by Zoe Dawson
“Shane…”
“That’s a wonderful idea,” Holly said from behind her. She whirled to find her boss standing at her left shoulder. “You don’t mind, do you, Cat? We’re a little bit behind on the planning.”
There had to be a God. There really, really had to be a God.
She turned back to Shane. He was smiling wickedly as he sauntered toward her in that sexy, loose-hipped way she loved.
“Of course, she’ll need to be paid overtime.” Shane gave her a conspiratorial wink as Holly moved away towards her car.
“Fine, fine,” she said, waving.
“Shane, you know the last thing on your mind is that project.”
“What’s a little dinner?”
“What’s a little kiss?”
“Busted. Look, I just want to spend time with you. A crime? Not last time I checked the playbook.”
“Wouldn’t that be the rulebook?”
“Who cares? We’re two adults discussing work over dinner, and if we happen to talk about other things, too, well that’s our business.
“I know what you want to talk about.” He followed her to the car and they collided at the driver’s door. “It’s my car. I’ll drive.”
He tipped his head in a knee-melting, sexy way and reached to pull open the door. “I was trying to get the car door for you.”
Soon they were ensconced in a small café that looked shabby from the outside but was very cozy inside. And dinner had been surprisingly tasty.
“I have to admit. I didn’t think this was going to be….”
“Respectable?”
“Safe.”
“They don’t call me Monster Man for nothing.” Shane laughed and rested his forearms on the table. The waitress had left the check, but neither one of them moved. He looked at her in that deep way that made her feel as if she could fall forever into him.
“You have gorgeous eyes,” he said.
His enticing cologne blended with the primal scent of man to tease her senses, triggering a raw, aching hunger that drew her closer to him.
“And your skin is so soft.” He reached out and stroked her face, his fingertips warm and teasing. Spellbound by the intimacy of his touch, Cat had to close her eyes to keep control of her swelling desire.
“Excuse me, Mr. Bishop?”
Shane looked up. A girl stood holding on to the arm of a reluctant teenage male who wore a San Diego Wildcats jersey. “My boyfriend thinks you are awesome. He just loves the way you play ball.”
Shane stood and reached out his hand. “It’s a pleasure, buddy.”
“Oh, he can’t hear you. He’s deaf.”
Shane began to sign. The look on the teen’s face was worth a thousand words. His eyes lit up and for a few minutes, they carried on an animated conversation.
The young girl was beaming as the teen walked away. “Thank you so much. The Monster Man rules! Kick ass on Sunday!” she said, punching her arm into the air and pumping her closed fist.
He was grinning when he sat down, and Cat felt like she’d been sucker punched. She hadn’t wanted to know this man’s dimensions. It made their attraction far, far more dangerous.
He took a drink of his iced tea. “What’s important to you, Cat?”
“My family, friends—the people in my life.”
“Good answer.”
“How about you?”
He sat back and ran his fingers through his hair, something she’d wanted to do all night. “I need to do the right thing.”
“You learned sign language from the program we did with the deaf.”
He nodded. “I want to be a good role model.”
For a moment she simply couldn’t speak. Her heart tightened, and she reached across the table covering his hand with hers. It wasn’t fair he was as gorgeous inside as he was outside.
“You think that’s corny?”
She shook her head.
He stared at her, his gaze like a soft caress up and down her body. She disengaged her hand and grabbed up her purse. “It’s getting late. We’d better go.
After he paid the bill, Shane followed her to the car. With his heat simmering all along her back, he said softly, “I can’t stop thinking about having you. We have some volatile chemistry.”
She huffed in a little puff of air at the feel of his warm breath on her neck, the sensitive skin behind her ear. His words made her hot to have him. She tried to control it, but it was like trying to control the tides. She leaned back into the hard wall of his chest and his arms encircled her, but then she remembered the job competition and jumped away. “Shane. I really can’t.”
He nodded, breathed deep, and opened her car door. They were back at the stadium almost before she knew it and Shane was getting out of the car.
