by Mindy Klasky
Michael pulled her into a tight turn. “I just don’t want you getting hurt, Haley.”
She smiled into his concerned eyes. “I won’t,” she said. “I’m not a little kid any more, waiting for my big brother to rescue me on the playground.”
“Did I ever do that?” Michael asked.
“Huh,” Haley said. “I guess not. You and Billy just toughened me up at home so I could stand on my own two feet. Thanks, I guess.”
He grinned. “You know, you could show your eternal gratitude by weekly deliveries of Triple Chocolate Brownies from now till the end of time.”
“Fat chance of that,” she said. “I served my time.”
“With nothing off for good behavior.”
She was just shifting her hand to punch him on the arm—hard—when she saw Adam on the dance floor.
Adam, dancing with Missy Newton. Adam, a full head taller than the doll-like Missy, even though she wore spiky stilt-like sandals. Adam, looking like a movie star with his tux framing the perfect folds of Missy’s crimson, floor-length gown.
He was still a lousy dancer. But he looked down into Missy’s eyes, and he smiled at whatever she said, laughing as he pulled her close before he attempted an awkward little whirl at the edge of the hardwood. Missy threw back her head like she was having the time of her life. Adam pulled her even closer, barely keeping the timing right, just maintaining the rhythm.
And then he caught sight of Haley, and he nodded, flashing her the roguish smile she’d known her entire life. “Shit,” she whispered to Michael, and then she bit her lower lip, remembering too late that she’d smear her lipstick.
Adam swept up with Missy in his arms. He jutted his chin toward Michael in a casual greeting, and then his gaze took in Haley from the top of her messy-haired head to the tip of her aching toes. He looked earnest when he met her eyes. “I’m glad you could make it,” he said.
“You know me,” Haley said, fighting to ignore the ridiculous tightening in her gut. “Raleigh’s number one party girl.”
Michael gave her a look that said she’d gone insane. Adam understood she was joking. But Missy narrowed her eyes and said, “That’s what I like about you, Haley. You always have such a sense of … personal style.”
Haley started to spout off a hot reply, but she remembered just in time that she was a guest at this event. At a bare minimum, she was expected to keep the peace. “It’s not often I have a chance to dress up. Not with all the time I spend at Paws.”
Missy’s tight smile turned into a pout, and she shifted her hand from Adam’s shoulder to the back of his neck. Her elaborate shrug seemed designed to pull her closer to Adam. At least, he obliged. Haley tried to make his fingers combust through the power of her glare as Missy sang, “What can you do, when you’re dealing with mutts and misfits?”
Bring it on, bitch. Oh. That wasn’t something Haley could say, at least not out loud, here, at a society event. But she could think it really loudly as she said, “A lot of mutts are healthier than purebreds. They’re far less likely to have epilepsy, hip dysplasia, or hypothyroidism.”
Missy glared from the shelter of Adam’s arms. “My puppies have none of those—”
“Of course not,” Haley agreed rapidly, because Michael’s fingers were excavating her hip. But she knew three different customers who’d put down puppies they’d bought from Missy. And that didn’t begin to take into account the living hell of the breeding animals at the puppy mills that fueled Fab Fidos. The woman was a menace.
“I don’t understand you, Haley Thurman. All I’ve ever done is try to set up a mutually beneficial business arrangement between my business and Paws. You’ve refused to be civil every step of the way.”
“Well, you know what they say, Missy. Show a dog a finger and she wants the whole hand.”
Missy’s yelp was priceless as she finally peeled herself from Adam’s side. “Are you calling me a dog?”
“Well, I guess bitch would be—” Michael’s fingers carved a chunk out of her rib cage before she could finish. Missy was spluttering, and Adam’s eyes had darkened to thunderheads. Before anyone could speak, though, a sleek young woman glided up to Adam’s side. She leaned in close to say, “Mr. Sartain? If you’re ready, this would be a perfect time to make your speech.”
