unused.
He quickly went back to her bedroom and turned on the light, hoping
she’d left a note on the bed where he was sure to find it.
She hadn’t.
Panic clawed at his gut as his feet ate up the rest of the small house.
Had Tremaine figured out where he was staying? Had he sent someone
after Gail while Shame had been out conducting surveillance on his
house?
What the fuck would he do if he couldn’t find her?
Shame entered the last room in the house, one he hadn’t been inside
before and had assumed was a guest bedroom. He let out the breath he’d
been holding as soon as he saw Gail. Sound asleep, she was curled on
top of a large oak sleigh bed, her arms wrapped tightly around a silly
yellow duck-shaped pillow. Relief surged over him in waves. She was
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okay. Gail was here, safe and secure. The bands around his heart eased
up, no longer trying to squeeze the breath out of him.
God, he didn’t know what he would have done if… No. He wouldn’t
think about the what-ifs. Nothing had happened and she was fine. There
was no sense in borrowing trouble when he already had enough on his
plate.
He strode up to the bed and sat upon the edge, content just to stare
at her. She appeared so sweet and innocent when she slept. Not a night
he’d stayed with her had passed without him taking the time to watch
her in repose. It was a fanciful waste of time, but he couldn’t help
himself. This one small woman was beginning to be an addiction he
feared he’d never get his fill of.
Leaving her to sleep, Shame trudged back outside to get Ty. He didn’t
want to leave his friend for any longer than he had to. It was cold, and
though Gail had few neighbors, he didn’t want to take the chance on
anyone spotting Ty in his truck. The last thing they needed was for their
temporary hideaway to be discovered. Not to mention that being caught
there would put Gail in danger as well.
Though he hated the thought of leaving her and the safe haven her
home had come to represent, it was exactly what he was going to have to
do as soon as Ty was up and about. They would have to find somewhere
else to stay until Ty recovered and they could finish what they’d come to
town for in the first place. Shame could take care of things himself, and
would if it came down to it, but he knew his friend would be chomping at
the bit for payback as soon as he felt like himself again. Knowing from
personal experience how much vengeance meant to someone, Shame
didn’t want to take the chance to avenge his sister’s death away from his
friend unless worse came to worse and he had to.
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Shame gingerly carried Ty into the house. Not knowing where else to
put him, he took him into Gail’s bedroom and laid him out on the bed
while he went into her bathroom to dig up some first-aid supplies. He’d
gone through everything he kept in the truck, and was still in need of
antibiotic ointment and dressings to put over what he’d already sutured.
With the most grave of Ty’s injuries taken care of, Shame’s biggest worry
was infection setting in to the wounds.
When he came back, less than a minute later, he found Gail standing
over Ty, the look on her face a mixture of compassion and horror. He
cleared his throat, catching her attention, and she looked his way, her
luminous blue eyes full of questions. He nodded toward the kitchen,
silently asking her to follow him.
Gail stared at Shame’s back as she trailed behind him into the
kitchen. She had a brief moment to wonder who the man in her bedroom
was, before they entered the kitchen and she was faced with her own
stupidity.
Seeing the evidence of her pathetic attempt at seduction still lying out
on the table for all to see made her insides jump and writhe in
discomfort. Did he see how pitiful she was? Realize what she’d had in
mind for the evening he’d just stood her up for?
Shame pulled out one of the chairs and straddled it, his mesmerizing
green eyes watching her closely. She followed suit. So many questions
floated around unanswered in her head. Since she didn’t know where to
begin or what to ask first, she chose to remain quiet. He could start the
conversation and she would go from there.
“Do you remember the guy I checked in with at the motel?”
Oh, yeah. She remembered the sexy Indian guy he’d checked in with.
There was no way she could forget anyone that attractive. “Yeah. Why?”
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“That’s who’s in your bed. Ty. The same man you saw me with at the
motel.”
Gail frowned. “But how can that be the same man. He looks twenty
pounds lighter and he’s almost bald. The guy you checked in with…”
Gail’s mind wrapped around what he was saying. Her gaze darted in the
direction of her room before swinging back to Shame. “Sweet Jesus,
Shame, what happened to him? He looks like someone put him through
a meat grinder.”
She noticed him swallow and take a deep breath, as if he was
preparing for her to get hysterical. “Do you believe in the paranormal?”
If he only knew… “What do you mean, like little green men and flying
saucers?”
Shame’s lips tilted up at the corners in a wry grin. “No, not exactly. I
just mean, do you believe that there are some things that exist that
people don’t readily know or accept as being fact?”
She tapped her fingernail against the table. She chewed on her
bottom lip, trying to figure out where he was going with his spiel. Had he
found out about her? Was that where this was going? “What does that
have to do with anything?”
“In a word, everything. The paranormal has everything to do with why
Ty’s in the shape he’s in.” He took an exasperated, deep breath and blew
it out. He leaned forward, his serious gaze meeting hers. The look on his
face was so severe it made her nervous about what he had to say. “There
are things I need to tell you. Things you need to know. Before I do,
though, I need to know that I can trust you, that what I tell you won’t
leave this room.”
Gail nodded. “Of course, Shame, you can trust me. You should
already know that.”
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“I know, darlin’, it’s just that I need you to understand how important
it is that none of what I tell you slips out, to anyone. Your safety depends
on it.” He looked at her hard, his gaze burning into hers as if he could
see right into her soul. After a moment he looked away, his hands raking
through his tousled hair. “Shit. I don’t know where to start.”
“How about at the beginning?”
Shame shook his head. “It’s a long story, Gail.”
“That’s all right. It’s not like I’m going anywhere.” And she wanted to
learn all she could about the man she was head over heels in love with,
she silently added.
“Okay. I’ll try to make this as short as I can. I really need to take care
of Ty and see if I can’t get him to eat or drink a little something.” His jaw
tightened and the expression on his face turned grim. “God only knows
the last time he had anything in his stomach.”
“Guess you had better get to it then, huh?”
Shame’s head snapped around at the firm tone of her voice. “Yeah. I
guess so.”
Gail didn’t want to sound so adamant that he get on with it, but her
patience was running short and from the look of the man in her bed, he
needed attention now, not in a little while. She waited while Shame
seemed to collect his thoughts.
He squirmed around on his chair for a minute before finally
speaking, his attention glued on a spot above her head. “You know I had
a daughter. Sophie.”
She nodded, afraid that if she spoke he would clam up like he had
every other time she’d tried to talk to him about anything involving his
life. Over the few days they’d spent together—what time they weren’t
busy in bed—he’d been very closemouthed about his past. All she’d
managed to garner was that at some point he’d been in the army, he had
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a daughter who’d passed away, and he was apparently in town
investigating something or someone. The last tidbit made her assume he
was a private investigator or possibly a bounty hunter. She hadn’t asked
and he hadn’t offered to explain himself when he’d made an offhand
comment about being close to locating some man he was looking for. It
wasn’t much, but it was all she knew.
Shame took another deep breath and exhaled. “My daughter Sophie
and Maria, my wife, were murdered about seven months ago.”
Gail gasped. “Oh my God, Shame. I’m so sorry.”
He waved away her concern before continuing. “I hadn’t seen them
for close to seven years when they died. I stayed away from them, and let
them think I was dead.”
Confused, she shook her head. “But, why would they…?”
“I’m sorry, I’m confusing you. Let me try to start at the beginning,
okay? I’ll try to give you just the bare bones so that we won’t be in here
talking all night.”
She gave a slight nod.
“At eighteen, I enlisted in the army. My home life was a crapshoot
and I was determined to make something of myself, so I thought going
into the service would be the way to do that.
“In the second year of my first tour I met Maria. I was on leave down
in Florida, which is where she’s from. We met in a nightclub and hit it off
right away. It wasn’t long until we were spending all my breaks together.
“Before long she got pregnant and I proposed. Even though I wasn’t
really ready for marriage or fatherhood, I was happy about the baby and
so was Maria. We decided that I would commit to one more tour of
service, the enlistment bonus would be used to put a down payment on a
small house for us, and then after the second tour I would retire and
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maybe go into law enforcement like a lot of other retired military men
do.”
He sighed and ran a big palm over his face. “So, I signed up for the
second tour and we bought the house. Maria had the baby, a little girl we
named Sophie Marie and life was good. Near the end of the tour, about a
month or two into my last six-month stint, my troop was out patrolling
the area and was ambushed by local renegades. I was shot twice in the
stomach and pretty much left to rot on the ground while the gunfire
roared all around me.
“When I came to, I was in what I thought was a hospital. It wasn’t. I
learned later on that while I was technically still alive, I’d been classified
as legally dead and shipped to a scientific research lab instead of home
like I should have been.
“The lab was under some secret government jurisdiction. The
scientists there replaced my damaged organs—my liver, stomach,
spleen—with cloned human organs. That’s what they specialized in, that
and the shitload of chemicals they pumped into me to make me stronger
and faster than normal. Requirements I was going to need for what they
had in store for me.”
Her mind spinning, Gail forgot she hadn’t wanted to interrupt and
said what was on her mind. “Wait a minute, I think you lost me at the
being dead part.”
Shame cocked an eyebrow at her. “I said I was legally dead, not really
dead. I’m sure if I’d been left much longer without medical treatment I
would’ve been though.”
“Oh…um, okay.” Her gaze drifted down to his chest, lingering there
as she watched the way it rose and fell with each breath he took. He
cleared his throat and she pulled her gaze back up to his, embarrassed
to have been caught ogling him when he was in the middle of telling her
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something so important. “Sorry,” she muttered, “finish what you were
saying.”
“So anyway, for the next six years I worked for the SCS and was
forced to let Maria and Sophie believe I was killed in action. You can’t
imagine what it was like to…” Shame’s voice trailed off and he seemed to
withdraw into himself before he rose his head and his haunted gaze met
her concerned one.
“I would still be under their control, no better than a damn puppet, if
my partner, Tristan, hadn’t included me in his plans to escape. We faked
our deaths a second time, with the help of our commander, and managed
to regain our freedom. As soon as the deed was done, and the SCS
believed we were both dead, I stole a car and headed south, back to
Florida and my family.”
Gail raised her hand, her palm facing up. “Stop for just a second,
Shame. I think I need a drink before you say anymore.” She stood and
walked over to the fridge, opening the door. “I have some beer, if you
want one,” she said, pulling out one longneck for herself. Shame nodded,
so she grabbed another for him before shutting the door and joining him
back at the table.
After taking a long pull on her beer, she looked back at him
expectantly. “So you were on your way home…?”
“Yeah. I, um, reached the house in the middle of the night. I had
thought about waiting until morning—it was only a few hours away—but
decided against it. I rang the bell and waited. After a while, when no one
came to the door, I started to get nervous and let myself into the house.”
Shame shuddered, like he was reliving what happened right in front
of her. “I found them both in the living room, on the floor.” He swallowed.
“Their throats were ripped out.”
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His tormented green eyes met hers. “I asked you if you believed in the
paranormal because a vampire killed my wife and daughter, Gail.”
She felt her eyes go wide in response to what he’d said and the flat
way he’d blurted it out. “I’m sorry, Shame, I’m confused. A vampire? How
do you know it was a vampire?”
Equal measures of sympathy and impatience crossed over his rugged
features. “I’m sorry, I’m explaining this ass-backwards. SCS, the agency I
worked for, is short for Supernatural Control Squad. My job was to hunt
down the bad elements—the ones that thought of humans as their own
personal Happy Meal—in the supernatural culture and take them out.”
“Take them out?” she squeaked.
“You know—take them out, kill ’em. It stands to reason that I’ve
made quite a few enemies over the years. What I don’t know is how they
connected me with my family. I’ve never been able to figure out that part
of the equation.” He sighed, the deep exhalation sounded tired and
sorrowful. “I’ve spent the last six months interrogating one deviant after
another, beating information out of people, so that I could hunt down the
bastard responsible, and today I finally found him.”
Dread crept down Gail’s spine and insinuated itself into the pit of her
stomach. The light behind Shame’s eyes had grown hard, fanatical.
“What do you mean you found him today? You mean here, in town?”
“Yeah. He owns a big-ass house on the outskirts of town.”
She sat forward, trying her hardest to project a calm, bland interest.
It was a small town. Chances were good that she knew exactly who he
was talking about. If that were the case, she was in trouble. Big trouble.
“Who is he?”
Shame leaned forward and patted her hand where it laid on top of the
table. She knew he meant to be comforting. There was no way he could
know that he’d just managed to turn her world upside down.
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“Lucian Tremaine. Do you know him?”
“No,” she answered, casting a glance down at his hand atop hers. It
wasn’t technically a lie. She’d never met the man, though she’d heard his
name more than once. It was impossible not to hear about someone as
feared as Tremaine while they shared the same small town.
“Good. That’s good. I’ve placed you in enough danger as it is just by
staying here. I made sure that I wasn’t being followed before I came back
tonight, but I’m going to have to move on soon. The longer we’re here, the
more jeopardy is being placed on you.”
She opened her mouth to tell him he didn’t have to leave, that she
wanted him to stay, but he shushed her before she could get the words
out.
“Don’t worry, darlin’, as soon as Ty’s able to get around on his own,
we’ll get out of your hair. If you think I’m insane and want me to leave
now, I will. All you have to do is say the word and I’m gone.”
She shook her head. Before she had a chance to think about the
ramifications of what she was going to say, the words tumbled out of her
mouth. “Don’t be silly. Of course I’m not going to kick you out.”
“Thanks, Gail. I appreciate your letting me keep Ty here until he’s
recuperated a little. It would have been impossible to be inconspicuous
with his being banged up the way he is.”
“That’s me, good ole reliable Gail,” she whispered under her breath,
more to herself than to him.
“What?”
“Nothing,” she stalled while she tried to think of something to ask.
“I’m just wondering what Ty has to do with any of this.”
“Sorry, I guess I left out that part.” He took a deep breath, his chest
slowly rising and then falling. “After I found Maria and Sophie I guess I
kind of snapped. I don’t remember a whole lot about the days right
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afterward. Actually, I don’t remember anything. Not until I was standing
outside of this club in Miami. Jazzer’s. One of the better-known hotspots
for the creatures out looking for their next bite.
“So, there I’m standing, piss drunk, getting ready to go into this bar,
when this tall, skinny Native American comes barreling into me and
knocks me off my feet. My ass hit the pavement, and then just nothing. I
guess I blacked out. When I came to I was lying on a couch and he was
standing over me, just kind of looking down at me all curious-like.
“I didn’t know what the hell was going on, so I jumped up and
attacked him. He retaliated—the bastard has a hell of a left hook—and
managed to knock my ass out.” Shame smiled. “When I woke up, I
figured out where I was and decided to repay the favor by slugging him
back. After beating up on each other, and realizing neither one of us
planned to back down, we gave up and called it a draw. I demanded to
know what the hell was going on, and he told me. Said that he’d seen me
stumbling around outside the club, a hell-bent expression on my face,
and knew that if he didn’t step in and do something that he was going to
be seeing my ugly mug on the six o’clock news the next night. He was
right. Nothing good would have come from my entering that place in the
state I was in. I would have wound up dead or wishing that I was. Either
way, I figured I owed him.
“We had a good, long conversation and it turned out we had a lot in
common. His sister was attacked by a lycan. She came home, out-of-her-
mind crazy and attacked the rest of his family. Before he knew what was
happening she’d killed half the family. He had to kill his own sister to
keep her from murdering the surviving half.”
“Jesus,” she muttered. What would it be like to be forced into killing
someone you love in order to prevent the deaths of more of your loved
ones? It was too terrible a thought to contemplate.
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“Since we were both trying to do the same thing, and we’d hit it off
pretty well by that time, we decided to stick together and help each other
out. We’ve been together ever since.
“Until about a month ago we were drawing a dead end on both our
suspects. Mine was nowhere to be found. No matter how many favors I
called in, or how many snitches I beat information out of, we couldn’t get
a bead on where he was. It was like he’d disappeared into thin air. Ty’s
was another story. We had a good idea of the general vicinity of where to
look but hit a brick wall every time we tried to pinpoint the location down
to a specific area. Then we came across an Internet trail. Seems our guy
was stupid enough to set up an email account in his real name. We
tracked it to a small town in Virginia, this town.
“Not sure what to do next, but unwilling to sit around with our
thumbs up our butt doing nothing, we got in the truck and drove up
here. We figured that once we were here we could scout the town, keep
our eyes and ears open and eventually be led right to him. Unfortunately,
that damn snowstorm hit and we had to postpone our search until it
broke. So, as you already know, we stopped and got a room at the motel.
Ty disappeared right after I came up to the lobby to talk to you. At first I
thought that he was giving me some space in case I scored with you.”
She couldn’t help but smile at the way he phrased his words. “In case
you scored, huh?”
“Yeah.” He grinned, but the smile quickly slid off his face as he
continued. “When Ty didn’t show up the next day it became clear that he
wasn’t going to. I stuck around for a little longer, praying that I was
wrong and that he was off on his own doing something and would show
up. After it sunk in that he wasn’t coming back, I checked out of the
motel and started looking for him.”
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She frowned. “You told me the name of the vampire you’re looking
for, but who is Ty searching for?”
“That’s the best part. From the look of things, we may be able to get
both of them in one fell swoop. Turns out the guy Ty’s looking for is
working for the man I’m after.”
Exasperated, she sighed. “Yeah, I got that part, but what’s his
name?”
“Oh, um, sorry… The lycan who attacked Ty’s sister is named Kenze,
Kenze Wright. Does that name ring a bell to you?”
Gail pasted a smile on her face. Underneath it, her heart, her very
soul, was being crushed to smithereens. “Nope, sure doesn’t.”
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Chapter Eight
Gail was on information overload. She’d long since schooled her
features into a polite mask and the skin over her cheeks was beginning
to feel stiff and uncomfortable from holding the same expression.
How did he expect her to react to what he was saying? Was he able to
see beneath her facade to the mass of raw nerves underneath?
No. Looking at him, seeing the haunted quality in his eyes, the
fanatical glow of promised retribution, she was sure he didn’t see
anything beyond his own thoughts and feelings at the moment.
