As far as Keller was concerned, any man who laid a hand on a woman in violence ought to have his balls squashed in a vice. From the little Maisy had said during their lunch together, Keller suspected John had used her as a battering bag too. The thought was bloodcurdling.
“Rat bastard, woman-beating sonuvabitch,” he muttered.
Heaving a shrug, Sharon sighed. “Yes, I remember.”
His sister’s words snapped him back to the present. “I still can’t come to terms with the fact that you actually chose to go back to that sub-human piece of shit after what he did to you, Sharon. So don’t even try talking to me about how Maisy made his life miserable, okay? I rather doubt that’s an accurate accounting.”
Wearing a guilty pout, Sharon gave her brother a hesitant hug. “All right, yes, everything you said is true. And you were wonderful about it when I needed help. But don’t you see, Keller? That’s all beside the point. We’re not talking about me. We’re talking about the bitch upstairs,” Sharon jerked her head with disdain toward the second floor.
“Give it up already, Sharon. What happened between you and Maisy is done and over. That scum-sucker husband, the only element you two had in common, is dead and buried. Can’t you just leave it at that?”
Sharon poked her brother hard in the gut with her finger.
Keller winced. “Ow. Shit. What the hell was that for?”
“Because you don’t understand that I have your best interest at heart, Keller. If only you could have seen Maisy a year and a half ago.” Sharon made a wide circle with her hands and bloated out her cheeks. “She was huge, Keller. Huge. A whale, a pig. A fucking warthog. For fuck’s sake, how the hell could you possibly be attracted to something like that?”
“Damn.” Keller pounded his fist against the wall, hard enough to rattle the framed pictures and causing Sharon to flinch and back away. “I don’t give a damn what Maisy looked like two months ago, two years ago or twenty years ago. It doesn’t make any difference to me. Period. That asshole husband of hers obviously drove Maisy to overeat.”
“To eat herself into wearing a circus tent,” Sharon elucidated. “Looks like she’s a wino too.”
“That’s definitely a case of the pot calling the kettle black. If memory serves, dear sister, you were mighty dependent on the old vino, as well as your close pals, Jack Daniels and Johnnie Walker, for a long while during your marriage to that rotten SOB.”
“That,” she complained with another sharp poke to Keller’s gut, “was a low blow.”
“Damn.” He clapped his hand to his belly. “That finger of yours should be licensed as a deadly weapon.” Arching an eyebrow, Keller nodded with a devilish smile. “You know, you alone sucked back most of the winery’s profits last year.”
Gasping, Sharon stamped her heel against the floor again, making Keller wince. “Are you implying that I’m an alcoholic?”
Sporting a smirk, Keller folded his arms across his chest and leaned back against the rich mahogany paneling. “Now that you mention it, your insides have been in contact with so much alcohol I think I’m gonna start calling you Pickles.” He burst into laughter.
Sharon sneered. “That questionable charisma and cloying sense of humor of yours might work on desperate bimbos like Maisy—but as your sister, I’m above falling for your boyish charms. So put a lid on it, will ya?”
Keller began to pace. “Why do you detest Maisy so much anyway? What did she ever do to you personally?”
“She has this nasty habit of breathing,” Sharon oozed.
“Real mature, Sharon,” Keller huffed. “The way I hear it, Maisy caught you and John screwing in her own bed.” He abruptly stopped pacing, turning on his heel to face his sister. “How come you conveniently failed to mention that interesting little tidbit when you first told me about you, John and Maisy, hmm? In your version, you were the poor, innocent, virtuous woman.”
“Okay, so what?” Shrugging, Sharon gave a nonchalant wave of her hand. “Maisy deserved everything that happened to her because she let herself grow into a fat disgusting pig. She couldn’t honestly expect John to still find her attractive at that horrendous weight. I mean, seriously. Come on, Keller, of course John was going to seek satisfaction elsewhere. What man wouldn’t?”
“And my sweet, accommodating little sister was more than willing to oblige John in his quest, right?”
