Out Of Control. Shannon McKenna
OUT OF CONTROL
It was silly to get too worked up about men. The sad, awful truth was, the more you wanted them, the less they wanted you. It was a cruel formula, but she’d learned to live with it.
Davy McCloud turned her formulas upside down.
“Why are you scared?” he asked. “I thought you wanted this.”
Margot tried to smile, but her shaking mouth wouldn’t cooperate. “You make me feel shy,” she whispered. “That’s all.”
He kissed one knee, then the other. His lips were exquisitely warm and soft. His hands slid down her thighs. A deep, melting sweetness shivered through her legs in their wake.
“Are you trembling because you’re scared, or because you’re turned on?” he demanded.
“Both,” she admitted.
SHANNON MCKENNA
OUT OF CONTROL
KENSINGTON BOOKS
KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP.
http://www.kensingtonbooks.com
Contents
Out of Control
Chapter1
Chapter2
Chapter3
Chapter4
Chapter5
Chapter6
Chapter7
Chapter8
Chapter9
Chapter10
Chapter11
Chapter12
Chapter13
Chapter14
Chapter15
Chapter16
Chapter17
Chapter18
Chapter19
Chapter20
Chapter21
Chapter22
Chapter23
Chapter24
Chapter25
Chapter26
Chapter27
Chapter28
Chapter
1
San Cataldo, California
A poke in the eye, that’s how it felt.
Mag Callahan curled white-knuckled hands around the mug of lukewarm coffee that she kept forgetting to drink. She stared, blank-eyed, at the Ziploc bag lying on her kitchen table. It contained the evidence that she had extracted from her own unmade bed a half an hour before, with the help of a pair of tweezers.
Item #1—Black lace thong panties. She, Mag, favored pastels that weren’t such a harsh contrast to her fair skin. Item #2—Three strands of long, straight dark hair. She, Mag, had short, curly red hair.
Her mind reeled and fought the unwanted information. Craig, her boyfriend, had been uncommunicative and paranoid lately, but she’d chalked it up to that pesky Y chromosome of his, plus his job stress, and his struggle to start up his own new consulting business. It never occurred to her that he would ever…dear God.
Her own house. Her own bed. That pig.
The blank shock began to tingle and go red around the edges as it transformed inevitably into fury. She’d been so nice to him. Letting him stay in her house rent-free while he bugswept and remodeled his own place. Lending him money, quite a bit of it. Cosigning his business loans. She’d bent over backwards to be supportive, accommodating, womanly. Trying to lighten up on her standard ballbreaker routine, which consisted of scaring boyfriend after boyfriend into hiding with her strong opinions. She’d wanted so badly to make it work this time. She’d tried so hard, and this was what she got for her pains. Shafted. Again.
She bumped the edge of the table as she got up, knocking over her coffee. She leaped back just in time to keep it from splattering over the cream linen outfit she’d changed into for her lunch date with Craig.
She’d come home early from her weekend conference on purpose to pretty herself up for their date, having fooled herself into thinking that Craig was only twitchy because he was about to broach the subject of—drum roll, please—the Future of Their Relationship. She’d even gone so far as to fantasize a sappy Kodak moment: Craig, bashfully passing her a ring box over dessert. Herself, opening it. A gasp of happy awe. Violins swelling as she melted into tears. How stupid.
Fury roared up like gasoline dumped on a fire. She had to do something active, right now. Like blow up his car, maybe. Craig’s favorite coffee mug was the first object to present itself, sitting smugly in the sink beside another dirty mug, from which the mystery tart had no doubt sipped her own coffee this morning. Why, would you look at that. A trace of coral lipstick was smeared along the mug’s edge.
Mag flung them across the room. Crash, tinkle. The noise relieved her feelings, but now she had a coffee splatter on her kitchen wall to remind her of this glorious moment forevermore. Smooth move, Mag.
She rummaged under the sink for a garbage bag, muttering. She was going to delete that lying bastard from her house.
She started with the spare room, which Craig had commandeered as his office. In went his laptop, modem, and mouse, his ergonomic keyboard. Mail, trade magazines, floppy disks, data storage CDs clattered in after it. A sealed box that she found in the back of one of the desk drawers hit the bottom of the bag with a rattling thud.
Onward. She dragged the bag into the hall. It had been stupid to start with the heaviest stuff first, but it was too late now. Next stop, hall closet. Costly suits, dress shirts, belts, ties, shoes, and loafers. On to the bedroom, to the drawers she’d cleared out for his casual wear. His hypoallergenic silicon pillow. His alarm clock. His special dental floss. Every item she tossed made her anger burn hotter. Scum.
That was it. Nothing left to dump. She knotted the top of the bag.
It was now too heavy to lift. She had to drag it, bumpity-thud, out the door, over the deck, down the stairs, across the narrow, pebbly beach of Parson’s Lake. The wooden passageway that led to her floating dock wobbled perilously as she jerked the stone-heavy thing along.
She heaved it over the edge of the dock with a grunt. Glug, glug, some pitiful bubbles, and down it sank, out of sight. Craig could take a bracing November dip and do a salvage job if he so chose.
She could breathe a bit better now, but she knew from experience that the health benefits of childish, vindictive behavior were very short-term. She’d crash and burn again soon if she didn’t stay in constant motion. Work was the only thing that could save her now. She grabbed her purse, jumped into the car, and headed downtown to her office.
Dougie, her receptionist, looked up with startled eyes when she charged through the glass double doors of Callahan Web Weaving. “Wait. Hold on a second. She just walked in the door,” he said into the phone. He pushed a button. “Mag? What are you doing here? I thought you were coming in this afternoon, after you had lunch with—”
“Change of plans,” she said crisply. “I have better things to do.”
Dougie looked bewildered. “But Craig’s on line two. He wants to know why you’re late for your lunch date. Says he has to talk to you. Urgently. As soon as possible. A matter of life and death, he says.”
Mag rolled her eyes as she marched into her office. “So what else is new, Dougie?