A Date With the Other Side (11 page)

“She sounds better than Carrie.” Boston grinned at her.

Shelby laughed. “Much better. And they say she stays on, watching over each subsequent generation of kids living here, just to make sure everything’s alright. But there haven’t been any kids here in twenty years or so. She must be lonely.”

The thought made her melancholy. How many times had she given that speech and she’d never once thought about how sad it was for a woman who loved children to be waiting for more to take care of. And how burdensome it must be to be stuck in the same place for eternity, if there really was such a thing as ghosts. Which she was rapidly coming to conclude either there was, or she was as cracked as a nut.

“Well, Nanny Baskins, I apologize for almost sitting on you,” Boston said to the room.

Nothing happened.

“Maybe she doesn’t forgive me.” Boston rolled onto his side, and Shelby immediately wished he hadn’t.

They were right back on his bed again, and he still wasn’t wearing a shirt, and he still was as sexy as all get-out, and she still hadn’t had sex in three years.

But he kept his promise. Boston started talking to her, just idle chitchat, mildly complaining that he was hungry, and telling her about all the great restaurants in Chicago.

She liked listening to him talk, and he had her laughing with his descriptions of the trauma his arteries were suffering under the greasy diet the Busy Bee Diner had him on. Shelby figured her arteries were immune. If she ate salmon, her arteries would likely shrivel up in horror and die.

Somehow or another, as they talked and the minutes ticked by, they wound up lying next to each other on the bed, Boston flat on his back staring up at the ceiling. Shelby was closer to him than she’d intended, relaxed and enjoying his company. The room was darkening, the sun just about gone, and it had to be past nine.

Sleepiness started to steal over her. She turned on her side, her nose next to Boston’s very nice biceps muscle. She yawned. “It’s been twenty minutes since you checked the door. Shouldn’t we check again?”

Instead of rushing over to the door, Boston lifted his arm and wrapped it around her, pulling her into his chest.

Hello. Big sexy solid chest touching her.

“We’re stuck, Shelby, face it.”

Her lips quivered. She just wanted to plant a little teeny kiss right there on his nipple, just to see what it felt like, how he tasted. But if she did, she’d land flat on her back, she was sure. Which suddenly sounded like such a good idea.

What was she afraid of? Being embarrassed? Dying of pleasure? They were trapped in a house with mischievous dead people; she shouldn’t be worried about how her sexual performance compared to Chicago career women.

She should just go for it. Have one night of passion before she spent the remainder of her days shuttling tours through Cuttersville, before she wound up old and childless and eccentric, caring for seventy-two cats and wearing men’s clothes.

The image was enough to embolden her. Shelby pressed her lips onto his chest, while simultaneously reaching down and stroking the front of his shorts.

He jerked beneath her touch. “Uh. Shelby?”

Shelby traced her tongue across his flesh, enjoying the hitch his breath gave. He was warm and hard and… and lacking in a penis? Shelby paused with her mouth on his pectoral, preoccupied. She was feeling all over kingdom come down there and was empty-handed. Ignoring his strangled groan, she kept moving around, determined now.

Where was the damn thing?

Then it occurred to her maybe she couldn’t find it because it was… not interested.

She froze, eyes fixed on his chest, her hand over his zipper. She gave a few desperate pats around, not willing to look up and face Boston.

“To the left,” he said, his voice low and rough.

She shifted and encountered a solid wall of hard-on. “Oh!” Whew. That was better.

Splaying her fingers over it eagerly, she went back to her earlier exploration of his chest. Hard hands gripped her shoulders.

“What exactly are you doing?”

“I thought it was obvious.” She chanced a glance up the length of his chest. He stared down at her over his chin, dark eyes aroused and yet disapproving.

Shelby smiled at him. “I’m ready now.”

He frowned. “And you’re not going to change your mind this time?” he asked suspiciously.

It was a fair question, given her earlier waffling. “No, I swear to you, I will not change my mind.”

He studied her for a minute, then he sat up, pushing her up with him and stripping her T-shirt off before she could say monkey’s uncle. The shirt fell on the eyelet spread while his mouth went straight for her breasts.

