I thought he might laugh or curse, but he sighed and wiggled closer, closing his eyes and laying his head on my shoulder. That invited a full-on hug, and I locked my arms around him. Pressing my chin to his hair, I took long, shaky, slowing breaths. His sweat and skin scents wrapped around me. His damp body clung to mine in a dozen places. When he shifted and brushed my softening cock, an aftershock ripped through me. I tightened my hold.
“Mmm,” Theo said eventually, without lifting his head. “Ten out of ten, would do that again.”
Laughter bubbled out of me, soft and light and free. I meant to tease him about scoring me, but all I could say was, “I’m glad. Me too. Totally.”
He pressed a kiss under my jaw and went back to breathing against my skin, his body heavy and lax in my arms. The floor was hard, and my knee was going to sleep, but if I could hold Theo Lafontaine as he relaxed into satisfaction and joy, I could sit here for a long, long time.
CHAPTER20
THEO
“Hey.”The voice on the phone was a guy I’d just met, a local town council member that my new realtor had introduced me to. Anyone doing construction is smart to have a line into the local regulators, and Quentin seemed like a decent enough guy.
“Hi, Q.” He’d told me to call him that thirty seconds after meeting me. Some folks are more outgoing than others. “What’s up?”
“You said you had plans for that wine venue you inherited, but didn’t want to share them yet?”
“Yeah?” I admitted cautiously.
“Well, an item got put on our agenda for the council meeting in two weeks to discuss placement and permitting restrictions for any potential new animal shelter in town. Does that have something to do with your place? Because it was Joffrey Van Doren who added the item, with a note about preserving the character of upscale neighborhoods like Marina Park. He owns a bunch of land out that way, and he was buttering me up with ‘Let’s keep the exclusive parts of town appealing to residents.’”
Crap.I’d started the first interior work, mostly installing new plumbing and extra drains in the rear half. That meant jack-hammering cement, and I wanted it done before Shane moved back in. I hadn’t told the contractors what the eventual use was to be, but the plans included concrete-block dog runs connected to those drains, so no doubt it was pretty obvious.
It was probably time to come into the open if someone was moving against us. “Yeah, I’m thinking of donating that site. But we’re not there yet. The shelter’s nonprofit paperwork hasn’t gone through.” I’d paid for expedited processing, but even expedited on a state level meant two months, not two weeks.
“Well, Van Doren likes to make the first move if he has dollars on the line, so that’s no surprise. He’s the kind of guy who thinks anything civic minded brings down the tone of a neighborhood.”
“Is the council an open meeting?”
“Sure. We usually don’t get many folks showing up. I expect a few citizens will come to that one to object to the widening of Lockwood Drive, since they’re losing some street-front footage. Maybe a couple others with comments on the ordinance about waterfront signage. We publish the agenda, but most folks don’t bother to even read it.”
“So if people want to support a shelter, they could come to the meeting and say so?”
“We open up for public comments on every agenda item.”
“Okay. Good. Thanks for the heads-up.”
“No problem. Liz said you’re good people.”
I’d spent less than two days with her, looking at properties to flip, so that was a pretty snap judgment. Maybe she took Melissa’s word for it. “I appreciate that.”
When he’d given me date and time and signed off, I pulled up my calendar to enter the info. Wynn had dug into the maps for me, and the main building was in Gaynor Beach proper, in a section of Marina Park zoned for mixed commercial and residential, with a specific allowance for residential second story over commercial. We should be fine, legally, but the council had to sign off on projects over a certain size. That included ours.
“Everything okay?” Shane frowned at me from the doorway.
I looked up and put a smile on my face. “Sure. Fine.”
“Bullshit. That’s not yourfineface. What’s up?”
I didn’t want to rain on this date Shane was about to take me on, but he’d clearly learned to read me too well. “I found out the town council is adding a permit for the shelter to their meeting agenda in two weeks.”
“I thought Arthur wasn’t going to apply for the permit until he has his nonprofit registered.”
“He didn’t. Someone got wind of it. Sounds like someone who wants to keep our dirty animals out of hisupscale neighborhood. Probably looking to get the jump on us.”
“The fuck he does.” Shane glowered. “Can you go and defend the shelter?”
“Yeah. There’s public comment. You could come too.”
