Page 22 of Turning Tides
“Shane let me live there while I got my shit sorted too.” Mickey stole a glance at him and it was easy to see that Mickey had some serious hero worship going on.
“He’s easy on the eyes.” I caught Mickey’s attention with that and he gaped at me. I wiggled my eyebrows at him.
Mickey straightened. “He’s like a brother to me.”
If I’d have been less tired, I might have been able to let the shame that bloomed in my chest fall away, but it took up residence in my exhausted body. I’d wanted to see if Mickey had a thing for Shane and he’d delivered my answer to me. It should’ve made me feel better to know that he and the twink didn’t have anything going on, though Shane didn’t strike me as the type to fuck his staff.
And looks could be deceiving, but the way Mickey looked at Shane should have been a dead giveaway that they wouldn’t be compatible in bed. Not the way Shane and I were.
I finished my meal and Mickey took my dirty plate away with compliments to the chef. The only thing I hadn’t eaten was the useless sprig of parsley on the side. The rush of patrons had slowed, giving Shane time to cross over to my stool.
“Another?” He motioned to my empty bottle.
“I’m good for now. But if you want to bring a couple of those upstairs when you’re done here, I’d love to have one then.”
I didn’t want him to say no. Even though he should. Inviting him up for a drink seemed suddenly reckless. He was my brother’s friend. His boss. My landlord. My lifeline. He’d looked out and saw me struggling, treading water, and had reached down and pulled me up, offering me a second chance to get things right.
Maybe a little of it was spite because of the way Cyrus had spoken to me before, like I was the one that had ruined my business the first time around when all I’d done was trust the wrong person.
I shouldn’t want to complicate anything. Revoking my invitation should have been my next move, but instead I sat and held my breath and stared up at Shane, daring him to say no.
“I won’t be off until late.”
I shrugged and slid off my stool. “I’ll be up if you change your mind.”
“That wasn’t a no,” Shane told me. What he didn’t say was that it should be. We both knew it should be. We should take whatever happened between us, forget about it, and move on like adults.
“But was it a yes?” I held still, as if I’d scare away the right answer if I made any sudden moves.
“See you after last call.” Shane didn’t smile, but I saw the hint of color in his cheeks. I hoped he was imagining all the things I wanted to do to him when I got him alone again. I knew I was.
“I look forward to it.” I held his gaze longer than strictly necessary before hightailing it out of there and slipping back upstairs. Last call was hours away, but my previously exhausted body thrummed to life with a fresh burst of energy.
Cyrus would kill me if he knew what had gone on between Shane and me. He’d resurrect me and kill me twice if he knew that I wanted it to happen again. I should stay away from Shane and I knew it. But no one had fit under me like he had. No one had wanted to the way he’d wanted to and I held onto that with both hands, knowing I should let it go.
I couldn’t.
For better or worse, I was addicted to Shane Taggart.
Chapter 11
Shane
I had my fistraised to knock when the door swung open and a very eager Archer yanked me inside. With a fistful of shirt in one hand, he reached up and rugged me down into a kiss. There was no time to second-guess myself or whether or not I should be up here in the dead of night with a couple bottles of beer and a condom in my back pocket.
Archer was on his toes kissing me before the door was shut. The beers I held by the necks in my left hand clanked together as I stepped further into the space. I nudged the door shut with my foot and wrapped my arms around him.
Archer kissed like a force of nature. He consumed me. Every thought I’d had on the way up the stairs was swept away by that first taste of his mouth on mine. Archer tugged at my hair, my shirt. All hands and eager lips and desperation. I fumbled the beer, catching my grip at the last second.
Laughing, I pulled away and handed him one of the bottles. He eyed the drink, then took mine too. He set them aside and, in one smooth motion, reached for the hem of his shirt and whipped it off over his head.
His gaze bore into me and I felt stupidly vulnerable, like he could look at me and see how fucking undone I was from one kiss.
“Is that all you brought?” Archer eyed me, but my gaze drifted down his bare torso to the low-slung pajama pants held up only by a loosely tied drawstring. Archer was slender to the point of skinny, the type of body that people always wanted to fatten up. To me, he was perfect. Slim and sexy with this unwavering take-me-or-leave-me type of confidence.
I reached into my back pocket and pulled the condom out.
“Good boy.” Archer smirked at me and I swear he had x-ray vision to watch my heart hammer harder when he said those words. I liked praise—who didn’t? Everyone wanted to be good; I knew I wasn’t alone in that regard. But as all things, the men who usually wanted me wanted to hear those words from my lips, not gift them to me without me asking. It was like Archer somehow got hold of a copy ofShane Taggart for Dummiesand had skipped straight to the chapters about sex.
