Shame on You (7 page)

CHAPTER 12

I
race down the front porch just in time to see Griffin standing in the middle of the yard looking left to right, trying to decide which direction to run. My dad’s house is right smack in the middle of the cul-de-sac. There are seven houses on either side of his house, each one filled with people getting ready to root on Notre Dame. I need to pick the right direction. WHICH ONE IS THE RIGHT DIRECTION?!

Looking to my left, I see that Lorelei just arrived. And she’s wearing a maroon-and-gold silk blouse with matching maroon dress pants: Arizona Sun Devils’ colors, the team that Notre Dame is playing today. She’s going to be killed!

I see her lift her arm and point in the opposite direction that Griffin is currently looking and send her a thumbs-up before sprinting away. She’s on her own; I can’t save her from crazy Notre Dame fans now.

Running at top speed and yelling for people to get out of my way, I make it to the Andersons’ house, three houses down, in record time.

“Where’s the grill?” I ask the first person I come to through gasps of air.

“The burgers aren’t done yet,” a guy with a giant navy-blue foam finger tells me as he uses the foam finger to scratch his nose.

“WHERE’S THE FUCKING GRILL?!” I scream at him, pulling my gun out of the holster under the back of my shirt.

He doesn’t even bat an eye when he sees the 9mm in my hand. Half of the people on this street carry guns. Football season is serious business. Plus, most of the people here know that my family all works in some sort of law enforcement.

“If you’re that hungry, I heard someone brought Buffalo Wing Dip a few houses down.” He points his foam finger back in the direction I came.

“There’s a criminal cooking burgers on your grill. Where is the grill?” I ask again as I check the safety on my gun.

“Bob Anderson is a criminal? Damn, it’s always the quiet ones,” foam-finger guy states with a sad shake of his head.

I’m going to take his foam finger and shove it up his ass in three seconds.

“No, not Bob Anderson. His name is Martin, he skipped bail, and rumor has it he’s manning the grill at this house,” I tell him through clenched teeth.

“You mean McFadden? I just met him. Nice guy. And he has a cute dog.”

Sweet mother of God…

“The grill’s around back,” he tells me with another point of his finger. “Don’t shoot the dog!”

Looking over my shoulder to make sure Griffin isn’t anywhere in sight, I take off running again, keeping myself pressed to the side of the house as I move quickly with my gun in front of me. Peeking around the back corner, I see the grill about ten yards away from the house. And I see McFadden with his back to me, all alone with Tinkerdoodle sitting by his feet staring up at him, hoping one of the burgers he’s flipping drops on the ground.

Edging out from around the side of the house, I hold my gun out in front of me and creep closer, careful not to make a sound. When I’m within three feet of him, I check my back pocket to make sure the zip ties I usually carry are still back there, ready to be used when I tackle him and secure his hands behind his back.

“Hey, McFadden! Are those burgers almost done?”

I jump when I hear the yell from foam-finger asshole behind me and McFadden turns around from the grill with a giant spatula in his hand and a smile on his face. The smile dies when he sees me standing here with my gun pointed right at his chest.

“You can have the first burger. Just don’t shoot me!” he says nervously.

“You are really pissing me off, Martin. Put the spatula down and let’s do this calmly, without making a scene.”

I can hear people talking behind me and roll my eyes when I realize the backyard is filling up with onlookers, wanting to see what’s going on.

“Just because she brings a gun, she gets the first burger? I’ve been waiting for twenty minutes,” someone whispers.

Michelle Anderson, Bob’s wife, comes outside. “It’s okay, everyone. That’s Buddy’s daughter, Kennedy. She’s like that. Did Martin forget to bring a covered dish? I don’t think you need to shoot him for that.”

Can I just catch a break here? Seriously.

“Michelle, this man is a criminal. Can you please get everyone inside and out of danger?” I plead with her.

“This is so exciting. It’s like an episode of
Cops
. Is someone filming this?” Michelle asks, completely ignoring my request as I move closer to McFadden.

Tinkerdoodle lets out a yippy bark and growls at me.

“It’s okay, princess. She isn’t going to shoot Daddy,” McFadden tells the dog. “She’s one of us. She believes in the ‘others’ and even bought one of Daddy’s special hats.”

While McFadden soothes the dog, I take another slow step in his direction and stop when the dog growls at me again.

“Put the spatula down and walk toward me slowly,” I demand.

“Can’t we just talk about this? I’ll give you a signed copy of my book,” he pleads.

Raising the gun higher, so it’s aimed right at his face, I watch him swallow nervously and turn slowly to set the spatula down on the card table next to the grill, filled with buns and a huge cookie sheet of uncooked hamburger meat.

