Private Lies Read online

  Shane stared into the plastic cup full of thirty-year old Scotch in his hand. He’d figured if he was going to steal a bottle from the bar, he might as well go for the best. But the straight whisky had gone to his head and affected his judgment more than he liked. That much was obvious when he couldn’t stop his tongue and blurted out the truth. “Your friend, the Smith woman. She’s making my life difficult.”

  “Seekie?”

  Why the hell did rich people have such crazy names? “Yeah.”

  Jax seemed to hesitate. “Oh.”

  He didn’t like the sound of that. “Oh, what?”

  Jax’s baby blues were mere inches from his when she said, “I can’t say who you can or can’t sleep with either. I don’t blame you one bit for having had sex with Seekie. She does have nice breasts. I mean, she should, her husband paid enough for them.”

  Damn it. Shane hadn’t even done anything with Smith’s wife and Jax still thought he had. He put both his and her cup on the ground, then took hold of Jax’s hands and squeezed to reinforce his point. “That’s why she’s making my life difficult. Because I won’t have sex with her. She alternates between hitting on me and then being a bitch when I don’t fall all over her. I finally got done dealing with her bullshit and I look and you’re outside on the terrace getting cozy with Arthur Johnston in the moonlight, twenty-four hours after you’d been in bed with me. It’s been a tough night.”

  Jax’s mouth looked really inviting, particularly as it curled into a smile. “Really? You never had sex with Seekie?”

  “Really.” Shane’s gaze remained trained on her lips as he added, “And, personally, I prefer natural breasts.”

  “Mine are too small,” she whispered, only a breath from his mouth.

  “Yours are perfect.” He closed what little distance remained between them and his lips crashed into hers.

  All control fled. Then it was hard to tell who the aggressor became. Jax somehow ended on top as his lounge chair creaked beneath their combined weight. Shane could feel the warmth of her as she straddled him, her dress riding up to sit high on her thighs. His palms slid up to cup her bare ass cheeks. Groaning at the discovery of the barely-there lacey thong underwear, he plunged his tongue into her mouth. She accepted it with a moan of her own.

  Yeah, on some level he knew this whole thing was wrong. He shouldn’t have let it happen last night or be looking for a repeat tonight. Jax was fresh from a broken marriage and Shane had never intended on mixing business with pleasure, but damn, how was a man supposed to put on the brakes when his hands were full of warm, willing woman? A woman whose incredible tits were now rubbing his own chest through the thin cotton-poly blend of his white button-down work shirt.

  A low rumble escaped Shane’s throat as he disconnected from the kiss. He pushed the neckline of her low-cut dress down so he could run the flat of his tongue over one hard, pebbled nipple. Jax shuddered above him at the contact.

  Clamping tightly onto her breast, he drew her into his mouth and sucked as she ground against his thigh, breathing heavier at the friction. Shane pulled back, letting his teeth scrape against the sensitive tip as Jax gasped and worked his leg harder, faster. She was one of those women with extremely sensitive breasts. There was a good chance between his mouth on her tits and her rubbing herself against his leg that she’d come right then and there. He liked that idea a lot.

  After what she’d told him, he knew how to move things along even faster. Shane moved to her other neglected peak, his tongue lavishing it with the same attention he’d given the first one as her movement against him became frenzied. Slipping his hand beneath the lacey edge of her panties, he dipped into her wetness. Without stopping his mouth’s work on her breasts, Shane pressed one slick finger inside her ass. He immediately felt her respond just like he hoped she would.

  He pressed his finger deeper and Jax came hard, exploding around him. He felt her muscles spasm for an incredible moment that stopped time. Then, slowly, her body calmed even as she continued to pant. His erection nearly painful, Shane leaned back and looked up at the breathless woman, proud he’d been the one to make her that way.

  She watched him from beneath half-closed eyelids. “I want more. I want you inside me.”

  A smile crossed his lips. “Believe me. So do I.”

  Flipping them both over on the poor abused lounge, Shane struggled to open his belt and pants with hands that shook. Aware on some level that they were outdoors in a public place and could be discovered at any moment, he left both his pants and her thong on.