Adam nodded. He started to say something to Haley, but he stopped before the first syllable left his lips. He tried again, but ended up shaking his head, his lips twisting in some emotion she feared was disgust. He whirled on his heel to stalk away, but he only managed a single stride before he turned back.
An apology rose to Haley’s lips. This was Adam’s event. She’d been making a scene—all for reasons that had little to do with Paws and nothing at all to do with BUNT. It would sting like lemon juice on a cut, but she’d tell Missy she was sorry.
Before she could speak, though, Adam held out his hand toward Missy. She took a single step forward before she shot Haley a glance so vicious it couldn’t be accidental. Missy wove her fingers between Adam’s and allowed him to escort her to the front of the room.
Screw this. Haley had watched this game play out before. When she’d been eighteen, she’d been too embarrassed to take care of herself. Now, fourteen years later, she didn’t have to waste her time with this crap. As she leaned in to kiss Michael’s cheek, she murmured, “I’m out of here.”
He stepped back in surprise, but she only nodded toward the front of the room. Let him watch more of the Adam and Missy Show. Guys seemed to love the thing, if the gaping guests around her were any sign. Haley made her way toward the ballroom door—toward the door and her car and a quiet night at home with dogs piled on top of her and a cat purring in her ear.
The crowd, though, had grown since she’d entered the room. She found herself trapped by one of the lines that snaked toward a bar. Adjusting her stride, she felt her right heel slip out from under her, and she barely caught her balance. She started to swear, but she realized that the room had fallen completely silent. Whirling back toward the dance floor, she saw that Adam had pried himself out of Missy’s clutches, but the woman still stood close to him, blinking up like an adoring blond vampire bat.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Adam said. “Thank you for joining me at the Sartain Foundation Gala tonight!”
He ran through the usual greetings, thanking his guests, explaining that they were all gathered to help the children of Raleigh. He was comfortable talking to the crowd, relaxed and easy. He joked with one of his teammates, daring Tyler Brock to take out his checkbook and match donations on the spot. He smiled broadly as he extended his hand, inviting Missy Newton to join him at the front of the impromptu stage. When he leaned down to brush a kiss against her cheek, a flurry of speculation rippled through the room.
Missy laughed and took the microphone that Adam offered. Her voice wasn’t as rich as his. She wasn’t as relaxed with the attention of the entire room riveted to her. In fact, she sounded a little like a chipmunk on speed. But she gamely described her pleasure at touring the Reeves farm with Adam just the day before. She gushed about the opportunities for the land, the chance to build luxury townhouses, to create a true community—close enough to downtown for working people, but far enough away to enjoy a taste of the country. Hundreds of new homes could be built for the most discerning residents of Wake County.
“In these trying times,” Missy said, “we need to stand by a man who has the best interests of our children at heart. We need to support the Sartain Foundation the way we always have. More than we ever have before.” She reached up and snared Adam’s sleeve in her talons before she brought the microphone even closer to her perfect bow-shaped lips. “And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why I chose to write a check to Adam tonight.”
“A generous check,” Adam laughed, as he slipped his arm around Missy’s waist.
“A necessary check,” she corrected, her helium voice creeping up another notch or two. “And I hope every one of you will join me.”
&nbs
p; As the crowd broke into applause, Adam laughed. He leaned forward to take the mike from Missy, adeptly thumbing off the instrument, but not before Missy’s little-girl laugh shrieked across the room.
Haley gritted her teeth and renewed her efforts to flee. This time, she wasn’t opposed to using her elbows. She managed to force her way out of the room, to the cool hallway, and the silent elevator that led to the echoing garage. As she raced home through the late spring night, she wondered why she’d ever bothered wasting her time being neighborly to Adam Sartain.
~~~
Adam stalked up the driveway. He took the porch steps two at a time, and he leaned hard on Haley’s doorbell. An immediate chorus of barking started up—Heathcliff’s throaty warning, Darcy’s forlorn bay, the frantic yapping of that dust-mop that thought she owned the world.
The dogs responded, but Haley was nowhere in sight. He rang the bell again, and the dogs’ volume increased threefold. Swearing, he looked back down the driveway. He’d use the key taped inside the mailbox if he had to.