Should she pretend not to believe him? Someone who didn’t already
know about the supernatural population may have reacted that way.
She, however, already knew plenty. Hell, she was one of them. Albeit
more of a latent member than a full-fledged one.
Thankfully, Shame had no idea about her connection to Kenze. If
he’d known that she was his twin sister then he obviously wouldn’t be
spilling his guts to her about wanting to kill him, even if they had been
estranged for over eight years. For that matter, her home was the last
place he would have come for safe harbor while he planned the best way
to slaughter her only living relative. That would just be stupid and the
one thing she could say about Shame Long was that he was a smart
man.
Being such a smart man, it was only a matter of time before he put
two and two together and figured out the connection. Wright was a
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common last name, but it wasn’t that common. Shoot, maybe the man
didn’t even remember what her last name was.
A tremble ran down her spine and echoed out through her arms and
legs. What should she do? She couldn’t sit by and let him kill her
brother, no matter what he was being accused of.
The truth was, she wasn’t entirely sure Kenze would even see her,
much less take her warning seriously. When he left home, Kenze swore
he was washing his hands of both her and their mom. He couldn’t
understand why they didn’t embrace the culture that could have been
theirs. What they never could get him to see was that they were happy
with the quiet life they led. Gail had inherited very few traits from their
lycan father and their mom was one hundred percent human. Neither
one of them felt their supernatural connections were all that strong.
Kenze was a full shifter. Though he was her twin, they couldn’t have
been any more opposite. Other than their father’s blue eyes, they looked
nothing alike. Kenze was dark headed, his hair almost blue black, and
tall, while she was short and blonde. Their personalities were even more
divided. Where she was shy and reserved, he was wild and daring.
Gail swallowed another sip of her beer, the foam in the bottom
leaving a nasty taste in her mouth, and got up to get a soda instead.
Manners ingrained since birth, she turned and asked Shame if he cared
for another as well. He just shook his head and stared out the window
behind her, lost in whatever it was he was thinking.
She was glad for the reprieve. Being under his scrutiny, faking a
blasé attitude that was as far from how she really felt as you could get,
was tiring. Attempting to figure out what he was thinking, without even
taking into consideration her own choppy thought process, was
exhausting.
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He honestly thought that all supernatural beings were evil and up to
no good. That would have been funny if it weren’t so sad. Just like any
other species, the lycan community possessed good and bad. They
weren’t inherently evil, only different.
She wondered if she should try to explain that to him, then dismissed
the notion. After what he’d seen, the crime perpetrated against his
family, he wouldn’t be willing to hear her out. In his quest for blood,
there wasn’t any way she could entrust him with her secret.
That left only one option; she had to contact Kenze. Even without
Shame’s divulgation, she knew where he was. She’d sensed him as soon
as he’d come back to town a little over a year before. At the time, the only
thing that had kept her from going to him and rebuilding the bonds of
family was his acceptance of a position under Lucian Tremaine. That and
his not coming home when their mom was sick and dying. She loved
Kenze, but she didn’t think she would ever be able to forgive him for that.
The position with Tremaine was easily rectified. She would just
explain to him what had happened, the extent of Tremaine’s corruption,
and he would resign. The Kenze she knew, though misguided, would
never work for such a ruthless tyrant if he was aware of what the man
was doing. As far as the other, Shame’s claim that Kenze had attacked
an innocent woman, she didn’t buy it. There must have been a mistake.
She couldn’t believe that Kenze would have succumbed to his darker
nature. Shame was confusing him with someone else. He had to be.
She felt like banging her head against the wall. Maybe if she did it
hard enough, she would be able to knock some sense into herself, find
the answers she needed. Jesus, why couldn’t she ever do anything the
easy way? It seemed like everything she tried to do ended up getting
screwed up.
“Shame?”
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He glanced back at her. “Hmm?”
“How did you find Ty?”
“He was at Tremaine’s mansion. I snuck in to see what I could find
out and found him in the basement, being tortured.”
She didn’t want to ask, yet knew she had to. “Who was doing the
torturing?”
“I don’t know, some vampire flunky. It doesn’t really matter. I dusted
his ass before I left.”
Well, at least it hadn’t been her brother. That small tidbit gave her a
strong sense of relief. “Oh.”
Shame turned, facing her head-on. “The sick bastards were torturing
him, trying to get information out of him. Information about me—where I
was, what I was doing.” His voice grew deathly quiet, all the more intense
for its soft quality. “They want me, they’re going to get me. They’ll pay for
what they’ve done to our families and to Ty. By the time I’m done with
them, they’ll wish their soulless, filthy asses were already in hell where
they fuckin’ belong.”
She winced. She couldn’t help it, couldn’t hide the response from
him. With his big hands cupped into fists and his eyes blazing with
retribution, he scared her. She wanted to believe that he wouldn’t hurt
her, that he cared, but when it came down to it, she knew better. He was
on a mission to eradicate those of her kind, and once he found out, if he
found out, that would include her as well.
Shame walked across the room and took her in his arms, trying to
comfort her. Selfishly, she wallowed in his embrace, let him try to soothe
away the ache she felt knowing she’d already lost him.
“I’m sorry, darlin’. I didn’t mean to scare you. Sometimes I forget that
not everyone knows about all the things I’ve divulged to you today.
Thank you for listening, for believing me. Your trust means more to me
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than I could ever say.” He kissed her forehead, his lips gently brushing
over her skin.
Guilt rushed over her, fast and heavy. “Shame, I…” Her words
tapered off when she realized that she couldn’t tell him. He would hate
her.
“Don’t worry, darlin’, as soon as Ty is up and moving around, we’ll
leave. I probably wouldn’t have been able to stay much longer anyway.
Now that I know what we’re up against, I want to get out of here faster.
There’s no way I would stick around and put you in any more danger
than I already have.”
He pulled away from her and she felt the band around her heart
squeeze tight. Of all the people for her to fall for, why did it have to be
him? A man who would despise her once he found out about her
heritage?
Forcing herself to move, she shrugged out of his arms. “You should
probably go take care of Ty.”
“Yeah,” he said with a nod. “You’re right. The sooner we get him well,
the sooner we can hit the pavement.”
He patted her on the shoulder and stepped past her, like she was his
good buddy instead of the woman he’d spent the last week making love
to, and walked out of the room. She blinked back the tears threatening to
escape and took several slow, deep breaths. She wasn’t going to cry,
damn it! When she managed to regain her composure, she hurried to the
bathroom and pulled the door shut, locking it.
If he was in such a hurry to be away from her, then she would see to
it that he was on his way as fast as possible. The sooner he was gone,
the faster she could begin mending her bruised heart and put him
behind her.
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She wiped her damp palms off on the slick fabric of her skirt. She
may not have inherited the full shape-shifter gene from her father like
Kenze had, but she did possess some of the perks that being a lycan
engendered.
An unnaturally good sense of smell and sight, the ability to sense
others of her kinds, plus advanced regeneration, made her slightly more
than human. It was the latter trait that would come in handy for her
tonight.
Yanking open one drawer after another beneath the sink, Gail dug up
a small container and tube of antibiotic salve. After dumping the cotton
balls out of the flip-top container, she squeezed the entire tube of milky-
looking cream into it.
Casting a glance around the room, she searched for something to cut
herself with. She wasn’t about to go back into the kitchen to get a knife.
There was no way she could explain taking a knife into the bathroom
with her if she was caught on her way back with it.
The pink razor in the shower caught her eye. It would have to do.
Grabbing it off the shelf, she glanced down at the triple-blade end
and shuddered. This was going to hurt. Holding her breath, she held out
her finger over the sink and—before she could change her mind—arched
the razor over the tip of her index finger. It sliced into the meaty pad.
With a muffled grunt of pain, she looked down at what she’d done.
Blood welled up from the cut, spilling over the sides. Crimson dots
littered the white sink like morbid, gruesome confetti. Before the wound
could heal, she dipped her finger into the salve and stirred. The milky
salve turned a faint pink color.
Pulling her finger free, she saw that the minor cut had already
finished knitting itself shut. Satisfied, she closed the lid on the container.
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She washed and dried her hands, scrubbing the sink of any wayward
crimson drops, before opening the locked door and walking out into the
hallway.
XW
Leaning over Ty, Shame wiped away the last of the blood and muck
from his gaunt face. Usually thin and razor sharp, the angles of his face
looked even more severe with his bones jutting unnaturally through his
olive-toned skin.
Red-tinted, puffy bags of flesh ringed Ty’s eyes, giving them a sunken
appearance. Shame knew without having to see them that his eyes would
be bloodshot as well, a side effect of being severely dehydrated. Since it
was virtually impossible for the body to survive without water for more
than a few days, they must have given him something to keep his organs
functioning. Shame was sure that what little water Ty had received had
been few and far between.
His fingers balled into fists of their own volition. Unholy rage pumped
through Shame’s system, making him want to punch something, tear
something apart with his bare hands. It was obvious Ty hadn’t been fed
the entire time he’d been held captive.
Ty cried out in his sleep, his dreams tormented by God only knew
what. Shame perched on the side of the bed, hoping Ty could feel his
presence beside him. “Don’t worry, buddy. Everything is going to be okay
now. We’ll make the bastards pay for what they did to you…” He ran his
hand over Ty’s shorn scalp, then glanced down at the festering welts
covering his torso and upper thighs. “…for everything they’ve done.”
A scuttling noise had him pulling his head up and glancing at the
door. Gail stood on the threshold, her eyes wide as her gaze raked over
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the havoc that had been wrought to Ty’s body. “My God,” she whispered,
walking over to his side. “What would leave marks like that on someone?”
Shame chose not to answer her question. He figured she didn’t really
want to hear the answer anyway. “So”—he nodded toward the small pot
of pink goop she held in her hand—“what have you got there?”
“Oh, this?” She held the container out to him. “This is just some
salve for his wounds. It’s an old family remedy. I thought you might be
able to use it.”
Warmth bloomed inside his chest at her thoughtful gesture. “Thank
you.” He accepted it from her and popped back the lid, sniffing the
contents. It just smelled like regular old ointment to him. “What’s in it?”
“Not much, really. A little of this and that.” She smiled at him. “I
could tell you the exact ingredients, but then it wouldn’t be a secret
family remedy anymore, would it?”
Something about her smile didn’t sit well with him. It didn’t quite
reach her eyes. Assuming that she was just trying to hold herself
together in light of everything he’d told her and seeing Ty as he was,
Shame shoved away his suspicions and smiled back at her.
“I guess I’ll just have to trust that you didn’t put anything poisonous
in this stuff,” he joked.
Gail blanched. “No, of course not.” She reached out and jerked the
container out of his hands, backing up into the doorway. “I only wanted
to help.”
“Jeez, Gail, calm down.” Shame stood and walked toward her, pulling
her to him. She trembled in his arms. “I was only picking at you, darlin’.
I know I can trust you.” He rubbed his cheek against her hair, inhaling
the light floral fragrance of her shampoo.
“I would never intentionally hurt either one of you, Shame. You have
to believe that.”
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“I do, darlin’. Now, how about you give me back that special family
remedy of yours for Ty, and go get yourself some rest.” He pressed a
quick kiss to her lips and stepped away, the temptation to deepen it, take
it further, riding hard on his back. “I’m going to stay here and watch over
Ty, maybe see if I can get him to eat or drink something in a little while. I
don’t want him to wake up later and freak out when he doesn’t recognize
his surroundings.”
“Oh, I thought you would… I guess I hadn’t really thought of that.”
She sucked her bottom lip into her mouth and bit on it.
His cock lifted its head, anxious for her to nibble on him like she was
doing to that full lip of hers. Shame reminded himself that he was
leaving, he’d already told Gail. It wouldn’t be fair to tell her he was
leaving in one breath and ask her to fuck him with the next. There would
be no more sex. Besides, he consoled himself, there were much more
important things that needed his attention. Like Ty and how they were
going to advance with their plans now that the element of surprise was
gone.
Though the long night ahead would be well spent, by taking care of
his friend and plotting revenge, it was cold comfort to his horny dick.
“I guess I’ll go sleep in the other room then. Um…if you want to—”
Shame cut her off. If she was going to offer what he thought she was,
namely him joining her in bed later, he wasn’t sure he could turn her
down. Hell, he knew he couldn’t. “I’ll be fine in here. If I get too sleepy, I
can always bunk down on the floor. It’s not a big deal.”
He watched her walk down the hall, her hips swaying slightly with
each step. He didn’t know if she was trying to torment him or if he’d just
never noticed how sexy her ass was before. It could have been the slinky
black skirt she wore that made him want to rip off all her clothes and
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ram his dick into her, but he doubted it. It was the woman beneath the
clothes that did it for him.
His mind quickly assimilated a few different things at once. She now
wore a skirt, when he’d never seen her in anything other than pants and
there were candles and an untouched dinner sitting in the middle of the
kitchen table. Shit. She’d made them a romantic dinner, had even
dressed up for him, and he had stood her up. It may not have been
entirely his fault but he still felt like an ass. He hadn’t even noticed
anything different until just then.
He took two steps toward her closed door and stopped. What the hell
was he doing? Like an apology would make up for all the trouble he’d
caused her. He made a sharp one-eighty in the hallway and marched
back into the room with Ty. She was a good woman, with a big heart.
She deserved better than him and all the baggage he carried. He would
be doing her a favor by leaving.
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Chapter Nine
Gail huddled under the covers atop her mom’s bed, her knees pulled
up toward her stomach. After many hours of speculation, she’d finally
made peace with what she planned to do come morning. Only one other
thing kept her awake. Shame. Lingering guilt over betraying his trust ate
at her, and not in a good way. She felt terrible, but what could she do?
She couldn’t let them murder Kenze. Even if he was the man Shame
made him out to be, though she couldn’t fathom her twin being capable
of such evil, he was still her flesh and blood. She had to do what she
could to protect him.
In exchange for the warning, she planned to extract a promise from
Kenze that no harm would come to Shame or Ty. It would be easiest for
everyone involved if Kenze took her advice and skipped town. After all, it
wasn’t like he hadn’t done it before.
Gail flopped over onto her back and stared up at the ceiling. Who was
she kidding? Not having Shame in bed beside her, as she’d grown
accustomed to, was half the reason she couldn’t fall asleep. While his
decision to stay with Ty was the responsible one, and made her love him
all the more for his kind heart, it nagged at her.
He was leaving. He knew it. She knew it. Unlike him, she just knew
the exact date and time. As soon as he awoke in the morning and went to
check on Ty, noticed that his friend’s wounds were completely healed,
they would be gone. Her not being there to answer their questions after
the discovery would cement it.
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Though she would’ve liked to have been a fly on the wall to see their
reaction, she couldn’t afford to stick around and face his wrath when he
discovered what she’d done.
Telling him who she was, what she was, would make him despise
her. Seeing the hatred and suspicion grow behind his beautiful green
eyes, the same set that had looked at her all week with passion and
tenderness, would be too much. She couldn’t face it. Running was the
coward’s way out, and she was ashamed of herself for it, but she had to
save some minuscule part of her battered heart for later. Facing Shame’s
disgust would kill what little of it remained intact. It was going to be a
struggle readjusting to the loneliness she’d grown accustomed to over the
last few years, but she would manage. Much like everything else
happening to her, the choice would be out of her hands.
This was their last night under the same roof together. In a few short
hours, the sun would rise above the horizon, and her time with Shame
would be over. He was going to leave and never look back. If he did take
the time to think back to the week they shared, it would be with anger,
not the budding love she would carry with her.
If only…
She sat up, threw the covers off and swung her legs over the side of
the bed. Was it asking too much to make one more memory to carry her
through the lonely nights ahead? She didn’t think so. Her feet hit the icy
wood floor and sent a cold shiver up her legs. She could go to him and
they could make love one last time, before her fate was sealed. It
wouldn’t mean anything to him. One more fuck in a random string of
them. But to her it would mean everything.
She crept down the hall and entered her bedroom. Although the room
was dark, her enhanced vision had little trouble making out what was
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what. She wove her way around furniture, searching for Shame’s outline
amid the other shadows.
Stepping deeper into the room, she stubbed her toe on the corner of
the bed. A whimper escaped her lips but she swallowed back the four
letter word that wanted to follow.
Hopping on one foot, she lost her balance and tipped forward. Her
arms flailed out in front of her, trying to regain her equilibrium. She fell
face first onto a firm body laying on the floor beside the bed.
She inhaled the unmistakable aroma of male heat and spicy cologne.
Shame’s hard chest was beneath her head, the rest of her body spread
akimbo over his. Being that close to him, feeling his body heat through
the thin blanket covering him, made her hormones go wild and her nerve
endings tingle in anticipation.
Powerful, muscled forearms wrapped around her waist and leveraged
her up higher until her weight was centered on his torso, her legs in
between his.
“Shame,” she whispered, her lips a fraction away from his stubbled
jaw.
“Shh,” he quietly replied, his hot and humid breath fanning over the
shell of her ear. “You don’t want to wake Ty.” Wet heat circled her ear,
swirling over the edge. Teeth nipped at the lobe. “What are you doing in
here, darlin’?”
Lips pressed against her nape and his tongue flicked lightly over her
skin. She shivered, imagining that skillful tongue at work, and felt her
nipples tighten in anticipation. “I couldn’t sleep,” she murmured, unable
to come up with a better excuse now that his arms were holding her
close and he was busy inflicting such a delicious assault on her neck.
Hands slid from her waist to her behind and fingers dug into her
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buttocks, pressing her down against the tumescent length of his
erection.
His need for her made her blood boil and her sex flutter with the
desire to feel him deep inside her, loving her. At the same time, her brain
urged her to take things slow. To drag the pleasure out for as long as
possible.
“Shame,” she whispered again. “Stop. Let’s go in the other room.”
His grip on her grew tighter. The edge of his fingers dipped beneath
the short nightshirt she wore and slid right into the crease of her naked
buttocks. She heard his breath catch.
Since Shame had taken over her bedroom and, at the time, she
hadn’t wanted him to see the garter belt and thigh highs she’d still worn
from earlier, she’d dug through the old box of her mom’s stuff that she
hadn’t yet managed to take to the Goodwill. She’d found a nightshirt to
wear to bed, but lacking panties, she had to continue going commando.