“Just so you know, I don’t have any hard feelings toward you. We can still be friends after this is over,” he states with his back still to me.

I take a deep breath and another cautious step in his direction, ignoring the growling dog by my feet with her teeth bared—her tiny little two-pound-dog teeth. I sort of want to laugh at the fact that this dog thinks she’s some kind of badass guard dog.

When I’m within arm’s reach, McFadden suddenly lets out a yell.

“TINKERDOODLE—ATTACK!”

The dog launches itself at my leg in a blur of activity and clamps down on my ankle. I let out a yelp as McFadden whirls around with the cookie sheet of meat in his hand and throws it in my direction. Raw meat rains down on my head while I try to keep the gun on McFadden and shake the stupid dog loose from my pant leg.

“Son of a bitch, that ground meat was $3.95 a pound!” Bob Anderson complains from somewhere in the yard.

Tinkerdoodle finally lets go of my ankle and races back to McFadden, who scoops her up in his arms and takes off running. I turn to go after him and my boot slips right through a slippery pile of ground meat. My feet fly out from under me and I land flat on my back, knocking the wind right out of me as I gasp for breath.

“SSSSSSSSSS—ssstoooop,” I say through coughs as I turn my head to the side and see McFadden run right by the crowd of people who stand there. He stops and turns to look at me, holding his pinkie and thumb up to the side of his head and shouts, “Call me!” before taking off again.

“You’ve got meat in your hair,” Bob Anderson tells me as he walks up next to me while I struggle to roll over, get up, and breathe at the same time.

Putting my hand to my chest, I try to take a deep breath and wind up coughing from the exertion. “Criminal. Stop. Can’t. Breathe.”

Bob looks down at me in confusion as I hack and try to breathe while moving as fast as I can to try to get up off the ground and chase after McFadden. Bob is retired from the police force and if anyone can understand what the hell is going on here, it will be Bob.

“McFadden? Nice guy. I just met him this morning. The missus met him at the grocery store and invited him.”

“Bail. Jumper,” I mumble between deep, heaving breaths that my lungs finally let me have and my hand squishes down into a pile of raw meat as I push myself up onto my knees.

“Really? Huh. He didn’t look like a bail jumper,” Bob states.

I am surrounded by idiots
.

“What’s with all the commotion? I heard the burgers are ruined,” my dad says as he pushes through the crowd of onlookers and walks next to Bob, who finally gives me a hand and helps me up off the ground. I see McFadden’s Honda go soaring down the street. With a sigh, I turn to my dad in irritation and see him standing there with a Styrofoam plate in his hand filled with my dip and tortilla chips.

“Really, Dad? You were just in the kitchen with me when Paige told us McFadden was here. You thought it was wise to stop for a snack instead of rushing to my aid?”

Dad shrugs as he shovels a chip full of dip into his mouth.

“I figured you had it under control. You know you have meat in your hair?”

“GOD DAMMIT!” I shout, with a stomp of my foot.

My dad’s hand flashes out like lightening and smacks me on the back of the head, a chunk of meat coming loose and dropping down on the front of my shirt.

“T-minus five minutes until kickoff!” one of the neighbors shouts from a few feet away. Everyone in the yard, my father included, lets out a huge yell and they all disperse to head over to his yard where the TV is. The fact that they just witnessed a wanted man escape from a woman with a gun is of no concern to them now that it’s game time.

With a scowl, I brush the globs of meat off my shirt and see Griffin pushing through the horde of people until he makes it to my side and tries to smother a laugh with his hand.

“Not a word. Not ONE word,” I threaten him as I walk around him and shove my gun back in its holster.

“You have meat on your ass,” he shouts to my back with a laugh.

GD meat-flinging McFadden.

CHAPTER 13

A
fter rinsing all of the raw meat out of my hair and off my skin in my dad’s shower, I step out, wrapping a towel securely around myself. I wipe the steam off the mirror with my hand and run a comb through my hair, pausing when there’s a knock at the door. Figuring it’s either Paige or Lorelei, I begin my tirade as I turn to open it.

“You know, a little help from my partners would have been nice when—”

The words die on my lips when I see Griffin standing there.

“I thought you didn’t want to be partners. If you’ve changed your mind, just let me know,” he says with a smile, as he looks me up and down. A shiver runs down my spine and it has nothing to do with all the heat from my shower rushing out the open door and everything to do with the way he’s looking at me. Like he wants to lick all of the water off my skin.

