Shackled (9 page)

“Tell me.”

“The paramedics came quickly, but while we waited for them, Tim was scared and needed to hold my hand. He asked me if I loved him. And I said yes, of course I did. He seemed to relax then, and I rode with him to the hospital. They took him away, to work on him. But he died. I lied to him. And I guess it isn’t the lie I feel guilty about, so much as the fact that he died and we never honestly resolved one damn thing in our relationship.”

“Beth. You have to know that even if you’d tried to tell him how you felt, he wouldn’t get it. You did the right thing. You did the right thing. You gave him the only form of comfort you could, even if it left you hanging.”

Bethany shook her head, and Jonathan wondered if she’d meant to share all of that. At the same time, he was very glad that she had.

“Anyway, once everything was done, and the kids returned to their homes and careers, I felt…vacant, I guess you could say. I think a part of me expected to feel this enormous influx of fresh air, of freedom and relief. Instead, I felt as if I’d been marooned on a desert island surrounded by a calm-as-glass sea. That sense of isolation just got worse a few weeks later when the architectural firm I’d worked at for the last fifteen years folded. There I was at the ripe old age of forty-eight, with no husband, and no job. I registered with a temp agency. I’ve been sent on a few assignments, the longest for two weeks. So that was something, at least.”

“You don’t want to find a permanent position?”

“No. There’s just so much hassle involved in being a permanent employee. I’m careful, I can manage on temp work and my investments.”

“I suppose that being an administrative assistant is a lot like being a wife and mother, isn’t it?” Jonathan smiled when Beth’s eyes widened.

“You know, it really is! Don’t get me wrong, I love my children, but—”

“You’re a bit burned out in the caretaker department. Tell me about Connie.”

Bethany’s response came fast, and he didn’t miss the edge in her tone—slight, but there. “Why on earth would you want to know about Tim’s sister? Do you know her?”

“I’ve never laid eyes on the woman. I want to know about her because when I asked you if anyone needed to know you’d be away from home, you mentioned her, and the look on your face at the time was similar to what I imagine you’d look like if you realized you’d just stepped in dog shit.”

Beth burst out laughing. Jonathan just smiled and waited.

“Nothing gets past you, does it?” she asked him.

“Not much. Don’t let that worry you, sweetheart. I’m on your side.”

“Yes, I know you are.” Jonathan liked the soft tone and even softer look she gave him. “Well then, Connie, whom I admit I call Connie and not Constance, because it annoys her. She’s Tim’s sister, older than him by two years. For most of our marriage, which would be during the first three of hers, she ignored us completely, in line with the rest of the Craig family.”

“I recall that Tim’s father had disowned him when he married you,” Jonathan said. He remembered the details of her life she’d shared in the past. She’d told him that she and Tim had been careless having sex and Beth had gotten pregnant. Likely the only decent thing Timothy Craig had ever done in his life was to man up at that point and marry Beth.

“You have a good memory. Yes, the senior Timothy Craig wanted nothing to do with me while Tim was alive, as my family wasn’t listed on the social register of the city. Marrying me was the first time Tim had defied his father, and then he showed he was as stubborn as any Craig by refusing to back down.”

Jonathan rather thought that had been the entire point, but he could see no reason to bring that up. “And Connie began to come around when?”

“I guess about a month before Tim died. I didn’t know at the time that her father was ill. She never mentioned it. I thought at the time that as she was getting older, and her third marriage had failed, she was feeling…I don’t know, repentant.” Beth shook her head.

“Not true?” Jonathan knew something about her sister-in-law bothered Beth. He waited to see if she’d tell him what.

“I never did like Connie. Even before I married Tim, I thought she was sly, selfish, and manipulative. I should have held on to that analysis with both hands.”

“She’s been giving you trouble?”

“Constance Craig Marshal Hancock Wellington thinks her brother died under
mysterious circumstances
. And she’s been sharing that opinion with anyone who will listen to her.”

Jonathan didn’t like the sound of that. “That seems like a strange thing for her to say. No one is listening, are they?”

“I have no idea. I know she has a lot of friends—you know, the whole social club member, upper echelon, movers-and-shakers group. They’re people who have nothing to do with my life, and so I have no idea if anyone is listening to her or not. What bothers me is she’s been cozying up to Erica and Daniel. I don’t want her spewing her nonsense to them. I mean really, what’s the point?”

“That’s what I’m wondering.” Jonathan didn’t belong to any clubs—well, except for Reckless Abandon—but he knew people, and the people he knew had connections with others.

He got that Beth thought her sister-in-law was just being a bitch, but Jonathan knew there was no such thing as human behavior without reason. He’d have to ask a few questions, see what he could uncover.

“Tim’s father died after him, didn’t he?”

“Yes, about a month.” Bethany shook her head.

“What?”

“He left me a chunk of money, which was pretty ironic since he always maintained that I had lured his son away from him to get my hands on Craig cash in the first place.”

“It’s always been my opinion that getting you pregnant and marrying you was an act of manipulation on Tim’s part. He wanted to pull his dad’s strings, but miscalculated.”

“Well, I’ve set that money aside. The kids don’t even know about it. When they turn thirty, they’ll get it. Hopefully by then they’ll be established enough that kind of wealth won’t spoil them.”

Jonathan took up his coffee cup and kept his tone casual. “It was that much money?”

“Yes. Millions.”

