Kansas Nights [Kansas Heat 2] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) (36 page)

He heard Collin’s roar echo through the kitchen as Kathy’s shrieks died off. Her body went limp, crashing through Collin’s weakening hold to collapse against Jack’s heaving chest. Despite the euphoria still rioting through his blood, Jack’s arms instinctively wound around her, squeezing her tight and ensuring that she didn’t fall. They remained locked in that position for several minutes.

Finally Collin stumbled backward onto unsteady legs, eliciting a murmured groan of protest from the sleeping Kathy as his cock pulled free of her ass. She wiggled slightly, making Jack clench his jaw as his still-sensitive cock swelled with renewed interest. He didn’t rush to follow Collin as he stiffened his legs and reached down to pull up his jeans.

Instead he clung onto Kathy, more than content with the feel of her in his arms and less than eager to pull out of the heated depths of her cunt. For the moment, he had Kathy to himself, a delight that Jack savored. He’d never been the jealous type but in that moment he’d have killed any other man who came near.

Anybody other than Collin, who had straightened his clothes and begun to reach for Kathy. Jack released her, consoling himself with the assurance that the separation wouldn’t last longer than it took to get to the bed.

“You know you might want to consider taking off an article or two of clothing.” Collin paused to glance over Kathy’s head and rake Jack’s frame with a pair of amused eyes. His lips lifted into a smile as his gaze landed on the jeans puddled around Jack’s ankles. “Like, maybe, a pair of socks?”

Jack shot Collin a one-fingered response as he bent down to reach for his jeans. Collin snorted, whirling away with Kathy cuddled in his arms and leaving Jack to rush after them. Despite his smartass tendencies, Collin had one thing right. It was past time he actually got naked with Kathy and showed her what he could really do.

Thursday, August 28
^th

Kathy stared at the pile of books neatly stacked in between the same two damn desks they’d been stacked between yesterday and the day before that. Somebody had been up in the dungeon again, only Sarah Anne had just opened the doors to the public five minutes ago.

Unless she’d had a psychotic break and the memory of having to lug them back up the stairs yesterday evening was a delusion, somebody had broken in last night. That would be a first, and it wouldn’t be hard. The library’s state-of-the-art security system consisted of locks—locks on the doors, locks on the windows. Nobody had checked the windows in a while.

Grumbling over the weight of the books, she hefted them up and started hauling them toward the front desk. This wasn’t improving her morning, which had started out miserably enough. Kathy was tired, sore, and wanted to be buried back under her blanket, sleeping off the excesses of the night before.

Instead, though, she’d been woken by Jack’s rough touch before the sun had even risen. He’d taken her hard and fast, making her come the same way. She’d lain there shuddering in the aftermath of a soul-searing climax while he slipped out of the bed and whistled his way to the shower.

Sweaty and exhausted, Kathy hadn’t had a chance to doze back off. Before she could even hope to catch her breath, Collin had been there. Slowly and more leisurely than his partner, he’d made her come three more times before her alarm had gone off. Then Kathy didn’t have any choice but to get up.

Collin, though, had a choice about following her into the shower. He insisted not only on bathing her, but had seduced her one more time beneath the spray of hot water. Even while she dressed, Collin couldn’t seem to keep his hands off her. It was then that Kathy began to realize the pitfall of being the focus of two insatiable men.

She might like sex, but Kathy didn’t have enough stamina or endurance for this much action. Hell, she wasn’t even limber enough. Kathy groaned as her tired muscles stretched under the strain of having to lug the heavy stack of books back to the counter.

“Forget something yesterday?” Sarah Anne asked, eyeing the tall stack as Kathy approached.

“No, actually.” Kathy dropped the weighty pile onto the polished wood counter with a bang. “I put these books back before we left last night and yet…”

“Oh, these are the old bootleg maps.” Sarah Anne pulled the top one down to flip it open and scan through the pages of sketches. “We must have a ghost who’s really into Humble’s history or, maybe, you just missed a pile.”

“Not this big,” Kathy retorted, glaring at Collin who had just walked in the door.