  He slipped on the condom he’d shoved in his pocket before work today, just in case. With one finger, Shane hooked her panties and slid them to the side, and then drove himself deeply inside her as she gasped.

  A sheen of perspiration formed on his body in spite of the night air. Shane was not gentle as he moved inside of her, knowing Jax wanted to be taken hard and fast, that this was exactly what she needed.

  Jax gripped his hips and pulled him deeper as her body rose to meet his every thrust until he felt her muscles begin to quiver around him. With cries much too loud considering their location, she came again. As her spasms contracted around his cock, Shane followed right behind with a shout of his own.

  Finally collapsing spent and breathless on top of Jax, he let reality creep back in. They couldn’t stay there, as much as he’d like to. Shane sat up and adjusted his pants, fully aware now that the passion waned they were damn lucky the night houseman hadn’t come outside to investigate all the noise.

  He watched Jax right her panties and push her dress to cover her thighs. Those thighs he’d been between just moments before, the place he wouldn’t mind visiting again real soon. His thoughts were interrupted when he heard her laugh.

  “What?” He raised his eyes to hers, letting his hand rest lightly on one temptingly smooth leg.

  “I’m just thinking what my mother is going to think when I sneak into the house hours after the club closed two nights in a row.”

  He knew exactly what Grey Goose would think, that Jax had spent the night with the skinny Johnston boy she’d had dinner with. Jax’s sexual enthusiasm would be wasted on that guy, if it didn’t send him into an asthma attack and kill him first.

  Pissed off all over again thinking about Jax and Arthur, he probably sounded harsher than a man should after just making love to a woman. “You’re an adult. She has no say in what you do.”

  Jax’s laugh tinkled in the darkness. “You obviously don’t know my mother.”

  He knew enough. “Why are you living at home, anyway?”

  “The divorce. Gio got the apartment in the settlement, and I get to pay all the bills on it for the next year.”

  Shane frowned, shocked. “He cheated on you. Didn’t you have a pre-nup?”

  She sighed. “No, and please, don’t remind me about that. I don’t want to talk about it. It will just spoil my good mood.”

  Jax bent her knee and ran one bare foot along his thigh. Her high heels had somehow landed in the grass a few feet away. Damn, she was hot. Just the contact of her toes against his leg woke his dick up in a big way, something all of Seekie Smith’s overt flirting and outright groping had failed miserably to do. Just thinking of that woman, even now, left him cold.

  His cock pressed painfully against his fly and he had to adjust himself. He laughed at the irony. A beautiful, intelligent woman who could do that to him, and she had spent the night on a date with someone else. Didn’t it figure?

  “Look at me, I’m hard again from sitting next to you and we finished barely a minute ago.”

  Jax bit her lower lip as her gaze dropped to his crotch. “I could take care of that for you. If you want.”

  Groaning, he leaned towards Jax, stopping just short of her lips. “I have to tell you one thing first. If your plans are to start seriously dating the Johnston boy, this is it. Tonight is the last time we can be together. I don’t sleep with women who are involved with other men.”

 
He didn’t care how sexy they were or how tonight had already bent that rule to nearly the breaking point.

  She laughed. “Oh, I never did get to tell you before, did I?”

  “Tell me what?”

  “It’s all fake. The whole relationship. Arthur and I, we’re pretending to be together to keep our parents off our backs.”

  What? He’d never heard such bullshit, but Jax didn’t seem the type to lie. “It looked pretty real to me. All that whispering at the dinner table. The dancing.”

  “It had to be convincing. Shane, you don’t know my mother. You wouldn’t believe the lengths she will go to. I had to do something, and pretending to go out with Arthur is the best I could come up with.”

  “What about the kiss in the parking lot? No one was there to see that.” Except for Shane, because he’d been stalking her.

  “First of all, as you noted, that was on the cheek and it was because he really is a sweet man. I think he’s going to be a good friend. I really hope he finds a nice girl one day. It’s just not going to be me. Apparently I’m not attracted to sweet.”