Jonathan whistled. His suspicion of Constance Wellington just grew tenfold.

It was time to leave behind what clearly was a stressful topic for Beth, as she’d set her fork aside and was literally twisting her fingers together. While she’d been talking to him, Beth had eaten all of her breakfast. He raised one eyebrow and looked pointedly at her empty plate, and laughed when she blushed.

“Now that we’ve taken care of your body’s need for fuel, let’s see what other needs we can address.”

He set his cup down and held out his hand, and didn’t have to wait more than a moment for her to take it.

Her eyes sparkled with interest, and her voice came out husky, the way he already knew it did when she was aroused. “That sounds positively scintillating.”

Jonathan flashed what he knew to be his killer grin. “Let’s see if you still say that in a half hour.”

Chapter 8

“Hey, Connie, do you wanna grab me a beer out of the fridge, babe?”

Constance Wellington cringed, the nickname grating on her sensibilities. If it weren’t for the fact that Trey was young, buff, and an excellent fuck, she’d kick his ass out of her life and out of her house and clear out of the county.

Since he was young, buff, and an excellent fuck, she bit back her scathing retort. The man wasn’t completely stupid, which meant he could be trainable. She just had to find the right tool with which to train him. She let the vision of one of her father’s golf clubs form in her mind.

Tempting. Very tempting
.

Constance got up from the lounge chair under the shade of the umbrella and walked the short distance to the outside patio fridge. The appliance stood closer to where Trey lay, stretched out on the chaise, sunning himself next to the pool, than it did to where she’d been sitting, reading.

She took him his beer, letting the cold condensation from the can drip onto his bare torso.

“Hey!” He opened his eyes but didn’t go to the trouble of sitting up.

She handed him the can, and he opened it, took a sip then set it down on the table beside him.

“Trey, you know I loathe the name ‘Connie.’ It’s so…
common
.”

Trey gave her a smile that used to make her cunt weep instantly but lately hadn’t quite managed the feat. She hated to admit it, but she was getting tired of the man.

“I know you like to make out that you’re some high-society babe,
Connie
. But you’re not. Underneath your polish, you’re just another not-so-prime piece of ass, just like any other cougar.”

Constance felt her eyes widen at the insult. Her hand flew out instinctively, ready to slap that smug expression right off his face. Trey caught her arm in mid-swing deftly and yanked, pulling her off balance.

He’d appeared lazy and relaxed, but the man could move. Constance tried to struggle, but in no time at all, he had her on the chaise, flat on her belly while he loomed over top of her.

He held her easily with one hand and used the other to jerk her shorts and panties off her.

“Get off me! You son-of-a-bitch, leave me alone. I’m not in the mood, asshole!”

“You’re always in the mood, cunt. You love cock, we both know that.”

He used one knee to pry her legs open. Then his hand was there, on her slit, stroking back and forth, his fingers delving, then plunging into her, his movements rough and fast.

Arousal exploded, and her cunt released her juices to coat his fingers and make their passage easier. She couldn’t hold back her moan of pleasure as his forceful actions aroused her.

“Yeah, that’s it. You’re a hot little cunt, aren’t you,
Connie
? Do you know what I want to do to you?”

He’d whispered the words against her ear as he leaned over her, sending a shiver to work its way down her spine.

“Do you?” He jammed his fingers into her cunt harder and faster to let her know he expected an answer.

Constance felt her passion climb. Her thoughts scattered, and all she wanted was more. “No,” she moaned the word, her mind craving the dirty words he loved to throw at her as much as her body craved his cock.

“I want to fuck you in front of a room full of my friends. Would you like that? I bet you would. Oh, yes, you’re so wet now. You’d love to have your legs spread with me humping you in front of a dozen strangers. Beg me to fuck you and you just might get lucky.”

Constance knew she couldn’t resist Trey’s crude demands. This was why she put up with his shit. No man had given her the kind of no-holds-barred fucking and sucking Trey did.

She imagined being spread out, fucked by this stud while other men watched, while they maybe even envied him and wished it was their cock plundering her. Yes, a secret part of her would revel in that kind of voyeuristic sex. A secret part of her would hope some of those voyeurs would take her, too.

“Beg me, Connie. Beg me to fuck your brains out.”

Oh, God. She couldn’t resist him. “
Please
. Please, Trey. Fuck me. Fuck me hard.”

She’d no sooner said the words when his cock, hot and hard and huge, forced its way between the lips of her pussy. Shivers wracked her, a signal that her climax would come fast and furious and totally outside of her control. She never needed to fake an orgasm with Trey fucking her cunt.

“Yeah! Oh, yes, what a nice, hot little fuck you are. Your cunt feels so hot and wet around my cock, baby.”

He thrust into her again and again, his rhythm and depth more than she’d experienced with any other lover. None of her husbands had ever used her this way. None of her husbands had ever satisfied her even one tenth as much as this young stud did every single time. Trey commanded her body completely, dominated her in such a way she could only lay there, spread wide, while his cock took her from behind. He didn’t make love to her, he rutted in her, and she loved every minute of it.

Constance felt him twitch and knew he would come in seconds.

He reached round, found her clit, and pinched it hard.

“Argh!” Constance’s scream tore out of her, an admission of vulnerability she had no hope of hiding. Wave after crashing wave of pleasure drowned her, taking her over so completely she couldn’t think, couldn’t move. She could only come and come and come.