“Jesus H. Christ, what’s the big deal? It’s not like I committed a crime because I had sex with a married man. These aren’t the dark ages, you know?” She fluffed her hair. “Let’s just say I was there to give the poor, sex-starved man a little sympathy and understanding when he needed it most, that’s all.”
“Don’t you think Maisy was just as devastated to find you humping her husband as you were to find John humping that twenty-something bimbo from your office? Remember how you felt when you walked in on that, Sharon?”
“Of course I was devastated. I mean, look at me, Keller.” She brushed her hands up and down her slender frame. “I can think of at least a dozen guys who’d give their eye teeth to spend just one night with me. There wasn’t a single goddamned reason in hell why John should have had to go elsewhere with me in his bed.”
“Maybe so, Ego Queen, but apparently your dearly beloved husband felt otherwise. After all, Sharon, the man had a heart attack and croaked while he was boffing some sexy little piece of jailbait, didn’t he?”
Sharon threw her arms skyward and growled. “What the hell do you want me to say? Okay, yes, it’s true. John was a philandering piece-of-shit-bastard-fuck and the longer we were married the more I grew to detest him. And I’m fucking glad he’s dead. It’s like a blessed reprieve. There, is that what you were waiting to hear?”
Sharon’s face contorted with a mixture of rage and hurt as she wiped away the tears trickling down her flushed cheeks.
“Yeah, I guess so,” Keller said softly, his posture deflating. “But somehow it doesn’t give me the satisfaction I’d hoped for.” He smiled sympathetically as he drew his sister into a hug. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you cry.” He held her at arm’s length. “So tell me, doesn’t any of that stuff we just talked about make you feel just a little bit of sympathy for Maisy and what she went through with that jerk?”
Shrugging Keller’s hands from her shoulders, Sharon looked at her brother as if he were an imbecile. “Of course not. What does one thing have to do with the other? Like I said before, Maisy Morganfield was a fat pig who got exactly what she deserved.” She laughed incredulously.
“How could you even attempt to make a comparison between her circumstance and mine? Get real, nutsoid.” Tapping her finger against his temple, she grabbed her coat and purse and headed for the door. “That’s it, I’m outta here.” With that, she made a rapid exit, slamming the door behind her.
“You may as well just give up,” Keller muttered to himself through a chuckle. It was about time he faced facts. His sister was hopeless. Her thought patterns were skewed. She was never going to get it.
The door opened again and a party of five strolled into the winery, telling Keller they were there for a wine tasting. Keller led them into the tasting room while Maisy came down the stairs with Norman and Keller’s mother.
As he poured wine samples, giving the tasters his usual spiel, he overheard Maisy making her umpteenth apology to his mother and thanking her for her kindness.
Well hell. There was obviously something seriously wrong with him because just the sound of Maisy’s voice had Keller’s cock jerking to life in his pants. If he didn’t know better he’d say he’d been bewitched by the loony blonde.
She and Norman headed toward the exit. Keller glanced up in time to see Maisy pause, casting a brief, regretful look toward him. While focusing on Maisy he overfilled the small glass and quickly attended to the spill, watching out of the corner of his eye as Maisy walked out the door.
Following Maisy, Norman paused, nodding in Keller’s direction with a sympathetic wink.
Continuing to dispense wine samples as he made polite conversation with his customers, all Keller’s tortured, hapless brain could think about was sampling Maisy Morganfield’s lush, succulent curves.
Crap. He was losing his damn mind. There was no other explanation.
After the last customer of the day left the winery and his mother had gone home, Keller locked up and headed upstairs to his apartment, glad to finally be alone with his thoughts.
It had been one hell of a day. The last thing he’d expected, after his unforeseen flight back from California that afternoon, was to find Maisy Morganfield at his winery. Especially after what had transpired the day of their ill-fated picnic. Keller had written her off that day, plain and simple. As far as he was concerned the nutty-as-a-fruitcake dame was out of his life forever.
