A Date With the Other Side (10 page)

That didn’t tell him a damn thing.

“Have you ever been married, Boston?”

He shook his head. “No.”

Shelby sat at the foot of the bed and frowned. “Well, you’re leaving, right? I mean, you’re here until the company says you can leave and then you’re gone, right?”

“Yes.” She had totally lost him, but that point wasn’t in dispute. He was definitely leaving the first opportunity he was given, even if that meant going somewhere other than Chicago. He’d go anywhere that had a sushi bar and a theater.

“So, if I tell you things, it doesn’t matter, does it? You won’t tell anyone, and you’re not staying.”

Now he understood. Here, trapped in the stuffy blue bed-room with a person who was virtually a stranger, it was easy to say things you wouldn’t normally imagine speaking out loud. Hadn’t he confessed about his father? “I won’t tell anyone anything you say. And truthfully, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t pass along those little anecdotes about my father either. Not many people know that about me.”

“Done.” Shelby pulled a leg onto the bed, seemingly unaware that the movement drew her shorts up to her panty line.

Boston was aware. Aware and overcome with the urge to lick that spot.

“I want to have sex with you, Boston.”

His head snapped up. “What?” His cock went fully hard, ready for action. She just needed to say go and he was there.

He sat up, reaching for her.

“But I can’t.”

He fell back onto the bed.

Damn it, that was cruel.

“And maybe you don’t even want to have sex with me, and I’ve totally humiliated myself. But since you came to town, I’ve been thinking I might enjoy that, but it’s just not a good idea. So if you were thinking about it, stop.”

And this conversation had shown such promise.

Boston sat fully up, since lying down wasn’t helping him think about anything but Shelby climbing onto his lap. “Why can’t we sleep together if we want to? We’re mature adults. We’re trapped in a room together. No one will get hurt and no one in Cuttersville needs to know.”

He certainly hadn’t planned on having an affair with Shelby Tucker, but the idea was growing on him. Quickly. It was the best possible way he could think of to pass the time in exile in Cuttersville.

Shelby watched Boston, who looked ready to pounce on her any second now. For a minute, she was worried she’d spoken too directly and that he would laugh at the notion that he could be attracted to her. But her fears had been misplaced, given the look on his face and the way his fingers twitched in her direction. If he had those paranormal powers he’d talked about earlier, she suspected her clothes would be a thing of the past.

It was her nature to be honest, which was why she’d spoken up in the first place, but now she was left trying to figure out how to explain to Boston that she was a cold fish, incapable of pleasing herself or a man. There was no way to say it without making herself sound like a freak, or without being disloyal to Danny. She wouldn’t embarrass or hurt Danny for the world.

“I have to live here. People are going to know.” Shelby played with the edge of the eyelet spread, nervously sticking her finger through one of the holes and pulling it back out again.

“Not if we’re discreet. Don’t people here date?”

“Not me.” She stuck her finger in the hole a second time, sorry she’d started this conversation. “I haven’t dated at all since I left Danny.” In and out went her finger.

Boston grabbed her hand. “Stop that.” His voice was tight.

Startled, Shelby glanced at him, immediately taking in the tent his shorts were making. Oh, Lord, she’d gone and turned him on. Now what was she supposed to do? She knew from experience he didn’t give up a stiffy easily.

“So you’re saying that you haven’t slept with any man since Danny and you’re nervous.”

No, but that sounded good. “Exactly.”

The seconds ticked by and Boston didn’t say anything. He just stared at her, his jaw locked and his eyes narrowed. He was close enough that she could smell the shampoo from his shower, see the muscles in his arms flex. She was about to bolt off the bed or scream when he finally spoke.

“Do you know who Tigger is?”

Now it was her turn to stare. That just confirmed that city folks were missing some marbles. Too much pollution and radioactive wires hanging over their heads. “What?”

He repeated the question, but it didn’t make any more sense the second time than it had the first. “You mean the bouncing tiger from
Winnie the
Pooh?”

“Yes.” He leaned toward her. “I thought so.”

Shelby scooted back. “What are you talking about?”

“Doesn’t matter.” He put his hand on her chin and moved in so close she about went cross-eyed trying to watch him. “And it doesn’t matter if you’re feeling nervous or inexperienced. All I want is a little kiss, Shelby. Just one. And no one is going to interrupt me this time.”

