Chapter Ten

Tanner knew a lot about cats, particularly that adage about how curiosity killed one. And damn if that wasn’t what had happened, only it killed him instead. Figuratively speaking. Here he thought he could maintain his anonymity, and instead Zoey Richards had to go and snoop and possibly even figure out who he was.

“The funny thing is I realized I didn’t even know your first name,” she said. “So, I thought I’d see if I could find something that would indicate who you are.” She turned a not unattractive shade of red, which made Tanner have the tiniest bit of empathy for her. “Sorry. I know that was so rude of me. But I found these photos, and you remind me of a boy I knew long ago.”

“Yeah, well, I have a common face.” He dangled a white tank top and a small pair of running shorts. “If you don’t mind, they once belonged to a previous girlfriend who left them behind. I thought they might fit you.”

She squinted at him as she took hold of the clothes. “Okay. Sure. Let me go change.”

“I’ll be out in the hot tub. Come on out when you’re ready.” He pointed toward the back deck. He gave a whistle and grabbed a bully stick off the counter for the pup and Suki followed at his feet.

He tossed the treat for Suki, who grabbed it and ran onto the deck to enjoy it as Tanner climbed into the hot tub. Earlier in the night, he’d hoped to escape the hassles of the day in here, but now he wasn’t sure if he was about to face all that and then some, with his childhood nemesis putting on Katie’s running clothes to soak in his hot tub while wondering if he was who she probably thought he was.

Tanner took a swig of his beer and about choked on it when Zoey came out in Katie’s skimpy outfit. Damn, it looked better on her than it ever looked on Katie. He tried not to stare, but it was impossible not to. He reached a hand out to help her into the hot tub as she set her glass on the edge and stepped in. She took a seat across from him, obviously keeping a polite distance. That worked to his advantage, enabling him to get a good, long look at her tits, which were pretty much on full display now that the white shirt had gotten wet. Kawabunga. She had a smokin’ rack, and it conveniently rested on the surface of the warm water—the better for him to see them in all their glory.

God, what he would give to suck on those things. He did not just think that thought. Hell no. There would be no sucking, there would be no fucking. This woman was leaving in the morning and taking Snowball with her. Out of his life forever and ever, amen.

“So you mentioned these belonged to your old girlfriend,” she said, pointing at her makeshift swimsuit while taking a sip of wine.

Tanner looked out on the mountain range. A moon was rising in the distance, full and bright. God he so didn’t want to revisit Katie. It had taken everything out of him before. The tears and the begging when he broke it off with her. She promised she’d “do better.” Which was a knife in the gut because there wasn’t a “do better” to do. She was jealous of his animal patients. Never could he reconcile with this. Not only was that weird, it was thoroughly incompatible with who he was.

He heaved a sigh. “I was serious with a gal for a while.” He took a drink of his beer. “It didn’t work out.”

“That seems obvious, considering I’m wearing her shorts and top.” The shirt was bubbling up with the force of the water, so she gave it a tug down. Too bad. He was hoping for an even better view if it slipped right over the tops of those things.

“Yeah, well, we had different outlooks on life,” he said. “She resented my spending time with my patients. It was like she was competing with them for my attention. For that matter, she didn’t even like my patients.”

She squinted at him. “Wait a minute.” She brushed her fingers through her short hair. “She didn’t like the animals that were your patients? How could you not like animals? Especially ones that are in need of medical care? She sounds a little heartless.”

“Yeah, well, besides that, we’d seemed compatible. She loved the outdoors. We enjoyed a lot of the same activities.”

“Well, I don’t know you and it’s none of my business, but you seem like a nice guy, so I’m glad you ditched her. You deserve better than that.”

He smiled. That was a thoughtful thing for her to say. “Thank you. But enough about me. I seem to recall you saying something earlier about a wedding that went bust? Some fiancé who left you for four other women?” His eyes widened in incredulity.

Zoey covered her face with her hand. “Oh God. Did I actually blurt that out?”

He nodded. “’Fraid so.”

“Don’t suppose we can leave it at that?”

He shook his head. “Are you kidding? After you were snooping in my pictures and I spilled my guts to you about Katie?” He tipped his beer can back and took a drink.

She stuck her lower lip out. “Katie. Such a perfect little name, isn’t it? Katie. Like is there ever a girl named Katie who isn’t perky and cute and bubbly and vivacious and girl-next-door and all that and a bag of chips?” She growled. “God, I hate all the Katies in the world. For being so fucking perfect and nothing ever goes wrong and they don’t have zits when they’re thirteen and they never get their periods when wearing white pants and they always have perfect parents and their cars don’t get rear-ended and their fiancés would never gangbang behind your back—”

Tanner spit his beer out on that one and his eyes grew larger still.

