Hard Rules (Dirty Money #1)(31)

“I want you right here.”

“No you don’t, because I’ll tell you that you shouldn’t be looking into that woman, Shane. And yet I know it’s none of my business.”

“What it is, is more complicated than a simple affair.”

“Like I said, I should I should go to the balcony.”

“Stay,” he says, and while he says it like one of his commands, which I’ve come to realize are simply second nature to him, I sense an undertone of a plea I don’t believe he’d ever issue.

I give a choppy nod and resettle on the barstool. He wastes no time punching a button on his phone and almost instantly says, “What’s going on, Mother?”

“I heard you saw your father tonight,” I hear her reply.

“I see him daily,” he says, obviously treading cautiously.

“At the restaurant, Shane. Susie said you obviously were not pleased.”

He’s silent several beats, as if weighing his reply. “Did she tell you why?”

“I know your father’s having an affair. It’s you I’m worried about.”

“You know he’s having an affair?”

He sounds incredulous. Been there, done that, and I never came to terms with why my mother accepted my stepfather’s affairs.

“Of course I know,” his mother confirms. “It’s fine.”

Shane looks at the ceiling, seeming to rein in whatever emotion she’s stirred, before saying, “We’ll talk tomorrow.” His tone short and absolute.

“Son,” she begins. “Your father—”

“I have company, Mother.”

“Oh. Well. Good. You need to f*ck some of your frustrations out. We’ll talk tomorrow.”

Okay. Talk about embarrassing, and from his mother of all people.

“Tomorrow,” he bites out, ending the call and for a moment he just sits there, his spine stiff, his gaze fixed forward. I wait, giving him space and time.

He scrubs his jaw, no doubt trying to shake off a mire of emotions I know pretty well, but I doubt he hopes to share with me, or anyone. “I’m sorry you heard that,” he says, shoving his phone in his pocket, and standing to press his hands on the back of his stool.

“I’m thick-skinned,” I say, rotating to face him, finding his stare fixed on me, his expression unreadable, but that is expected from a man who makes a living hiding his reactions to things.

There are a million things that come to my mind that I could say—like how people have coping mechanisms—but he’d said this was more than a simple affair and anything I say could negate me respecting the implications of that claim. And I don’t have time to weigh the smartness of that decision as he steps to me, his hands coming down on the back of my chair, his arms caging me. “This thing between us is not about two kids, PTA meetings, and four dogs in our future.”

“Four dogs. That’s a lot. I do want a dog though.”

“Emily.”

“I don’t need PTA meetings. This thing, as you call it, is a one-night stand, Shane.”

“That’s not happening.”

“What’s not happening?”

“This is not a one-night stand. Neither of us will be done with each other that fast, and we both know it.”

“You can’t decide what we are on your own.”

“You’re running, but not from me.”

“Let me up.” I shove on his unmoving arm to try to break free. “Damn it, Shane.”

“Do you want this to be a one-night stand?”

“I’m not capable of more right now.”

“We’re keeping it simple. We’re going upstairs to my bedroom to f*ck.”

“And tomorrow?”

“We’ll f*ck some more.”

It’s just sex and he’s upset right now. Come tomorrow morning, he’ll be over this. “Fine,” I say. “Then why are we talking?”

His eyes glint and the next thing I know, he’s lifted me off the stool, scooped me up and is crossing the living room to carry me up a long set of wooden steps. Heading, I assume, to his bedroom, a man on a mission, to f*ck everything out of his system, and no matter what he just said, I’m pretty sure that includes me. There’s no reason to worry he’ll see too much, or want too much. He is just reacting to his family drama, and no one understands that more than me.

At the top of the stairs, we enter a room shrouded in shadows and he doesn’t turn on the lights. He sits me on a bed, and then he’s gone, leaving me to eye the one thing I can make out clearly in the room. A giant wall of more windows, the sky now black, as if clouds have wiped out all light. The way Shane and I both want to wipe away the darkness. You’re running, he’d said, and it hadn’t been an accusation, but rather a statement of fact.

The sound of a condom package tearing has me twisting around to find him standing at the edge of the nightstand, naked—like the way he makes me feel inside. He comes back to me then, joining me on the bed, and my shirt, his shirt, is gone in a flash, his hands replacing it. His tongue and mouth are everywhere. And when he finally turns my back to his front, and he is inside me again, his body wrapped around mine, our pleasure colliding, our bodies collapsing in release, he holds on to me and he doesn’t let go. And he doesn’t hurry away, nor do I try to move. We just lay there, in the darkness, together, and therefore we are not alone.