One of the Guys (13 page)

“Part-time,” Jaynie argued. “Possibility of a full-time position or partnership. Don’t go offering the full-time slot right off the bat. What if it doesn’t work out?” 93

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“We’re working our asses off, Jaynie. We need more help than part-time.” He scowled and tapped his pen against his notepad. “We’re going to have to consider extending the weekend hours sooner or later.”

Jaynie groaned and thunked her head down on the table. She liked having her weekends off. “Can’t we worry about that later? Let’s get somebody hired first.” Maybe they could find somebody who was a workaholic and would just love to work every weekend. Somebody who would settle for part-time employment with the potential of a full-time partnership.

“We’re going to have a hard time finding a part-time vet, Jaynie.” She scrubbed her hands over her face and then dropped them to the table. “Look, how about we offer thirty hours a week on a trial basis. If it works out,
on both ends
, we can move to full-time after, oh, ninety days. Or maybe a hundred twenty days. If we get asked about buying into the practice, we can discuss that after a year’s employment. Or two.” She didn’t mind sharing the workload, and it wasn’t really paying another partner that bothered her. Another full-time vet could enable them to care for more patients, which led to more money.

What she hated was giving up any control.

Brian leaned back in the chair and folded his arms across his chest. His turquoise gaze studied the table and then he finally nodded. “I guess that could work. Thirty hours a week would get you and me out of there a little earlier most nights and it would definitely help on the weekends.” He leaned forward and grabbed his pen, jotting down a brief ad and then he shoved it over to her. “How’s that?” She crossed out a few words, snickering when Brian rolled his eyes. “You have to have the last word on everything,” he murmured.

With an angelic smile, she replied, “Oh, not everything.”

“Hmmmm…” Under the table, she felt his hand on her knee. “You mean there’re a few things you would let me have the last say on?” 94

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Her heart skipped a few beats and she sounded a little breathless even to her own ears as she said, “Maybe one or two.”

Brian pushed back from the table and turned his chair so that he faced her. “Prove it,” he said with a wide grin. “Take your pants off.” Heart pounding in her throat, she stood up and reached for the drawstring waistband of her scrubs. She loosened the tie and they bagged around her hips. She wiggled her hips a little and they fell down to her knees. She pushed them the rest of the way off and then stood there in front of him, wearing panties and the same thin strapped camisole she wore under her scrub tops. She’d taken her bra off practically the minute she got home, leaving that and her shoes in the apartment over the garage before joining Brian for pizza.

“Now take off your shirt.”

She reached for the hem and started to take it off quickly, but then her hands slowed. Brian tracked every movement with his eyes and she grinned, feeling a little reckless. She glanced toward the back door, pretending concern. “What if Kate gets home?”

Brian cocked a brow. “She called earlier and said she was going into Mobile with the guy she’s dating.”

“Oh.” She lifted the camisole over her breasts and then let go. “Maybe we should close to the blinds. Somebody could see in…”

“Jaynie,” he growled at her. Actually growled. The sound of it was enough to make her knees go weak but she still wasn’t in any hurry. “Take the damn shirt off or I’ll take it off.”

She fiddled with the hem and then flashed him a grin. “Why don’t you do that?” But when he got out of the chair, she dashed away from him, circling around so that the table stood between them. “Brat,” he muttered. He feinted left, then right, but Jaynie managed to evade him each time he made a move to grab her.

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She edged away from the table and made her way backward to the kitchen island.

Brian kept back just a few feet, watching her, a heavy-lidded, predatory look on his face. “What are you waiting for?” she teased.

A grin curved his lips ever-so faintly. “You know what happens to pretty little girls who like to tease?”

“Nope.”

He lunged for her and Jaynie yelped, spun on her heel to take off but he caught hold of her braid, effectively stopping her in her tracks. He hauled her back against him and thrust his hips against her butt. “I spank them,” he whispered in her ear.

She wiggled against him and tried, not very hard, to pull away. “Don’t even think about it.”

