Her irrational jealousy made her feel like a bitch.
“Do you want to go find your brother?” Allie asked. She tried to sound cheerful.
Shank looked at her oddly, so maybe her acting skills were lacking. He walked to her, watching silently until she held her hand out, and then he caught her up and tucked her close enough that he could rest his chin on the top of her head. He had such a solid body—strong and steady. While Allie appreciated human bodies in all their forms—jutting hip bones and rounded curves, hard cocks and warm folds. She was starting to find herself preferring the firm arch of Shank’s back and the long lines of his arms. She let herself stroke his muscled shoulder.
“What’s wrong?” Shank asked.
Allie laughed until she snorted.
“What?” Shank demanded.
“You, asking if I’m okay. I should be asking you,” Allie pointed out.
Shank pulled back, but Allie held on. For a brief moment, they struggled silently, but then Shank sighed and wrapped his arms around her again. “My mom did kind of verbally castrate me before throwing me out of the office.”
“Yeah, but like everyone seems intent on telling you, all our parents verbally castrate us. You’re just the one lucky enough to have it happen in public.”
Shank sighed, but it was one of those sighs he used when he thought Allie was being particularly unreasonable, like when she’d slept with Petrov Bolson, who had actually turned out to be a complete weasel.
“Shank?”
He retreated again, and this time, Allie let him go. She needed to see his expression to really understand what was going on in that head of his.
He went to the bed and sat on the end. “She wasn’t always like this.”
“Like what? A complete and utter bitch?” Allie should probably be nicer to Shank’s mother, but she figured Anpaytoo would probably considerbitchto be a great compliment.
The corners of Shank’s mouth twitched downward. “She didn’t always dismiss me this much. Claire got between us. A lot.”
Allie sat on the back of the couch so she could look at Shank without getting too close. His body language screamed for her to give him some space. Sometimes Allie bulldozed people—she could admit that. But even she couldn’t miss the unhappy line of his hunched shoulders or his uncomfortable perch on the very edge of the bed.
“You never told me about Claire,” Allie said.
“Would you want to talk about your worst mistake?”
“That would be Bolson, and you were there to see it,” Allie said. “Actually, I think I was trying to get back at you, although at the time I wouldn’t have admitted that.”
“If that was your worst mistake, you’re ahead of me.”
Allie chuckled. “Funny, I always thought you were the one who was pulled together. I get so upset about things, like when Jacqs kept hitting on me. I didn’t know how to handle it when he decided that ‘no’ meant he should wait five minutes and ask again. Looking back, blowing up and calling him a dyssexual before filing a complaint probably wasn’t the right thing.”
Shank shrugged. “Short of an iron bar to the side of his head, that was probably the only thing that would have made him back off.” He gave her a speculative look. “Was Bolson really your worst mistake?”
Allie looked down at the carpet. “No, not really,” she admitted. “Although I maintain that I was only half the problem.”
“That was me and Claire. I was the half that didn’t stand up to her until it was too late to repair the damage.”
“And she was the half doing the damage?” Allie asked.
Shank completely ignored the question and asked her, “What was your worst mistake?”
Allie leaned back on the arm of the chair and pointed her toes at the ceiling while keeping her heels down. It left her physically unbalanced, which matched how she felt. “I hurt someone. It was stupid, and he deserved better.” She fell silent. She really didn’t want to dig this particular skeleton out of her closet.
“What happened?” Shank asked, destroying any hope that she could bury the conversation.
Allie shrugged as she thought about all the things that had happened. “Hiero was nice, and I liked sleeping with him and hanging out. We both liked horses, and we used to go to the auctions and talk about the breeding program we could run, and how we could have a big ranch.”
“You were making plans for the future,” Shank said softly. “That’s a big step for couples.”