“Shane, wait.” He paused and looked back at her. “I can’t stop thinking about it either. It was so hot.”
“Let’s do it again sometime.”
She grabbed his shirt and jerked him forward. That unholy grin flashed across his face and he said breathlessly, “I guess now is a good time.”
“Shane, shut up,” she said, her voice hoarse. She fused her mouth to his, wrapping her arms around his neck, knowing she was taking a risk, and not giving a damn. Someone could see them. A security guard, a late night worker, and she would lose her job. But drugged by sensation, paralyzed by the soft heat of his mouth against hers, she opened her lips, begging for more. Shane delved in with the seductive wet heat of his demanding tongue and Cat started to unravel.
Suddenly, in the quiet of the night, her horn went off with a loud blast and she jerked away from him.
“Reality bites,” he said softly, resting his forehead against her chin, breathing raggedly.
His hair smelled so good and, without meaning to, her fingers had crept to the nape of his neck and delved into his thick, silky curls. She used to dream about doing this on Sundays while she watched Shane on the monitors in the owner’s box. Whenever the camera would focus in on him, the tantalizing view of the dark curls caressing his neck, tamed only by his sexy helmet, made her fingers itch to touch them.
Shane lifted his head. “Cat, I promise you right here, right now, that I’ll keep my distance. It won’t be easy, but I’ll do it. If you change your mind, you know where to find me.” With that, he gave her a melting kiss and got out of the car. Cat watched him go, trying to stifle her looming panic. He was leaving it up to her? Oh, damn. She was doomed.
The next afternoon Cat realized she needed a photo release signature from Shane for the Halloween Night fundraiser brochure.
She tried his home number, but there was no answer. Finally she decided to check with Lizzy, her see-all-know-all go-to gal. “Do you know where Shane Bishop is right now?”
“Yes, I have his schedule here somewhere on my computer. He gave it to me so I could plan his engagements for the fundraiser.” She depressed her mouse a few times, then peered at the screen. “He’s down in the locker room working out. He pumps iron every morning until ten thirty. You should be able to catch him in the weight room.”
“Thanks, Lizzy. I’m going to go over to the hotel to check out the banquet room and make sure we’re all set for next Friday. I’ll probably be gone for about an hour.”
Cat smoothed her mango-colored sheath, gleefully sure the body-hugging fabric would have his tongue hanging out. Grabbing her purse and her keys, she made her way down into the bowels of the stadium. She pushed on the door to the weight room and looked inside. No one there. She looked at her watch and huffed a little irritated breath. Where was he? It was nine thirty-five. He should be here.
She walked into the locker room and stopped dead. Shane was there, at his locker and oblivious to her presence. Her mouth went dry and her heart beat a fluttering tattoo against her breastbone. Then he drew his sweat-soaked T-shirt over his head, and her greeting died on her tongue. The man had a back sculpted by hard iron and God.
Glorious muscle rippled and flexed as he turned and b
ent down to unlace his sneakers. She still couldn’t speak. His biceps bulged, his shoulders and chest heavy with muscle. He was living art. His skin was a burnished copper under the harsh locker-room lights and glistened with sweat. Cat wet her lips and watched a droplet of perspiration run from his damp hair, down his neck, and over his collarbone. Then, before she knew it, he was stripping down revealing strong, muscular thighs, a tight butt, and a flat washboard stomach.
Ohmigod. He was magnificent, every inch of him.
He grabbed a towel, soap, and shampoo out of a black gym bag and headed for the showers. Cat followed him, admiring how he moved with an unconscious kind of athletic grace rare for such a big man.
Monsters were supposed to be horrifying, revolting...but they were also often alluring. It made sense that many monsters were hawt. They were the ultimate predators, and they needed to be able to lure their prey into their clutches. Plus, they represented the forbidden and sexy danger.
He was called Monster Man for a reason.