“If you came up here to gloat, save your breath,” I warn him, securing the towel tighter between my breasts, so it doesn’t fall off.

Griffin doesn’t say a word as he moves his large body into the small bathroom, forcing me to back up a few steps. With his eyes still locked on mine, I swallow thickly as he shuts the door behind him and turns the lock.

“I didn’t come up here to gloat, I came up here to talk,” he replies softly.

“I don’t want to talk.”

He shrugs nonchalantly, snaking one arm around my waist and pulling my towel-clad body roughly up against him. “That’s an even better idea.”

Before I can utter a protest, his mouth is on mine.

What is with this man? In the span of just a few days, he can’t get enough of me.

One of his hands moves down to my ass and squeezes as his tongue slides past my lips and I forget all about the bet and the meat bath I just rolled in outside and kiss him back. He turns me and pushes my back up against the wall, his hand sliding down to my bare leg, pulling it up around his hip.

He’s right; we really need to talk. About what he did to Alex, about the bet, about what the hell this thing is going on between us…

His palm slides up the back of my thigh until he’s clutching my bare ass.

Okay, talking can wait.

“Keep your leg there,” he demands softly against my lips.

I nod in acceptance, knowing full well that at this point, if he asked me to light my hair on fire, I would do it. My body is screaming for him to touch me, I don’t care if there are a hundred people outside the house right now, I just want his fingers on me.

Shit! There are a hundred people outside right now and his hand is sliding off my ass and over my hip, heading right for the promised land, while he licks some droplets of water off my shoulder.

“Griffin, there are people outside,” I moan as his fingers skim the inside of my thigh, inching closer and closer to where I want him.

“They’re busy,” he mumbles against the side of my neck as he kisses his way back up to my lips.

As if to punctuate his statement, I hear the crowd cheer outside right at the exact moment that the tips of his fingers graze between my legs with a featherlight touch.

First and ten.

I was wet for him as soon as he walked through the door and his fingers easily slide through my wetness and up to my clit, circling around it as the crowd goes wild again.

Forward pass.

He lets out a groan of desire when he feels how much I want him and finds my lips, sinking his tongue into my mouth at the same time one of his fingers pushes inside of me. I whimper into his mouth and wrap my arms tightly around his shoulders as his finger begins working slowly in and out of me. As I rock my hips against his hand, his finger pushes in deeper and the heel of his hand bumps against my clit each time I thrust forward. I feel myself losing control and my legs start to shake as I move faster and faster and his hand pushes in deeper and harder. He swallows all of my cries against his lips as I race to the edge. I can feel it building quickly as he works me over with his finger. I’ve never come this quickly in my life. I’ve never thrown caution to the wind and just let go. Everything I do is carefully thought out and planned. This is insanity. My orgasm is right there, just beyond my reach, but my brain is starting to interfere and I pull my mouth away from Griffin’s, letting my head thump back against the wall with my eyes squeezed shut.

His hand stills with his finger pushed as far as it will go inside of me. I feel his lips against my ear a second later and his warm breath washes over me as his thumb circles around and around my clit, ever so gently.

I let out a gasp and a low moan when tingles of pleasure shoot through me once again and I buck my hips roughly against his hand.

“Let go, Kennedy, just let go,” he whispers against my ear.

His thumb moves faster, back and forth, bringing me right back to the edge and when I feel him curl his finger inside of me, I tumble over, clutching him against me as I cry out through my release and the crowd outside once again starts cheering.

Touchdown.

This is the orgasm to end all orgasms and I don’t know if it’s because it’s Griffin who’s giving it to me, because I’m doing something so out of character, or a little bit of both.

“Ride it out, baby,” he tells me softly as another shout and round of applause is heard from out in the yard and he pushes a second finger inside me.

Two point conversion.

His fingers are stretching me and prolonging my orgasm until I feel like it’s never going to end. I never
want
it to end and I continue to whimper and gasp as the waves of pleasure just keep coming and coming.

I can’t catch my breath and I don’t even care. My hips keep moving and his fingers keep pumping inside of me until the pleasure eventually trickles away. Griffin kisses me softly on the lips as he pulls his fingers out of me and my leg falls limply from around his waist.

Holy Jesus. Who knew that coming along with a football game could be so amazing? More people should try this.

I feel his body move away from mine and I slowly open one eye to see him adjusting himself in his jeans.

I’ve never been much for blowjobs, but right now, there’s nothing else I can think of except sinking down to my knees and taking him in my mouth.

“If you don’t stop looking at me like that, I’m going to fuck you up against that wall,” Griffin warns me.

