Yet Lock wasn’t running away from her. He’d picked her up at work, taken her back to his apartment, and made her vile tea. Even now he was holding her, stroking her naked body while managing to not make it sexual, but comforting. And as much as she tried to hold back from him, as much as Gwen tried to keep this part of her life separate from Lock, she couldn’t. He wouldn’t let her.
Gwen gripped his T-shirt, knowing she should push him away, knowing she shouldn’t drag him into any of this, but she ended up burying her face against his chest and crying. She cried until she couldn’t cry anymore.
She had no idea how long they stayed like that; even after she stopped crying, they stayed like that. But when Gwen was done, she was done. She sat up straight, but Lock’s arms stayed loose around her.
“I’m done now.”
“Okay.” She adored that he didn’t want to talk things out or psychoanalyze the situation. She hated that.
“And we can’t let my mother find out what happened Labor Day weekend, or she’ll do something stupid.”
“You don’t think Mitch—”
She waved her hand, cutting him off. “He’s so freakin’ occupied with trying to get in the middle of my business, it won’t even cross his mind.”
“Okay.” He brushed her hair off her cheek. “You’re staying tonight, right?” he asked.
“If you want—”
“Good.” Lock kissed her forehead. “Now, do you want to feel better?
Oddly phrased question, but okay. “Sure.”
“Do you really want to feel better or would you rather sit around wallowing?”
She chuckled. “No. I’m done wallowing.” And she really wanted to feel better. Of course just having Lock here was making her feel better.
“I can help you feel better.” He lifted her off his lap and placed her carefully on the bed, before he scrambled off.
Gwen wasn’t exactly surprised when he took his clothes off, nor did she mind.
Naked, Lock got back on the bed and stretched out next to her. “Lay down.” She reached for him but he shook his head. “No, no. Stretch out. Next to me.”
That seemed weird but whatever.
“Now…you lift your legs up straight.” Not sure what the hell he was doing, Gwen lifted her legs up. It was kind of humorous to see the two pairs of legs raised up considering how much longer his were. “And using your hands…grab your toes.”
Gwen dropped her legs and sat up. “You want me to do what?”
“Trust me. You’ll feel so much better.”
She quickly scrutinized the room. “You don’t have a hidden camera around here or something?”
“Of course not.”
“This isn’t going to end up on the Internet or something, right? I’ll be really pissed if this ends up on the Net.”
“Trust me,” he said again. And when Gwen looked at him he was playing with his toes.
With a shrug, Gwen stretched out beside Lock, lifted her legs up, and grabbed her toes.
“You can roll back and forth, too.”
All right then.
“What do you think?”
“This is…uh…kind of…nice actually.”
“I know. I do it anytime I’m really pissed or depressed or bored or…playing.”
“You do it every day, don’t you?”
“Sometimes. There’s no shame in the toe grab. And look! You can cross arms and grab opposite toes.”
“Rebellious.”
“I live on the edge, Gwen.”
Laughing, Gwen dropped her legs and curled into Lock’s side.
“What? What’s so funny?”
Sharyn McNelly pulled her truck into the strip mall and parked in front of the hair salon.
Walking inside, she didn’t bother to look around. For the last two years, she’d been coming to this salon every other week just before closing. The owners were cats, but they were cheaper than the other places and worked fast. She dropped into the chair and opened her bag to toss in her phone. “The usual, Ling,” she told her stylist. “And make it quick, I’m meeting someone tonight at the bar down the street.”
There was a rare moment of silence from the chatty stylist and then, “Man, you got fat.”
Sharyn’s head came up, her fangs instantly extending as anger roared through her system. “You.”
Roxy O’Neill grinned back at her in the mirror, seconds before she gripped the back of Sharyn’s head and slammed it into the table that held the stylist’s tools.
Stunned, Sharyn fell back in the chair as Roxy moved around her. “You went after my daughter? What made you think that was okay?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, bitch.”
Sharyn’s head hit the small table in front of her again. “Goddamnit!”
“My baby girl. Did you really think I’d let you get away with that?”
Gripping her head and panting, Sharyn watched the cat. “She was there. It was convenient. And I still owe you.”
“Are you kidding? You did it over that idiot?” Roxy leaned down and stared Sharyn in the eye. “He fucked everybody in the league, sweetie. And actually, it was Marie who fucked him. I just gave him a blow job.”
Sharyn wrapped her hands around Roxy’s throat and they crashed to the floor, but the cat wasn’t alone, her sisters grabbing Sharyn’s arms and pulling her off, dragging her across the floor.
Roxy stood, shook out her gold mane of hair. “There’s a thing about the O’Neills you need to know, pooch. Mixed-blood or full. Dark hair or gold, we always protect our own.”
Even though she struggled, the cats easily yanked Sharyn into the chair and held her there.
Roxy smiled down at her. “The other thing. Never start shit with a lion when it’s lions that are doing your hair.”
“And FYI,” Marie tossed in. “Just because she and her sisters are Asiatic lions, doesn’t mean her name is Ling.”
“It’s actually Tracey. And look!” Roxy held up clippers. “She’s letting me use her equipment. Now let’s see if we can fix that mess you call hair.”
Marie patted Sharyn’s shoulder. “You know, hon, conditioner? It’s your friend.”
Gwen pulled on one of Lock’s T-shirts and laughed when it went past her knees. He grinned at her from his bed. The lone white sheet was pulled up to his waist, but he had one leg out and raised. She’d always enjoyed the male body but…
She sighed softly. All that hard muscle and so damn much of it. And she’d spent the last three hours enjoying every inch of him. It simply dazzled her how he went from goofy bear, rolling on his back and playing with his toes, and right into sexy-beyond-belief Jersey grizzly who’d worked her body like a love god.
“It looks like you’re wearing a muumuu,” he joked.
“And if I were wearing a muu-muu?” Gwen asked, her hands on her hips. “Then what?”
“Gwen, I don’t care how big you get, you’re never wearing a muumuu around me. But…feel free to wear any of my shirts, anytime you want.”
The way he looked at her sometimes…it wasn’t cute and cuddly, that was for sure. And it made her feel sexier than she ever had before. “I’m going to call Blayne before she calls me, panicking. I ended our training session a little abruptly this afternoon.”
“Okay. I’ll scrounge up something for us to eat.”
“Sounds good. I won’t be long.” She started for the door, but she heard the grizzly grumble and then what she could only describe as tongue clicks. She faced him. “Yes?”
“I want a kiss.”
Gwen shook her head. “Uh-uh.”