Page 55 of Race With The Devil

I circled my thumbs around his cervical vertebrae. I was always sore there after a long shift washing and grooming dogs. “Yes. I’m so, so sorry for dragging you out to Tutti’s.”

It sounded as though he smile-laughed. “I want to know what you were thinking.”

My fingers stilled. I knew he was rolling it over and over in his head, every idea coming back to the same theme . . . What in the name of Captain Kangaroo is going on with her? What did I hope to gain by going to Tutti’s? Didn’t I know it was a dangerous trap?

“I know it was stupid,” I stuttered, “but I did it on the spur of the moment. It came from an emotional place, you have to understand, Tanner. When Knoxie told me you did ten years for rape, though I knew it was your brother who did it and you were innocent, still, I couldn’t separate you from the crime. And I wanted to lash out against the guy who had put me in that situation. I felt I never would’ve hooked up with you if Tutti didn’t kill Lavinia. I wanted him to know that we know what he did. That we’re not stupid.”

Sighing deeply, Tanner turned to face me. I was finally able to put my hands on his beautiful chest, but the circumstances were not those of my fantasy. “Unity. It was a stupid move, trying to tell Tutti we know. What difference does that make? It just puts him on the defensive, don’t you see?”

“I see now,” I said, my head hung low. “Wolf wouldn’t have been shot if I didn’t go there.”

“Right. And you could have been raped again or worse, if we had not come along.”

Tanner was trying to paint himself as a hero, but he was a hero. I knew to give credit where it was due. Tanner was a fucking hero, and I needed to thank him for saving my sorry ass. “I know. I can’t apologize enough. I need to get over this rape thing. I can’t run from every guy who ever stood next to a rapist.”

Tanner grinned, that adorable boyish grin that always melted my heart, if it was not mindless mush already. “Queen of Heaven. I’m not angry at you. I know you’re not going to get over something that drastic in a few weeks. You can take as much time as you want. I’ll be here.”

“But you won’t.” I pouted. “You’ll be in St. Louis once we find Lavinia. And I have a feeling we’ll find her tomorrow.”

“But I’m only going back to St. Louis to pack everything up and move out here.”

What? “What?”

He took my chin between his fingers, examining me from different angles. “Yes. I’m relocating Hang Town Ranch out here somewhere. Josie and Curly can run it while I go to med school.”

What? “Dafuq?” I whispered, awed to the core.

“I ran into a realtor at the Bum Steer the other day. She said there are plenty of former horse properties in this valley. Should be no big deal, if I can talk my sponsor into agreeing.”

“Sponsor? Someone sponsored your ranch?”

“Well, yeah, when I got out of the service I wasn’t rolling in dough. I contacted some folks from Puppies Behind Bars, and yeah, I got a sponsor.”

I raised a skeptical eyebrow and started to rub his chest with the towel again, though his chest was dry. I knew about sponsors. “A female, by any chance?”

He shrugged. “Yeah. Does it make a difference?”

“Did you fuck her?”

“Yeah. Does it make a difference?”

There it was again, that sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. As when he’d told me about Joy, even though they still appeared to be split up, a lance of jealousy speared my guts. Of course he’d fucked a few women here and there! Or even a bunch of women. Big deal. He got what he wanted and that was for the betterment of thousands of dogs everywhere!

“Yes. If you did it to get the money, it matters.”

His gaze was so direct I almost did go into capture myopathy. It was unnerving, now that he’d started doing it. I felt like a fly pinned to paper. “I didn’t do it for money. We genuinely liked each other, and haven’t fucked for over a year, but she still funds my work. Her and some other animal rescue groups. Here, beautiful.”

Bending at the knees, Tanner lifted me effortlessly. I giggled like a little girl. When had I last been carried? Oh, I didn’t care to think about that. Let’s just say a man had never carried me anywhere fun, like Tanner was now doing.

In moving to the bedroom, he lost his little hip towel. I caught a great eyeful in the wall mirror as he sauntered to the bed. His ass was muscular, juicy, and I just wanted to take a bite from it. But he sat down on the edge of the bed with me in his lap, my arms around his neck.

“We should discuss tomorrow’s schedule,” Tanner said, “but first, I’d rather kiss you.”

I made a curious sound, somewhere between a whine and a sob, and went in for the kiss.

My lips are pillowy and plump—yes, sometimes thanks to lip fillers, I freely admit—which I knew was always very sensuous for a man. But this time was different, as was everything about Tanner. We munched on each other’s mouths languidly, like two drunken people in a boat, clinging to each other out of desperation, yet knowing we had all the time in the world. I’d left my pants in my room—why put back on dirty pants to sleep?—and through my flimsy panties I felt his prick stiffen. In fact, if I squirmed just right, yes, that worked perfectly, his hard-on popped out between my thighs, and I could massage it just by writhing, keeping my knees together. It was hot and satiny and felt so much like I’d strapped on a dildo I couldn’t resist reaching down to cradle the heat in my palm.

A few slick drops of precum had spurted forth, so I used my palm to lubricate the mushroom head. Tanner moaned into my mouth as I licked the back of his teeth, his breathing quickening. I mashed my braless tits against his well-developed chest and squirmed, groaning when one of my stiff nipples scraped his chest hair. Oh, it would be even better if we were skin to skin, so I reached my free hand and lifted the Grand Canyon shirt like a curtain on a drama. The exquisite feeling when I mashed my skin to his made me squirm even more ardently, and I sucked on his upper lip, already many stages along the road to orgasm.