They moaned together when his lips made contact with the rounded flesh popping out of her bra. Shelby went for the button on his shorts, figuring if she had him naked, she couldn’t miss this time.

Her own shorts were so loose that Boston had them half down her thighs without even undoing the button. On their knees, he kissed her, taking her tongue and sending a rush of desire through every inch of her body. Lack of passion didn’t seem to be a problem when she was with Boston.

Gran’s potbelly stove burning full blast was cooler than her inner thighs were. She was throbbing, clenching, aching. Her nipples pushed painfully against the bra, and her hips rocked forward against him.

Boston didn’t know where to touch first, so he went for a little of everything. He ate at Shelby’s mouth, loving the ragged sound of her breathing, while he slipped a hand over the front of her panties. She was hot, and when he stroked, nudging her panties a little between her folds, the fabric came back damp.

Shelby hadn’t been able to get his shorts and boxers all the way down since he was on his knees, and he used one hand to shove at them, lifting one knee at a time. Holding her and his pants, and leaning at the same time, proved to be his downfall.

They both tipped over and landed on their sides on the bed, which was a beneficial thing. Even though their mouths separated in the fall, his hands were free to dispose of his shorts, and quickly move to Shelby’s.

“Are you sure you want to get naked on this spread?” Shelby asked. “It might be dangerous.”

She was wearing an unholy grin. He was willing to forgive her since her nipples had tumbled out of the top of her bra in the fall.

“Very funny.” Boston pulled one pink plump nipple into his mouth and sucked. It shut her laughter up quickly.

He was still wearing his boxers, and she had on her panties, but when he pressed against her, it felt delicious and hot, an arousing tease of what it would feel like to sink inside Shelby’s firm thighs.

Still moving his tongue over her nipple, Boston gripped the wet cotton of her panties and pulled them to the side. He swirled his thumb over her, finding her clitoris and brushing it.

Shelby arched her back. She made delightful little whimpers that had him sinking his finger into her damp heat, deeper and deeper, then back out. Damn, she felt good, tight and pulsing, and her thighs spread wider for him.

“Yes!” she shouted suddenly, her hand slapping him on the back.

Startled, Boston kept stroking and her voice rose in excitement. “Yes, yes, yes!”

Was she coming already? He’d barely touched her, but she really sounded like she was in the throes of an orgasm. Feeling a little confused but pleased, Boston kept a steady rhythm, not wanting to interrupt her pleasure. And she’d been worried about her lack of experience. Clearly she hadn’t counted on his skill.

Shelby slapped at him again, harder this time. “No, no, no!”

What? What the hell had he done? Boston looked up and saw she was struggling to get out from under him, excitement on her face. Excitement was good, struggling was wrong.

“Get off me! The door’s open.”

That wasn’t on his list of things he’d like her to say.

“Yes, yes, yes” was a good start. “Oh, Boston, that’s perfect” was a good follow-up. And “Take me again, you’re the best I’ve ever had” would be a great finish. Nowhere did that list include her saying “Get off me.”

Shelby jumped up with the dexterity of a circus acrobat, leaving him lying on the bed in his boxers alone. Staring at the open door. Damn. When had that happened? Sometime between her groping for his cock and him shifting her panties aside.

She had her shorts up and buttoned, her shirt down, and the door propped open with her back before he could even lift himself up.

“What’s the matter? You should be relieved.” Shelby hooked the rocker with her foot and dragged it over to the door. She propped it under the doorknob and said, “You should get bricks for all the doors to keep them open.”

Did she not notice something? That they had been just about naked, on the verge of some very hot and sweaty sex, and now they were… vergeless? “I’ll do that,” he said wryly, forgoing his shorts and heading to the door in his boxers.

Not that Shelby noticed. She was already halfway down the stairs. “Oh Lord, it’s quarter after ten! Gran will be wondering where I am since I didn’t even take the car.”

“You’re going to walk home?”

“Sure.” She shrugged and stopped in the front hall.

“Absolutely not. I’ll drive you. Just let me get my pants on.” He turned back toward his bedroom.

“I’ll be fine. This is Cuttersville, not Chicago.”