The bastard looked as fresh and virile as ever. Of course, he’d gotten to have a breakfast, something Kathy had had to skip thanks to Collin’s appetite. He’d gotten well fed in all ways, which explained his grin. She, on the other hand, would have to make do with a vending-machine snack. On the bright side, Kathy didn’t figure she’d have to worry about the calories given the workout Jack and he had put her through.

“I remember finding a stack of books like this pulled out a ways back.” Sarah Anne drew Kathy’s attention back to her as she shoved the book back onto the top of the pile. “Every day for like a week, damn stack piled up at the end of the day…but they were left upstairs. Guess I’m glad it’s your week to do returns, huh?”

Sarah Anne grinned at her, but Kathy could only stare at her in amazement. “Somebody broke in before to read these books? What the hell kind of dysfunctional criminals do we have in this town?”

“No, nobody broke in,” Sarah Anne scoffed. “It was Eddie Dyne. I found him red-handed with the whole pile of them spread out upstairs.”

“Eddie?” Kathy went cold, dread tickling up her spine at the sound of that name. “Why was he looking at some old maps?”

“Like I know or asked.” Snorting, Sarah Anne offered up a typical suggestion that proved Eddie had his own reputation around town. “He probably drank himself broke and hoped to find a stash of booze somewhere. I didn’t ask. I just told him to stop leaving greasy thumbprints on the pages. Man should wash his hands before he handles an old book.”

Kathy bet Sarah Anne had and doubted that Eddie gave two shits. She didn’t buy into Sarah Anne’s explanation either. Eddie liked to drink, sure enough, but people only considered him a drunk because of his younger days, when he used to enjoy starting fights down at Studs & Spurs. Those days had long gone, and Kathy suspected Eddie had more than enough funds to keep him in the twelve pack he probably averaged a week.

No, Eddie hadn’t been looking for long-lost, sure-to-kill bottles of moonshine. Kathy bet he’d been looking to either find or store a worse kind of killer, a twenty-million-dollar killer. Those bootleg tunnels would be perfect for storing money, almost too perfect.

“I somehow doubt it’s Eddie this time,” Kathy commented as she hefted the books off the counter. She needed to think, and not where Collin could watch her. “Well, I’m heading for the dungeon. You got it covered down here?”

“Kathy, the only customer is that gorgeous hunk who,
shockingly
, only has eyes for you.”

“Trust me, he can be a lot to handle.”

Kathy glanced over at Collin, who had plunked down in the very same chair he’d occupied yesterday. Today, though, he had the audacity to prop his ankles up on the small coffee table and kick back in the kind of relaxed sprawl that was inappropriate for the library. Collin might look like he’d dozed off, but he didn’t fool Kathy. Beneath the dense forest of black lashes, his gaze tracked her every movement with the kind of predatory hunger.

Kathy quivered in response. Despite her sour mood, she knew it wouldn’t take much for Collin to have her coming the same way Jack had just days ago in the upstairs loft. She could only pray that he had a little more self-control than his partner and didn’t follow her. She needed a break from the constant sex.

More than that, Kathy needed time to think. She had a pretty good idea of who their burglar was and knew how to catch her in the act. Her plan would only work, though, if Marion hadn’t already found what she was looking for. Kathy might not have a clue as to what that was, but that didn’t mean she didn’t know how to bait the old lady into doing something reckless.

It did mean that she would have to disobey Jack’s direct order. So much for the trust she’d been trying to build. Defying Jack bothered her more than she wanted to admit, but Kathy couldn’t see any other way to trap Marion. Certainly any way the Feds came up with would take too long.

On the other hand, she could have this case almost solved by the end of the night. Kathy could be that certain because she knew exactly where Marion would be for lunch. She even knew what she’d say to the old bitch. What Kathy didn’t know was how she’d ditch Collin.

It wouldn’t be easy, that was for sure, not given the way he followed her right out of the library. Just like his gaze had all morning, he tracked her every step across the parking lot. Kathy didn’t offer a single objection until they finally made it to her car. Only then did she turn to confront him.

“Collin—”

“So where we heading for lunch today?” Collin asked cheerily as he circled around to the other side of her little hatchback. “You going to take me home and make a meal out of me?”

“No,” Kathy snorted. “And there is no ‘us’ for lunch today, stud, not unless you’ve grown a set boobs and lost a set of balls because I’m meeting up with the girls, and a guy would just wreck the mood.”