“So long. See ya around, baby,” he muttered with an adieu salute as he fished his keys, wallet and change out of his pockets and tossed them onto the hall table in the foyer. No matter how fascinating or desirable she might be, he wasn’t a masochist. And subjecting himself to another bout of her twisted female logic could only be a painful experience.
At least, that’s how he had felt until he saw her sitting on the steps with her head between her knees, belting out polka songs. Raking his hand through his hair, Keller laughed at the recollection.
Not only was his encounter with Maisy less than idyllic today—again—but to make things even worse, he had to contend with his self-serving, addle-brained sister. Oh but that wasn’t the end of it. Uh-uh. His mother all but forced him to sit through a probing, accusatory third degree so intense it would have driven a lesser man to drink.
With that thought in mind, a chuckle surfaced as Keller glanced toward the glass of deep, heady cabernet he’d set on his nightstand. Heaving a sigh, he took a purposeful sip of the earthy liquid.
A slow smile stretched across his weary features as he sat on his bed, removing his shoes and socks. The memory of Maisy lying passed out, right on this very spot across his bed, all soft, curvy and luscious-looking, had his cock stiffening with desire. It was like God was playing some cruel joke when he made that woman so damned beautiful yet screwy as a loon at the same time.
The thought of Maisy’s breasts heaving as she lay semiconscious certainly didn’t do anything to thwart his burgeoning arousal. And when the inebriated temptress threw her arms around his neck, yanking him into that succulent kiss, Keller was a goner. The urge to tear off her clothes and savor every square inch of her creamy curves was nearly overwhelming.
“Oh yeah, that would have given Norman and my mother an eyeful.” Keller cringed at the thought. He was going to have to remember to keep his doors locked in the future.
He found the term dizzy blonde creeping to the forefront of his thoughts, realizing at the same time it wasn’t entirely apropos where Maisy was concerned. Sure, she could be batty and unpredictable but she was also bright, intelligent, fun-loving and had a great sense of humor. With her curvaceous shape and angelic face, she was the epitome of many a man’s fantasies. Keller’s fantasies to be sure.
If only that pesky, obstinate, stubborn streak of hers didn’t manage to surface every time they were together. That irritating, aggravating, warped thinking of Maisy’s drove him to distraction until it felt like a tight band was clamped around his head, squeezing as if he were an orange on the verge of being juiced.
Uttering a low growl, Keller snatched the tie from around his neck and whipped it across the room.
“The woman’s impossible,” he groused as he unbuckled his belt and unzipped his fly. Kicking his pants off, he continued, “She’s stubborn, bullheaded, incorrigible, inconsistent…”
A slow, lingering smile crossed his lips as he unbuttoned his shirt, remembering holding her in his arms earlier and tonguing her juicy little pussy. He sucked in a breath and closed his eyes. Once he opened them again he gazed down at his cock, shaking his head in annoyance and frustration as it saluted the ceiling.
Keller grasped it tight, massaging his dick hard, with slow, even strokes, watching it expand in his hand. Christ, he wanted to be inside her so bad he could fucking taste it.
He let the shower run hot enough, he thought, to burn all thoughts of Maisy from his mind, to dampen his raging libido, but his strategy backfired. Stepping into the misty spray only reminded him all the more of the hot, moist, silky flesh between Maisy’s thighs. The inviting warmth of her eager mouth and tongue.
Keller slid his hands up and down his engorged cock, squeezing as he imagined her knees parting, presenting him with her glistening cunt, all pink and rosy and ready for him. She’d beg him, and he’d take her with one swift, merciless stroke, pounding his cock deep within her, gliding in and out of her cream slicked pussy.
She’d be wet, drenched and writhing beneath him as her cunt convulsed wildly around his cock. Punishing Maisy for her rebellious ways, he’d give it to her hard, harder, fast and deep, until she was breathless and panting. When she’d open that pretty mouth of hers, all indignant and ready to tell him off, he’d drive all defiant thought from her mind with another jackhammer thrust.