I’ve also never been too keen on dirty talk, but thank God I’m not standing. My knees wouldn’t have held me. I shift my gaze from his crotch to his face and see that he’s completely serious. His hands are clenched into fists at his sides and it looks like it’s taking everything in him not to rip my towel off me and make good on his threat.

Yes, please.

Without giving it a second thought, I reach up between my breasts and tug on the edge of the towel tucked there, causing the whole thing to fall off me and land at my feet on the floor.

“Oops,” I whisper.

I watch as Griffin’s mouth drops open and the bulge between his legs grows bigger.

He takes a step toward me right as the bathroom door bursts open and slams against the opposite wall, my brother Bobby standing there with a look of horror on his face. Bobby moved in with my dad after his last tour of duty so he could figure out what he wants to do with his life in between tours. Obviously he’s now wishing he lived somewhere else.

I scream, Bobby screams, and Griffin dives to the ground to retrieve my towel, bringing it up in front of me and turning his back to give me cover.

“OH, JESUS, MY EYES! I CAN NEVER UNSEE THIS!” Bobby screams, covering his face with both of his hands, turning around and running blindly down the hall.

“BOBBY, WHAT THE HELL?” I yell. “The door was locked, you idiot!”

Securing the towel back around myself, I can feel my face heating up with embarrassment, all of the euphoria from moments ago long gone. There’s a loud “
Ooof!”
that comes from the hallway followed by Lorelei’s voice.

“Bobby, what are you doing? Take your hands off your eyes.”

“The lock is broke. Oh, Jesus, the lock is broke. WHY, GOD, WHY?”

Lorelei peeks her head around the doorway and her eyes widen in surprise when she sees Griffin and me.

“Oh my,” she mutters.

“Help,” I manage to squeak out as I stare at her over Griffin’s shoulder.

Lorelei’s head disappears back into the hallway and I hear her console Bobby, who mumbles about how he can’t make his feet move because he’s blind.

“I think I’m going to be sick,” Bobby whines from the hallway.

“In with the good air, out with the bad,” Lorelei coaches him.

“Oh, for the love of God,” I grumble. “Will you people just leave and go back outside!”

“Bobby! Where the hell is the beer?” I hear my dad yell up from the bottom of the stairs and then the unmistakable sound of him stomping up them.

Jesus. How about we just invite the whole damn neighborhood up here so they can see me half naked and post-orgasmic?

“What the hell happened to you?” I hear my dad ask Bobby from the stairway as Griffin turns around to face me.

“Things that can never be unseen. Bad things,” Bobby mumbles.

I stare straight at Griffin’s chest, refusing to look at him.

“Where’s Kennedy? Is she done washing meat off herself yet? Quit blocking the hallway. I need her help,” Dad complains.

“Kennedy and Griffin are in there…talking. They need to talk. You know, just talk. About…things,” Lorelei explains to my father.

Great. Miss Powerhouse Attorney can’t even form a coherent thought right now.

Bobby makes a gagging noise out in the hallway and if I were fully clothed right now I would go out there and kick his ass.

“Goddammit,” Bobby moans, followed immediately by the sound of a
smack
, which I’m assuming is from my father’s hand connecting with the back of Bobby’s head.

“Griffin Crawford, you better be wearing protection while you talk to my daughter. Kennedy, we’re out of dip and Steve Henderson just puked in the shrubs. Get dressed and come help,” my dad yells before he stomps back down the steps.

“Come on, Bobby, let’s get you some fresh air,” Lorelei states as I hear her dragging him down the stairs.

When the front door slams shut a few seconds later, Griffin laughs and I finally glance up at him to give him a dirty look.

“This isn’t funny,” I hiss at him.

“It’s pretty funny,” he chuckles. “Can we cancel the bet and just tell everyone we’re dating?”

Is he out of his mind? One orgasm does NOT equal dating. And the bet was HIS idea. I am seeing this shit through to the bitter end. I don’t date. Especially not someone who throws out a line about wanting me for eighteen years in the middle of a make-out session. I don’t want to date him, I don’t want to fall in love with him, and I don’t want him professing his stupid crush. I don’t need this complication in my life. Thank you for the wonderful orgasm, but I’m done. Seacrest, out!

“We are NOT dating. And this bet isn’t over until I win,” I growl at him as I shoulder past him and out the door, my bare feet smacking angrily on the floor as I stomp across the hall to the spare bedroom and the extra clothes I keep there for emergencies.

“You should just concede now, Kennedy. You’re never going to win!” Griffin yells to me as I walk into the bedroom and slam the door behind me.

GD cocky man and his mind-blowing orgasms.