Page 48 of Surly Sheriff
“Need to take care of the condom.” And get his emotions under control. He stumbled across the thick carpet and onto the cool tile of the bathroom. Tying off the condom, he harkened back to his marriage.
Not once had he ever looked at Moira and thought, “Mine.”
He flushed the toilet, cursing. How on earth was he going to let her go?
Let her go?
He stared at his image in the mirror with disgust and shook his head.
Seriously, Stirling. Rae is not a possession. She’s a woman with a plan. Four weeks. Then she’s off to Key West, remember?
He splashed cold water over his face, grumbled a few expletives into the towel, and walked back into the bedroom.
Rae lay curled on her side, facing the bathroom, a dreamy smile on her lips. “Can we do that again?”
His heart stuttered, and his dick surged. A sane man, one who cared about his mental health, would dress and walk away.
But Beau had lost any semblance of lucidity when the bottle green convertible driven by a bottle-blonde woman pulled to a stop beside him.
He climbed back into bed and pulled her back into his arms. “Yes, ma’am.”
And the second time with Rae was even more spectacular than the first.
Yep. He was fucked, literally and figuratively.
*
Not sure what woke him, Beau lay still for a moment to get his bearings. It was semi-dark, and the bedroom—
The earlier activities flooded back, and he grinned, turning his head.
Rae was not in the bed beside him.
Ambient light pooled in from the hallway and he scanned the room. No Rae. He fumbled for his cellphone on the nightstand. It read 3:05 a.m. All semblance of sleep fled, and he left the bed. He strode to the bathroom. Empty, too. Finding his shorts, he slipped them on and made his way into the lit hallway. The faint sound of tapping and the low murmur of her voice guided his steps to the kitchen. Entering, he followed the glow of the lamp and found her at the two-seater table in the kitchen bay window wearing his T-shirt from last night. Hunched over her laptop, the glow of the screen lit her face. Kismet lay curled up beside her, snoring.
Neither heard him, and he didn’t alert them to his presence. She looked adorable, her hair mussed, even sticking up on one side. A smile pulled at his lips, listening to her mutter words that would blister a Marine’s ear. It was the first time he heard her cuss, and after a particularly harsh litany, he decided to intrude. “Want me to kill him?”
“Aaaah!” She reared up and back, and the chair went flying. Kismet shot to his feet and yelped. Rae stared at him, eyes bulging, chest heaving. The dog danced around him, ready for the middle of the night game.
He held his hands up. “Sorry,” he said and rushed over. The dog scampered out of his way. Beau righted the bentwood chair, glimpsing her laptop screen before she slammed the lid closed.
“You scared me senseless,” she accused, standing beside the table, her hand on the laptop.
Her defensive action soured his belly, tumbling him more than ten years back. “What are you hiding?”
She stared at him for a beat, a frown pulling her dark brows closer. “What do you mean?”
“Don’t patronize me, Rae. You closed that pretty fucking fast,” he bit out, nodding to the laptop.
She regarded him with an inscrutable look, before lifting her hand and folding her arms across her midriff. “Go ahead. Look,” she snapped.
It took everything in himnotto lift the lid. “Iaskedyou. Tell me.”
“No.” Her chin rose a fraction. “You want to see what I’mhiding,you can damn well look yourself.” She pursed her lips to a straight line.
He dropped his head, defeated. “This was how it was with Moira,” he admitted.
“Moira?” Her brows rose. “Ah. Your ex-wife.”
