“That’s a long shot,” Shaw pointed out. “Especially when it comes to your brother.”
That was Hayes in a nutshell. A long shot when it came to anything dealing with family.
“Hayes could come through, but even if he doesn’t, I struck that deal with Sunshine. Em didn’t have to go to jail, and that’s what counts.”
He searched her eyes as if trying to figure out if she meant that. She did. But the eye search also meant their gazes were connected. Coupled with the fact that he was still holding her hand, it suddenly felt very intimate between them.
“Want me to tell you about the first hard-on you gave me?” he asked.
She blinked twice. Apparently, it had felt intimate for him, too, and she automatically glanced down at the zipper of his jeans.
The corner of his mouth hitched into one of those smiles. The one that let her know that he had an erection in the making. But he didn’t kiss her or try to coax her closer. Shaw put his hand on her waist and turned her so that she was looking not at him but rather outside.
He pointed in the direction of the barn. “I was in there,” he said. “I was fifteen, and you were thirteen. You’d been riding a mare I’d brought over, and it started to rain. Your shirt got wet, but you were having so much fun that you stayed with the ride a while longer. And I watched you,” he added.
Sunny didn’t remember the specific incident. Too bad. “That was the summer I got breasts.”
“Yeah,” he immediately confirmed. He sighed. “And I guess that makes me a perv.”
“No, it just made you a teenager.”
She looked at him now, remembering that boy. Remembering them together. And especially remembering that even now her feelings for him hadn’t changed.
“I didn’t need signed permission or instructions from producers to want to be with you, Sunny.” His voice had gone down a husky notch. “That happened all by itself. The contracts and release forms just gave me an excuse to be here around you.”
It was as if his words had slapped a gigantic bandage on the hurt she had felt when she’d thought the attention he’d given her had been orchestrated. Scripted. As phony as so much of Little Cowgirls had been. But now that she’d gotten over the shock, Sunny knew in her heart that it hadn’t been like that.
“Your erection proved it,” she said. Perhaps she should have given him some kind of intro to that comment, but it made him smile that lazy, dreamy, cocky smile that caused every cell in her body to want him.
“I can still prove it.” He took her hand and pressed it to the front of his jeans.
Yes, he could. Full liftoff had been achieved, and those needy cells of hers moved in for a kiss. Her mouth met his, barely a touch, but it still packed a wallop.
Shaw didn’t keep it a touch. He pulled her closer, kissing her deep while her hand stayed pressed to his erection. It was definitely accelerated foreplay, and Sunny felt herself go damp in the right place. Since her right place was so close to his, she moved her hand so their places could meet. Body bumping and nudging was old-school, but it still did the trick of spiking up the pleasure and making her want to jump him where he stood.
But where he stood was right in front of the window, where anyone could see them.
Where Shaw could see her.
Suddenly those heated-up cells in her body turned to jangled nerves.
“Uh, Em and Ryan are in the house,” she reminded him.
While he waylaid her with another scorching kiss, Shaw backed her across the room, shut the door and locked it.
“You don’t want to know how many times I thought about this,” he said with his mouth still on hers.
“Nailing me in my bedroom?” The nerves had spread the jangle to her voice. Of course, the kiss wasn’t helping with that because she didn’t have enough spare breath to manage more than a breathy whisper that made her sound like a sex kitten.
“Nailing you in that bed.” He broke the kiss only long enough to tip his head in that direction. It was in the corner, but there was still plenty of light.
“Excuse me a second.” Sunny hurried back to the window, yanking the curtains closed, and she turned off the lights. She could still see Shaw, which meant he could do the same.
With a touch as gentle as his earlier kiss had been, he put his hand on the small of her back, eased her to him. Close but not touching. Plenty close enough for him to look her in the eyes.
“I saw your scar,” he said. “Yesterday morning at my house.”
Oh.
“You were asleep,” he went on, “and I didn’t mean to see it, but when I came out of the bathroom, the light was right.”
Which meant the light was wrong.
“It’s not ugly and it doesn’t turn me off,” Shaw added when she stayed silent.
Sunny didn’t stay silent. She huffed. “It is ugly.”
“It’s a scar. One will that heal. And it doesn’t turn me off. Nothing about you turns me off. Let me prove that to you.”
When he unzipped his jeans, she thought he was about to show her right then, right there. But he only lowered his boxers and jeans on one side, not to free the erection that was obviously still there. Instead, he tapped the white scar on his groin.
“Emergency appendectomy five years ago,” he said. “Does it turn you off?”
It wasn’t the same. Well, almost not the same. But Sunny had no choice but to answer no.
“Good.” He looked her straight in the eyes and shoved his jeans and boxers farther down on his hips. Now, that freed his erection. “Does this turn you off?”
Sunny went hot. A serious wave of heat consumed her and she wished she had better BJ skills or she would have gotten on her knees and done something with that heat.
“No, it doesn’t turn me off,” she whispered, and she launched herself at him, kissing him and touching him at the same time.
