Page 14 of Claimed and Catalogued
I swallow hard as a fiddle plays out the final notes on‘Run Run Rudolph’then give in to Santa’s touch, holding my body as still as possible as an orgasm rips through me. My legs convulse first, my eyes roll back into my head, and I collapse against Nick’s big, warm frame with a strangled sigh.
“Good girl,” he growls low in my ear, his fingers still curling tightly inside of me as I release in the back corner booth of Mullet’s bar with about sixty of my closest small-town friends surrounding me. I should be ashamed, but I’m not. Given the chance, I’d do it again.
God help me.
Maybe Tess was right. Maybe that chicken sweater was a big red flag telling everyone how much I needed cock because this little moment right here isn’t normal for me. I don’t know who it would be normal for. I can’t imagine many people are getting fingered at the bar. Then again, I probably don’t come to the bar enough to know that for a fact.
Maybe people get fingered in bars all the time. I doubt they do, though.
Nick grins wide as he stares at me with a look of satisfaction. “You look relieved.”
“Relieved or insanely embarrassed. Either one. But… you are good with your hands, sir.”
“So did I earn my‘real man’badge or are we still thinking I’m a manifestation?”
I snort, trying not to smile. “Honestly, that might have hurt your case.”
“Yeah?” He grins smugly. “How’s that?”
“Are you kidding? The real me doesn’t do that. Not with tinsel overhead while a band plays. I will say, I think the woman in the corner having a meltdown might have helped distract folks.”
He glances toward the front corner of the bar where two brunettes sit sipping beer. One looks to be crying while the other’s lecturing. It’s not until the crier lifts her head that I realize who the two women are.
“Oh God.”
“What?” Nick shifts in his seat and pulls his hand from my warmth, licking his fingers casually as though he’s just finished a plate of fried chicken.
I try not to be aroused, but I am, and I want more,so much more,but now probably isn’t the time.
“The woman crying is my sister. The woman beside her, mylovelymother. We need to go.” I try shoving him from the booth, but before we make it up, the song ends, the crowd clears, and my mother looks straight at me.
Chapter Eight
Nick
This is why you don’t go off script. If you go off script, everything goes to shit.
Evie’s face is frozen in a cocktail of horror and post orgasm haze. “Do you think they saw us? They look like they saw us?”
I have thirty seconds to tell this woman every bit of truth about this situation before it blows up in my face.
Fuck.
“I think they saw us.”
“Oh God. They’re coming over. Just go with the flow.” She readjusts in the seat and takes the last sip of my beer. “If we act normal, they won’t figure a thing.”
“I need to tell you something. I came to town a few months back. I didn’t realize—” I’m immediately unable to find the right combination of syllables that form the thoughts I’m thinking. For a second, it looks like she might be reading my mind, but the moment is fleeting, and before I get to the end of my sentence, her mother is at our table with a look that says just about everything that needs to be said.
“What are you doing here, Evie?” The woman’s voice is dark and angry. “You know who this is, right?”
Fuck!
Evie’s mom stands over us like a dark thundercloud with fancy red shoes. Her hair is tied up tight, and her breasts are on display as though she’s out fishing for attention.
“I know what you think of me,” I clear my voice as I talk, “but it’s my job to bring criminals in.”
Her face turns dark red and the words fly out of her mouth with a spray of spit that lands on my arm as she says, “Yourjobis disgusting. Yourjobis to tear families apart.”