If the extra inch in length he gained after discovering her pantyless
and newly bare mound were any indication, she would say he definitely
didn’t seem to mind her lack of underwear in the least.
“We’re going to stay right here, darlin’. Ty’s a sound sleeper. If you’re
quiet, he’ll never notice a thing.”
She lifted her head to look at him, shocked at his suggestion that
they make love right there on the floor beside his sleeping friend. “But…”
Supple lips feathered over her cheek and the corner of her mouth,
teasing her. “Unless you don’t think you’ll be able to control yourself.” He
kissed her, quick and gentle. “Maybe you’re worried that you won’t be
able to stifle those sexy little whimpers and gasps you make when I’m
fucking you.”
A devious smile tugged at the corners of her lips. “You sound awfully
sure of your abilities, Shame.” She lifted herself up, one hand on either
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side of his head, and ground her naked pussy against the granite jut of
his penis. His groan egged her on, made her feel brave. “What would you
say to a little wager?”
Shame came up on his elbows. His mouth strung a line of kisses
down the side of her neck. The last one fell into the hollow of her throat.
“Like what?”
“Simple.” She kissed the tip of his nose and then pulled back before
he could take her lips and make her forget what she was saying.
“Whoever can make the other moan first gets to choose the way the loser
gets them off.”
He grinned. Even in the dark, she could see the evil tilt to his sexy
lips. “Any way we want?”
Gail nodded, forgetting that he couldn’t see as easily in the dark as
she could.
He moved closer, pulling his body up until she was sitting in his lap,
her legs open and wrapped around either side of his waist. His face sank
into the valley between her cotton-covered breasts and nuzzled. When his
stubbled cheek rubbed over her, abrading her nipple, it sent sparks of
fire through her breast. She bit her tongue to keep from moaning.
Arms hugged her waist and tugged her up against the solid contours
of his body. Since that was exactly where she wanted to be, she let him
move her where he wanted without complaint. Only the thin blanket
bunched over his lap and her nightshirt separated their bodies. Even
that little material was too much. Reaching down, she grasped the hem
of her shirt and yanked it up and over her head.
Cold air splashed against her feverish skin, sending goose bumps
racing up and down her naked body. Seeking his touch as well as his
heat, she wound her arms around Shame’s neck and guided his face
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back to her breasts. She wanted his mouth on her nipples, his cock
inside her, fucking her.
Shame chuckled, resisting her pull on his hair. His hands gripped
her bottom, forcing apart her cheeks. She tensed when his fingertips
skimmed over the nerve-rich entrance to her ass. “About this game of
yours,” he said quietly. “What if I said that I wanted my prize to be
fucking your tight little ass? Would you let me?”
Her mind said no, but her body was saying a definite maybe. She’d
never really considered anal sex. It had always sounded so dirty and
sordid. Now, with Shame, she found the idea intriguing. Images of him
behind her, his cock slipping in and out of her ass, filled her mind and
taunted her with possibilities.
Her nipples peaked and began to ache. A fresh rush of moisture
slipped from her vagina to coat the lips of her sex.
Who better than Shame, the man she loved, to initiate her into such
an intimate sexual experience. She trusted him not to hurt her, to make
sure it was as good for her as it was for him. The more she thought about
it, the better it sounded. She may not have been able to give him her
vaginal virginity, but she could give him this. He could be the one and
only person to take her anally.
Her cheeks heated. Once again, she was thankful for the cover of
darkness that masked her responses. “I would stand by our bet, no
matter what you wanted. I expect you to do the same.”
“Darlin’, there isn’t anything you could ask me to do that I wouldn’t
find pleasure in.”
“I guess we’ll see about that, when I win,” she teased.
“Mm hmm,” he muttered, his mouth trailing over the delicate outer
curve of her breast. “We’ll see who starts moaning first. I can guarantee it
isn’t going to be me.”
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He moved inward, his mouth circling around and around her nipple
but never quite touching the taut peak. She squirmed in his lap. Her legs
squeezed his hips tighter, trying to relieve the insistent, itchy ache he
was causing in her cunt.
The scratchy blanket between them abraded the tender lips of her
sex, frustrating her more.
His tongue traced over the edges of her areola, followed by the
wrinkled skin directly around her needy nipple. Almost at the point of
begging him to get on with it, she bit her lip and held on longer.
She arched her back, lifting her breasts higher.
Come on, damn it! Suck them.
Shame continued to lick and tease, skirting her nipple. When she
was ready to yell, couldn’t hold her silence a second longer, he looked up
at her from underneath his heavy lids, flicked the tip of his tongue over
her nipple and winked at her.
Conceited ass. His cockiness made her that much more determined
to torture him every bit as much as he was her.
Oh, she knew it was only a matter of time before she forgot all about
their stupid bet, gave in and started moaning, but in the meantime, she
wanted to give as good as she got. Make Shame earn his reward for
winning.
While he set about trying to drive her insane with slow, short tongue
laps over one swollen nipple and then the other, she thought up a good
way to return the favor.
Gail grabbed hold of the blanket and tugged. Since she was sitting on
it, it didn’t budge an inch. Wiggling from side to side, she worked it out
from underneath her and slung it away.
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Before she could work her hand between them and fist his cock the
way she wanted, Shame’s hands tightened on her ass and hiked her up,
plastering her against his chest.
His mouth swooped down and covered hers in a kiss that stole her
reason and incinerated her lungs. She threw herself into his kiss. Gave
him everything she had. All the love she felt swelled and spilled over into
her kiss. Wordlessly, she tried to convey her regrets to him through the
press of their lips, through the slow glide of her tongue over his.
Shame was the first to pull away. She would have happily spent the
rest of her life where she was, in his arms, kissing him like there was no
tomorrow. She realized, watching the way his chest rose and fell under
the force of his heavy breathing, that for them and their relationship,
there really wasn’t a tomorrow. All they had was this.
It was with that thought that she finally squeezed a hand between
their bodies and fisted the top few inches of his penis. Wanting to stroke
him, but unable to manage it, she settled for running her thumb over the
sensitive mushroom-shaped cap. A bead of pre-come escaped the slit and
wet her thumb. In circles, she swirled it over his head, slicking the wide
flare with moisture.
Seeing him that way, his cock long and thick, ready between their
bodies, made her empty passage beg for her to align their bodies and let
him sink inside, fill her, love her once more. It wasn’t easy, but she
denied herself.
Rather than taking him inside her, she released his cock for a
moment, separated her swollen labia and guided his shaft between the
wet folds. Satisfied that she had him where she wanted him, Gail
wrapped her arms around Shame’s neck. She pressed her lips to his,
greedy for the taste of his kiss, and began to rock against him, seeking
friction.
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Each swivel of her hips sent his penis through her folds and bumped
the flared ridge over her clit. She didn’t know who she was torturing
more, him or her. To make sure it was the former instead of the latter,
she started flexing her kegel muscles. With each flex, the mouth of her
vagina fluttered, giving his shaft a wet kiss of its own.
Above, Shame took their kiss deeper, his tongue dueling with hers.
Their mouths moved in concert, stealing her breath and the ability to
think. The grip on her ass tightened. His fingers held still, the tips
lingering over her anus, teasing it, as he separated her cheeks and
stretched the surrounding skin taut.
With a curse that could have been counted as a moan, he ripped his
head away from her. In a husky voice that sounded much deeper and
ragged than his usual smoky tenor, he said, “Have you ever taken a man
back here, darlin’?”
“No,” she replied breathlessly, too busy concentrating on the strange
sensations shooting through her bottom and the delicious press of his
shaft rubbing over her clit to say anything more.
One hand let go of her bottom. Fingers dipped down and rimmed her
pussy from behind, saturating themselves in moisture. Slowly, he
dragged his fingers back up and began to coat her anus with her own
wetness.
Nervous about what he was going to do, she tensed. “Shame, I…”
He kissed the side of her neck. “Don’t worry, darlin’, you’ll like this. I
promise.”
All of a sudden, she wasn’t so sure. Panting, she closed her eyes and
rested her forehead on his shoulder. Shame wouldn’t hurt her. Of that
she was sure, but it didn’t ease her trepidation.
The tip of one blunt finger massaged her opening, exerting pressure.
It bumped against her, and then rubbed over and again, with each pass
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growing firmer, more bold. She realized that it was his way of letting her
get used to his touching her there.
One fingertip breached her anus and slipped the tiniest bit inside. It
didn’t hurt like she’d feared, but burned in an odd, foreign way that
didn’t quite feel good or bad. It just was. Before she could grow
completely comfortable, he slipped it in a little farther, paused, and then
pushed it home, stretching her muscles until they ached and tingled.
She tried to figure out whether or not she liked the sensation, and
came to the conclusion that she didn’t not like it. And then his finger
moved, wiggling back and forth in and out of her ass, and she loved it.
The tiny bite of pain shot her desire up another notch and reminded her
of how empty her pussy felt without him buried inside it.
She bit her lip to keep from moaning. Though she enjoyed what he
was doing to her with his finger, she wasn’t so sure she was ready to
take his huge cock into her the same way. Not when his finger alone had
her stretched full to bursting.
Shame wouldn’t force her to keep her end of the deal, no matter what
they’d agreed on. He wasn’t that kind of man. However, she had no
intention of backing down. She would let him fuck her ass, hopefully
even be able to enjoy it, but not quite yet.
He shifted to the left, in just the right way, and the full length of his
cock slid home inside her pussy, filling the emptiness inside her core and
stretching the delicate tissues of her sex so good that tears blurred her
vision. He took one of her nipples into his mouth, suckled it, and she lost
her mind.
All she could do was feel. Shame’s mouth at her breast. Shame’s
arms around her. Shame’s finger gliding in and out of her ass, while his
cock stayed stationary inside her pussy. Her entire world consisted of
one man and what he made her feel. Nothing else mattered.
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She closed her eyes and gave in to the sensations bombarding her.
There were too many. He was coming at her from all sides and directions.
One of his hands clutched her bottom, holding her still while he fingered
her ass. She felt surrounded by his heat and musk. Everything being
done to her felt so good, too good.
The hot coil in her stomach began to build. With every stroke, every
touch, it wound tighter and tighter. It was too much. She couldn’t hold
back. Couldn’t wait any longer.
Her head snapped back and she thrust her breasts forward. Shame
bit down on her nipple and the dam burst. Her orgasm flashed over her,
washing her away on a tide of ecstasy so strong that all she knew, all she
felt, were the powerful contractions racking her body and the man she
loved holding her tight, keeping her centered so that she didn’t fly apart
under the strain of her climax.
The first thing she noticed, after her brain stopped spinning and her
head cleared, was that Shame was still rigid inside her. “Mmm,” she
purred, laying her head on his chest. “That was, without a doubt, the
best orgasm I’ve ever had. But you didn’t…?”
His hand ran up and down the moist line of her spine. “It’s okay,
darlin’. I was enjoying watching you too much to think about myself.
You’re so damn beautiful when you come apart in my arms like that.”
Gail kissed his shoulder, rubbing her face over the lean line of
muscle. She rocked her hips, gyrating on his penis. “Let me help you out
with that.”
“As good as that feels, I had something a little different in mind.”
He wanted her ass. How could she have forgotten that? “All right,”
she whispered, “but you have to go slow, okay? And you have to promise
to stop if it hurts too much.”
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“Don’t worry, darlin’, I won’t hurt you. You’ll have to trust that I’ll
take care of you.”
“I trust you, Shame.” She took a nervous swallow. “How do you…
What position do you need me in?”
His fingers brushed through her hair, combing the wild curls away
from her face. “You know, it’s okay if you don’t want to go through with
this. We can stay right here, like we are, and have sex the regular way. In
fact, now that I’m thinking about it, I kind of like the idea of you riding
me like a pogo stick.” He grinned at her and flexed his penis deep inside
of her. “We can always get into the kinky stuff next time.”
She wanted to laugh and cry all at once. There wasn’t going to be a
next time. “No,” she said with a shake of her head. “I want to do it. I want
you to take me that way.”
Shame’s chest vibrated against hers. “You want me to take you that
way, huh? Darlin’, if you can’t even say it, how are you going to do it?”
“I can say anything I want to. I choose not to.”
“You’re not getting bashful on me all of a sudden, are you, darlin’?”
Gail snickered and swatted him on the arm. “Oh, shut up. Quit
teasing me.”
“But it’s so much fun.”
“I’ll show you fun,” she replied, tightening her inner walls around his
cock.
Shame’s lids lowered. His lips parted as he sucked in air. A grimace
crossed his handsome face. “Oh, that was dirty. You’re going to pay for
that.”
She barely had time to grin before Shame surged up from underneath
her, his cock still lodged deep inside, and flipped her effortlessly onto her
back.
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The new angle forced his cock deeper, made him feel larger and
harder inside her channel, and she couldn’t hold back the breathless
moan that escaped her lips at how good he felt. His heavy weight, the
chiseled planes of his chest and torso, pressing down into her soft curves
felt so good, so right. Their fit was perfect, like he was the missing half of
her incomplete body puzzle.
Shame buried his face in the curve of her neck. His hips pulled back
slowly, dragging the cumbersome length of his cock partway out of her
clinging pussy, before plunging back inside her with one long, slow glide.
Her hips arched up into his thrust, seeking more. More friction, more of
Shame. His hot breath fanned over her skin as he spoke. “I’m sorry,
darlin’…” His hips rotated, grinding into her mound. “Can’t wait. Need
you…too much…”
Snaking her arms around his back, she gripped his tight ass and
squeezed, urging him on. “Oh, yes! Take me, Shame. Fuck me.”
Firm lips covered hers. His tongue thrust into her mouth at the same
time his cock plunged back into her receptive body. Beneath her
fingertips his ass hollowed, tensed, and he began a slow and steady
rhythm that made her body burn and her heart sing.
Every stroke and drag of his rigid cock in her swollen, sensitive cunt
fanned the flames of her desire higher, made her soar ever closer to the
pinnacle her body struggled to reach.
Legs vised tight around his hips, head thrown back, eyes pinched
shut, she mouthed the words that rang over and over in her soul, I love
you, and prayed for the moment to last forever.
As with all good things, she knew their time was rapidly coming to an
end. The ball of flames in her stomach expanded, hit supernova and
exploded through her body like a shot of liquid ecstasy. Her back bowed
and her thighs trembled as her climax ravaged her body.
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Above her, as though from far away, she heard Shame cry out, felt
the throb of his cock expanding, and the warm, wet splash of his release
inside her.
Blinking back tears, she opened her eyes and watched the last of his
climax roll over him, the final shudders passing through his body as his
shoulders slumped in relief.
He opened his eyes and looked down at her. For a brief, all-too-short
second, she imagined she saw love reflected in his gaze instead of the
sexual satiation she knew it to be. Warmth encircled her, filling her heart
with joy.
He rolled off of her, pulling her up against his side, and reality, like
the cold fingers of winter, reclaimed her heart.
Beside him, she lay still, listening to the slowing of his pulse until she
was sure he was asleep. After one last, long searching glance at his face,
she whispered, “I love you,” so silently that even she herself wasn’t sure
if she had said the words or merely thought them, and got up and left the
room.
XW
Jesus, his back hurt. It was the first coherent thought Shame had as
he woke up on the cold, hard wood floor. He cracked his eyes open and
cast a quick glance around him to remind himself where he was. The
cream-colored dust ruffle beside his head brought it all back. He was in
Gail’s house, in her bedroom, on the floor.
The area beside him was empty. Gail must’ve gotten up after he fell
asleep and went back to her bed in the other room. He couldn’t blame
her for that. He’d bet his left nut that she woke up feeling a damn sight
better than he did.
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He, on the other hand, was still laying in the same spot and position
where he’d fallen asleep after making love—scratch that—after fucking
her the night before. There had been no lovemaking, just good old-
fashioned sex. No love involved in that. He cared about the girl, but he
most assuredly did not love her. He didn’t have it in him to love anyone
again.
Reluctant to get up and face the arduous day ahead of him, he buried
his face back in the pillow under his head and closed his eyes. Visions of
Gail on her knees and begging for more as he fucked his cock slow and
deep in and out of her ass, played over his closed lids like an amateur
porno flick.
Damn, she was one hot woman. If he was capable of loving anyone
again, Gail would be the one. She was everything he could have hoped
for in a woman. Kind, caring, generous to a fault and a firecracker in bed
to boot. It was just as well that he would be leaving soon. She was too
good for him anyway. She deserved someone capable of giving her his
whole heart, not a man with a shady past and a battered, inoperable
heart. The only thing he could offer her was sex and the thrill of that
would wear off quick for someone like Gail. The woman practically
screamed marriage and babies. He couldn’t give her that. Couldn’t give it
to anyone.
What he could do was fuck her like no other. He felt juvenile for
admitting it, even if only to himself, but when Gail gave her body to
another, he wanted it to be his face she saw when she closed her eyes.
He wanted nothing more than to imprint his image, his touch, so deep
within her she could never forget him.
Rustling bedclothes alerted him to Ty’s movement on the mattress
above him. Whether he was awake or just restless, Shame needed to get
up and check on him.
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Ty had slept soundly through the night, not waking once after Shame
cleaned him up and made sure he was as comfortable as possible. That
in itself was a mixed blessing. Ty needed the rest, but it also meant that
other than the drop or two of sugar water Shame had splashed across
his parched lips, Ty hadn’t ingested any liquid. As dehydrated as he was,
he needed all the water he could stomach without making himself sick.
If he was finally awake, Shame hoped he would feel up to taking a sip
or two. Maybe even drink a little soup before he conked back out.
The next few days were going to be touch and go with Ty while he
began the slow journey toward regaining his strength and recuperating.
Shame looked forward to being able to talk with his friend. Find out what
he’d been through and if he’d learned anything during his captivity.
He felt a little guilty for thinking of things that way, but he couldn’t
help it. Though he’d tracked down and dealt with the flunky responsible
for carrying out the wet work months earlier, he hadn’t been able to get
any more information out of him other than the name of the man who
had ordered the hit. The possible motives for why were endless. He knew
it wouldn’t change things, wouldn’t bring Maria and Sophie back to him,
but he had to know why they were killed. He couldn’t let them go, let
them rest in peace, until he found out.