Shaw kissed and touched, too. This wasn’t a gentle, slow pace. Nope. This was a hair-pulling, bruising, “take me now, now, now” kind of pace. The bruises happened when they rammed into her bed right before they fell on it.
One thing was for certain—Shaw wasn’t treating her with kid gloves, which meant he’d somehow managed to put her surgery and the scar out of his mind. That was possibly because the insane need had pushed everything except sex from their minds.
He landed on top of her and shoved up her dress, pulling it off over her head. The bra came next, and here he did gentle a little when he flicked open the front clasp and her breast spilled out for his waiting mouth.
Oh, yes. She got some tongue kisses on her nipples.
And Sunny forgot about the scar, too.
Next, Shaw went after her panties. Since he wasn’t inept at that particular skill, she had to guess that the finger that slipped inside had been meant to take off the top of her head and not because he’d misjudged the position of the elastic legs of her panties.
No, he hadn’t misjudged.
Sunny got confirmation of that when he stroked her a few more times, also proving his incredible skill of making sure she was starved for him and his impressive erection.
She whimpered when he stopped the strokes, but then she realized he was fumbling around in his wallet for a condom. His vast skills continued because he had it on in a blink of an eye.
And then he was inside her.
He went still, looking down at her the way a starving man would eye a delicious meal. “Good thing you’re not a screamer,” he drawled with that smile that only Shaw the Greek god of sexual pleasure could have managed.
At that moment there was a very loud squawk. Shaw looked at her as if she’d been the one to make it. “The duck,” she said.
Obviously, Em hadn’t taken Slackers with her, but Sunny had no intention of explaining all of that to Shaw right now. The only thing she wanted from him was wha
t he was giving her.
He started to move.
Shaw was a pro at that, too. Long, deep strokes while he watched what it was doing to her. He must have liked what he saw on her face because he somehow managed a smile.
“Go over for me, Sunny. Let me watch you.”
She didn’t have a choice about either of those things. The strokes turned to thrusts and got faster. Even deeper. Building and building and building until Sunny found herself on that incredible edge between wanting this to last forever and needing for him to finish her.
All the while, she watched him, too.
She had thought of the darkness as a way to hide her scar, but she realized now the too-high price of missing that look in his storm-gray eyes. That look was a big reveal. And she saw that he hadn’t lied, that the scar didn’t matter, that he hadn’t needed a contract to feel the way he did. She saw the hot greedy need that he was counting on her to sate. She saw this incredible man who was giving her the best sex of her life.
The best orgasm of her life followed.
She tipped over the edge, giving in to the need to finish this. Apparently, Shaw had no trouble picking up on her climax because a moment later, he joined her.
Even though her pulse and breathing were noisy, Sunny heard the duck squawks. She ignored them and gathered Shaw close. That wasn’t hard to do since he was still on top of her. However, the ever-thoughtful cowboy was keeping his weight on his forearms so that he wouldn’t crush her.
Shaw’s breath was gusting, too, but he lifted his head, kissed her and dropped onto his side. Somehow, he managed to turn her on her side, too, even though there wasn’t an inch of room to spare in the tiny bed.
“Better,” he concluded, and this time when he stared at her, it was the look of a man who’d just finished that delicious meal. He reached around her and patted her butt. “Now, do you want to talk about this?”
Because she was still in a hazy state of mind, it took her a moment to realize he didn’t want to have a conversation about butt cheeks or her jiggly muscle tone. This was about the tat.
“I saw it,” he added. And he left it at that. Not a question, but there were a couple of big unasked questions in those three words.
Love you forever had just come back to haunt her.
She considered lying and spinning a yarn about the stupid things teenage girls can do, but Sunny was afraid her own eyes would be the big reveal. So, she clamped her hand over his mouth.
“Don’t say anything,” she insisted. “Agree not to say anything ever about the tat and I’ll tell you why I got it.”
He stared at her a long time, and other than their breathing, the only sound was the rain on the window and Slackers’s squawks. Finally he nodded. Then and only then did Sunny slide her hand from his mouth.
“Five years ago I came back to town to see you. It was your thirtieth birthday, and I thought maybe I could retest some old waters.” Translation—she’d wanted to see if he was still opposed to marrying and having kids. “But you were seeing the woman who owns the bakery over in Wrangler’s Creek. I saw you two together dancing at your birthday party.”
Shaw didn’t voice the word, but a curse formed on his lips.
“You two looked very...involved, and no, I’m not bashing you for that. You were single, and she was gorgeous. Like a young Marilyn Monroe.” Sunny paused. “I left the party before you could see me, and when I asked Cait about the baker, she reluctantly admitted that things might be serious between you two.”
Another curse formed on his lips.
“Don’t blame Cait for not telling you I was there,” Sunny went on. “I made her do a sister-sister pinkie swear.”
Which she was glad he couldn’t ask her about because it sounded as silly as it was. Still, it was sacred, and Cait wouldn’t have ratted her out.
“I left and went back to Houston,” Sunny continued. “I got drunk and got the tattoo.” She stopped, and it seemed as if his eyes had turned into a lie detector. “Okay, I didn’t get drunk. I was sad and thinking about the past. I decided I wanted something permanent—a memento of sorts—something that the perfect, non-jiggly baker didn’t have.”