Keller pumped his dick furiously, envisioning the blissful look of longing in those big blue eyes of hers. Her pouty lips forming his name while her nails raked his back. He’d tame her wayward ways by keeping her caught up in a frenzy of one shattering orgasm after another.
He’d watch the erotic slip and slide of his cock as he hammered into her, burying himself balls deep into her soaked satin heat. She’d look up at him in wonder, as his fingers dug hard into her full, luscious ass cheeks, possessing her, making her his. Her sweet body would quiver, shudder. His name would escape her throat in a tortured cry as her back arched and her juicy cunt vibrated around him.
Keller growled out as his cum thundered up from his balls down the length of his cock and spurted in hot ribbons against the dripping shower wall.
“Maisy Morganfield,” he ground out, “you drive me crazy—in more ways than one.”
Chapter Thirteen
“This was absolutely, beyond doubt, the worst, most heinous, humiliating afternoon of my entire life,” Maisy grumbled, scrunching down in the passenger seat of Norman’s car and burying her head in her hands. “I will never forgive you for this, Norman. Ever!”
“How many times do I have to tell you I didn’t know he’d be there?” Norman countered, slamming his hand against the steering wheel. “Maisy, I swear on all that’s holy I had no idea. I swear on my Grandma Gert’s grave—”
Maisy threw her hands up and growled. “Here we go again with the grandmother’s grave. You probably never even had a Grandma Gert. She’s probably just another one of your ten million elasticized truths.” She sank farther down in the seat, folding her arms across her breasts.
“Now that’s cruel, Maisy.” Norman looked pained. “When you say things like that it’s like a knife right through my heart.”
Shifting to a more upright position, Maisy shot Norman a noxious glare. “Believe me, Norman, if I had a knife on me, that’s right where I’d plant it.” She wiped the angry spittle from her chin. “And then I’d twist it this way,” she relished in a dramatic gesture, “and back again.” She smiled for the first time since they’d gotten in the car.
Cringing, Norman observed, “You’re becoming a bitter woman, Maisy. It’s very unbecoming.” Reaching into the backseat, he snagged a facial tissue from a box and handed it to Maisy. “Here. I think you’re starting to foam at the mouth.”
“Is it any wonder? I’m becoming a foaming-at-the-mouth, polka-singing, hormone-driven, murderous, slutty drunk. Thanks to you.”
“And bitter. Don�
��t forget bitter,” Norman offered, wagging a finger as Maisy did her best to bore a hole through his head with her heated glare. “But you can’t blame me for the hormone-driven or slutty part. After all, it’s your fault not mine that you’ve got the hots for Keller Fitch.”
Norman gave her one of those all-knowing, tongue-in-cheek smiles, infuriating her even more because he was right. But she’d be damned if she’d admit it to him. “It’s your fault that I got smashed and threw myself at Keller like a wild nymphomaniac, Norman.” She slapped her hands over her face, groaning. “And then the man’s mother comes into the room while I’m clawing at her son. God help me, I’ve never been so mortified in all my life.”
“Yeah.” Norman chuckled. “I have to admit that was pretty funny. But not as funny as seeing Keller with his pants around his knees.”
“Funny?” Bellowing the word, Maisy whipped her head in Norman’s direction, transmitting a lethal look. He gripped the steering wheel tighter and winced.
Slipping into his goosey, machine-gun laughter, he said, “Now, Maisy, I can fully understand why you’re so upset but you have to believe me when I tell you I was absolutely clueless about Keller—or his mother or sister—showing up at the winery. You know that I would never purposefully do anything to cause you that kind of grief, right?”
“If all that weren’t enough,” Maisy moaned, “now my head’s throbbing so bad that only smashing it against a brick wall could feel worse. And I’m not even too sure about that.”
“Welcome to the world of hangovers, darling.” Norman reached over and rubbed her back. Ten minutes later as they sat waiting for a freight train to pass and watching a flurry of fat snowflakes falling, he said, “If it’s any consolation, I don’t think Agatha thought poorly of you. She seemed very nice. I’m sure she understood.”
Absolutely Not Page 17