  He ignored the feeling he may have just been insulted. “I’m very glad to hear that.”

  Shane grabbed her face in both hands and kissed her hard. When he finally released her, she smiled and touched his face. “I was a little mad at you before, but I think I kind of like the alpha male routine.”

  “Good.” Since he seemed to have no choice in the way he felt when it came to Jax.

  “Just don’t get too carried away with it, okay?”

  “Okay.” If she stopped going on dates, even fake dates, he figured he’d be able to keep that promise. He slid his hand up her thigh and groaned as he got closer to her heat. “I’m tired of the great outdoors for tonight. Come back to my place.”

  “I’d love to.”

  He grabbed the bottle and cups. The cups he tossed in the garbage, the scotch he fully intended on taking home. After the hell Seekie had put him through lately, he figured he was due a bonus.

  As Jax bent over to retrieve her heels he watched the silky dress pull tightly across her ass, which reminded him of something. “Jax?”

  Shoes in hand, she sat on the edge of the lounge to slip them back on. “Yes?”

  “If I’m overstepping, just say so.”

  She laughed. “I’m starting to realize you say that a lot. Go on. What do you want to ask?”

  “Do you think you might want to ever try it again, the uh, anal sex? Or would it remind you too much of him? Because, I’ve never done it and I kind of wanted to.”

  Shane swore he could see her cheeks redden in the moonlight, though he was feeling pretty flushed himself at his admission to her.

  Jax smiled shyly. “I think I would be okay with it.”

  Oh boy. Now he was really hard. Shaking, he grabbed her hand and pulled her to her feet. “Good. Let’s go.”

  Chapter Seven

  Spurred on partially by vivid, tantalizing memories of the second night spent with Shane, Jax awoke in her parents’ house that morning with a renewed determination to get out and on her own again. She’d be damned if she would continue to sneak in late at night worrying that should her parents catch her, they’d know by one look at her that she’d just had sex.

  She wanted to be able to roll naked with Shane in her own house, stay up until dawn and then stay in bed the whole next day. Wanted to walk naked to the kitchen and then have Shane bend her over the table and take her until her legs wouldn’t support her anymore. Then she wanted to grab the cooking oil off the stove and do naughty things with it.

  Okay, they had done all that last night, but it was in his kitchen. The independent woman in her wanted it to be in her own. She woke sore and stiff all over…and she couldn’t wait to see him again and do it again.

  That desire is what led to Jax, dressed in black with a flashlight held between her teeth, crawling through the window of her soon to be ex-husband’s studio. She’d never gotten a key for the front door. It was laughable that she didn’t have a key to a building she was paying rent for. Didn’t she have any rights? Wasn’t she kind of like his landlord? If only she was just his landlord, then she’d evict his lying ass.

  Pushing the window sash higher, thankful he hadn’t locked that, she wiggled her butt over the sill. The window was higher than it appeared from the ground, but luckily, she’d been doing some work on the weight machines at the gym getting ready for summer’s sleeveless fashions so she had decent upper body strength to hoist herself up and over the edge.

  Jax toppled head first onto the studio floor and froze. She knew he wasn’t there because his car wasn’t, but there was something about breaking into someplace that made a person paranoid. Not seeing anything out of the ordinary as she glanced around the two-room studio, she scrambled to her feet, crouching low so no one would see her through the window.

  Flipping on the flashlight, she went into the back room where there were fewer windows. Gio painted out front where the light was better. Judging by the couch, he screwed out there too, but what Jax wanted was in the back room. That was where he kept his desk, and his paperwork.

  What she was seeking, she didn’t know, she only hoped she’d know it when she found it. Something, anything that would save her from a year’s servitude to the bastard. Pulling on the desk drawer handle, she held her breath, praying it would open. It did and her heart began to pound as she stuck the penlight in her mouth again, shined the beam on the contents of the drawer, and started to paw through.

