River's Return (River's End Series, #3) Read Online Free Page B

almost see him as one of those doms in a room like that. All leather and biker and…
    She turned to stop her strange, meandering thoughts about Shane. A weird tingle went down her arms. She definitely noticed Shane, and was almost hyperaware of his every breath, it seemed. She could sense when his eyes moved about the room, or settled on her, or when he simply dropped his arms and let them hang at his side. She felt a hyperawareness with him; or was it because some kind of opposites were attracting? Yet she could never classify it as flirtatious attraction. No. No way. It went way beyond any description of what she thought of Shane.
    Still, he was so much to be around. He overwhelmed the room, her house, her classroom, and her. She found his mere presence simply overbearing. Masculine, intimidating, and just so stinking big, there was no ignoring him.
    “Yes, I am pretty together.”
    “Adult-like, huh? Mature? Responsible? Pay all your bills on time and always in full?”
    She scowled at him. He made it sound like bad a thing. “Yes. I would think as someone who teaches your valley’s youth, you’d consider those admirable traits.”
    “Oh, they are,” he said, his grin still lurking on his lips. How infuriating! Was he mocking her? She couldn’t really respond to it or his comment.
    “So what exactly is this?” Allison finally asked. Shane just turned and started inspecting her house some more. Not what she expected from the flirty biker. He examined her house with such care, like another woman might have. Not like a man hiding out from his lover’s husband.
    “This?” Shane’s eyebrows popped up again.
    “Well, you know, Jett is coming? Can’t you just leave now? Go out my front door? There isn’t any reason for you to hang out here.”
    He shrugged and walked to her front window. Setting aside the lacy, privacy drape, he leaned over to peek out. “Jett just pulled in. Damn. No wonder Celia was freaking out.” He kept watching them, and saw Celia open the front door before hugging Jett in wife-like warmth. Did it bother Shane? Did his heart twist in jealousy? Anger? Possessiveness? Regret? Hurt? Anything? Did he feel anything about doing that to another man?
    “Doesn’t it bother you?” Allison finally asked when she could no longer restrain herself.
    Shane dropped the lace and straightened up. “Does what bother me?”
    “Seeing them together? Cheating? Lying? Anything? Does anything bother you?”
    “Lots of things bother me. But I don’t cheat. I don’t lie. And no, it doesn’t bother me who Celia is hugging.”
    “Oh, really? How do you figure you don’t lie? Or cheat? Isn’t that the whole reason you’re in my house?”
    Shane’s entire posture stiffened and his mouth turned into a deep frown. She stepped back in surprise, realizing only then she might have offended him. She didn’t think that was possible. “Well, now no. I never told anyone I was f—sleeping with you. I never cheated on anyone, ever. I don’t make those kinds of commitments. I tell a woman exactly what I’m about, and it’s never a long-term dating relationship. It’s just sex. Good, fun sex for an evening. Sometimes, it happens more than once, but I’m never exclusive with any of them. And I never lie about that. That was all Celia’s decision to lie to her husband. Her relationship. She’s the liar and the cheater, not me. If I ever chose to make that commitment, that would be it: to only one person. However, since I don’t want to make that commitment, it would never happen. It’s not on me if Celia chooses to be the kind of person that makes those commitments and doesn’t keep them.”
    “Do you have some kind of twisted moral code about cheating?” Allison asked. Her facial expression could not mask her total shock at Shane’s take on what he was doing.
    “Yeah, I don’t do it.”
    “But, isn’t that just a technicality? You knowingly engage in—in relations with women who you know for a