The squeak of the bedsprings drew him back into the present and his
current responsibilities. Shame sat up, stretched his arms above his
head and yawned. He climbed to his feet and glanced at Ty.
His friend was lying on his side, facing away from him, with the
pillow-top quilt pulled up to his neck. He was still asleep.
Picking up his jeans off the floor, Shame held them out in front of
him and slipped them on. He worked the zipper while walking around the
bed. His hands on the button snap, Shame froze, his gaze going wide as
it landed on Ty’s face.
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Chapter Ten
“What the hell?” Shame hurried to Ty’s side and flung back the
comforter. He blinked. There was no way…
His hands shaking, he traced the bronzed skin of Ty’s chest.
Touching Ty was the only way Shame could make himself believe what
he saw. Ty, whole and well, in front of him.
“Jeez, man, if you’re horny enough to molest me when I look this
scary, I hate to see how you’ll act when I’m back to a hundred percent.”
Shame’s eyes shot up to Ty’s face. His friend was pale but looked
good. Too damn good for a man who only the day before had appeared as
if he’d been run over by a steam engine. What the hell was going on?
“Uh, Ty, buddy, you notice anything different about yourself this
morning?”
“No shit. I would have to be brain-dead not to. While you were getting
your beauty rest, I got up, took a shower and tried to figure out where
the heck you’ve brought me.” He ran a long-fingered hand over his shorn
head. “Whose place is this, anyway? And how long have I been
unconscious since you got me out of that dive? I don’t remember much,
but by the looks of me I’d hate to guess how long I’ve been out of it.”
Shame flinched. No wonder Ty wasn’t freaking out. The man thought
he’d been comatose during his recuperation. He didn’t realize it had
happened overnight. “Are you sure you should be up out of the bed yet? I
mean, how are you feeling? Do you feel okay?”
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Ty yawned. “I’m fine. A little tired and weak, but otherwise good.”
Wait a minute. Did Ty just say he had been up wandering around in
the house? “Ty, while you were up, you didn’t happen to run into anyone,
did you?”
Ty tilted his head to the side, his brow creased. “No, why?”
“Well, do you remember the cute blonde receptionist from back at the
motel?”
“Yeah.”
“This is her house. I was just wondering if you ran into her. I don’t
want her to get freaked out or anything.”
Ty pushed himself up against the pillows behind him. “No offense,
bud, but you aren’t making much sense. If I’ve been here long enough to
heal up, she’s bound to have seen me before now.”
Shame shrugged and sat on the side of the bed. “That’s the thing,
Ty.” There wasn’t any gentle way to say what he needed to, so he was
just going to have to spit it out and hope Ty didn’t spaz. “I just got you
out yesterday. You haven’t even been here a full twelve hours yet.”
Ty’s deep brown eyes widened for an instant before he shook his head
and smiled. “Yeah, right. And next you’ll be telling me that you have a
real nifty bridge to sell me.”
Shame laid his hand on Ty’s shoulder and looked him square in the
eye. “I’m not pulling your leg, Ty. I just brought you here last night. I
swear.”
Ty searched his face, no doubt looking for deception, for some
glimmer that Shame was joking. His shoulders slumped and he exhaled.
“That doesn’t make any sense, Shame. The only way I could’ve healed
overnight is if the people holding me had used their unique abilities to
heal me, and we both know that didn’t happen. So how do you explain
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my miraculous overnight healing? Did a magic fairy come in while we
were sleeping and sprinkle me with fairy dust?”
Shame snickered; he couldn’t help it. “Damn, you’re a smartass. I
don’t know how this happened. All I know is that I carried you in here
last night, cleaned the gook off of you—”
Ty interrupted him, his voice laced with sarcasm. “Nice, man, real
nice.”
Shame scowled at his friend. “Shut up, will you? I’m trying to think
here.” He scrubbed a fist over his eyes. “I cleaned you up, talked to Gail,
put some salve— Shit, that’s it!” He hopped off the bed and crossed the
room. The damn antibiotic cream Gail gave him to use on Ty. That had to
be it. Short of Ty’s damn magic-fairy reasoning, there was nothing else
that he could think of.
“Hey,” Ty shouted. “What salve? What are you talking about? Don’t
leave me hanging here. Let me know what’s going through that thick
skull of yours.”
He glanced back at his friend lounging on the bed. “In a minute, Ty. I
need to talk to Gail.”
“Who’s Gail?” Ty screamed after him as he hurried out of the room.
With a house as tiny as Gail’s, it didn’t take him long to realize that
she wasn’t there. A quick glance out the window confirmed that her car
was gone. His heart a numb lump of coal in his chest, he trudged back
toward the bedroom where Ty awaited answers he didn’t have. All he
knew for sure was that Gail’s special salve must have been what cured
Ty. The why and how of it was lost on him.
As he entered the room, Shame’s attention fell on the empty
container sitting by the bed. He’d used all the concoction she’d given him
on Ty the night before. There wasn’t even any of it left for a test sample.
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Ignoring Ty’s questioning gaze, he crossed to the nightstand and
snatched it up. A little residue remained on the inside, not much else.
“You gonna tell me what’s on your mind, or what?”
“This,” Shame said, waving the container in front of him.
Ty lifted one brow. “An empty plastic dish is what had you up and
running out of the room?”
“No, damn it.” Shame sighed, his patience wearing thin. “This is
what’s left of the stuff Gail gave me to put on your wounds. It’s the only
thing I can think of that may be responsible for your rapid healing.”
Ty took the container out of his hand. Shame watched as he
eyeballed the contents, or lack thereof. He lifted it up to his nose and
sniffed. “Well, what was in it?”
“How the hell should I know? Do I look like a chemist to you?” Shame
sucked in a deep gulp of air and counted to ten. He really needed to calm
down. It wasn’t Ty’s fault that his emotions were spinning like a damn
top. It was Gail’s. How could she do something like this and not even tell
him? And for that matter, where had she disappeared to this morning?
He had an endless list of questions and not a single answer was
forthcoming. “Sorry for snapping at you, man. I’ve just got a lot on my
mind. I didn’t mean to take it out on you.”
“No problem, bud.”
“Yeah, well, I asked Gail what was in it last night before I rubbed it
on you. She said that it was a secret family remedy and wouldn’t tell me
any more than that.”
Ty’s long, tapered fingers ran over the flawless skin covering his
chest. “I can certainly see why they would want to keep it a secret.” He
glanced up. “I’m not complaining here, but maybe we should find this
Gail of yours and ask her again.”
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“She’s not my anything. And she’s not here to ask. I looked outside
and her car’s gone.”
A muscle ticked in the corner of Ty’s eye. “Exactly how well do you
know this woman, Shame?”
“Well enough.”
“What does that mean?”
“Shit, I don’t know. Well enough means well enough. Why?”
Ty’s forehead wrinkled. “It just doesn’t make sense. Why would she
give you something that she knew would cure me, and not tell you about
it? I don’t get it.”
Shame massaged his temples, trying to alleviate the dull ache rapidly
spreading over the front of his head. “That makes two of us, pal. I don’t
know what’s going on but I don’t like it.”
Ty’s stomach growled loudly, interrupting their silent consternation.
He glanced over at Shame and smiled, but his eyes were filled with
worry. “How about we get a bite to eat while we try to sort this shit out?
I’m starving.”
Shame smiled back at him, but he had to force his cheek muscles
into the expression. “Yeah. Let’s get some food. We can talk while I try to
fatten you back up.”
“Fuck you,” Ty replied good-naturedly.
Shame tried to muster up a snappy comeback but as the seconds
ticked by he couldn’t think of one. Just when he needed it the most, his
sense of humor seemed to have abandoned him.
He put a companionable arm around Ty in the off chance that he
needed it, and led him from the room and into the kitchen.
XW
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Gail sat alone in a creaky booth at the back of the only all-night diner
in town, Lou’s Pancake Shack, and stared down into her fifth cup of bad
coffee. She lifted it to her lips and sipped, wincing as the hot liquid
seared her mouth and the sweet rush of sugar coated her tongue.
Above the rim of her cup, she glanced around her. Besides one other
patron, a drunk slumped over his table on the opposite end of the small
establishment, and a haggard-looking waitress who was sixty if she was
a day, Gail was the only person in the place. Ten filthy yellow booths
lined one wall. On the reverse side, a bar complete with wobbly stools
stood before a long open grill. The heavy scent of grease and smoke
permeated the air.
Gail was procrastinating. It certainly wasn’t the good food and superb
service that had kept her sitting in the stained and dirty booth for the
last two hours. She knew she was only putting off the inevitable but that
didn’t change anything.
The sun rose over the horizon, giving her no excuse to keep lingering
in the diner. Now that it was daybreak, she could safely drive to Lucian
Tremaine’s house out in the country and confront her brother. And yet
she continued to sit where she was, all but frozen to the seat.
What was she afraid of? Surely not her brother. He would never do
anything to hurt her. Nor his associates, really, since she was sure Kenze
wouldn’t let them lay a finger on her. She was being ridiculous.
She set her chipped coffee cup down on the table and scooted out of
the booth. It was time to go. She pulled a ten-dollar bill out of her pocket
and threw it on the table. Her decision had been made and there was no
turning back now.
XW
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“Okay, so let me get this straight,” Ty said a short time later, after
they’d finished off a breakfast of fruit and cold cereal. “You stayed at the
hotel for a while, when you knew damn well I wouldn’t have just up and
disappeared without letting you know where I was going. And then you
came out here and practically moved in with a woman you didn’t know
from Eve so that you could stay in town and look for me with no one
being the wiser. But you never once even asked her last name?” Ty flung
a magazine at him. Gail’s full name, Gail Ann Wright, was stamped on
the back of it. “What’s wrong with you, man?”
Shame paced back and forth in front of the fridge. “How the hell was I
supposed to know who she was? I don’t even remember you telling me
that Wright had a sister, much less what her name was. I’m not a damn
mind reader.”
“You wouldn’t have to be psychic if you would clean out your damn
ears and listen when I’m talking to you every now and then.”
“Fuck you, Ty. You’re not my mother or my wife, so quit harping at
me.”
“You’re lucky you’re still alive to listen to me harp at you. After the
way you spilled your guts to her last night, I’m surprised the woman
didn’t call up her brother and have us both killed while we slept.”
Shame hung his head in his hands. “She wouldn’t do that.”
How could he feel like defending her and throttling her at the same
time? Was Ty right, had she run to her shape-shifting brother the
moment he fell asleep? He couldn’t believe that she would do that. Gail
wasn’t the type of woman who could give him her body with such
abandon and then turn right around and stab him in the back as soon
as his eyes were closed. She wasn’t like that. She couldn’t be. He didn’t
think he would survive it if he found out differently.
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“I think she would. You came right out and told her we were planning
to kill her brother. What the hell did you expect her to do—jump up and
down for joy?”
“I didn’t know he was her brother. How many damn times do I have
to tell you that?”
“Like it matters or changes anything that you didn’t know who she
was. All I know now is that your little girlfriend has run off to warn her
brother about what we’ve planned and they’re going to come after us with
everything they have. Frankly, I’m surprised you were able to get me out
of there to begin with. The only reason I was still alive when you found
me was because they couldn’t find you and you’re the one they really
wanted.”
Ty dropped into the high-back chair beside Shame. “I don’t know
what the hell you did to Tremaine, but he’s after your head on a pike.
That’s one pissed-off, scary vamp. The one time I saw him was in broad
daylight, and the man just stood there, staring at me, while his little thug
took swings at me trying to get me to spill my guts about where you were
hiding. When they didn’t get anything more than a big ‘fuck you’ out of
me, he turned, cool as an icicle and strolled out of the room. That’s one
intimidating bastard, Shame.”
“So? I’ve faced bigger and badder and still come out on top. We’ll
manage. Good always kicks evil’s ass.”
Ty snorted. “I think you’ve been watching too many action movies.
Rarely does the good guy win in real life. He just gets smashed like a
bug.”
Shame frowned. “What are you saying, Ty?”
“Maybe I’m just not as fucking convinced that we can do this and
survive. You don’t know what they’re like.” His voice dropped. “They’re
ruthless.”
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“So, what? You want to give up and run away like a pussy?” Shame
shook his head. “That’s fucked up, man. What about getting even with
Wright, paying him back for what he did to your sister? Are you just
going to let that go?”
Ty looked down at his hands, which were clasped tightly together in
his lap. “I’m not saying I want to run away. I’m just thinking that maybe
we should put a little more thought into how we’re going about things,
that’s all.”
His dark chocolate gaze climbed up to meet Shame’s. Behind his
eyes, Shame could read all of Ty’s anguish and fear. “So what do you
want to do?”
“I don’t know,” Ty whispered. “You have no idea what it was like in
there. The pain, the humiliation, the damn hunger gnawing at my insides
while their taunts and the constant sleep deprivation fucked with my
head. I can’t go back there, Shame. What if…” He hung his head. “God
forgive me, I just can’t.”
Shame looked at his friend, took in the whipped-dog demeanor, and
felt his stomach turn. He wanted to believe that his reaction was due to
sympathy for what Ty must be feeling but he wasn’t so sure that’s what
it was. If Ty was right, and Gail had gone to her brother, then she would
be facing the same thing Ty had gone through. He had to believe that he
knew her well enough to trust that she wasn’t a part of the evil being
perpetrated by the men—the things—that lived out in that damn
mansion. And if that were the case, then she also wouldn’t know that her
brother was up to his eyes in all of it. With her big heart, she probably
felt duty-bound to warn her brother, no matter what he was involved in.
Instead of the anger he expected to feel toward her, all he felt was
warmth and a profound concern for her wellbeing. A small part of him
respected her more for standing by her beliefs and doing what she
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must’ve thought was the right thing, even if it was misguided and damn
naive.
He worried that her love would quickly beat down the thick wall he’d
built around his bruised heart and resurrect feelings he’d do better off
without. However, at the moment, he didn’t have time to think about his
girly emotions. He needed to make sure Gail didn’t sacrifice her life in
her bid to save her brother’s. He would have plenty of time to scrutinize
his feelings after he made sure she was safe and got his revenge on
Tremaine. If Ty was too traumatized to help, then he would seek revenge
on both their families’ behalf. Someone had to make them pay for what
they’d done and it might as well be him.
Shame rose to his feet and strode over to the sink to look out the
small curtained window. The sun was rising, filling the sky with misty
swirls of pink and blue. “I have to find Gail,” he said, his back turned to
Ty. “I understand if you can’t or won’t come with me, but I have to finish
what we’ve started. I couldn’t turn back now even if I wanted to. I need to
finish it, for Maria and Sophie, for all the people they’ve hurt and the
people they’ll continue to tear apart if someone doesn’t step in and do
something to stop them.”
Ty’s chair scratched against the floor behind him. Shame stood still
and waited for him to respond. When he didn’t, Shame turned to find the
room behind him empty.
He found Ty in Gail’s bedroom. He was sitting on the side of the bed,
his shoulders slumped and his head in his hands. The muscles in his
back tensed when Shame approached. He looked up, his eyes filled with
self-loathing. “I’m sorry. I can’t help you. Getting myself killed isn’t going
to bring my family back. I wish you luck. You’ll be in my prayers. But I’m
done. I’m going home.”
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Mute, Shame nodded. He didn’t know what to say to Ty. They’d only
been friends for a short time, a few months at most, but he’d thought he
knew him. At the moment, as he looked at his friend, Shame didn’t feel
as if he knew Ty at all. Maybe he hadn’t. Maybe the only thing they’d
shared was their drive for revenge.
Shame turned, grabbed his shirt and shoes off the dresser, and
strode from the room. He had a woman to save and a slew of
supernatural thugs to slaughter.
Frowning, he walked out into the sunshine. As the chill morning air
swept around him and light washed away the shadows clinging to the
land, Shame strolled over to his truck’s bed and pressed a small button
on the inside of the tailgate.
The bed floor lifted, revealing a secret compartment. Hidden inside
was a cache of weapons specifically designed to take out the
supernatural crime element with as little fuss and muss as possible. He
quickly strapped on both leather ankle holsters and the matching
shoulder harness. Into the shoulder harness went his trusted pair of
Glocks, loaded with UV bullets. In the ankle holsters, he placed a small-
caliber .32 and a sterling-silver Bowie knife he’d had commissioned
several years back.
He slid behind the wheel and turned over the ignition. His foot hit the
gas, revving up the engine. His hands steady, belying the rush of nervous
adrenaline coursing through his veins, he threw the truck into first gear.
Dirty snow and gravel spinning behind him, he sped out of the driveway.
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Chapter Eleven
Gail felt like she was going to puke. The steep drop off to either side
of the blacktop and sharp curves on the two-lane country road had her
nerves shot and her stomach rolling. Thoughts of what she would say
and do once Kenze stood in front of her played like a broken record in
her mind. With every mile she drove, her gut clenched and her
conscience urged her to turn back. She began to wonder if it wouldn’t be
easier to speak to Shame and try to talk him out of his goal instead of
going to Kenze. Remembering the look of condemnation on his face when
he told her of his plans squelched that idea before it could take root and
blossom.
She turned onto the bumpy dirt track leading to Tremaine’s estate.
As she crept along the road, careful of ice and washboard ruts that could
send her car spinning into the ditch, she spied the top of a massive
house in the distance.
That must be it.
Her foot eased off the gas, buying her a few extra minutes before she
reached the huge black iron gate that blocked the entrance.
Fearing that the rancid coffee she’d ingested earlier would taste ten
times worse coming up than it had going down, she swallowed the rising
lump of acid crawling up her throat and guided her car up to the gate.
A black speaker box sat atop a thick black pole on her side of the
entrance. She pulled her car alongside it and cranked her window
halfway down. She tucked her arm out the window to press the speak
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button but discovered there wasn’t one. Not a single button was
anywhere on the box, only tiny circular holes in the metal to protect the
speaker inside.
That’s weird. She glanced around and spotted a camera at the top of
the column to her left. Why would they need so much security unless
they were up to no good? Crossing her arms over her chest, she waited
for someone to notice that she was there and respond.
