Raindrops splash against the windshield, fat drops, making noise. It reverberates in the quiet of my car, hitting the roof, the asphalt I’m driving on. Most of all, the sound knocks against a place inside my head. A place that’s stubbornly shoved people away from me for so long. When Etta died, it affected us all.
Ro lost trust.
I lost the ability to freely give my emotions to anyone who didn’t know me before.
Before our hearts were broken by a little girl with a smile as bright as the sun. Before I had to be a pallbearer to a teeny, tiny casket, light enough I could have carried it on my own. Would have if anyone had asked. She was a light in the darkness, and when her flame was snuffed out, my family lost a piece of themselves. Me? I lost a piece of my heart. One I haven’t been able to recover, let alone give to anyone else.
But those eyes of Shelby’s?
They remind me of Etta’s. The way she trusted me?
I saw that in Shelby the night of the Christmas party. “What do I do, Etta?”
I whisper the question, not knowing if it’s a question I should be asking of a little girl who never even had her fifth birthday.
All of a sudden, a deer appears in the middle of the road, causing me to slam on my brakes. Oil on the asphalt spins me around once, twice, maybe even three or four times. When I slide to a stop, my car is facing back the way I was coming. The front-end headed toward town instead of my apartment.
Smirking, I can’t help the chuckle pulled from my throat. “I got it, E. I got it.”
The whole way back to Shelby’s office my mind is racing as fast as the miles my car eats up. I hope like hell she hasn’t left, that I haven’t managed to fuck up the chance I had with her. This woman, she admitted she remembered what happened, and I didn’t give her the answers she wanted. That’s my fault, and I hope she’s way more forgiving than I typically am.
Pulling along the square, I see her car is still sitting in front of her office building. I come to screeching halt next to it, throw it in park, before opening the door and running into the deluge of water pouring down. Approaching her office, I can see the entrance she normally has open is shut, and when I try the knob it’s locked.
“Shelby!”
My fists beat against the wood, hoping she can hear me.
“Shelby!”
Right now I wish I had my toolkit; I could pop this lock in a few seconds.
“Shelby!”
I scream again, hoping she’ll hear the desperation in my voice.
“What?”
I have to stop my fist from hitting her in the face when she swings the door open, standing there with her arms crossed over her chest.
She’s never looked hotter than she does right now. All full of irritation and anger.
“I’m sorry,” I start.
“You should be.” She taps her foot on the floor. “Do you know what it took for me to tell you I remembered the night of the Christmas Party, Sullivan? Nobody has ever done what you did to me that night, I’ve never responded to another person the way I did with you.”
I hold my hand up, cutting her off. “Look, Counselor, you got to talk in the car, now I get to talk.”
She looks like she wants to argue, but I muscle my way in, shutting the door with my foot, locking it so we don’t get disturbed and closing anyone else out of this very private conversation we’re about to have.
“I’m waiting.” She tilts her chin.
“Fuck, you’re hot.” I close the distance between us, shoving my hands into her hair, tilting her head to my liking. “You don’t know how many times I’ve jacked off to the night of the Christmas Party, how many times I wanted to ask you about it. You never gave me any inkling you remembered it, so I didn’t. Today you took me by surprise and I didn’t know how to react.”
“But you do now?” She baits me.
“I do.” I swallow deeply, pulling one hand back to rub my thumb over her full bottom lip.
“How are you going to react?”
Her pulse is thumping at her throat, her tits are pressing against my chest with her shallow breathing, emerald eyes are dilated as they gaze into mine.
“How I should have reacted thirty minutes ago,” I whisper before I take her mouth.
It’s an aggression, a show of ownership I’ve never given another woman, but there’s something about Shelby Bruce that gets to me. She’s under my skin, a scent in my nose, a taste in my mouth. My lips eat hers up as she gives into the kiss I’ve wanted to take for months.
Her fingers gouge at my back, fisting at the hoodie covering my body. Mine destroy her hair, moving down her torso to her ass. The skirt she wears prevents me from doing much, but I manage to pull it up slightly. Enough so that I can get access to her thighs and ass. Palming the globes, I lift her up, pulling her legs around my waist as I walk her over to the couch along the wall.
Having a seat, I lean back so she can straddle me and rock her hips against my hard cock. When we pull apart, it’s because we can’t breathe. As we suck in air, I manage to speak.
“Is this okay with you?”
“Hmm, totally okay,” she moans as I move my hand up, curling around her left breast, worrying the peaked nipple with my thumb.
“Good.” I pull her back to me, kissing her with everything I’ve got.
She’s fighting against my damp hoodie, trying to get it off my body when we both hear a loud knocking at the door.
“Shelby, it’s time for my appointment. Are you here?”
“Shit,” she whispers, dropping her forehead against mine. “I really do have a client.”
“Fuck,” I groan along with her. “The sounds like Widow Haley.”
“It is.” She gets off me, trying to straighten herself out. “I’ll be with you in just a moment, Mrs. Haley.”
“What the fuck am I supposed to do with this?” I point to my sweatpants, where anyone who looks at me can see how ready I was to get busy with Shelby here in her law office.
“Think about people in their underwear,” she giggles.
“Doesn’t work, I’m just gonna think about you.”
She gives me a look, wiping off her lips, with an indulgent grin on her face. “I need you to get out of here so I can do my job. There’s a bathroom over there.” She points to the right to a room I haven’t seen before. “If you want to take care of business so you can leave.”
“Shelby!”
“Coming, Mrs. Haley. I’ve really got to go.” She looks up at me.
“Stop by my apartment when you get off work.” I grab her hand, kissing the palm. “We need to talk.”
“We do.” She points at me. “And I mean talk.”
I wink. “We’ll talk.”
“I mean it, Sully.”
“I do too, Counselor. I do too.”
Chapter 7
Sulllivan
Driving home is uncomfortable in many ways. The biggest one is between my thighs. Going to the bathroom at Shelby’s office did absolutely nothing for the hard-on I’m still sporting. Feeling the material of my sweatpants against the sensitive head of my dick isn’t making the situation any better.