Sir Loin of Beef (Grade-A Beefcakes 1)

“I have to go.” I rushed out, fumbling with the door, not meeting their eyes.

“What? Wait—”

I didn’t stick around to talk, rushing down the hall and into the throng of women. I needed my purse, my keys, so I could get the hell out of this bar.

I glanced over my shoulder once, saw them at the edge of the room searching for me. Fortunately, I didn’t stand out like they did. I scrunched my shoulders, kept my head down as I worked my way through the women who were—thankfully—all standing and cheering a stripper on stage. I grabbed my purse from where I’d left it, glad Ava’s attention wasn’t turned my way. I snuck out and made it to the parking lot and dashed to my car. My breath was ragged, but this time from panic and adrenaline, not from pleasure.

“Kaitlyn! Wait!” Landon Duke called as the two of them rushed toward my car. I struggled to get the key in the lock, for once wishing for a fancy new car that had a simple button remote.

“What’s the matter? Wait and we’ll talk.”

Talk. God, that’s what I should have done before I let them in my panties.

I scrambled into the driver’s seat, slammed the door closed behind me, then fumbled as I jammed the keys into the ignition. “Come on, come on!” I moaned to the car. It was old, a beater, but it was mine. It got me where I wanted to go, and while I knew it was on its last legs, it was all I had. It started and I sighed in relief.

Landon Duke stood beside the car, but he put his hands on the hood, looking at me through the front windshield, confusion on his face. Jed was right beside him. “Wait! What happened? Why are you running off like this?” he shouted so I could hear him through the closed window.

I barely glanced at either of them as I put the car in gear and floored it, making them jump back so I didn’t run them over.

I pulled out of the lot, practically taking the turn onto the street on two wheels. The further I got from Landon Duke didn’t help. Didn’t lessen the pain. The guilt. Nothing would.

I hadn’t driven drunk and hit Landon’s parents. My father had, although it was because of me he’d done so. I hadn’t driven off, leaving them to tend to their injuries on their own until some other car came by and helped. I hadn’t gone to prison for the crime. My father had since it had been his third offense and a hit and run, at that. Fifteen years later, my father was dead and buried, yet I was still paying the price of his sins. Of mine. I’d called and asked him to pick me up from a sleepover at a friend’s house instead of walking the two miles. It had been early, rainy and cold and I hadn’t wanted to walk. And because of it, my father, still drunk from an all-night bender, had gotten in his car and almost killed Mr. and Mrs. Duke on the way.

And I’d just let Landon Duke, probably one of three men in the whole world who had reason to hate me, get me off. And he had my panties.

6

KAITLYN

At six the next morning, I was standing in front of the coffeemaker waiting for it to finish brewing. I had on my well-worn pajama pants with little ducks all over them and a black tank top. My hair was down, tangled and snarled after tossing and turning all night. Everything was a little blurry because I didn’t have on my glasses, but I didn’t need them to get my caffeine fix.

The dark scent was helping perk me up, but it wasn’t making me feel any better. I was an idiot. A banging-my-head-against-the-wall idiot. That’s what I’d been telling myself ever since I peeled out of Cassidy’s the night before. A complete and total idiot. Or I had the worst luck ever, which was definitely true, so both. What more could go wrong? My life was one set of disasters after another. Nothing, nothing, was ever simple.

If Ava’d been pulled up on stage by a stripper, then gotten tossed over a different guy’s shoulder and gotten fingered by not just him but his friend, too, she’d be waking up between the two men right now. Perhaps picking out china patterns and children’s names. But no. The men who’d said I belonged to them, who’d given me two of the best orgasms of my life weren’t just any men.

Nooooooo.

It was Landon Duke and his friend. Hell, best friend if they shared women.

“Landon Duke,” I whispered at the coffeemaker. It gurgled back in reply.

There were only two other men in town who could have made me feel just as bad. Landon’s brothers. Well, or Roger, but that was something else entirely. A blind date gone really bad. Like creepy stalker bad. I didn’t go to the community center to swim anymore, since he worked out there almost every day. I didn’t go to the diner where he liked the apple pie. Not that I had extra cash for a splurge like eating out. I didn’t even go to the grocery store in town, instead buying my groceries in Clayton when I worked part-time at the hotel to avoid him. He gave me the creeps and I wanted to steer clear. Unlike Landon—at least before now—Roger'd been easy to avoid since I knew what he looked like, although that didn’t prevent him from seeking me out.

But the Dukes were avoidable, or at least I’d thought so, because I didn’t know what they looked like. They’d been strangers to me. I still didn’t know what Tucker and Gus Duke looked like. Or Julia, their sister, or the parents, although I remembered them somewhat from the trial. Still, it had been a long time. I could pass them on the street and not know it. I may have several times the past six months I’d been back in town.

I’d been ten when everything happened and I’d moved away. Fifteen years had passed. The Duke kids were older than me so it wasn’t as if I’d even known them then. Until the trial. Then, I’d seen all of them, but in fifteen years, we’d all changed.

And Landon Duke for the better. Doing my math, he was thirty-two now. And handsome. Handsome enough for me to let him do more than slip his hands in my panties and find me wet.

Every woman in three counties would have ruined panties just getting a glimpse of him. And he’d made me come with just his fingers alone. He was skilled. Very skilled. I’d also been horny—it had been a long, long time since I’d had a man-induced orgasm. The vibrator in my bedside stand needed new batteries with a frequency too great to even consider.

I was fixated on Landon, not giving much thought to Jed Cassidy, which was ridiculous. He was just as hot, just as sexy. I’d been just as eager for him to get his hands on me, too. In me. I’d been a slut for both of them. But his parents hadn’t been almost killed by my father.

I’d be having Landon Duke and Jed Cassidy fantasies for the rest of my life. And only fantasies because, while the chemistry between us had been off the charts, and I felt strangely safe and protected in their arms, it wasn’t going to happen again. No way.

Opening up my cabinet, I grabbed my favorite mug and thunked it down on the counter.

“Stupid,” I muttered.