She winced because that last part had come out a little angrier than she’d intended. Of course, she’d been plenty angry and jealous when she’d gotten the tat. Really, really jealous. Which was stupid because neither Shaw nor she had stopped living when she’d left town.
“The baker didn’t have the history I did with you.” Sunny made an effort to slough off the anger. “That’s what the tat was about. Our history. My feelings for you. The fact that you’d been my first.”
He stayed quiet. Kept his eyes on her. And despite his agreement not to talk about the tat, Shaw asked her a question anyway. “Why’d you decide to put the tat on your ass?”
She scowled at him. “No questions,” she reminded him. He opened his mouth and closed it, but only after she narrowed her eyes at him.
Sunny was thankful for his closed mouth. And she was glad she’d made him swear not to ask about the tat, because there was one huge question she didn’t want to hear.
Do you really love me forever?
The answer to that would send him running. Because the answer was yes.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
SHAW WAS GLAD he’d managed to have makeup sex with Sunny. Glad, too, that he’d just been able to be with her for an hour or so, because if he hadn’t had that he’d be in serious trouble right now.
He was facing the family meeting from hell.
His mood was somewhere between kick-ass and kick even more ass, but without resolving that rift with Sunny, he wouldn’t have been fit to be around other humans. Of course, not everything was wrapped up in a neat little box with Sunny. Heck, Shaw wasn’t even sure there was a box yet, but at least he had her back in his arms, and for now that would have to do.
Even if he couldn’t ask her questions about the tat.
He pushed that aside and glanced into the dining room where the others were waiting. It had taken him many phone calls, some yelling, some threats and plenty of cursing, but he’d finally gotten all the interested parties under the same roof.
Marty and Aurora, who’d arrived only minutes apart. Followed by Cait, Austin, Leyton. Lenore was at the table, as well.
With no threats or cajoling necessary, he’d included his mother in on this because it was entirely possible that she would become the voice of reason they might need. Shaw wasn’t counting on Cait to hold her temper in check—especially since she was in the process of sticking pins in a doll that bore a striking resemblance to Marty.
Austin could also end up being a hotheaded loose cannon, which was almost certainly why he’d left his girls with a sitter. Since he’d become a father, Austin had developed a no-bullshit tolerance for his own shitty father and definitely wouldn’t be cutting Marty any slack. Hell, he’d find more pins for Cait if she ran low on them.
Then, there was Leyton. He would hold steady, probably, but he’d already had to tangle with Marty and Aurora, and his patience with them had to be wearing thin. Leyton was levelheaded and fair, and Shaw thought he might explode if he continued to come up against the two idiots who’d managed to make a child. Two idiots who were hell-bent on screwing that child over six ways to Sunday.
And that’s why Kinsley wasn’t at this meeting.
The girl had been through enough, so Shaw had made yet another call to Ryan to encourage the boy to take Kinsley out for ice cream or even a movie. Shaw’s treat. That way, Kinsley would miss the little chat session that could turn ugly fast.
There was a knock at the door, and Shaw greeted Rick Downing, his lawyer. As Shaw had instructed him to do, Rick had brought his laptop, papers and pens. Also as instructed, Rick knew that no one would be leaving the house until they’d worked out what would be happening to Kinsley.
; “I’ve made snacks,” Lenore said, getting Rick’s attention.
She motioned toward what looked to be a plate of brownies in the center of the table. It wasn’t. It was something that she called beet-nip bars, which as Lenore had pointed out was a combination of beets and parsnips.
No one had touched a crumb.
“You threatened me,” Aurora grumbled, her gaze spearing Shaw’s when he sat down across from her.
“Yeah, I did,” he admitted. “I said if you didn’t come, I’d tell CPS that you’d abandoned your daughter and you could face charges. It’s sad, huh, that it took that to get you here?”
“No need to talk to Aurora like that,” Marty drawled. “She’s doing the best she can.”
That got him hell-freezing looks from everyone but Aurora. Cait picked up a huge pin, at least three inches long, and she jammed it into the doll’s crotch. Every male in the room winced.
Rick sat, too, introducing himself to Aurora, the only one at the table who didn’t know him. “I understand you’ve said that you no longer want to raise your daughter?” he asked outright.
Aurora pulled back her shoulders. “I shouldn’t get in trouble for saving my own sanity. Kinsley has gotten on my every last nerve, and I just can’t do it anymore. I can’t handle her. It should be against the law for him to try to sic the law on me for that.”
The him was Shaw, and just in case he hadn’t understood that, Aurora jabbed a finger at him. And then she started to cry. Normally, that would have caused Shaw to at least groan. He hated seeing a woman cry, but his sympathy meter for Aurora was pretty low right now.
“And I understand that you also don’t want to raise your daughter?” Rick asked Marty.
Marty lifted his hands, palms up. “I just wouldn’t be very good at it, dude.”
Cait snorted, and Austin added, “You think?” Leyton swore under his breath and scrubbed his hand over his face.
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