She didn’t have to wait long. Before her tapping foot hit the floor for
the third time, the box squeaked and fuzzy white noise came over the
line, followed by a gravelly voice she knew well, though it had been years
since she’d last heard it. “What are you doing here?”
“Nice to talk to you, too, Kenze,” she replied dryly. Leave it to her
brother to be surly even with the sister he hadn’t seen in ages. “Are you
going to let me in, or are we going to talk through this damn contraption
all day?”
“Whatever,” he said a millisecond before she heard the gate creak.
She glanced up to see it slowly pull open.
She wanted to be hurt by his terse welcome, but couldn’t work up the
extra emotion. Too many disjointed thoughts and feelings were already
taking up residence in her head to make room for any new ones. Kenze
and his lack of care for her would have to get in line and take a number.
When the gate finished swinging open, she pulled up to the house
and parked right in front of the door. She saw a garage at the side, but
opted to keep her walk from her car to the door as short as possible. In
her frame of mind, she wanted to have as much control as she could get.
Parking in a garage, where someone would no doubt have to open and
close the sliding door to allow her to come and go, was unacceptable. She
might trust her brother, but she wasn’t dumb enough to extend that
trust to anyone else who lived in the house with him.
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Gail climbed out of her car and walked up the short stoop to the front
door. Before she could ring the bell, the door swung inward. She stepped
over the threshold and the door was shut behind her, all without her
seeing the first glimpse of Kenze.
Her eyes slowly adjusted to the dark interior as she turned to face her
brother. Only it wasn’t Kenze who stood behind her. A man, tall and
broad as a mountain, blocked her way to the door. His shoulders
spanned the width of the doorframe and extended past it by several
inches. His bald head fell short of the seven-foot door by mere
centimeters. Seeing him, the snarl on his square face, the obscene tattoo
of a swastika etched into his forehead with dark blue prison-issue ink,
had Gail backing up a step, her heart thumping wildly.
Her senses kicked in, warning her that the man in front of her was a
lycan. From the way her synapses flared, releasing endorphins into her
system at an alarming rate, he was a powerful one at that.
He advanced on her, his nostrils ballooning as he took in her scent.
“Mmm, you smell good, whore.” He reached down and adjusted the bulge
beneath his fly. “You’ll smell even better after I come all over you.”
One backward step after another, she scurried away from him. Her
back collided with something solid, something that moved and breathed.
Someone was behind her, right up against her back. Whoever it was
inhaled loudly and then blew out through their mouth. The wind from it
ruffled her hair.
She opened her mouth to scream.
“Back off, Dempsey. Keep your foul mouth and your filthy fucking
hands to yourself. She isn’t here to see your ugly ass. Go find something
to do while I chat with my visitor.”
Gail’s heart rate returned to normal as the voice coming from behind
her registered. Kenze. Thank God. There for a second…
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She twisted around, careful to keep her eyes on the man named
Dempsey as he stalked from the room, and faced the brother she hadn’t
seen since they were teenagers.
As her attention settled on his face, she had to try hard not to gasp.
The man in front of her looked nothing like the Kenze who’d left home.
He appeared hard and haggard. His dark brown hair was pulled back
into a short ponytail behind his head. A thick beard shagged out around
his hollow cheeks. The clothes he wore had seen better days. And if she
wasn’t mistaken, the plaid shirt and faded blue jeans could use a good
wash as well. Gail wrinkled her nose, the scent of stale body odor
appalling.
Unable to speak and ask him what the hell had happened to make
him let himself go so much, she remained mute. Needing to take her eyes
off Kenze, needing something to look at besides her twin whose
appearance distressed her in ways she didn’t want to think about, her
gaze wandered over the room to the left of the foyer they stood in.
It was a large, sunken living room with a high, cathedral-like ceiling.
The walls were painted a dull eggshell color. Thick carpet the color of
bread covered the floor. A huge white leather sectional sofa took up one
entire side of the room. Chrome and glass tables sat here and there. It
took her a moment to figure out what was missing. There weren’t any
lamps. No lights in the ceiling and no lamps to illuminate the room at
night.
“What are you doing here, Gail?”
She pulled her gaze away from the strange room and directed it at
Kenze. “Thanks for the warm welcome, Kenze. If I didn’t know better I’d
almost think you weren’t happy to see me.”
Kenze humphed and turned away without speaking. He strode into
the living room and perched his ass on the edge of the sofa, his elbows
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propped on his knees. His icy blue eyes watched her cross the room and
join him on the couch. She chose to sit beside him, though his response
to her presence told her he was less than happy to be near her.
“So, I guess congratulations are in order.”
Gail snorted. “Congratulations for what—being the first person to
piss you off today?”
A brief spark of the old Kenze, the one she remembered and loved,
flashed behind his eyes and then quickly disappeared to be replaced with
a scowl. “On the baby.”
A frown creased her brow. God, she was already getting a headache
and she hadn’t even been in the same room with him for more than five
minutes. How could she have forgotten how nerve-wracking he was?
“What baby? What the hell are you talking about?”
“Jesus, you really have lost touch with all your roots, haven’t you?
Your baby, you little idiot.”
“Kenze, I hate to break this to you, since you think you know
everything, but I don’t have a baby. Whoever told you otherwise was full
of shit. And what the hell does that have to do with our ancestry?”
“You may not have a kid now, but you’re going to. You’re pregnant,
genius.”
“Huh?”
“Have you forgotten everything about our kind, Gail? You know that a
full lycan can detect when a female of our species is in heat or breeding.”
He shook his head at her sadly. “You…are…pregnant.” He sounded out
each word like she was a little slow on the uptake.
Gail’s mind rebelled. That wasn’t possible. She couldn’t be pregnant.
Could she? She knew they’d forgotten a condom a time or two, but she
was on the pill. It was ninety-nine percent accurate at preventing
pregnancy, wasn’t it? Everything she knew about contraceptives flew
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through her head at the speed of light. An article she’d read in one of the
magazines at work jumped out in her memory and screamed for
attention. It had claimed that antibiotics could affect the reliability of
certain birth-control pills. Since she wasn’t having sex, she hadn’t paid
much attention to it at the time.
Thinking back now, she recalled a bout of strep throat she’d had
shortly before meeting Shame. Could that have negated her pills? Was
Kenze fucking with her?
She looked at his face. Not a glimmer of humor marred his features.
He was dead serious. Shit. She was pregnant. She was going to have a
baby. Shame’s baby.
A fast shot of happiness, followed quickly by the letdown of reality
overcame her. Shame wouldn’t accept her for what she was; he sure as
hell wouldn’t accept a half-breed child that resulted from their all-too-
brief union.
Not only was she going to be a single mother, she was going to be an
unemployed single mother if she didn’t get her ass on the ball and find
work right away. Once she started to show, she’d never find a job. No
employer that she knew of would hire an obviously pregnant woman.
Despair, hot and heavy, washed over, dragging her down into the bog
of muck she’d created for herself by falling for a man she knew she
couldn’t keep.
She groaned. A baby didn’t change her reason for being there. Her
newfound knowledge would have to be shoved to the farthest recesses of
her mind until later, when she would have time to deal with it. For the
moment she had enough to think about.
Gail swiped a hand through her hair, pushing it out of her face.
“Listen, Kenze, I came here for a reason.”
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“Oh yeah? I was hoping you would get to that sometime in this
millennium.”
She was beginning to rethink the whole save-Kenze-from-being-
murdered thing. “Will you just quit with the smartass routine and listen
to me? As soon as I’ve said what I came for, I’ll leave and you’ll never
have to see my face again, okay? Until then, shut the hell up and hear
me out.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Gail sighed, impatience and aggravation warring within her. “Kenze.”
His mouth twisted into a smirk. “Gail.” The amused look on his face
disappeared as fast as it had appeared. It was replaced by a look so
stern, so downright scary, she would’ve been afraid of him had she not
already known he would never lay a finger on her, no matter how pissed
he was. “Say what you’re going to, Gail, and then get the hell out. I have
a plane to catch and you’re making me late.”
A glimmer of hope began to burn inside her. If he was leaving town
then maybe she wouldn’t have to say anything after all. “What do you
mean, you have a plane to catch? Are you skipping town again, without
so much as a goodbye or a ‘kiss my ass’ to me?”
“What I’m doing and where are none of your business, Gail. But just
so you can rest easy, I’ll be back in a few days. I’m not leaving town for
good.”
That wasn’t long enough, damn it. They would just wait around the
extra few days and kill him when he got back. She was going to have to
tell him what she’d learned. “Kenze, there isn’t really any easy way to say
this so I’m just going to blurt it out, okay?”
“Yeah. Sometime today, princess.”
Princess. That one word took her back to when they were children
and he referred to her as momma’s little princess because of the way
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she’d followed their mom around like she was her shadow. The bridge of
her nose began to sting and she squeezed it between her thumb and
index finger to squelch the tears threatening to rise. She straightened her
back and took a deep breath. “I recently met a man and I—”
“Obviously. The last time I checked, it took two people to make a kid.
Hell, Gail, I can smell the human all over you. The least you could have
done was take a damn shower before you came out here.”
“Shut up, Kenze.” Her patience snapped. “I’m trying to warn you that
someone wants your ass dead. The least you could do is quit with the
damn diatribe long enough for me get it out.”
The tension between them shot up another notch, making her want
to squirm under his scrutiny.
Kenze sat forward. So little of his bottom remained on the couch that
he almost levitated over it instead of sitting on it. “What? What are you
talking about, Gail? Who wants to kill me and how exactly did you find
out about it?”
“A few weeks ago, I met a man at the motel where I used to work. We
sort of…” Oh, how to put things without making herself look like a
complete slut. “…fell in together. Yesterday, he came to the house late
and had a friend with him. His friend was hurt.” She shook her head,
remembering what Ty had looked like. “Anyway, he told me that Ty, his
friend, had been held here and beaten. He claimed that you were
responsible and that you”—she swallowed, her eyes searching Kenze’s
face for his response to what she was saying—“that you attacked and
killed Ty’s sister.”
A slight widening of his pupils and a visible tension in his whipcord-
lean frame was all the response she got. It was anticlimactic as hell.
She’d expected anger and denial, or, as much as she hated to believe it, a
guilty flush. She didn’t know what to think by his lack of response. The
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desperate need for him to react in some way and clue her in to his guilt
or innocence made her continue. “They plan to kill you for whatever it is
they think you did to his sister. Don’t you have anything to say, Kenze?”
Still no response. “Say something, damn it!”
Kenze shot to his feet and paced the floor in front of where she sat on
the couch. “What do you want to hear, Gail? I’m sure you came out here
with the assumption that they’re mistaken about what you were told.
That there was no way your brother could be responsible for killing
anyone, let alone a woman.” He stopped right in front of her and put his
big hands on her shoulders. “I wish I could tell you what you want to
hear, but I can’t. I can tell you that I didn’t have any part in torturing
any man in this house, but no more. Do you understand me, Gail? I
can’t tell you that I’m innocent of any wrongdoing.”
He walked into the foyer. Not wanting to be left alone for an instant in
that house, she stood and followed behind him.
Kenze stopped and picked up a black duffle bag she hadn’t noticed
sitting against the wall. Slinging it over his shoulder, he turned and
pulled open the front door. “I think it’s time you leave. Don’t come back.
You never should have come out here in the first place.”
Gail opened her mouth. “But…”
“No buts, Gail. I need to get going and you don’t want to be here
without me.”
One hand on her elbow, he ushered her out and smoothly
maneuvered her straight to her car. He jerked the door open and held it,
waiting for her to slip inside.
She stalled beside the open door, looking up into her twin’s tired face.
She searched his gaze for any answers she could find. God knew, he
wouldn’t ever confide anything to her. She refused to believe Kenze would
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have attacked and killed a woman in cold blood. There had to be more to
the story than either he or Shame had let on.
“Tell me what’s going on, Kenze. Maybe I can help.”
He pressed a kiss to her forehead, his lips barely skimming her
hairline before he pulled back and stepped away from her. “You can’t
help me, Gail. Go home.”
“Kenze…?”
“What, Gail? Look, I need to be on my way or I’m going to miss my
flight.”
“It’s just that—the men I told you about—one of them, Shame, he
means a lot to me. He’s… I love him and I wouldn’t want to see any harm
come to him or his friend.”
He studied her. “Your man, this Shame fellow, he’s the baby’s father,
right?”
Gail nodded. She couldn’t say “the baby” out loud yet. That would
make it real and she had other, more pressing things to think about.
Kenze was silent for a moment and then nodded. “I promise that no
harm will come to your friends by my hand.”
That was the best she could ask for. She knew that Kenze wouldn’t
go back on his word. It was a matter of honor.
She felt tears build in her eyes. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” He patted her on the rump. “Now, scoot. Get in and
lock the doors. I’ll open the gate and you can follow me out.” He turned
and walked away before she could speak.
Gail slipped into the driver’s seat and locked her doors the way he’d
asked her to. With that done and her windows rolled tightly up, she felt a
measure of safety while waiting on Kenze to lead the way out.
She heard the loud purr of the motorcycle before she saw it. She
craned her neck and saw Kenze coming around the side of the house on
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a flame red crotch rocket. He slowed as he passed her car and waved for
her to follow behind him.
When they reached the gate he stopped and took a small black
remote out of his jacket and pointed it toward the gate. It creaked
opened, allowing them to drive through. Gail pulled alongside her brother
and rolled down her window. “Kenze,” she yelled over the loud rumble of
his motor. She wanted to tell him to be careful.
He waved and pulled off before she had to chance to speak. She
watched as his cycle disappeared over the hill, disgusted with herself,
him and the whole situation.
She sat still, glancing around her. Now that she’d warned him, she
didn’t know what to do. She couldn’t very well go back to her house;
Shame and Ty were both still there.
She reached for her pocketbook on the passenger seat to see how
much money she had on her. Maybe she could afford to get a hotel room
for the night. Surely Shame and Ty would be gone by the following
morning. A tremble shot through her arms and hands at that thought,
knocking her purse to the floorboard.
Shame would be gone. Unwanted tears surged to the surface and
clouded her eyes. She’d brought this on herself, but knowing she was
pregnant made it too painful to bear. He was going to leave, never
knowing that he left behind a small part of him with her.
Sniffling, she leaned over the console, one arm extended, trying to
grasp the strap on her pocketbook. Her fingertips skimmed the edge and
she stretched a little farther, reaching…reaching…
The passenger-side window exploded inward. Glass rained down on
her, scratching her face and neck. Gail screamed and pulled back, her
hands flying to her face.
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The big tattooed face of the bruiser who’d answered the front door
earlier appeared in front of her. He leaned into the busted window and
grabbed her by her hair. “There’s been a change of plans, pretty,” he all
but growled as he dragged her across the seat toward him. “You’re not
going anywhere.”
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Chapter Twelve
Not for the first time that week, Shame wished his old friend and
former partner, Tristan, was with him. Having a little backup would have
made his predicament easier to stomach. It sure as shit would’ve made
him feel more confident about the outcome of today’s rendezvous.
Nearly four months had passed since he’d been in touch with Tristan
and his wife Sara. The last phone call he’d taken the time to make had
been hard—too hard—and he hadn’t called back since. Hearing Tristan
happy, very much in love with his wife and son, set off a pang of envy
that Shame couldn’t deal with. It wasn’t that he didn’t wish his friend
well—he did. It was knowing that his partner was so…domesticated and
at peace. As much as he wanted that for Tristan, he wanted it for himself
as well.
Shame resolved that if—scratch that—when he got out of this jam, he
would visit Tristan and Sara. It’d been too long, and he didn’t want the
wall of silence to grow any bigger between them. Tristan was the only
person he felt he could trust and he valued their friendship too much to
keep letting his petty feelings stop him from staying in touch.
Several miles from his goal, Shame pulled off the road. He drove his
truck into a dense copse of pine trees and parked, satisfied that it was
out of sight from anyone who would pass on the main road.
After spraying scent neutralizer all over his body and deer piss on his
boots to camouflage any remaining personal smell, he began to hike
through the woods.
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Half an hour later, he stood at the back of the property. Standing
still, he watched for signs of life in and around the house. When he was
sure it was safe to cross the field, he took off at a dead run. Even at a
fast gallop, his eyes scanned around him in all directions, his feet
avoided twigs and branches that would cause disruptions to the quiet air
around him, and he made sure he stayed downwind of the house at all
times.
Reaching the gate, he searched for cameras and immediately found
two. One was to his right on top of the gate, and the other was above the
back door. Both were mounted to pedestals that allowed them to swivel
at timed intervals.
Watching the cameras, he established their pattern and waited until
they were on a northbound swing away from him to move. Quickly, he
scaled the high wrought-iron fence, and dropped down on the other side
onto Tremaine’s property.
Shame’s feet hit the snow and skidded out from under him. His ass
smacked the ground with enough force to jar his teeth. He was hard-
pressed not to curse at his sore ass and his own stupidity for not
foreseeing that was going to happen. Spitting out a few good four-letter
words might have made him feel better but it damn sure would have
given away his position and that wouldn’t be such a smart thing to do.
They expected him to show up sooner or later, of that he had little
doubt, but the exact time when he was going to appear, well, that they
didn’t know. Even a small window of surprise was better than none at
all.
He dragged his ass up off the ground and checked the cameras. They
hadn’t made the full rotation yet. Stealthily, he covered the ground
between where he’d landed and the back door.
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Stopping underneath the camera, where its lens wouldn’t be able to
catch his image, Shame pressed his back to the wall and tried to bring
his pulse down to normal. He needed to be able to hear the drop of a pin
and it wouldn’t be possible with his heartbeat thundering in his ears.
He slipped his hand into the pocket of his jeans and drew out a small
pouch containing the picks he needed to jimmy the lock on the door. He
could do it with his knife, but having the right instruments would save
him time. After waiting until the cameras began a new rotation, Shame
jumped onto the porch stoop.
A small window in the door allowed him to glimpse a bit of the back
hallway. It wasn’t enough to see much, just part of one wall and the
linoleum-covered floor, but he was relatively sure that no one was
standing guard. He maneuvered the picks into place and set to work on
the lock. A small muffled click signaled the release of the latch and his
ticket inside.