“I’m sorry.” He pretended to clean his ears out with his finger. “Did you just say, ‘gangbang behind your back’?”

She nodded. “I found all these group messages from these women he was having sex with at some swap club or something.”

He smiled. “For clarification, I think you didn’t mean gangbanging. In case you ever told anyone else that. Because that would imply sexual assault.”

She held her hand to her mouth. “Oh, crap. I can’t even get my accusations against the guy right. So what is the proper terminology—gang orgy?”

“I’m gonna be honest with you here,” he said, sliding a little closer to her, thinking he might have a crier on his hands any minute. “I am so not up on my group sex jargon, and I don’t want to steer you wrong. But yeah, I’d say any word with the term ‘orgy’ in it would work under the circumstances.”

“See—Katie would never have had this experience.”

“By Katie do you mean my Katie? Or random Katies throughout the world?”

Zoey tapped her nose with her forefinger. “Bingo. Any old run-of-the-mill Katie would never lose her fiancé to a bunch of skanks like that.”

Tanner suppressed a laugh. “Would you hate me if I started cracking up? Because while your story is indeed tragic, your delivery, well, you gotta admit, it’s pretty damned funny.”

She heaved a sigh. “Yeah, well, if you can’t laugh, you cry, right?”

“So this fiancé of yours—did you know each other for long?”

She covered her eyes then peered through the slits between her fingers. “You’re really gonna think a lot of me when I tell you no. I met him on vacation in the Dominican Republican. He was cute. He saved my life. We got on like a house on fire. He was hung like a horse, and well, the rest is history.”

Tanner held up his hands in a “T.” “Wait a minute,” he said. “Time out. I’m not even sure where to begin. He saved your life?”

“In a manner of speaking,” she said. “More like he guarded my life.”

“What, did he continue to apply SPF 30 so you didn’t burn?”

“No, silly. He was my jump partner when I went skydiving in the DR.”

“And he saved your life how?”

“Because we were attached together for the jump. It was up to him to be sure I didn’t die.”

“Okay, I guess I’m following you. Ish.” He laid his head back on the edge of the hot tub and stared up into the darkening sky. “And the horse bit?”

“What horse bit?”

“You said he was hung like a horse.”

“Oh God. Did I say that?”

Tanner nodded.

“I’m giving it all away tonight, aren’t I?”

“And you can’t leave me hanging now. Excuse the pun.” He grinned at her.

“So I was a little overwhelmed by how he protected me and I guess I mistook that for intimacy and well, we celebrated after the jump and things sort of followed from there.”

And it matters that he was well-endowed?” He shifted in his seat. “I’ve always wanted to ask this of a woman. Does it matter that much? Or is that all about the guy’s ego?”

She pursed her lips. “Promise you won’t think less of me?” She seemed to worry about this often.

He dragged his finger over his heart in an X. “Swear it.”

“Pinky swear?”

She leaned toward him, reaching her pinky out for him to link his with. It gave him a chance to peer down her shirt and finally, he got an honest-to-God peek at her nipples, pink and swollen. He was most grateful she couldn’t see his cock coming to immediate attention beneath the bubbling water.

“It’s way better with a guy who’s got it going on down there. It happens to be the truth.”

Tanner breathed a sigh of relief, safe in the knowledge he’d been bestowed with a cock that many women had gushed over. He’d been curious about whether that mattered to her. It was kind of fun getting her to spill her guts like this.

“Can I ask how you went from skydiving to engaged to the guy? I mean a big cock can only get you so far in life.”

It was Zoey’s turn to laugh. “If that’s not the understatement of the year.” She high-fived him. “Then again, his big cock got him to LA, then got him engaged, then got him at least four women at one time at the Greater Los Angeles Swappers Club.”

“There isn’t such a thing, is there?”

She frowned. “’Fraid so. In fact, if you call right now, you’ll probably be able to reach Rodrigo and his stable of skanky women there.”

They both laughed.

“So did you truly love him?”

She shrugged. “Looking back, I think I was in love with being in love. I don’t want to get too deep here, but I’m not sure I ever knew what love was. I kind of grew up in a loveless household, and I’m afraid I equated lust or a sense of security or something like that with love. I feel stupid saying that now, but the good news is we’ll never see each other again, so I might as well share all my secrets with you.”

Tanner smiled. “You know what? I can’t think of someone I’d rather hear her deepest, craziest secrets from.” He clinked his beer to her wineglass.

And he meant it. Which was not a good sign. Because he was steering clear of this one. No two ways about it.