But first, he reached inside the breast pocket of his tuxedo jacket and pulled out his phone. A single touch set Haley’s landline phone ringing. When the answering machine picked up after the fourth ring, he hung up and immediately dialed again.
“Quiet!” Haley finally shouted from inside, and the dogs cut off their noise mid-bark. “Back!” The deadbolt slid back like a shot. Haley opened the door just wide enough to glare at him as she snapped, “What?”
“What the hell, Haley?”
She wouldn’t meet his eyes. Instead, she edged the door closed a few inches, so he could only make out a single strip of her face—determined half-lips, one glaring eye. He saw that she’d changed out of that clinging black dress, pulling on her usual sweats and a familiar plaid shirt.
“Leave me alone, Adam.” She started to close the door all the way, but he blocked it with his leg, wedging his foot against the jamb. Before Haley could shove hard enough to catch his toes, he pushed his way in. Haley muttered a curse beneath her breath, but she closed the door behind him.
“What were you doing back there, Haley? I thought we’d agreed to fight fair.”
“Yeah, right,” she said scornfully. “You were absolutely fighting fair.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
She rolled her eyes. “Missy Newton? With hundreds of deep pockets in Raleigh, you had to make Missy your poster girl? You know she’s hated my guts since I sang the solo in Fall Chorale sophomore year. And the feeling’s mutual, which you’d have remembered, if you hadn’t been panting after her since high school, just like every boy in our class.”
Shit. She still cared about that? Senior year, Haley was supposed to go to prom with Noah Smart. The asswipe had broken up with Haley when Missy hinted she was free for the dance. Billy had threatened to beat the shit out of Smart, too, until Haley had insisted she didn’t care.
“Christ, Haley. That crap with Missy was years ago.”
“Easy for you to say. Check the collar of your tux. I’m pretty sure her drool is there right now.”
“So are you pissed because I danced with Missy tonight? Or because I took her money?”
“I’m pissed because you’re getting all their money! I’m pissed because you’re going to get the farm!” At her raised voice, Heathcliff whined his concern. She gave a furious hand signal, banishing him and the other dogs to their bed beneath the piano. When the animals hesitated, she flashed the sign again. The huge black dog led the retreat, but he was too anxious to settle back on his haunches.
Adam curled his fingers into fists. “What do you want me to do, Haley? Give back all the money I raised tonight? Tell Reeves I don’t want the farm after all?”
She whirled to face him. “That would be a good start.”
He opened his mouth to retort, realized he didn’t have words, gaped, closed it. He couldn’t walk away from the farm. Not if he was going to launch his real estate scheme in time. Not if he was going to save the Foundation, save the kids.
God damn Jason Reiter.
He dripped some of his fury with Reiter into his answer to Haley. “That’s not going to happen. I’m not giving up.”
She stepped forward, planting her hands on her hips. “I’m not giving up either!”
“Fine!” he shouted.
“Fine!” she matched him, even louder, even more defiant, and she pushed against his chest with both her palms. Even as he flexed his thighs, holding steady in the smooth leather soles of his dress shoes, he wrapped his fingers around her wrists, pinning her in front of him, keeping her from shoving again.
She flinched, and he reacted by reflex, pulling her closer against him, as if he were keeping her from falling. She caught her breath, and the motion pressed her chest against his. All of a sudden, his dick thought he was back in that New York hotel room. His entire body heated with a new energy. He released her hands and put his fingers to far better use. He spread one palm across her back, steadying her, pulling her close. He tangled the other in her hair, letting his fingers ease her to a better angle, a perfect angle for the kiss he settled against her lips.
For half a dozen heartbeats, she stood there, as startled as some feral animal that belonged in her damn shelter. But then her lips shifted beneath his. Her mouth softened. Her fingers curled against his cummerbund, pulling him close, matching his hips to hers. The tip of her tongue played against his lips, and he opened to her, letting her in, drinking deep.
