Page 5 of Sharing Shane

“Well, it could, but we’re on the phone now. It’s about your trip.”

“I need to get my paperwork, and I need to be quiet so I don’t screw with Derek’s conference call.”

“Fine, I’ll hold. Should I hum some annoying music?”

Veronica stifled a snicker and carefully turned her key in the lock. “You’re such a jackass.”

“That’s why you love me,” Delia said and began to hum.

Veronica had to stifle another snicker when she recognized an extremely slow—and yes, annoying—version of Shake It Off. She quietly pushed the door open, wincing when it creaked. She kept meaning to ask the building manager to take a look at that, but like everything else it had taken a back seat to her schedule.

She left the door ajar, not wanting to make it squeak again, and crept on her toes to the small desk she kept in the corner of her living room.

“God, you sound like a herd of elephants,” Delia said in her ear. “I thought you were trying to be quiet.”

Veronica rolled her eyes and hissed, hoping her friend would take the hint and shut up.

“I will not shut up,” Delia said with a laugh. “Triple D can’t hear me, and you can’t talk back, so I’m going to get in as many words as I can.”

Veronica bit her lip to hold back the retort and carefully slid the drawer of the small desk open. The red folder sat in the center, right where she’d thought it would be. She scooped it up and tucked it in her bag, eager to get out of the apartment before she alerted Derek to her presence.

She crept back to the door, her steps slow and exaggerated, and she was just laying a hand on the knob when she heard it.

Delia, who had been in mid-rant about some movie that wasn’t nearly as funny as it was supposed to be, asked, “Was that a moan?”

It had certainly sounded like one, coming from the direction of her bedroom. She frowned, then shook her head. “Derek’s on his conference call,” she whispered. “I’m sure it was just?—”

She broke off at another sound, this one distinctly not mistakable for anything that might occur over a conference call about a marketing campaign.

“Okay, that was a squeal.” Delia’s voice had gone dark with suspicion. “A sex squeal. What is he doing, watching porn while you’re at work?”

Unlikely, considering the conversation they’d had a couple of months ago about incorporating some sexy movie-watching into their love life. Derek had been appalled at the thought, and though he’d been adamant that he wasn’t judging her, Veronica had still been left with the distinct impression that he’d thought there was something wrong with her for suggesting it.

Which was a problem for another time, because the latest noise to drift down the hall hadn’t come from some random porn star—it had come from Derek.

“That’s Derek,” she whispered. “That’s his ‘oh baby, right there’ moan.”

“He fucking better be jerking off.”

Veronica wasn’t sure exactly which emotions were tangled up in the ball of lead that had taken up residence in her gut, and she didn’t want to take the time to parse it out at the moment. But she definitely recognized the beginnings of rage as she tiptoed down the hallway to the open bedroom door.

He wasn’t jerking off.

Time seemed to freeze as she took in the details. There was her brass bed, the one she’d found at the Ann Arbor flea market two summers ago and spent the better part of a month restoring to a mirror gleam. The jumble of clothes she’d left piled across the quilt her grandmother had made for her when she’d graduated from high school was still there, evidence of her early morning scramble to find something to wear. Her books still sat on the windowsill and bedside tables, her plants still hung from their baskets by the windows. And that was her boyfriend standing with his back to her, half bent over the gleaming footboard.

The naked woman bent over in front of him? That was new.

Veronica recognized her next-door neighbor right away, though Cami was usually a little more put together when they ran into each other by the mailboxes. Her red hair was tangled around her head instead of in the sleek braid she usually favored, and her porcelain skin held a distinct flush.

It looked like they’d been going at it for a while, she noted dispassionately. Cami was covered in a light sheen of sweat, and there was a line of damp down the back of the dress shirt Derek still wore.

Which was still tucked neatly into his slacks, she noted, and had to stifle a bark of hysterical laughter.

If the moans were anything to go by, they seemed to be enjoying themselves. She could hear them clearly now, standing mere feet away, breathy pants and muffled squeaks from Cami and the heavy moans from Derek that told her he was nearing his big finish.

She almost walked away and left them to it, but then he shifted slightly, angling to the side just enough for her to see his cock withdraw, then plunge back inside.

His bare, uncovered cock.

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