“Serial killers and rapists live everywhere. Don’t you dare leave this house.” Boston had no problem picturing her strolling off without him. He shoved a leg in his shorts and hopped back into the hall.

“Alright.” She cocked her head at him from the bottom of the steps. “Why are you so grumpy?”

He buttoned his fly and jogged down the steps, feeling beyond grumpy. He felt downright pissed off. “How can you ask that? We were interrupted in the middle of something I was enjoying quite a lot, if you hadn’t noticed, and you don’t look the least bit bothered by the fact that we had to stop.”

Shelby flushed. “Oh, well, I am. It’s just I thought it might be our only chance to get out of that room for who knows how long, so I had to act and grab the door before it shut again.” She patted his arm. “But we can start back up where we left off.”

It felt suspiciously like she was consoling him. But he’d take what he could get. “Where?”

“Anywhere without a door. Like here in the hall,” she suggested innocently. “Of course, the front door could lock, so I suppose we’d have to prop that open.”

Boston sighed, all horny hope evaporating. “Shelby, I am not going to make love to you standing in the foyer with the front door open for anyone to walk by.”

“We could turn the light off. And nobody walks by here anyway except Mrs. Caruthers and her blind dachshund.”

Well, terrific. At least the dog wouldn’t see them. “No.”

“Then how about your car?”

An image of Harriet and Clyde Danforth in a rocking Chevy Nova leaped to mind. An involuntary shudder passed through him. “Absolutely not.”

Shelby pulled on the rubber band holding her hair back, adjusting it so her heavy hair lifted higher on her head. “I guess we’ll just have to wait, then. We’ll be better prepared next time with a cell phone, food, and a means to escape if it happens again. Stuff like that.”

“It’s not going to happen again.”

Disappointment crossed her face. “You don’t want to try again?”

It was gratifying to see she was finally acting like she’d enjoyed their time on the bed at least a little. “No, I mean we’re not going to get locked in again. It was just a coincidence that it happened twice.”

Shelby raised an eyebrow and pursed her lips like he was an alcoholic in denial. “Alrighty then, if you say so. But I’m not setting foot in this house anymore without a cell phone, a bag of snacks, and a big old brick for emergency purposes.”

“We could go to your place.”

Her jaw dropped. “I live with my
grandmother!”

It was on his tongue to suggest he could sneak in her window when he stopped himself. He was not a sex-driven teenager. He was only eight years away from forty and surely he could control himself.

Shelby reached up to fuss with her hair again, and her shirt slid past her waistband. That sliver of golden flesh had him doubting his control.

“Aren’t you going to put on a shirt?”

“No.” And while he took her elbow protectively and shuttled her into his BMW gently, he couldn’t bring himself to say anything else.

It didn’t matter. Shelby chattered the whole way to her grandmother’s, which was all of three minutes away. She hopped out of the car and waved him off, but he left his car running and got out, following her onto the porch.

After she had unlocked the door and opened it, she turned to smile at him. So sweet, so honest, so lacking in guile.

He was on her, moving so fast she let out a cry of surprise that he stifled with his mouth. He kissed her over and over again, until her hands fell slack and together they stumbled back against the front door, slamming the doorknob into the interior wall.

Somehow he’d inserted himself down her shorts, cupping her firm cheeks and grinding her against him.

The porch light went on, blinding him and sending him leaping back, feeling and probably looking guilty as hell.

“Sorry.”

Shelby clung to the door and pressed her wet lips closed. The bright fluorescent glow of the bulb over her head sent shadows across her pretty face. “Don’t be sorry. I’m not.”

“Well, good night,” he said, feeling confused and aroused and stupid. What the hell was he doing?

“G’night.”

Boston wasn’t behaving at all the way he did normally, he realized as he got back into his car. Forcing himself not to glance back at Shelby standing vulnerable and beautiful on the old white porch, he backed out of the drive. He was professional, driven, reserved. He held his personal feelings back. For the most part, he lived for his job and was solitary outside of work.

It had always suited him just fine.

But now he was distracted, his mind shifting away from work the minute he walked out of that plant. And right on to Shelby.

It didn’t make sense. She wasn’t anything special, just a little dust-covered unambitious local girl who needed a stylist to hack away half that hair.