The kiss was hotter than anything he’d imagined doing with Haley. Her body pressing against his was better than anything he’d dreamed. His cock twitched, and she shifted her hips, framing his crotch with hers. He groaned deep in his throat.
~~~
She laughed.
There wasn’t anything else to do as Adam’s fingers tightened across her back, as he pulled her closer to his body. She’d felt men before; she knew what it was like to turn them on, to be turned on.
But Adam was different. She knew Adam as well as she knew herself. She knew the curve of his jaw before she traced it with her lips. She knew the strength of his fingers before she laced them with hers, before she drew him over to the couch.
Pulling him down beside her, she never quite separated her lips from his. It was easy, comfortable. They’d sat on this couch together a thousand times. He’d stopped by after good games, after bad ones. She’d told him about animals she’d saved, animals she’d lost—to disease, to impossible behavioral problems, to simple old age. The couch was comfortable. It was home.
He sank onto the middle cushion, and she straddled him, rocking gently across the bulge in his dress slacks. “God, Haley,” he whispered, and she laughed as his fingers eased deeper into the flesh above the waistband of her sweats.
She teased him then, stealing feathery kisses as she stripped his bow tie from the upright collar of his shirt. She draped it around her own neck, breathing deeply of the scent of him—soap and shampoo and the soft pine aftershave he only wore on special occasions.
She worked the button at the top of the shirt, and he leaned his head against the back of the couch, his breath coming short. She bent down and tongued the knot of his Adam’s apple, moving to the side when he squirmed, and closing her lips to suck at the soft flesh of his throat.
All the while, her fingers worked at the studs on his shirt, pulling them away, opening the cotton path to his chest. His soft cotton undershirt made her moan in frustration; she wanted to see him, wanted to feel the muscled strength of him. “This,” she said, tugging at his sleeves. “Off. Now.”
She flipped the bolts on his cufflinks, giving him the freedom to move. Laughing, he shrugged out of the shirt, letting it crumple behind him on the couch. She unbuckled his cummerbund and tossed it onto the sofa beside them before she tugged at his undershirt.
He sucked in his breath when her fingernails scraped the hot flesh at his waist. She felt him move, knew there were games to be played there, but she could
n’t take the time, not yet, not now. She yanked on his cotton tee, pulling it over his head and adding it to the growing pile on the couch.
His chest was broader than she remembered. The muscles were harder, and she realized that she hadn’t actually touched him beyond the most friendly of hugs, hadn’t held him, hadn’t been held by him in years. Not since they were kids, really, playing some sort of tag on a summer night, not since they’d wrestled over who would control the TV remote, over who got to use the best pool cue.
She shifted back on his legs so she had a better angle, and then she bent over him. The feel of his hair against her cheek started a steady drumbeat between her legs. His skin was hot beneath her. She drew her face across his chest, brushing a kiss against his sternum, nestling her left cheek above his heart.
His pulse was pounding. She felt it against her skin, heard it loud and steady. The drumbeat fanned the heat between her thighs and she rocked forward, wanting to feel him, needing pressure.
Desperate, hungry, she took one of his nipples between her lips. She sucked hard, teasing at the burning flesh with her teeth. “Jesus,” he breathed, stretching the oath into three syllables. She laughed and pinched the other nipple between her thumb and forefinger, tugging just enough to see it stiffen.
She needed to feel more of him, though, needed something beyond a taste, beyond a touch. Shifting her weight to either side of his trembling thighs, she balanced on her knees, pulling back just enough that she could tug her plaid shirt over her head. No time to bother with buttons, down the front, at the cuffs. Instead, she twisted herself free.
She saw the greed in his eyes when he realized she wasn’t wearing a bra. There was a question as well, and his fingers tightened on her waist—he clearly wondered if she was going commando. She wasn’t ready to share that with him yet, wasn’t ready to ease the ache that grew between her legs, the exquisite pressure that made her grind, just a little more, against his own trapped hips.
But she pulled him close, crushing her breasts against his chest. She reached her arms behind him even as he scrambled his hands across her back. She needed to hold him, needed to be held by him, needed to melt her flesh into his.