His hand clenched the doorknob, intent on turning it, when the
sound of footsteps crunching on the icy ground reached his ears.
Someone was on the right side of the house and coming up on him fast.
Shame let go of the door. His attention flew to both cameras,
assessing, and then he was moving over the land, his feet barely
skimming the frozen earth as he made his way around the house. He
stopped on the opposite side from where he’d heard the noise and held
his breath, listening intently for any sign of movement.
Hearing nothing, Shame peered around the corner. Two men made
their way to the back door. One was tall and wiry, the other of medium
height and build. The slim one had a thin cigarillo hanging out of his
mouth. Mr. Average reached for the door Shame had just unlocked. He
faced his buddy as the doorknob turned in his hand. “Fuck. You trying
to get us killed, bro? You left the door unlocked. You know how Tremaine
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is about his security. He’d shit a goose if he knew you were leaving his
damn back door wide open every time you stepped out to take a smoke.”
“Listen,” the thin man replied, “I didn’t leave the damn door unlocked
this time. You must’ve done it.”
“Whatever,” Mr. Average said, slapping the thin man on the back of
the head as he passed him on his way into the house.
The door closed behind them, allowing Shame to suck in the oxygen
he needed. That was close.
He wondered exactly how many men Tremaine had in his employ at
the moment. His plan was to take them out, incapacitate them one at a
time, before going after Tremaine. However, that plan depended on his
being able to get them alone. He was ill-prepared to deal with the whole
lot of them at once. It was possible that he could face three, maybe four
tops head-on and win. If they were human. Any more than that and his
ass would be Lycan chow.
Shame turned, intent on going around to the front of the house and
slipping in through the garage, like he’d done the day before. There were
extra cameras to avoid in the front, but going in through the back door
was now out of the question.
He crept around the side of the house, his ears peeled for any sound
that seemed out of place, and his gaze darting all around him. A single
glance assured him that no one was outside, and luckily enough, one of
the garage bays was open. His muscles tensed, readying themselves to
spring him around the corner at the precise second the cameras aligned
the way he wanted.
One…two… Go. In a quick burst of movement, he exploded around
the corner. Shame slipped into the open bay and crouched down behind
two snowmobiles. Confident he was alone, Shame stood. From above the
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snowmobiles he saw Gail’s car parked in one of the other bays. The one
closest to the door.
So, she was there.
Approaching it, he noticed one of windows was missing. He leaned
over and peered inside, saw shards of glass littering the passenger seat.
Deep splotches of crimson marred the vinyl seat amid the glass.
Blood? If she had come there of her own free will, why was her
window broken and blood inside the car? Were he and Ty wrong? Had
she been kidnapped from the house while they’d lain sleeping?
He straightened and moved toward the door. Possible explanations
for Gail’s car being in the state it was in rushed through his head, taking
a measure of his concentration away from his surroundings.
One step away from the door, a low rustle sounded from behind him.
He started to turn. A sharp blow caught him on the side of the head and
echoed through the back of his skull.
Pain brought him to his knees. His vision blurred around the edges
and grew fuzzy. As darkness rapidly swallowed him up, Shame caught a
glimpse of a man’s silhouette above him, and then he saw no more.
XW
Gail’s gaze explored her surroundings. The huge cavernous room
she’d been dumped in was filled with treadmills, weight benches and
other big hulking machines she couldn’t identify by name.
“How does it feel to be at the mercy of a real man, bitch? I bet your
little human fuck can’t make you squeal like I can.”
She gave Dempsey, the tattooed freak who’d hauled her into the
house over his shoulder an hour earlier, the dirtiest look she could
manage in her current position. It was hard to accomplish an effective
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one while on her knees, her hands tied behind her back and a ball gag
shoved in her mouth. She certainly didn’t feel menacing and from the
way tattoo head towered over her, a smirk on his ugly inked face, she
didn’t think he was feeling any fear.
“Fuck you,” she sputtered around the gag. The rubber impeded her
speech and her words came out garbled, sounding more like “uuh oo”,
than “fuck you”.
“Oh, you should be nice to me, baby. Maybe if you play real nice I’ll
let you keep that half-breed bastard you’re carrying as a pet, instead of
feeding it to the vamps as an appetizer right after you spit it out.”
Gail growled, the sound startling even her. She couldn’t remember
the last time that had happened.
Dempsey sneered at her. “You should be licking my boots for keeping
you around this long. Feel lucky that I want to use your tight little pussy,
otherwise you’d be nothing more than a big bag of O positive by now.” He
laughed, amused by his own disgusting attempt at a joke.
His endless taunts were beginning to piss her off more than scare
her. For the last hour she’d been on her knees, listening to his shit, and
she was starting to think that’s exactly what it was. Bullshit.
It wasn’t that he didn’t want to carry out his threats. The hard line of
flesh behind his fly told her exactly how much he’d like to follow through
with one of them in particular, but she didn’t think it was his call to
make. As long as the big boss wanted her alive and unharmed, she
would stay that way. Dempsey was just a puppy following his master’s
orders.
During one of his rants, he’d let it slip that they were using her for
bait in the hopes that Shame would run right into their hands. She’d
tried to tell him that Shame wouldn’t show up. That having her there was
a mistake. Shame didn’t care enough about her to come after her, but he
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wouldn’t listen. Instead of hearing her out, he’d threatened to give her
something to occupy her mouth with. He quickly changed his mind when
she smiled at him and told him to go ahead, if he wanted to lose his dick.
He paled and stuffed the ball gag into her mouth.
Fat stubby fingers pulled her out of her reverie. They skimmed her
cheek and then brutally shoved her head to one side. “Not so high and
mighty now that Kenze isn’t around, are you, whore?”
One meaty paw grabbed a fistful of her hair and yanked her head
back, forcing her to look up. Her scalp stung from the tension on her
hair, and her eyes began to water. She swallowed the whimper building
in her throat, determined not to make a sound, not to show any
weakness to the huge lycan tormenting her. To do so would be the
equivalent of wearing a red dress while running with the bulls in
Pamplona. She wasn’t that stupid.
He leaned above her, the hot fetid stench of his breath blowing over
her face. She tried to twist, to get away from the foul smell before she
retched, but was pulled up short by his hand in her hair. “The boss said
I couldn’t fuck you up.” He leered down at her breasts. Right away it felt
like her D cups tried to shrink and crawl inside her chest cavity to get
away from his lecherous gaze. She hunched her shoulders, but it didn’t
help. The nasty, dirty feeling his scrutiny left on her remained.
A thick, sandpaper-rough finger slid under her bra strap, where it
was visible between her neck and shoulder. He twisted the narrow strap
around his finger and jerked. “The boss didn’t say nothing about me not
being able to fuck you.”
The material pulled tight and broke with a quiet little snap. She
shook her head, and tried to scream, “No!” It came out more like “oo”.
His hand dropped to the neck of her thin cashmere sweater. The back
of his fingers brushed over her collarbone as he fisted it and yanked. The
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material held for a second, biting into the back of her neck, but then
began to tear under the rough pull. The sound of rending fabric filled her
ears as the seams along both shoulders separated and gave away.
The front of her sweater fell down, exposing her collarbone and the
tops of her breasts, one concealed by her plain white cotton bra and the
other not. Her bra strap torn in two, one cup lay clinging at half mast
over her breast.
Greedy, bloodshot eyes devoured the exposed skin. He licked his
pale, thin lips and lifted his hand to grope her. A sharp retort of static
filled the air. His hand flew to his waistband and the walkie-talkie
attached at his hip. His gaze lingered on her breasts for another second
before he spit out a vile mouthful of obscenities and turned away from
her to answer the summons.
Gail sucked in a deep breath and let it out slowly. She hurt all over.
Her head ached, arms and hands stung from lingering cuts that refused
to heal while shards of glass were still imbedded in her skin. Her
shoulders throbbed from being tied in the same position for so long. Most
of all, her heart was sore, tired and battered. It would be so easy to give
in, say to hell with it and stop fighting but the thought of the small life
growing inside her kept her determination to survive going.
If she wanted to stay alive and protect her unborn baby, she was
going to have to keep her wits and find her own way out of this.
Exacerbating the situation by pissing her captors off wasn’t going to help
her any. The only person she could rely on for help was herself.
Her ace in the hole was a jagged piece of glass she’d managed to work
out of the fleshy part of her palm. Mr. Tattoo hadn’t noticed her struggle
to unearth her hidden weapon, he’d been too busy staring at her chest
and palming his crotch to pay any attention to the small grunts of pain
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she hadn’t been able to hide as she worked it out of her flesh and into
her fingers.
She may not have been strong enough to break through the zip tie
binding her hands—she’d tried that and failed—but with a little
persistence, she could cut through it. If she kept up the weak-female
routine for long enough, he would eventually lose interest in tormenting
her and lose interest. That’s when she’d be able to break free and make
her move.
A tremor ran down her arm as she twisted, trying to align it the way
she needed. Blood-slick fingers slowly maneuvered the glass into position
against the hard plastic of her bonds. She had to be careful. One slip and
she would drop it. One shake and she would lose her only chance of
escaping. If she lost the glass, she would be up shit creek without a
paddle.
Short, concise arm movements propelled the makeshift knife back
and forth over the zip tie while not attracting unwanted attention to what
she was doing. With Mr. Tattoo’s back turned and his focus on whatever
was being squawked at him through his radio, Gail set to work sawing on
her cuffs.
Her concentration on the task at hand, she didn’t notice many of the
static-ridden words that passed between Dempsey and whoever was on
the other end of the walkie-talkie. That is, until one word caught her
attention. Captured. Were they talking about her? Her hands froze and
she perked her ears, listening, but nothing else was said.
Dempsey turned, his hands hooking the transmitter back onto his
belt, and shot her an evil smile. “Looks like we’re going to get some
company.” He strutted over to where she kneeled and patted her on the
head. “You sit tight, now. I’ll be right back to finish what I started.” His
laughter followed him past her and out of the room.
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Company? Did that mean more thugs were on their way?
Gail waited until he was out of sight, then resumed sawing. This was
it. Possibly the only time she would be left alone; it could be her only
shot at getting out of there.
She shut her eyes and concentrated, focusing all her energy on
cutting through her restraints without cutting into one of her wrists in
the process.
A cramp in her hand made her pause. She twisted her arms,
checking for any play in the zip tie. There was a little, very little, but it
gave her hope. Ignoring the soreness in her arms and the cramping in
her fingers, she pushed on.
The same litany of the words played over and over in her head. Have
to hurry. Have to get out.
Every few minutes she flexed her wrists, testing how much she’d
accomplished. Finally, she tugged her bonds and felt a significant
amount of improvement in the play of the plastic. She was almost there.
Just a little more and she would be loose.
She was so close. Her hands began to shake; nervous energy made
them unsteady and anxious. She could almost taste the sweet ambrosia
of freedom.
A groan and the rustle of chains had her eyes flying open and her
head swiveling around to stare in astonishment. Shame was being
carried into the room by Dempsey and another goon she hadn’t yet seen.
Her hands stilled. Behind the goons dragging Shame was the big man
himself. The air of self-confidence surrounding the man, his manner of
dress and the very way he commanded attention, hinted at who he was
long before anyone bothered to confirm his identity. Lucian Tremaine
swaggered into the room, his presence lending a more powerful menace
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to the air than the goons could ever hope to accomplish with all their big
talk and bolstering.
Tremaine was a handsome man. Thick black hair waved back from
his high forehead and mesmerizing chocolate eyes. His skin was pale, the
color of fine bone china. He stood tall, a head above the other men. The
sleek lines of his black suit accentuated the broad width of his chest and
the trim dimensions of his waist and hips. Long legs carried him
confidently across the room to where his thugs dropped Shame like a pile
of refuse on the cold cement floor.
She tore her eyes from the Master Vampire who held her life in the
palm of his hand and looked instead at the man she loved with every
fiber of her being. Shame lay unconscious, his body limp and sprawled
out over the floor in the exact position they dropped him in. Not a single
muscle twitched as Tremaine came closer and kicked him in the ribs.
Dempsey and the tall, scarecrow-looking thug stood on either side of
Tremaine and cheered him on, yelling obscenities and telling him to “kill
the fucker”.
“No! Stop it!” she screamed, knowing that even if they could
understand what she was saying, he wouldn’t stop. Again and again he
kicked until Shame finally came to. Tears streamed down her cheeks,
intensifying with every jab, every heart-wrenching grunt Shame issued.
When his eyes opened and met hers around Tremaine, something
snapped inside her. One minute she was sitting on her knees, bound and
gagged, crying. The next, she was ripping through what remained of her
bindings and rising to her feet. One hand yanked out the ball gag, while
the other gripped the small piece of glass in her fist.
No one looked her way as she launched herself into the air. It wasn’t
until she landed on Tremaine’s back that they paid her any mind. By
then it was too late. She struck, burying the glass in Tremaine’s neck,
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dragging it across his throat and laying him open. Blood gushed from the
wound, spraying wildly. It coated everything around them in a sheet of
deep red gore. No more than thirty seconds elapsed between when she
jumped and when she slit the vampire’s throat.
Tremaine gurgled, attempting to speak. His hands swished through
the air around her head in an endeavor to dislodge her from his back. He
quickly gave up, his hands going to his throat and holding it tight,
frantically trying to staunch the flow of blood.
Strong hands gripped her around the waist and ripped her off him.
Her back slammed against the floor and knocked the breath out of her in
a great whoosh of air.
She looked up and found Dempsey above her. He was in partial
wolven form, his snout extended, mangy patches of fur covering the
exposed skin of his face and neck.
Gulping, she crawled on her hands and ass away from him. He
advanced toward her, one slow step at a time. With nowhere to go, she
backed into the wall and shut her eyes, praying for her end to be a fast
and painless one.
A deep growl above her and the absence of the blow she expected
caused her to open her eyes. It was then she noticed what was going on
around her. While she’d been blinded by her aggression toward
Tremaine, Shame had risen. He currently had the gangly thug down on
the floor and was using the chain between his cuffed hands to strangle
him. One violent twist and the deviant’s neck snapped with a sickening
crunch.
Shame straightened and looked her way. His face was flushed a deep
red. A small trickle of blood oozed from a cut near his temple. His eyes
flashed in anger. Whether toward her or Dempsey, she couldn’t be sure.
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She had no reason to believe his anger didn’t extend to her as much as
the others.
In her quest to help Kenze, she’d betrayed the man she loved and
ended up putting the life of the child she hadn’t known she carried in
jeopardy. Now, when she needed help, where was Kenze to return the
favor?
Dempsey, who stood with his back to her, jolted into action when
Shame stepped closer. Shame wheeled around as he approached. His leg
flew through the air, jabbing a brutal roundhouse kick to the side of
Dempsey’s head. Dempsey’s head jerked back, spittle flying from his
open mouth as he grunted at impact.
Gail scrambled to her feet, her back pressed tight against the wall.
She was torn between wanting to stay, to make sure Shame was okay,
and fleeing in case he planned to come after her next.
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Chapter Thirteen
Shame’s feet hit the floor at the same time the thug’s ass did.
Shame’s gaze immediately landed on Gail. Relief, sweet and thankful,
rushed over him when he saw that she hadn’t moved. She was still right
there, against the wall, and though she appeared rattled and upset,
physically, she was okay. When he’d seen the shape her car was in, he’d
been so worried that he was going to be too late. That he’d lost her.
Gail had come to warn her brother, but he didn’t care. Could he
really say that he wouldn’t have done the same thing if he was in her
shoes? That she had helped Ty, even after she’d been told what they
planned to do as soon as he was well, endeared him to her all the more.
Seeing her beautiful face so pale, the blood drying on her fingers,
made his blood boil and an intense rage surge within him. She came
there to help Kenze, but where the hell was her brother now? If he had
anything to do with hurting his sister, Shame was going to take immense
pleasure in ripping his nuts from his body. What kind of man left his
sister in the hands of men he knew to be vicious killers?
His eyes met hers from across the room. Insidious fear registered in
Gail’s limpid blue eyes before she turned and ran from the room. Shame
stopped, confused. Why did he feel like her fear was directed at him,
more than the partially shifted lycan between them?
His brief pause to consider Gail’s response cost him. While he was
watching Gail flee, the thug he’d just dropkicked was regaining his
senses.
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Teeth sank into his ankle. Shame winced, biting down on his lip to
refrain from crying out. He looked down to see Tremaine’s flunky smiling
up at him around a mouthful of his flesh.
Shit.
With his other foot, Shame reared back and kicked the thug in the
neck. His ankle was released as his opponent’s head ricocheted back on
his neck.
As the man struggled to draw air in through his damaged windpipe,
Shame leaned down and wrapped his hands around his assailant’s neck.
Beneath his fingers he could feel the fast rat-a-tat-tat of the man’s pulse.
Red-rimmed black irises stared up at him, willing him to finish it. One
fast, sharp twist and his spinal cord was severed.
Shame stood and ran for the stairs. Tremaine was gone. During all
the confusion, the man had slipped from the room unnoticed.
Vampires healed fast. Thanks to it being the middle of the afternoon,
instead of night, it would take longer, but would still happen too soon for
comfort. When the wound healed he would disappear, relocate to a new
town and Shame would have to start searching for him all over again.
Whatever was going to happen, it was going to happen now. One way
or the other, things would be finished before the sun went down. Shame
vowed it.
Concern for Gail propelled him through the house and out into the
yard. As bright sunshine reflected off the snow and into his eyes, Shame
realized one of Tremaine’s men hadn’t been accounted for. The thick-
witted man he’d seen outside, the one who had been accused of leaving
the back door unlocked, had yet to make an appearance.
When his eyes adjusted to the change in light, he noticed the two
empty bays in the garage. Gail’s car was gone, as was the red
Lamborghini. Only the four-wheel-drive truck remained in the last
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compartment. Seeing both vehicles missing gave him a measure of relief,
but didn’t convince him of her safety.
Luck was on his side for a change when he climbed up into the big
truck. Whoever had driven it last had left the key in the ignition.