He turned on the shower, and she examined every inch of him while he washed his hair, large hands splayed into thick, wet strands of ebony, big, ropy muscles moving under all that smooth, soft-looking skin. After rinsing, he soaped his body, dragging the bar over his massive chest, hard stomach, and taut thighs. Her body slammed into lustful overdrive, and her knees went so wobbly she had to lean against the wall as the spray from the shower misted her skin.
He turned off the water, quickly dried off and wrapped his towel around his waist. By now Cat was weak with desire, her clit on fire, drenched and throbbing. He bent down to retrieve his items. As he rose, he froze when his eyes met hers.
For long moments he studied her face, and then his eyes traveled unhurriedly down. He dropped the items at the same time that Cat dropped her keys and her purse.
His voice was a husky rasp that seemed to whoosh over her skin like wildfire. “I’ve been waiting for you, babe.”
His eyes traveled over her face, the scrutiny slow and purposeful, as if he wanted to memorize every inch. He untucked the towel and let it drop as he prowled the distance between them.
“You have?” she whispered. She watched as he walked towards her, his cock growing with each step, thick and long…and…big. Monster big.
“I’ve seen you watching me during practice. I love the way you watch me,” he said. “Like you would devour me if you could get your mouth close enough. Get close…now.”
“Oh, God,” Cat said softly, this reality far more staggering than any fantasy she’d ever had. “Yes.”
“Why do you like watching me?”
His big hands were already sliding up her arms, slipping up to the neckline of her dress and pulling the zipper down her back, drawing the material away from her lacy white bra.
“The way you move,” she whispered. “I love the power in your body, your leadership on the field, your skill, and the sheer energy in your stride. I can’t control the adrenaline and heat you generate inside me.”
“Inside where? Show me,” his voice rasped against her ear, sending shivers of epic proportions cascading down her body.
Cat took his hand and pressed it to her stomach, against the silky fabric, and then slid it under the dress and up between her legs.
His eyes darkened and his hands tightened against her. “You’re so wet, so hot for me,” he murmured. “Why don’t you show me how I make you feel? I like watching, too.”
He took her hand and pulled it down so it was cupping her sex. “Show me, Cat, how I turn you on.”
A small, rational corner of her brain insisted she was taunting a primal beast, but she didn’t pay any attention. Something urged her to recklessness, the added risk that at any moment they could be discovered only heightened every sensation.
His eyes trailed fire down her body as he followed her hands.
She lifted the hem, rotating her hips against the wall drawing the material up until she could reach her clit. Pushing the skimpy bit of thong aside, she slid her fingers into the wet, welcoming heat of her body.
“Do you want to know what I fantasize about, Shane?”
His nostrils flared. “Tell me, Cat, I’m dying to know,” he rasped. He watched her hand, his eyes darting up every few seconds to her face, as if he could see her sensations in her expression, and participate in everything she felt.
His reactions were there in his eyes, exposed, jagged and raw. His desire for her was so intent and thrilling, her skin tingled in response.
“I think about how it would be to have your cock deep inside me,” she said.
As he stared at her, his eye color turned to dark chocolate; his gaze on her flesh burned her skin.
Her voice came out hushed and breathless. “I imagine you behind me, your hands sliding over my belly, then cradling my breasts in your hard, hot hands, caressing their softness. I imagine your lips against my throat, your breath warm against my skin, the rasp of your stubble as you kiss my neck and shoulder.
Shane made a growl of appreciative pleasure deep in his throat.
“I can almost feel the heat and sucking wetness of your mouth as you kiss and lick me, your tongue swirling and tasting. You look so dangerous and untamed. I know you’ll be rough and I want that. I wonder what kinds of things you could do with that beautiful, clever mouth.”
She stroked herself, following the path that Shane’s hands would travel if they were on her body. His hands clenched into fists, as if he fought his own overwhelming desire. “You would use those big hands to part my slick pussy,” she gasped, moaning, “while you tease the stiff, engorged bud of my clit with your tongue.”