“But I’m hungry.” That complaint growled out, a deep, husky sound that held a sensual pull Kathy couldn’t help but respond to. “And if you make me wait until dinner, then I’ll just be starved and in no mood to play nice like I did this morning.”

“I guess that’s a chance I’m going to have to take.” More like one she would be paying for later. “Now, if you don’t mind, I’m late for a date.”

“Whatever you want, sweet meat.” Collin held his hands up in surrender as he began backing away. “It’s your ass, especially if your definition of girls includes Marion Myers.”

Kathy didn’t crumble under his hard look, but silently cursed Collin’s intuition. The bastard might know what she was up to, but he still had to catch her. With that in mind, Kathy rushed to get moving. Slipping into her seat, she had her car started and was pulling forward before Collin had even climbed into his truck.

He was quick to follow, though. By the time she’d finished checking for oncoming vehicles, his bumper was reflecting sunlight into her rearview mirror. Thankfully the lunchtime traffic on Main Street allowed her to pull out and leave Collin stuck in the driveway behind her. Just to make sure he didn’t catch up, she sped through a yellow light and braked hard to make a fast right-hand turn.

In less than a minute, she’d arrived at her destination without any sign of Collin’s truck behind her. That didn’t mean he wouldn’t be looking for her. In a town as small as Humble, it wouldn’t take him long to find her car. Intent on making his task more difficult, Kathy parked her little hatchback between two of the largest trucks in the Pluck and Cluck parking lot.

Leaving it there, she hustled around the diner to slip down the back alley toward the beauty salon at the end of the block. Piles of trash were stacked by the dented metal door that stuck when Kathy yanked on the handle. It took several hard pulls before the heavy door finally groaned and slipped free of its frame. A blonde came stumbling out onto the stoop, clearly having been pushed from the inside.

“Hey,” Bethany Allison called out with a nod as Kathy stepped from into the back room. “What are you doing? Trying to frighten me? I thought we were about to be held up.”

“So you decided to help open the door?” Kathy asked, not believing Bethany for a moment. Nobody held anything up on Main Street in the middle of the day, especially not with half the sheriff’s department four doors down eating lunch.

“I was going to tell them to go away,” Bethany responded with a smile, stepping back to allow Kathy to enter. “Unless, of course, they were cute. Say, you didn’t happen to bring either of those two hunks everybody’s talking about? Word is they are fine and you’re a greedy little bitch for hogging them all to yourself.”

“And
that’s
why I didn’t go in the front door.” Kathy peered around the blonde to scan the busy salon floor. “You know if Rosy’s busy?”

“She’s got Marion Myers in her seat.” Bethany’s smile took on a decided sharp curve. “Trust me, you don’t want to go out there. It’s little-old-lady day, and you… Well, let’s just say the talk has been such that I wouldn’t be shocked if more than your ears burned. Hell, you go out there and you’ll catch on fire from the look alone.

“I guess I’ll just have to risk it,” Kathy tossed over her shoulder at Bethany and headed out into the salon.

The other woman hadn’t lied. In less than two steps, she managed to bring all the chatter to deafening silence as the blue-haired club turned their narrowed, disapproving gazes in her direction. Never one to shy away from confrontation or cower before a room full of bullies, Kathy offered one and all smiles, knowing that would irritate the bridge club that had taken over the salon.

Once a week, every other week, Marion and her cronies showed up to hold court. Nails, face, and hair, they were worked over while swapping gossip and passing judgment on Humble’s fine citizenry. They represented the wealth and privilege of the county’s upper crust—two things Kathy didn’t respect.

As part of the broke and irrelevant class, she tended to value hard work, loyalty, honesty, and even having a good sense of humor over money and bloodlines. It was Kathy’s sense of humor that helped keep her head held high as she sauntered past the old bats. It amused her, too, to swing her hips with an overly sexual swagger as she passed them by.

That should make their tongues wag. There could be no doubt that they had been running their mouths. Even if Bethany hadn’t told her, Kathy would have felt it in the air. It didn’t matter that she was probably guilty of all the lewd things they accused her of behind her back. Kathy still took an exception to the fact that they would criticize her for it.