Boston saw Shelby Tucker’s coffee-colored eyes go round right before he closed his own and kissed her.

A deep, reaching, full-mouth kiss that left any thoughts of holding back eradicated.

She tasted sweet and warm, with moist plump lips that gave just the right amount of pressure back. Not too hard and not too soft, but just right, and he leaned in closer, wanting more, wanting to keep her there. Her thick hair brushed across his forehead, and her fluttering fingers teased over his bare chest, shifting his curious desire to edgy lust.

Shelby’s breathing was heavy, her lips open, and Boston never hesitated. He went in with his tongue, one hand creeping down her back to drift over the top of her firm ass, realizing the upside of Shelby dressing in sloppy clothes. The shorts she had on were loose enough that he had a clear path down them, should he choose to pursue it.

She raked her nails down his chest, settling in right at his navel, so close to his fly his cock twitched. He choose to take the path down her pants, cupping that smooth behind while kissing her with a reckless and unskilled abandon that would have appalled him had he been thinking clearly.

He wasn’t. He was just touching and feeling and sliding into a haze of sweet desire, Shelby’s tongue making a tentative taste of his bottom lip, her nails digging into his flesh right above his waistband.

A little shift and he was lowering her to the bed with the hand that wasn’t down her pants. His mouth fell off hers. Taking in her flushed cheeks, sun-kissed hair starting to spill out of her lopsided ponytail, and shiny wet lips, Boston bent over to kiss her again.

He wanted to make love to her, right here on this four-poster bed, to fit himself inside her and watch her come apart under him at his gentle strokes.

Nibbling on her bottom lip, the full cherry flesh smooth, Boston worked on shifting her bulky T-shirt up over her ribs so he could duck under.

“Boston,” she said, her breath tickling him.

“What?” he asked, distracted, her shirt resisting his tugging. It gave, and he slipped a hand over her breast, cupping the warm fullness and brushing over her nipple.

“Never mind.”

He kissed her chin, he kissed her neck, he spent some serious time and attention on that sexy little dip under her collarbone, while his fingers explored and pursued and teased. Shelby’s fingers fell off him to lie still at her sides. Her head arched and she gave a series of very arousing moans that stroked both his ego and his cock.

“Boston?”

“Yes?” He found his way under the stretchy fabric of her bra.

“Forget it.”

Okay. He pulled down the neck of her shirt until his tongue and his finger met at the swell of her breast. He sucked.

“I…”

“What, Shelby?” Boston flipped the bra down so it exposed her whole breast and one firm, rosy nipple.

He leaned back to give himself a better view. Damn. She was just hot. Totally different from all those fashionable women he had dated, whose moves in the bedroom were orchestrated and designed to show their bodies off to their best advantage. They had been successful at satisfying him, that was true. And in fact, he had always gotten the feeling that being successful in the bedroom was just as important to them as success in the boardroom.

It was easy for him to understand. He’d been doing the same, always aware of how he was presenting himself to a lover, concerned with ensuring her pleasure. The satisfaction when he knew he’d been successful and she’d had an orgasm. Success-driven sex.

But in all of those encounters, there was that element of
real
missing.

With Shelby, everything was real, unplanned, just reaching out and doing what felt good, and he didn’t think he could predict one second to the next. Didn’t want to. Didn’t want to think or plan or strategize, just touch and taste and revel in her.

He covered her nipple with his mouth.

“Nothing,” Shelby said, the word falling out on a gasp. “Forget I said anything. Just stick a sock in my mouth so I shut up.”

Boston could think of something better than a sock to put in her mouth.

But he was starting to get the feeling something was wrong. He gave one last greedy pull on her nipple before releasing it with a sigh. Reluctantly, he withdrew from her shorts.

“Is something wrong?” It was too much to hope for that there wasn’t, given the look on her face.

Instead of aroused, she looked worried.

“No, not really.”

How reassuring. “If you’re not enjoying this, just tell me to stop.”

She swallowed. “But I am. Enjoying it.”

It was something. Boston perched awkwardly, one foot on the floor, his other on the bed, knee pressed into a spring. It was an uncomfortable way to be coaxing Shelby into confessing what was wrong.