The words coming out of her mouth shocked her. But the animal in her was responding to the monster in him.
The hot need in his eyes was almost unbearably compelling. Seeing his arousal made need pulse in her body, heavy and hot.
She was overcome by the restless ache between her thighs. With fierce, moaning impatience, she pressed back against the wall, eagerly sliding her sensitized skin against the silky dress.
Her legs fell open and her fingers slid eagerly over the dampness between her legs. She imagined him lifting her against the hard wall, could feel the heat, the press of his hard, powerful body. Then glorious contact as he thrust into her with one frenzied stroke, and then staggering pleasure as he pumped his muscled hips against her. She would wrap her arms around him for balance, as an anchor, clutching him tight while he thrust deeper and harder, and his powerful arms supporting her, his eyes gazing into hers, seeing her soul revealed, luminescent, fully his.
That pushed her over the top. She arched against the wall with a sharp cry and came. Her body shaking with a continuous, shuddering surge of carnal gratification, more forceful than any orgasm she had ever experienced.
When she opened her eyes, Shane was no longer on his feet. He was kneeling on the tiles, panting; sweat trickled down his temples, over his dark stubble, down his throat.
She’d brought him to his knees. It drove her wild, tearing down her image of herself, releasing something deeper and fiercer, something heightened and exalted and savagely feminine.
He looked up at her, his eyes burning, paying homage to her in her wickedness. Softly, his voice ringing with power, he said, “Come here.”
His fingers found her hot and wet and he moaned, “Beautiful.”
When he parted her, she couldn’t control her hips. They thrust forward wantonly in uninhibited pleasure, the aftershocks of her orgasm making her more sensitized. “Shane,” she begged, “please.” But he pressed his face against her hot, slick skin, trailing to the damp, soft curls tantalizingly above him. He breathed in her hot fragrance, his mouth burning against her swollen flesh.
She jerked in pure sensual reaction to his lips on her secret folds. He lifted her leg and draped it over his shoulder, giving him a better angle to plunder her soft cleft. She moaned his name. Her heart was beating so fast she thought it would burst out of her chest. Her whole body was
aflame with a whole body-clenching desire that was almost frightening. It only took moments for his magic tongue against her clit to send her skyrocketing again. She arched her back as she came violently.
His mouth moved up her body and she clutched at his shoulders. When he reached full height, he slipped his hands around her waist, pushing the dress off. She curled her hands around his heavy erection, sliding one hand down over his balls. He closed his eyes, twisting his head up and to the side.
She gasped when he opened his eyes. They were deep and dark, with an intense, hot longing that gave her shivers and made her breathing ragged.
His eyes narrowed, fierce and hungry, all civilized male gone as he transformed into the beast she wanted.
He growled low and spun her around, pressing her against the wall. His hand went into her hair, tugging her head back. His legs widened on either side of her hips. She moaned, pushing her palms flat against the wall, lifting her hips and straining back toward him as much as her position would allow, eager to be filled. He fitted the head of his shaft against her slick opening and pressed into her an inch, just enough to tease her. She sucked in a breath, opened her legs wider. He leaned over her, his mouth skimming her cheek, his breath hot, heavy, and moist on her skin.
“Is this what you want, Kitty Cat?”
“Yes,” she panted. “Oh, yes.”
He thrust the rest of the way into her, lifting her off the floor as he drove into her, the size and hot, silken length of him stretching her while he impaled her to the hilt. She bit back a sharp cry, and he groaned and withdrew before plunging in again and again.
He scraped his teeth along her shoulder, biting her just short of pain at the base of her neck, and the fiery tingles spiraled down to her aching clit.
“Shane,” was all she could manage.
“Yes. I need your wet pussy. Need you calling my name. Touching me. Fucking you. God, I’ve wanted to fuck you,” his voice guttural.
His hips pumped against hers, the muscles in his arms and down his back shifting and bunching each time he thrust deep. Bracing herself against the tiles, she lifted her bottom and pushed back, giving as good as he gave.