With one arm wrapped around her waist, he slid the other hand down her side.

“Oh, I’m going to do more than think about it.” He grabbed the hem of her shirt and jerked it upward. Then he reached around and palmed her breasts, one in each hand.

He crowded her forward, bending over her so that she had no choice but to bend as well. “Put your hands on the island, Jaynie.”

She did, bracing herself. A shiver raced down her spine as he rocked against her butt. The denim covering his cock caused a sweet little friction, making her panties slide back and forth over her sex. He kept up that slow, teasing rhythm until she was panting and rocking back to meet him. When he stepped away, she groaned in frustration.

“You’ve still got a spanking coming,” he murmured. Hooking his thumbs in the waistband of her panties, he dragged them down her thighs. Bending, he pushed them all the way to her feet, before he straightened up and kissed her back.

He moved off to the side and Jaynie craned her neck around to watch as he stood next to her. “Stay there,” he ordered. She held still as he grabbed one of the chairs from the table and hauled it around. He sat down and then reached for her. She tried to turn in his arms, but he restrained her, guiding her down so that she lay facedown over his lap.

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Shit, he was serious. He’d swatted her butt a few times during sex, but he hadn’t ever spanked her before—not really, not like this. She resisted and tried to pull away.

“Brian…”

He slid a hand down her back, smoothed it over her rump. “Shhh…trust me.” And she did. She lay over his lap with her butt up in the air. She would have thought she’d feel like an idiot but as the seconds ticked by and all he did was caress the silky flesh of her buttocks and back, she realized the only thing she felt was
heat
. He lifted his hand and she tensed. His hand came down on her buttocks with more force than she’d expected. She cried out and he did it again. Then he stopped, traced his fingers across her ass. “Look at that…you’ve got the prettiest ass, Jaynie, and now it’s blushing so nice and pink.”

He spanked her again. Her hips rocked forward involuntarily. It hurt—but at the same time, each carefully placed strike flooded her with a pleasure that was almost too much to handle. He stopped again and pushed his hand between her thighs, then pushed two fingers inside the aching emptiness of her pussy. “Shit, Jaynie,” he groaned.

Brian moved her so quickly her head spun. Once more, she was leaning against the island, but instead of bracing her weight with her hands, he bent her over it so that she lay flat against it with her hips right at the edge. The island had a raised eating area on one end and that was where he put her, boosting her up so that her feet left the ground and the island completely supported her weight.

She heard the harsh rasp of his zipper and then he pushed inside her. Jaynie screamed at the fullness of his cock, the way he stretched her, invaded her—totally possessed her. He pulled out and, as he burrowed back in a second time, he spanked her. He alternated, slapping first her right buttock then her left, each forceful blow leaving the skin of her butt stinging and almost painfully sensitive.

She scrabbled around, reaching for something to hold on to, something to anchor herself. Already, that fast, she could feel the climax building inside her. Thrust, slap, thrust, slap, each one sending her closer and closer to the edge.

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Then…he stopped, stiffened against her and swore roughly. “Fuck,” he growled, jerking away. “I don’t have a rubber. They’re all upstairs.” Jaynie eased her weight up on to her elbows and glanced back over her shoulder, watching as he pulled his pants up. He was red and wet from her, his thick length pulsating. “I’ll be right back,” he muttered.

“Don’t.” The word slipped out without her realizing it. But she wasn’t going to take it back. “I don’t want you to wear one.”

“Jaynie…”

She shook her head. “I’m clean. I called Dean and made him get a blood test after I left, told him that if he didn’t, I’d make his life a living hell. I had one too.” She’d been on birth control since she was fourteen, thanks to some very painful, very irregular periods, so pregnancy wasn’t an issue.