His heart heavy with concern over Gail’s whereabouts and his
conscience anxious to mete out the justice his family deserved, Shame
cranked the ignition and let the tires eat asphalt.
Due in part to the heavy-tread all-terrain tires and tight
maneuverability of the truck around the sharp, slick curves, it didn’t
take him long to catch up.
He moved in behind Gail’s small compact car. Several miles up the
road he could barely make out the shiny red paint job on the
Lamborghini.
When he saw that Gail was the only person in her vehicle, his mind
let go of the incessant worry he’d been harboring. She was most likely on
her way home. He could catch up with her later and straighten out
whatever had given her the silly impression that she needed to be afraid
of him. He didn’t know what had caused her to look at him with such
trepidation but he would change it.
On the first straight stretch, Shame revved up the RPMs on the truck
and sped around her car, passing her with little effort.
As he went by, he glanced over and saw her red-rimmed eyes, the
tears coursing down her face. Then and there he promised that he would
make things right with her. Just as soon as he took care of Tremaine.
Once old business was finished, he could get on with living in the
present and try to let go of the past.
He pressed harder against the accelerator, rocketing the truck
forward past Gail. The roads were slick, but he didn’t give their condition
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much thought as he hurried to shorten the gap between him and his
nemesis.
For the longest time he drove, the gas pedal glued to the floor, and
still made no headway. Several times he lost sight of the faster
Lamborghini only to regain sight of it a couple of miles later when it had
to slow because of ice. The truck was built to handle the icy terrain
better than the flashy import. That was the only advantage Shame’s
truck had on the faster foreign sports car.
The higher they proceeded up the mountain, the more ice was left on
the road. Shame began to close in. The distance between the two vehicles
shortened with every mile until the truck’s grill was right up on the
bumper of the Lamborghini. Shame accelerated a little more, nudging the
car from behind.
Brake lights flashed. Before Shame could brace himself, the car
began to fishtail and spun a sharp one-eighty right in front of him. With
no time to respond, he plowed into the driver’s side door and front
fender, crushing it in like a soda can.
The impact threw Shame forward, knocking his head into the glass
and his chest over the steering wheel. The sides of his vision wavered
and began to blur. Darkness tried to take him under. Shame shook his
head, fighting the desire to lay his face down on the steering wheel and
close his eyes.
Slightly dazed, he jumped down from the pickup and approached the
crumpled sports car. Behind the wheel sat the missing thug, a long blade
of glass skewered through one eye.
One down, one to go.
Shame circled the back end of the car. In the distance he heard the
whisper of approaching police sirens. Undaunted, he continued on his
course. Before he could reach the other side, the passenger door creaked
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open and Tremaine rolled out and hit the slushy pavement. Crimson
liquid seeped down his face from several deep cuts along his forehead.
Rusty dried blood was all that remained as evidence of Gail’s attack. One
of his legs was twisted in an unnatural angle. Sickly white bone poked
through his trousers above his backwards knee.
Wide, soulless black eyes darted in Shame’s direction and then he
began to drag himself away from the wreckage. Shame could almost feel
sorry for the bastard, if he didn’t already know what a heartless monster
he was.
A few meager steps later, Shame stood above him. With his right leg,
Shame kicked Tremaine over onto his back. Tremaine grunted but didn’t
make any other sound as Shame kneeled beside him and lifted his head
up off the ground.
“Why?” Shame rumbled, shaking the large, broken vampire. “Why my
family?”
Tremaine coughed. Blood leaked from the corner of his mouth.
“Morgan,” he sputtered.
Shame shook him harder. “What? What the hell are you talking
about? Speak up!”
Tremaine’s chest rattled as he tried to draw air to speak. He coughed
again, and foamy blood splattered Shame’s face and neck.
“You…killed…Lester Morgan.” He wheezed, drawing in air.
“My…brother.”
Realization of what he said hit Shame like a thunderbolt. Worry for
his former partner clouded his mind, before he remembered that Tristan
and his family were safely ensconced in a compound they’d set up in
Georgia, a facility that rivaled Fort Knox for security.
Lester Morgan was the last vampire he and Tristan had been sent in
to neutralize before they’d faked their deaths and made a clean break
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with the SCS. The psychotic vampire had gone on a murderous rampage,
killing untold number of young women, before kidnapping Sara, Tristan’s
then-estranged fiancée. When Tristan had been unable to resist Sara, as
their superiors had dictated, they’d set it up so that when they rescued
Sara, by setting off an explosion in the monster’s lair it would look like
they were killed right along with Morgan.
There had only been a scant few days between when he’d escaped the
SCS, and when he’d shown up on his wife’s doorstep.
How Tremaine had learned of Morgan’s death so quickly and been
able to put out a hit on Maria and Sophie, Shame would never know.
He’d found out the why, the how was irrelevant.
He pulled his custom-made Bowie knife from his ankle holster and
plunged it into Tremaine’s chest, trying not to gloat as the monster
writhed in pain and then dissolved into a pile of insubstantial ash.
The sirens he’d heard in the distance grew closer, filling the air
around him as he slipped his knife back into its holster and climbed to
his feet. Over the hood of the car he saw two police cars and an
ambulance come to a fast stop on either side of his truck.
This was going to be tricky. He didn’t like dealing with the police, for
good reason. Thanks to the SCS and their secrecy bullshit, there was no
record of his existence. Shamus Long may as well have never been born.
Unfortunately, if things progressed far enough, the police would try to
have him identified through other channels, using his scars and tattoos
for reference. That could open a huge frickin’ can of worms he would just
as soon avoid. Especially since his ass wouldn’t be the only one on the
line if the SCS found out he was still alive. That would put Tristan at risk
as well. He couldn’t afford to let that happen.
Police officers and paramedics swarmed onto the scene. The EMTs
rushed to the man behind the wheel, while the cops branched off, some
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going to the car, three surrounding him. Their hands on their weapons,
they shouted simultaneously for him to put his hands behind his head.
Careful not to make a sudden move, lest he be shot, Shame followed
their directions, bringing both hands up to rest on the back of his head.
One officer circled around behind him and clasped his wrists, twisting
them down behind his back, and slapped on handcuffs tight enough to
cut off his circulation.
“Want to tell me just what in hell happened here, boy?” the older,
more distinguished of the three questioned him.
Not wanting to incriminate himself, Shame remained silent. As soon
as they saw the long red smear of paint from the Lamborghini on his
bumper, they would know what happened. Until then, Shame wasn’t
saying a word.
“Fine then, boy. You stay all clammed up. We’ll straighten this out
down at the station.”
With that they ushered him into the back of one of the police cruisers
and hauled him away from the scene.
XW
Two days later, Shame sat behind bars in the smallest, Mayberryest-
looking jail he’d ever had the pleasure of being held in. He was cold and
grungy feeling, but otherwise fine and counting the minutes until he was
a free man again.
Other than requesting his one phone call, he had yet to speak a word
to any one of the cops who’d questioned him about the accident. Let
them think what they wanted. As soon as Tristan arranged for his bail,
he was going to disappear and none of their opinions would matter. One
thing he’d learned quickly in the time he’d been with the SCS was how to
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blend in and stay beneath police radar. Once you knew what you were
doing, it was surprisingly simple.
While he’d been there, Shame had spent a lot of time reflecting on his
life. One thing, above all else, was crystal clear. He wanted Gail. Not just
for a quick tumble between the sheets or short trysts, but for good. He
was in love with the woman and he meant to keep her.
Now all he had to do was convince her of it.
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Chapter Fourteen
Gail rubbed her rounded belly and sighed in appreciation. If someone
had told her a week before that she would crave a thick, rare T-bone
steak covered in extra-crunchy peanut butter, she would have told them
they were crazy. Today the combo made a scrumptious snack.
She’d eaten more in the last few weeks than she had in the previous
several months combined. So much so she was starting to think her
baby was going to be an overeater right from the womb. She knew
enough about her physiology to expect an advanced pregnancy, but she
hadn’t expected it to proceed as fast as it had.
A wolf’s gestation was two months; a human’s nine. She’d thought
hers would fall somewhere in the middle.
By her calculations, she was just over five weeks pregnant, but the
baby grew at an extraordinary speed. According to the books she’d read,
a human fetus around five months gestation was where her child figured
into the pregnancy hierarchy.
At the rate her son or daughter was growing, she would give birth
around three months, instead of nine.
Already, she could feel her baby shift and move inside her womb. The
weird little flutter kicks came at all hours of the day and night. Each one
made her stop in the middle of whatever she was doing and marvel at the
precious gift of life Shame helped her create.
Gail glanced down at the last bite of peanut-butter steak on her
plate, considering it for a second before she shoved it away without
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finishing. It’d been a month since she’d seen Shame and he still had the
ability to ruin her appetite and twist her emotions into a jangled knot she
had no hope of ever untying.
Life in a small town was predictable if nothing else. She’d known the
minute Shame was arrested and the exact second he’d been released
from jail. For days afterward, she paced the floor, expecting him to show
up at any time. When a week passed and she hadn’t heard from him, she
didn’t know whether to be relieved, depressed or pissed off.
After the second week, depression won.
Since then, she divided her time between work, sleep and
daydreaming. Now, she mostly dreamed of her baby and what it would
feel like to hold her child in her arms. Before she was forced to accept
reality for what it was, she had dreamed of Shame and the family they
could have had if things were different. Oh, she wasn’t completely naive.
She knew that even if she hadn’t betrayed Shame, chances were better
than good that he still would’ve walked out on her. But a woman could
dream, and late at night, snuggled up beneath her covers, that was
exactly what she’d done. At first. But then, upon repeated mornings of
awaking with a pillow in a death grip between her arms, her face
streaked with clammy tears, and a heart-wrenching sense of loss cloying
the air around her, she gave up the midnight musings and faced reality.
She was alone and, in a short amount of time, she was going to have
a baby that would be dependant on her for everything. There was no
better incentive for her to get up off her ass and get her crap together
than that. Too much to do before she gave birth, and too little time in
which to do it, meant that she couldn’t sit around any longer mourning a
lover who clearly didn’t want her or—if he had known about it—the child
they’d created together. It was past time for her to grow up, get over it
and move on.
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Faced with oncoming motherhood and the mountain of debt that
would accompany it, she tucked her tail between her legs and scurried
off to beg for her job back at the motel. Surprisingly, Mr. Pascow agreed
to give her another chance before she was forced to pull out the heavy
groveling. His only concession was that she would have to accept a four-
week maternity leave instead of the prerequisite six. Either way it was
unpaid. She agreed, without telling him that she wouldn’t have been able
to afford the extra weeks off anyway. Though he didn’t say anything, it
was clear by the layer of dust on his desk and splotches on the glass
doors that his other employees weren’t cutting muster. All the small
things she’d done without having to be told appeared to be going undone
in her absence.
Gail yawned, bored with her train of thought. She folded her arms
atop the table and laid her head down on them. No matter how much
sleep she got each night, she was always tired. Nauseous, exhausted and
fat summed her up to a T these days. She was beginning to resemble a
half-inflated inner tube. The inflated half being her gut.
The baby sucked up all her energy and left tread marks across her
stomach. At that depressing thought, she felt a flutter kick inside her
womb and took the hint.
Smiling, she rubbed a hand over her tummy, where she’d felt the
blow, and imagined that her child could feel her loving touch. “Momma’s
sorry, baby. You take all the energy you need, so that you’ll grow big and
strong.”
A sappy smile stretching her lips almost from ear to ear, she looked
up from the table and gasped.
Shame stood in the doorway between the kitchen and living room.
Hip propped against the frame, muscular arms across his chest, his
hungry green eyes locked her breath in her chest and wouldn’t let go.
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“Miss me, darlin’?”
His words broke the trance she was under and allowed her to think of
something other than how devastatingly sexy he was.
Of their own will, her fingers wrapped around the wooden handle on
the steak knife to the left of her plate and tightened. While her heart was
overjoyed to see him again, her mind wouldn’t allow her to let down her
guard. It was all too possible that he was there to pay her back for her
betrayal and not to initiate the happy reunion her fanciful emotions
wanted.
She scooted closer to the table, hiding her protruding stomach
beneath the high surface. She didn’t want him to know about the baby
just yet, not until the reason behind his visit was abundantly clear.
“Aren’t you glad to see me?” he drawled, his voice as smooth and
sinful as chocolate mousse.
The baby shifted, poking at her, as if it had heard and recognized its
father’s voice and wanted to get closer to him. Gail schooled her features
into an emotionless mask before she spoke with as much careful
indifference as she could manage. “That depends, Shame. Why are you
here?”
He took a step toward her. “Gail—”
She cut him off. “Don’t come any closer, Shame.” She held the knife
out in front of her, the business end pointed right at him. “Whatever you
have to say can be said right where you’re standing.”
“Or what?” he said, stepping closer. “You’ll slit my throat, like you did
to Tremaine?” He pulled out a chair on the opposite side of the small
table and straddled it.
Her heart thumped in her ears. Her hand around the knife began to
grow moist. She feverishly prayed she wouldn’t have to use it against
him, because she wasn’t sure that she could.
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He laid his hand palm-up on the table. “Give me the knife, Gail. You
know you aren’t going to use it.”
Her hand extended outward, ready to do as he asked. At the last
second she yanked it back, unwilling to relinquish what little security
she had. “No.”
He sighed and ran a hand through his shaggy auburn hair. Upon
closer examination of his handsome face, she noticed the lines around
his eyes looked slightly deeper and the tan shade of his skin had faded.
He looked tired and maybe, her heart jumped, a little sad.
Could he have missed her?
He held both hands up in mock surrender. “Fine. Keep the knife. You
aren’t going to need it for anything. I didn’t come here to hurt you, Gail. I
swear it.”
She set the knife down in front of her, a short width away from her
hand, just in case. She didn’t want to believe that Shame would hurt her,
but for her child’s sake she couldn’t afford to take any chances.
“Why are you here, Shame? I haven’t heard anything from you in a
month or more. Why show up out of the blue now?”
Shame smiled, his lips quirked up in a sardonic twist. “Did you really
have so little faith in me that you thought I wouldn’t come back for you,
not even for the birth of our child?”
Gail felt the warmth flow out of her face and drain out the tips of her
toes. He knew about the baby. How was that possible? He’d left town
long before she’d started to show.
“How—” She swallowed.
“Just because I wasn’t here doesn’t mean I don’t know everything
you’ve been doing. Darlin’, I have eyes and ears everywhere.”
“Shame…” Gail said in exasperation.
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“Not going to let me keep any secrets, are you?” He winked. “Ty’s still
around. He’s staying in a motel in the next town over, under an alias.
Apparently, he was feeling guilty about bailing on me and was still
lurking around town when the shit hit the fan and I got arrested. He
didn’t have the power to get me out, but he’s a good-enough friend that
he stuck around to protect you while I had someone else pull the right
strings for me. I asked him to stay in the area and keep me up to date on
how you were and what you were doing, until I could come back for you.
Imagine my surprise when he told me you’d gotten your old job back and
were obviously pregnant.”
That took her a few minutes to process. The entire time he’d been
gone he’d had someone watching her. She wasn’t sure if she should be
touched that he cared enough to go to the trouble to make sure she was
okay or be creeped out. She settled for pissed off. How dare he have
someone watch her every move when she didn’t even know where the hell
he went, much less what he was doing.
She struck back in the only way she could think of. “How do you
know the baby’s even yours?”
He laughed. The cocky bastard had the gall to laugh at her. “Who else
would it belong to?”
Gail pushed out of her chair and rose awkwardly to her feet. Anger
coursed through her veins, hot and heavy. “Get out!” She raised her
hand and pointed toward the door. “I don’t need you. Just get the fuck
out!”
The expression on Shame’s face morphed from amused
contemplation to concerned sympathy an instant before she realized that
a) she’d stood up and given him an unsightly view of her fat belly, and b)
tears were streaming down her cheeks.
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She turned away, her hands frantically wiping off the evidence of her
foolishness. It was the hormones. They made her an overemotional mess.
Sniffling, she spun around, ready to wave away her show of emotion
as hormone-induced insanity, and ran nose-first into the hard wall of
Shame’s chest. His strong arms wrapped around her shoulders, pulling
her in close, and the dam broke. A flood of held-in tears cascaded down,
wetting his shirt as ragged sobs exploded unchecked from her chest.
Once they started, she couldn’t stop them. All the loneliness, all the
worry, burst forth onto Shame’s broad shoulders.
He patted her back and whispered nonsensical words to soothe her
as she cried against him.
“It’s okay, darlin’. I’m here now. I’m sorry I left you without saying
goodbye. I had to tie up some loose ends, liquidate some of my assets,
before I could come back for you. The police here know my face, it isn’t
safe for me. I had to make some arrangements, find a home for us.
There’s some bad shit getting ready to go down—I can’t really talk about
it now—but I want to take you away from here and start our life
somewhere safe, somewhere we can be together and raise the baby
without being forced to look over our shoulders every minute of the day. I
have the start of a new life all set up and waiting for us. Everything’s
going to be just fine now. I promise.” Over and over again, he repeated
sweet nothings in her ear, his hands carding through her tangled hair,
his breath sweet against her forehead.
When the tears slowed and she hiccupped her remaining emotions
out, he tipped her face up and wiped the wetness away. Firm, moist lips
brushed over her face, kissing her eyelids and the tip of her nose, then
her mouth.
His kiss, though tender and as sweet as they came, sparked her
dormant passion like a match to dry timber. Her breasts beaded and
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ached, her cunt flexed and throbbed on the emptiness only Shame could
fill.
She raised up on the tips of her toes and pressed her lips more firmly
over his. Her tongue peeked out to swipe the full curve of his bottom lip.
He moaned and pulled her tighter against him, his arms like steel
bands around her. Instead of feeling trapped, she reveled in his hold,
wallowed in the love and security his embrace instilled.
Shame skimmed her lips for a moment, seemingly content to allow
her control over the depth of their kiss. And then, little by little, he began
to take over. His velvety tongue ran over the crease between her lips,
parted them and delved inside to frolic against her own.
Against her stomach, she felt the hard ridge of Shame’s thick penis
through his pants. She pressed back harder against the evidence of his
need for her and was rewarded with the involuntary flex of his hips in
response.