He stood up. Shelby looked a little bit disappointed. But only a little.

Immediately she pulled her shirt back down, covering her bare breast. “I don’t mean to be a tease or anything, but I just can’t do this.”

So much for his fabulous plans of spending their lockup in bed, drenched in naked pleasure.

“I swear, Boston, you’ll thank me in the long run.”

Please. That was what people said when they took away from you something really, really good.

Shelby watched Boston take a deep breath and walk with slow steps, hands on hips, over to the window. “I don’t want to do anything you don’t want to do, Shelby,” he said to the glass.

“But you’re not.” Oh, Lord, she was acting like a total fool. But what if she let Boston keep on the way he was going and nothing happened? She was out of practice faking orgasms.

And she didn’t want to fake one. She wanted a real one. But how could she explain to Boston that only on rare occasions and during a full moon did she manage to come with Danny and that it wasn’t Danny, it was absolutely, most definitely her. There was no polite way to say she couldn’t get off.

Boston was staring out the window and attempting to pry it open. Apparently he’d had enough of her and her indecisive meanderings. “I’m at a loss here, Shelby,” he said over his shoulder. “So after I figure out that this damn window really won’t open, I’m going to sit down in the rocking chair and we can just have a friendly conversation to pass the time. I’m going to stay away from the bed so I’m not tempted by you, because I really don’t want to do anything you’re not completely ready for.”

Shelby thought that sounded like an okay plan, except when she looked over at the rocking chair he was referring to, to gauge how far away from her it was, her jaw dropped. Good gravy, that thing was
rocking
. By itself.

Back and forth, faster and faster, like a very agitated person was sitting in it. Only there wasn’t anything but a rose-colored cushion on it, and as far as she knew, cushions couldn’t push rocking chairs.

“Uh… Boston?”

“What?” Sounding surly, Boston abandoned the window and turned around, brushing his hands on his shorts.

She pointed to the rocker. “That chair is rocking.”

Boston frowned. Shelby inched farther back on the bed, grabbing a bed pillow. She wasn’t sure that beating a ghost with an eyelet pillow would be very effective, but it gave her a small measure of comfort.

“It’s probably just the draft from the hall or a breeze I created by jerking on the window.”

If he wanted to be dense, that was his business, but she knew what she was seeing and it wasn’t any piddling breeze. “It’s Nanny Baskins.”

The chair rocked faster.

And Boston, that idiot, went over to the chair and tentatively touched the arm.

“What are you doing?!” Did he want to be slapped into the light or sucked over to the other side? Geez Louise, the man didn’t show a lick of sense.

“I don’t feel anything. Not a cold spot, not a warm spot.”

The chair kept rocking, and he made like he was going to sit in it.

Shelby leaped off the bed. “Stop! You can’t
sit
on the woman, for crying out loud!”

Boston hesitated, then let out a cry of surprise. Jerking forward, he reached down and rubbed his leg. “Something slapped my thigh!”

Shelby rolled her eyes. Really, what did he expect? “Well, she’s a nanny. She was just disciplining you for your rudeness.”

Still rubbing his leg, he shot her a disbelieving look. “I am thirty-two years old. I do not need to be disciplined by a dead nanny.”

“She thinks you do, apparently.” Shelby crossed her arms in front of her chest and shivered. The chair had stopped rocking.

“She couldn’t have children, you know,” she whispered.

“Who?” Boston sat down on the foot of the bed and rubbed his hands over his face.

“Nanny Baskins. Her husband left her when he decided she wasn’t fertile, though for the longest time the town thought he’d died in an accident down in Cincinnati.” Shelby, still clutching the pillow, sprawled across the head of the bed, on her stomach.

“Another vengeful spirit?” Boston cast another look at the still rocker.

“No, not at all. Once her husband left, Emma Baskins became a nanny, and they say she was never the least bit bitter. She got what she wanted after all. Children to raise, and she loved them like her own. Two generations of children she raised here in the White House, and did a fine job of it too. One of her charges became mayor, another a doctor, yet a third was the first woman in Cuttersville to go to college.” Shelby had always imagined Nanny Baskins to be something like her own gran, loving but firm.