And this was Brian. She laid her head against her arm and stared at him, feeling very exposed in that moment, sprawled out on the kitchen island and watching him. “I trust you,” she said softly. “I want to feel you inside me.” He came back to her, stared at her, his eyes so dark and intense. He slid his hands back over her hips and pressed against her. He muttered hoarsely, “I love you.” She didn’t say it back. She wanted to. She was almost there, she knew, falling for him so hard and so fast, it was almost scary. But she still wasn’t sure. Until she was, she wasn’t going to say anything. Instead, she murmured, “Make love to me, Brian.” He came into her hard and fast. He felt hot, and so thick inside her. The flared head of his cock rubbed against her just
there
and she clenched around him, arching to meet each thrust as much as she could. It was precious little, the raised, narrow platform didn’t have much to grab on to and, with her legs hanging over the edge, she couldn’t brace her knees and move her lower body. The inability to move only added to the erotic intensity of the moment—for some reason, lying there, unable to do much more than just take him, was incredibly arousing, oddly empowering.

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She could feel him groaning and panting as he shafted her, felt his desperation as his fingers dug into her hips and his thrusts grew faster and deeper, as though he couldn’t get close enough to her. His hands tightened, lifted her hips. That slight shift changed the angle oh-so slightly but the effect it had on her was devastating. She clenched down around him and came with a mewling scream.

She bucked against him and Brian braced a hand low on her spine, holding her still.

He took her harder, pounding into her until the promise of pain loomed large in front of her until, with one last thrust, he arched into her and went still, almost frozen. A low, harsh groan vibrated out of his chest and his cock jerked viciously. She felt the heated splash as he came.

When he pulled out of her a few minutes later, she looked at him over her shoulder and smiled. He pulled her into his arms and without saying a word, carried her through the house and up to his bedroom.

There, he made love to her again and again, until she was all but limp with exhaustion and the muscles in her thighs screamed in protest. It was nearly midnight when he fell against her one last time. He rolled to his back, pulled her with him, and they both went to sleep.

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Chapter Eight

I trust you
.

It wasn’t exactly a declaration of love. However he’d known Jaynie her entire life.

Though it wasn’t a declaration of love, it was pretty close.

It had been nine hours since he’d left her sleeping in the bed. His cell phone had started ringing and it was the ring reserved for work emergencies. Probably wouldn’t be anything major—most of the “emergencies” they had weren’t exactly emergencies.

So he’d left her a note, climbed out of bed and dressed.

But he’d gotten there to see a big Rottweiler with a mangled back leg and internal injuries that Brian was still surprised the dog had lived through. It was going to take some doing to figure out what had happened and he suspected it was going to require getting the police involved. Being hit by a car didn’t leave a dog’s leg looking like it had practically been chewed off.

He’d been forced to amputate and he still wasn’t sure the dog would be allowed to go home. Something strange was going on. The dog malnourished, thin and dehydrated, but he’d been so well-behaved that Brian had known he wasn’t a stray. The surgery had taken a while and since dawn, he’d been camped out a cot a few feet away from the dog, watching him closely.

The staff who’d assisted him during the surgery had gone on home and it was quiet in the small hospital. There were two employees who stayed through the night to watch over sick animals on an as-needed basis, but lately, that as-needed basis was becoming pretty much round-the-clock.

They needed another vet, maybe even two, and they needed more nurses and techs.

He had two techs coming in a few hours and as long as the Rottweiler was stable, he had plans to go home and crash for a little while. Of course, once they hired that third 100

One of the Guys

vet, maybe they could work it out so that one of them could be there throughout the weekend. Or at least most of it.

His back screamed when he sat up on the small, cramped cot that was too short for his long body. Spending hours in surgery and then sleeping on a cot was one damn sure way to tie the muscles into knots. He stretched a little and then climbed to his feet and went to crouch by the dozing Rottweiler. He checked the dog’s pulse, lifted the lids to peer into his eyes.

Well, so far so good. If there weren’t any complications, the dog just might pull through.

The next couple of hours passed by in a blur of exhaustion. If he hadn’t spent most of the last night taking Jaynie in every way he could think of, he knew he’d be a little more awake. Not that he had any regrets about how he’d spent his night but by the time the techs showed up at noon, he was about ready to fall flat on his face.