“Confused on that, are you?” she asked.
He leveled a suspicious glare in her direction. It only received another of her infamous smiles. Those innocent, I’ve-done-nothing-wrong grins.
Bullshit. She was obviously up to something, and he had a feeling he knew what. He was getting into trouble just fine all by himself. He didn’t need Sarah’s help.
“I shouldn’t be?” he asked softly.
She shrugged again as she brushed back one of the thick, heavy brown curls that had fallen over her shoulder.
“Well, it should have been rather obvious,” Sarah sighed. “Most women of Sheila’s ilk refuse to play second fiddle to anything or anyone else, Casey. They’re simply too possessive to be placed in any position but first.”
“She doesn’t play second anything, period,” he informed her. “Where are you going with this?”
Why was he letting her “go with it”? The “it” being the head game she was playing.
“It would depend on where you intend on going with things,” she suggested lightly. “And perhaps that’s all she’s waiting on from you, to decide if you’re worth risking her heart for. Sometimes, all a woman needs is to know she’s wanted for more than what she provides her lover in their bed.”
“Troublemaker.” Cooper stepped forward, growling the accusation in a tone filled with pure adoration. He was damned crazy over the girl and everyone knew it. But he did make attempts to limit her interference in other people’s lives.
“Of course I am,” she admitted as she lifted her face and accepted the quick kiss he placed against her lips. “That’s why you love me so dearly, though. I never let you get bored.”
Casey watched their byplay until Cooper helped his wife from her seat and they headed for the door behind the bar. That door led to the stairs that would take them to the office/bedroom Cooper kept upstairs. From there, Casey didn’t even want to guess what they would be doing. It was better not to.
Because then, he would start thinking of all the things he could be doing with Sheila, and it would just piss him off worse.
He glanced at the mirror again and narrowed his eyes.
He knew where Sheila was. He knew where she lived and he knew how to get to her. And he knew he was really getting tired of waiting on her.
She was his, he’d made that decision a long time before and had been forced to wait far too long to claim her. But he had claimed her, and now, letting her go wasn’t something he was going to do. Not now, not ever.
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FOUR
For the third night in a row, sleep was a hard time coming. For the past months, Tuesday night was one of the three reserved for Casey. At any other time she would be in his bed.
Sheila rolled over to her back with a groan and stared up at the darkened ceiling morosely. What was he doing now? Was he alone in his bed or had he found someone else to share it with? Had she made a mistake? Had she let him go too quickly, before he could have realized she could mean something to him?
Was she letting the past influence the present in such a way that she could be harming the hopes she had for her future? Of course she was, wasn’t that what she was good at? She had already proved it.
Seven years before, she hadn’t demanded the commitment, or the words of love. She hadn’t pressed the issue and she had learned the error of it. She’d been used by the man she’d thought she’d loved. Ross Mason had used her and her heart to get close to her father and to secure a military position that only Douglas Rutledge could assign.
Thankfully, her father had been smart enough to see what she hadn’t, and had managed to turn Ross’s game against him. When Ross had been given that position, he suddenly had no use for her. He’d even smiled at her and told her she had to have been aware of what he had wanted. She had just been a means to acquire it.
Not that she believed Casey was using her, because she couldn’t imagine what he could want from her. But she hadn’t imagined what Ross could want either, until the night he had broken the relationship off.
She wasn’t going to allow that to happen to her again. She couldn’t allow it, not with Casey. Already he meant too much to her.
She hadn’t loved Ross, not really. She had liked him. He had been safe, or she had thought he had been safe. She would have never loved him to the point that losing him could destroy her. Not like she loved Casey.
Kicking the blankets from her legs and blowing out a hard, deep breath, Sheila realized she was going to end up making herself crazy. She was already aroused. That was all the crazy she needed.
Lifting her arm from the mattress beside her, she let her fingers trail along the flesh exposed between the elastic of her low-rise panties and the white silk-and-lace cami tank top she wore to sleep in.
She missed his touch, the warmth of his arms around her, and his kiss.
Her eyes drifted closed and she saw Casey watching her. His expression heavy with lust, his gaze darkening with whatever emotion he kept hidden within his silence. The way he licked his lips the few times she had touched herself as he watched. It turned him on, made him so dominant and hungry for her that his possession stole her breath.
Innocent touches.
When she had smoothed lotion over her arms, stomach, and legs after showering, she would see his eyes narrow, his cock