Untouched, her clit swelled and ached, begging shamefully for
attention. With her stomach out in front of her body like it now was, she
wasn’t able to touch herself, stimulating her pussy like she once had.
That frustrated her. Made her impatient to feel his hard, naked body
against hers, the sensuous rub of his smooth skin over her overheating
flesh.
What she wanted to do was rip the clothes off their backs and throw
him to the floor and hop on. Ride him until they both lost themselves in
orgasmic bliss.
A remarkably unsexy image of her large, round body grinding atop
his lean, chiseled contours, broke through the mist of her passionate
stupor and calmed her raging libido. How could he be attracted to her as
she was? She’d never been a particularly slender person, bordering more
on curvaceous than thin, but now she looked like a fat hippo.
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Gail pulled back, breaking the seal of their joined lips. “I’m sorry. I
can’t. I—” She couldn’t let him see her naked. Her disfigured pregnant
body would send him screaming from the room in repulsion.
Glancing up, she expected to see disappointment and maybe even a
touch of irritation for leading him on the way she had. All she saw
behind his mesmerizing eyes was calm understanding and a tenderness
that made her love for him swell.
“It’s okay, darlin’. I understand if you don’t want to make love. Some
women don’t while they’re pregnant.”
Gail shook her head. He had it all wrong. “It’s not that I don’t want
to. It’s just that…with the baby and…” She stumbled over how to explain
herself without coming right out and saying that she felt about as
desirable as a Macy’s Day Parade float.
“Is that what this is about?” He pressed a chaste kiss to her temple.
“You think it would hurt the baby?”
“No. I…”
“Making love wouldn’t hurt the baby, darlin’. As long as everything
feels comfortable for you, it’s fine.”
“But—”
His arms swooped down under her knees and swept her off her feet,
making her forget what she’d been about to say. He carried her across
the room and deposited her bottom on the cold counter.
She shivered, goose bumps popping up on her arms and legs.
“Shame.”
“I’m right here, darlin’. I’m not going anywhere.”
And then he was kissing her again, his lips warm and beguiling
against hers. She wrapped her arms around his neck and hung on while
he stole every reasonable thought out of her head.
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His hands were warm and rough as he popped her blouse open
button by button and pushed it over her shoulders and down her arms.
Her bra quickly followed, leaving her completely exposed from the waist
up. Or was that immense belly up? She no longer had much of a waist.
He stepped back and stared at her.
This was it. Any minute now, his boner would shrivel up and he
would back away, horrified by the changes in her figure.
Instead he moved closer, back into the V of her thighs, one hand
poised over the curve of her stomach. He looked back up at her, his eyes
reflecting moisture in the fading twilight. “Thank you,” he whispered, his
palm reverently smoothing over her bump.
“For what?”
“For this.” He rubbed her stomach. “For giving me a chance to be a
father again and a husband, if you’ll have me.”
Gail’s breath caught in the back of her throat. Was he—? “Shame?”
“I love you, Gail.” He reached inside his shirt and pulled a small
chain from around his neck. On it was a ring. As he slipped it off the
chain and onto her finger, she saw that it was a perfect heart-shaped
solitaire, two smaller but equally perfect hearts surrounded it, one a
sapphire the color of her eyes and the other an emerald the exact shade
of his. “Marry me, and let me spend the rest of my life proving to you how
much.”
Gail squealed and threw her arms around him. “Yes! Oh God, yes,
Shame. I love you so much.”
“Say that again.”
She stared up into his handsome face, overcome by a joy so strong it
was indescribable. “I love you, Shamus Long. More than anything else in
the world.”
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And then his lips were crashing back over hers. His tongue was in
her mouth and they were clumsily tearing at each other’s clothes. Any
insecurity she had about her body was dismissed in the wake of his
declaration of love.
Naked, they came together. Two souls united in their love as one,
connected at mouth and groin as they were meant to be. She wrapped
her legs around his waist, opening herself to his possession. In turn, he
held her tighter and kissed her with a wealth of emotion that branded his
name into her heart.
Long, slow strokes drove her passion skyward, made her pant and
whimper before he twisted his hips and hit a spot deep inside that sent
her soaring.
As her climax ripped through her, contracting her channel around
the thick breadth of his marauding flesh, she threw her head back and
screamed out her love for him.
The hot pulse of his penis expanding, shooting inside her, sent her
higher until stars swam behind her eyes right along with the tears of
happiness that she could no longer contain.
Shame loved her. And he was right. Now that he was home where he
belonged, everything was going to be just fine.
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Epilogue
Kenze Wright sat in a small sports bar in downtown Miami and
drowned his emotions in a bottomless mug of beer. His long legs
straddled a wobbly stool at the bar, the tips of his black leather cowboy
boots shoved under a rung on either side.
If and when the damn thing decided to give out under the two–
hundred-plus pounds of lean muscle he carried, he hoped he would be
too hammered to notice.
Raucous laughter, mixed with the stale scent of beer and cigarettes,
filled the air around him. Underneath that, his sensitive lycan sense of
smell could detect the thick aroma of too much testosterone and hot,
aroused male bodies. The latter wasn’t much of a surprise since he’d
chosen a well-known gay pick-up bar to frequent while in town on
business.
His cock talked him into coming out for companionship. Otherwise,
he would have stayed ensconced in the flophouse where he’d rented a
room for the week, unhappily stroking his cock to completion, instead of
out looking to score a hot and slick hole to fuck himself unconscious in.
Tonight, he intended to find a willing and able body to knock the edge
off his hunger. It’d been much too long since his cock had seen the inside
of anything other than his fist.
Male or female, didn’t much matter. He’d always been attracted to
both sexes. He chose men tonight, because he wanted it rough, dirty and
anonymous. Say what you would about gay men being sensitive, but
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here, among the other men trolling for ass, it wasn’t apparent. They took
what they wanted from whoever was willing to give it and didn’t expect
the prerequisite dinner and small talk that most women desired
beforehand.
Besides, he couldn’t trust himself with the gentler sex anymore.
Never again after what happened with Shelby, the woman he’d
mistakenly thought was his mate.
Shelby Flynt had proven to be anything but the delicate flower he’d
thought her to be. Not that that excused what he’d done. She was still
female and he was still a hell of a lot bigger and stronger than she’d
been.
He had been raised to never lay a hand on a woman, no matter what
the circumstances. If his mother somehow knew what he’d done, that
he’d killed a woman, she would probably be rolling over in her grave.
Even if he hadn’t truly been the one to put her down, he’d been the cause
of her death, and as far as he was concerned, that was enough.
Shelby had been dead for almost a year. In the time since, he’d
denied himself the touch of a woman’s gentle hand. Denied himself the
touch of anyone or anything that wanted to know more than the size of
his dick and whether or not he was clean.
A firm hand landed on his shoulder, jarring him. He twisted around
and looked up into an expressive set of deep chocolate eyes. The
expression behind them was lust. Nothing more, nothing less.
Some things only changed if you really wanted them to. And as he
followed his new friend into the john, where they would undoubtedly
swap blow jobs in one of the stalls, he couldn’t remember why he should
want them to.
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About the Author
Amanda Young spends her days basking in the sun by the seashore
and her nights surrounded by dozens of serenading male strippers whose
only desire is to make her happy.
Yeah, right.
In real life, my husband would chase away all the hot men, right
before asking me what I’m going to fix him for dinner and reminding me
to do the dishes for the umpteenth time.
Always an avid reader of romance, I was thrilled when I discovered
erotic romance. For a long while I toyed with the idea of writing my own
but could never find the time.
When I found myself unemployed, I decided that it was high time I
gave it a shot. I sat down at my trusty computer and, according to my
very patient husband, haven’t moved since.
To learn more about Amanda Young, please visit
. Send an email to Amanda Young at
.
Look for these titles by Amanda Young
Now Available:
Missing in Action
Shameful
Coming Soon:
Taboo Desires
A Child’s Love
When all else fails, what’s a girl to do? Conjure your own man, of course!
How to Conjure a Man
© 2006 Nancy Lindquist
Available now at Samhain Publishing
Becky Blake is through with vibrators. Well, to be honest, her
vibrator’s through with her. The damn thing actually conked out, mid-
fantasy. Time for desperate measures. Armed with thirty pounds of
candles and a spell created by her best friend and strip mall witch, she
heads into the desert to conjure a man.
It’s freezing, dark and more than a little creepy. On top of that there’s
a coyote hanging around howling loud enough to scare her to bits.
Please, let this spell work.
Rick Frazier’s done with manipulative women. His ex-wife is bleeding
him dry. His wallet is almost as hungry as he is. It’s time to get a second
job, as a bartender at ‘The Buckin’ Bronco All Male Review’. At least it
will pay the bills until he sells his software program.
Back in the real world of work and lonely routine, Becky has nothing
to show for her desert efforts except an erotic dream that leaves her more
frustrated than fulfilled. That is until her new employee shows up. It
doesn’t take long to put two and two together. Rick, her new bartender,
is the man she conjured in the desert.
Their chemistry is magnetic, drawing them together in a lightning
blast of hot passion and incredible sex. Is this true love or the result of a
magic spell cast on a cold dark night?
Enjoy the following excerpt for How to Conjure a Man:
Holy shit. Scratch that. Holy fucking shit! His hands moved to his
eyes to rub away the remnants of sleep. He needed to be sure the image
his brain processed was really there. Yep, Becky still rode the pole,
spinning like a top to the throbbing beat of heavy metal. Hot damn, she
looked amazing. Where the hell had she learned to strip like that? He’d
almost come in his jeans when she’d ripped her dress off her tight curvy
body. Now she was a goddess in sinful red, long hair flying behind her, a
feral half-aware look on her beautiful face.
He had the vague notion that he should return to the couch in the
dressing room. Just slip quietly back to sleep and stop invading her
privacy. Clearly she had no idea he’d slept there to keep an eye on her.
He doubted she’d be dancing almost nude if she knew he ogled her, a
voyeur in the dark bar. Maybe he should cough, let on that he was
standing not five feet from the stage, staring at one of her nipples as it
escaped the confines of her bra? Screw it. Watching her dance so
provocatively mesmerized him. He couldn’t speak if his life depended on
it, let alone suck in enough air in to cough.
She dropped to her hands and knees, all stalking animal and sex as
she clawed her way across the stage. Her tight body showed off sleek
muscle beneath tanned skin. Her breasts, full and high under the lace of
her bra, begged to be freed. Damn, his cock was hard. If she took off that
bra he was done for.
Laying, back she V’d her legs in the air, giving him a glorious display
of bunched muscle filled out with soft curves. She pulled her legs
beneath her and, rising gracefully, danced to the pole once again. While
her legs wrapped around the shining length like a pro, he envisioned
them encircling his body. He’d made her promises. Meant every word of
them. But right now, sitting on the edge of a table not far from the stage,
his cock filling out the front of sweats, he questioned every damn one of
them. He was in pain and not sure how much more he her. The red lace
and satin landed smack in Rick’s hands.
Did she know he was there? Could she feel his presence in the room?
No, the stage lights prevented anyone from seeing into the audience more
than a few feet. She had no clue what she was doing to him, how hard
she’d made his cock. How much he wanted to thrust it into her aching
cunt over and over again.
That she was unaware she had an audience made her show all the
hotter. Bending over once more, her thumbs hooked the elastic sides of
her thong. Exposing her ass, she pulled them down her legs in one
smooth motion. Her nether lips were now visible at the apex of her
thighs. A glorious pink pouting display. He’d not had time to admire her
pretty bare pussy the night before, now then rubbed over it as her mouth
formed in a needy “O”.
Rick’s hand moved to the front of his sweats. He intended to just shift
his cock to make it more comfortable, but his rebellious hand stroked it
several times through the soft fabric as he watched her touch herself. His
member ached and his mouth watered at the self-inflicted assault on her
damp pink flesh.
He must have made some small sound, groaned his desire loud
enough to be heard over the music, because her slender fingers stilled
and her eyes widened. Blindly, she searched the bright wash of light for
the source of the noise.
“Is there someone there?”
There was fear in her voice. He thought about sneaking out,
pretending he’d never been there, but that would have been cruel.
Standing up now, she reached for her dress and shielded her gorgeous
body from his view.
“Hello? Is anybody there?” This time a note of panic crept in at the
end of her sentence.He was caught. The best course of action was to
speak up. Tell her he was there and allay her fears.
“Sorry, Becky, it’s just me. I didn’t mean to scare you, sweetheart.”
“Rick? Is that you?” He could be wrong, but he could swear he heard
hope in her tone.
Is their passion real, or only a mirage?
La Mirage
© 2007 Jennifer Colgan
Available now at Samhain Publishing
On a lonely stretch of I-95 in the middle of the Nevada desert,
journalist Savanna Blaine and photographer Ben Lantano find
themselves stranded by engine trouble on their way back from an
assignment. Their quest for a gas station leads them to La Mirage, a
beautiful resort nestled in a secluded canyon where they are the only
guests.
Invited to spend the night in lush accommodations, passion flares
between Savanna and Ben who have suppressed their hidden desires
long enough. A single touch ignites an unforgettable night in each other’s
arms, but the next day, when La Mirage mysteriously disappears, they’re
left to wonder, is their newfound intimacy real or nothing more than a
trick of the summer heat?
Warning, this title contains the following: explicit sex, oral sex and
sexual games with confectionary food delights.
Enjoy the following excerpt for La Mirage:
Savanna sat by the pool. She was leaning back, hands behind her on
the shale tiles of the landscaped patio. Her shoes sat beside her and she
scissored her legs back and forth in the dark blue water.
Damn. She looked magnificent. All lush curves, wavy curls and
porcelain skin. She looked like a 1940s pinup girl from the wartime
calendars his grandfather always hung up in the garage.
With a low wolf whistle that he hoped she couldn’t hear, he placed
the bags at the foot of the bed and hurriedly removed his digital camera
from its pack. He’d tell her about it later, but right now, he wanted that
shot because she was so beautiful, he had to have her on film.
From just within the doorway, he snapped half a dozen quick
pictures, including one in a soft focus that made her look like something
out of a dream. Hopefully, she wouldn’t mind that he’d taken the candid
shots. He already had a place picked out on his office wall to hang the
best of them.
Silently, he replaced the camera in its case and joined her outside.
The heat hit him like a wall after those few minutes in the air-
conditioned suite.
“How’s the water?” He crouched down beside her and trailed his
fingers in the pool, then scooped up a palm full of water and slapped it
on the back of his neck.
“Beautiful.” Her voice sounded dreamy. She glanced up at him
through her thick lashes. “How’s Delilah?”
“She’ll be fine. I feel kind of bad. They won’t let me pay for anything.”
“We probably couldn’t afford it anyway. Imagine what a night in a
place like this goes for.” Savanna grinned and climbed to her feet. “I’m
going to be bad. Since no one’s around, I’m going swimming. What about
you?”
Ben coughed. The skinny-dipping battle had raged on while he’d been
engaged in retrieving their bags. Visions of Savanna’s naked body
stretched out across the water, arms and legs reaching, skin glistening,
had battled with his professional decorum and won. Now, he sat in
Savanna’s slim shadow, drooling while she peeled off her blouse and
skirt to reveal the delicious powder blue panties that matched her bra.
Good Lord, he couldn’t look away. His gaze traveled up from her
ankles to her bellybutton, pausing briefly on the delicious, heart-shaped
birthmark above her right knee.
“Come on,” she said with a wink that went straight to his burgeoning
hard-on.
“What the hell.” He stripped off his shirt and she dove in, slicing the
water in a perfect, splash-less dive. Wicked thoughts assailed him while
he watched her glide beneath the glassy surface of the water from one
side of the pool to the other.
The first rumble of thunder stopped him at the top button of his
jeans. The ominous sound traveled up through the soles of his shoes and
drew his attention over to the dark silhouette of the rock that blocked La
Mirage from the highway.
The clouds gathered there were the thickest, blackest thunderheads
Ben had ever seen. The son of a salesman, he’d lived in every part of the
U.S. and he’d seen storms come up out of nowhere and disappear just as
fast. While he watched, the shadow of the thunderheads crept toward the
pool, and a flash of blue lightning cleaved toward the distant horizon.
When Savanna’s sleek form broke the surface at the far side of the
pool, he pointed to the sky. “You’d better get out of there.”
Her smile turned to an alluring little pout, but she dutifully hoisted
herself out of the water. Fat raindrops splattered a trail behind her as
she ran across the patio, bra and panties transparent now and clinging
suggestively to every curve.
Ben’s mouth went bone dry.
He didn’t breathe at all until the next lightning bolt illuminated the
darkening sky. The accompanying thunder shook the ground. Savanna’s
damp body slid past him through the patio door before the third flash
and rumble, and a sheet of silver rain swept across the pool area thick as
liquid mercury in her wake.
“Holy cow, it’s cold in here!”
Gooseflesh rose all over her shivering body the moment the air
conditioning hit her. She crossed her arms over her chest and jumped up
and down as she peered out at the sudden deluge. When lightning arced
across the sky a fourth time, the accompanying thunder sounded like the
splintering of dry wood. With a squeak, Savanna jumped back, away
from the open door and right into Ben’s arms.
He never would have figured holding her wet, trembling body in his
arms would turn him on so fast. She clung to him, her nipples rubbing
against his bare chest through the sodden, see-through fabric of her bra.
“You’re not afraid of a little lightning, are you?” He looked down at her,
perversely hoping her answer would be yes. He liked having her cling to
him, her hips pressed against his. Holding her all night while the storm
raged didn’t sound like a bad way to spend an evening at all.
“Me? No, I’m not—”
Another crack of thunder made her jump again. He pulled her tight
against him, reveling in her rising heat. “I don’t like loud noises.
Thunder, cars backfiring, starter pistols…” She laughed self-consciously,
but there was apprehension in her eyes when she looked up at him. It
obviously bothered her to admit her weakness.
“You’re safe,” he said, lowering his face toward her as a tide of feeling
welled up in him. He could protect her. He wanted nothing more than to
keep her safe and warm in his capable arms. In fact, he wanted to love
her until she wasn’t afraid of anything.
Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
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