Read Behind the Green Curtain for Free Online Page B

Caton warned him.
    “What is your thing with touch?”
Jack asked, hand stilling, but hovering, as if it might land at its leisure.
    “I don’t have a thing with touch,”
Caton protested. “I have a thing with people thinking they can touch me when
they can’t.”
    Taking another step toward her,
Jack smiled, fingers testing their luck.
    “Don’t touch me, Jack. I mean it,”
Caton firmly stated.
    “I like you calling me by my first
name,” he responded. “Makes it sound like we’re on intimate terms.”
    He spoke in a tempering tone, like
he saw Caton as a wild animal he could tame and pet freely. Little did Jack
know, he was about to be on intimate terms with a scalding cup of coffee, and
potentially the knife Sole had abandoned on the bar, if he went too far. Jack’s
fingertips brushing her collarbone, Caton cocked the mug back for dispersal.
    “Jesus Christ, Jack,” Amelia’s
voice cut in before she could fire, and, for the first time, Caton was truly
happy to hear it. “Could you at least not try to fuck her while I’m in the
room?”
    Smiling at being caught in the act,
which was probably his intention the entire time, Jack turned to face his wife.
“I have to go to work,” he smirked, leaving Caton and Amelia alone, once again,
in the aftermath of his choices.
    More shaken than she wanted to
admit, Caton turned to the bar to put her coffee down, grimacing as the ceramic
hit the granite too hard and a small crack appeared along the bottom ring of
the mug. Hearing Amelia’s approach, she circled back around, meeting a
molasses-thick gaze. The dark eyes raking up and down her, Caton couldn’t even
see the judgment in them, though she could certainly feel it was there.
    “Well, it all makes sense now,”
Amelia uttered. “What are you, his favorite? Or maybe his least favorite, since
he did send you here.”
    Caton suspected it was Amelia’s
idea of a joke, but neither of them was the tiniest bit humored.
    “I’m not sleeping with Jack,” she
recovered from the encounter, and subsequent accusation, to assert.
    With a derisive laugh, Amelia
started off, leaving a hollow vibration in her wake.
    It didn’t matter, Caton tried to
remind herself. What Amelia thought of her had little impact on the course of
events. It wasn’t her job to soothe Amelia’s pain or embarrassment, if the
woman was capable of either emotion. Watching her walk away, though, she
couldn’t let Amelia put her into bed with Jack either, even if it was only in
her mind.
    Rushing after her, Caton caught
Amelia’s arm by the doorway, and Amelia whirled on her, more shocked than
angry, as if she didn’t expect Caton to make any bold moves to defend herself.
Hanging on to that tiny spark of surprise, one of the few real reactions she
had seen from Amelia, Caton took a step closer without conscious thought.
    “I am not sleeping with Jack,” she
stated. “I have never slept with your husband.”
    With every syllable, with each
finger that felt Amelia’s bicep flex beneath it, Caton willed Amelia to believe
her, and there was a flicker. For an instant, Amelia’s icy expression thawed
and Caton could see beyond the deep gray haze into the depths and shadows of
dark brown eyes. Maybe whatever world lay inside Amelia wasn’t as desolate and
unwelcoming as it first appeared.
    Gaze falling to Amelia’s lips,
Caton watched them part and eased closer. It wasn’t until the back of Amelia’s
hand brushed against her thigh that she jolted into awareness. Two minutes
before, she was lecturing Jack about thinking he had the right to touch her,
and now she was practically pouring herself onto his wife.
    Letting Amelia go at once, Caton
took several desperately-needed steps backward, too scared to look up. When she
finally gathered the courage, it was clear it didn’t matter. Internally, she
was berating herself for her inability to keep a check on something completely
primal, though it had come out of nowhere and surprised her more