  An address book. That probably contained a list of his whores, uh, clients. She couldn’t take that or he’d notice. Too bad. Under that were some packing slips and receipts for things like canvases and paints, all of which Jax’s credit card had paid for. Then there was some sort of bank statement. She picked that up and shined the light on it, not sure exactly what she was looking at but feeling in her gut that it was important.

  Any document that had on it a foreign bank address, Gio’s studio mailing address, and a positive dollar amount in the right hand column was enough to make her suspicious. He’d insisted they have a joint account when they got married. There was nothing joint about the paper in her hand. As she reached further into the drawer, her hand hit on a jewelers box. Inside were diamond studded cufflinks and a note. Thank you for the beautiful painting. My love always.

  What? He was accepting gifts for his paintings, and judging by the secret bank account, money also, all while she was paying for his damn paint and everything else.

  Out of spite, Jax took the note and the box and shoved them in the front pocket of her pants. What could he do? Have her arrested? Then her mind began to reel. Didn’t they finally take down Al Capone for tax evasion? Could it be that easy to get Gio with the same thing? She had filed their joint taxes in January and he had shown nothing but a big whopping loss for his paintings. If she was reading it correctly, the paper in her hand said otherwise.

  As her mind worked further, she decided to brave the address book and opened its pages. Her hunch proved right. Inside were more than just names. There were columns of numbers too. Substantial dollar amounts that she’d never seen a dime of.

  “You bastard.” More determined than ever to nail him, she took out her cell phone and punched in Arthur’s number.

  He answered on the second ring. “Hello, Jax. More plans for a date?”

  “Um actually, I have something I could use your help on.”

  “Sure. Whatever you need.”

  “You’re in banking right?”

  He laughed. “Yes, much to my grandfather and father’s chagrin I did not follow in the Johnston family tradition in medicine. I work for an international investment bank. Why?”

  “If I brought you a bank statement, could you take a look at it?”

  “Of course. And that will help you?”

  “I certainly hope so.” She suddenly felt the urgency to get out of there before Gio arrived. In her gut she knew she could be on to so
mething that may save her. “Any chance I can meet you now? I can be in town in twenty minutes.”

  “Sure. How about Maxwell’s on Main in twenty minutes. I’ll buy you lunch while we look over your paperwork.”

  “Great. Thank you, Arthur.”

  “Don’t thank me, Jax. That’s what friends are for.”

  She disconnected the call with shaking hands and shut the drawer quietly. Folding the paper, she stuffed it into the back pocket of her black pants, then deciding to take the risk, shoved the address book in the other pocket. She crept to the door.

  In her cat burglar outfit, she wasn’t exactly dressed for lunch, but for once she couldn’t care less. She was so close to complete freedom from Gio she could practically taste it.

  *****

  Shane sat at the computer console in his apartment, staring at a screen that mirrored the information on the country club’s server, but he couldn’t focus on the columns of numbers for shit. He was close to finding the proof that would link the off shore money transfers of one of the board members with the cleverly hidden missing club funds. Unfortunately, at the moment, his mind kept flying to the night before.

  Back to the memory of Jax’s face in the moonlight as he made her come. The lingering scent of her perfume that clung to his clothes and body, haunting him when he awoke alone again the next morning. The memories of what it felt like to be deep inside her when they’d arrived back at his place. What she’d let him do with her. She’d felt so hot and tight as her body gripped him. He couldn’t look at the computer screen without eventually succumbing to daydreams about sliding into her again. Just thinking about it sent a tingle through him.

  The club was closed today, so he had the day off. It was good because he could get some computer work done, but it was very bad because he wouldn’t be seeing her today. He sighed. The fact remained, just the thought of a day without her and he was already going insane. Jax had gotten under his skin. The only question was what the hell was he going to do about it?

  Without thinking twice, Shane abandoned his earlier work and ran a quick internet search on Jacqueline Monroe, coming up with the newspaper announcement of Jax’s wedding just months before. The coverage was minor compared to what he’d expected. Not the typical big, splashy article usually printed when these society types tied the knot. He copied and pasted her husband’s name into the search bar and waited for more information to pop on screen.