A Date With the Other Side (26 page)

“I don’t know. She’s older, wears a bun and an apron. Makes great bread.”

Shelby opened and took a bite. “Mmmm. It’s good. But you know, I think your housekeeper is dead.”

“Why? What she’d do? The bread is awesome.”

Her head shook back and forth. “No, I mean, she’s dead. Like she died fifty years ago.”

“Whatever.” He leaned forward and kissed the crumb off the corner of her mouth.

“You don’t care?”

“I don’t believe you.” Nor did he care, for that matter. Boston wrapped an arm around her waist.

“Rewind the tape, Boston! We might have caught a spirit on tape!”

If he hadn’t been so interested in kissing that shiny spot in the corner of her mouth, he might have stopped and thought about what she was saying. But after a frustrating afternoon he finally had her in his arms.

She shoved him.

Or not.

“Stop it! The camera is right on us.”

“And if it wasn’t?”

“I still wouldn’t want you to.”

“Why?” he asked in annoyance, knowing it wasn’t smart to push Shelby but unable to stop himself.

“You know why,” she said with one of those cryptic female statements that means nothing to a man except that he won’t be getting any. She gestured to the camera.

Boston raked his hand through his hair.

Shelby smiled a little. Her finger reached up and touched his head, brushing her arm against his and giving him a taunting view of her lips hovering near his.

“Bread crumb.” She dropped it in the sink. “Now don’t you want to take out the tape and see if Mary was recorded? That would really be something to show that reporter.”

Yeah, his housekeeper slicing bread. Exciting stuff. He’d seen Mary, talked to her many times, and there was no way she was a spirit. No dead person in their right mind would hang around washing a man’s dirty clothes and scrubbing the toilet.

“Want to watch a movie first?” he asked, trying not to sound desperate. If she retreated to her bedroom again, he was going to either howl in frustration or just beat down the door and drag her out a la King Kong. He didn’t think she’d appreciate either gesture.

“What movie?” Her voice dripped with suspicion.

Did she suspect him of wanting to entice her with porn? “Whatever you want. Amanda rented twelve videos yesterday because she couldn’t decide what she wanted to see. Then she realized she couldn’t watch twelve videos in three days so she brought me eight of them.”

The TV in the parlor was small and the VCR ancient, but they worked.

Shelby rolled her eyes, but laughed. “We don’t need the Haunted Cuttersville news story; we have Amanda as a one-woman boon to the local economy.”

“Too bad she won’t be here very long.”

The smile fell off her face. “Yeah, too bad.”

And it hung in the air between them, the fact that he was leaving not long after Amanda.

“Shelby, we need to talk…”He reached for her.

She turned away from him. “I don’t want to talk about this on camera,” she whispered urgently. Popping another bit of bread in her mouth, she tried to smile. “Now let’s go watch a movie.”

If he touched her one more time, she was going to pull a Red-Eyed Rachel and clobber him.

Oh, he wasn’t being obvious about it. He wasn’t actually trying anything. But at regular intervals he was managing to stick his sexy man hands somewhere on her body, and it had her so wound up and sexually stimulated that one more arm brush was liable to make her groan out loud.

Picking a horror movie had seemed like a good move, since there wouldn’t be any sexual innuendos at all. But Boston had just used it as an excuse to turn the lights out to view the film with full effect. And in spite of herself, she couldn’t help jumping from time to time or shuddering in fear, and there he was, all over her with comforting hugs and massaging fingers on the back of her neck.

By the time the darn credits rolled, she was just about in his lap.

His arm was wrapped around her, and in spite of herself, she managed to let her head rest on his shoulder. And it was such a nice shoulder. Strong, but not brawny. It didn’t slump or slouch, but stayed upright, solid, aggressive. A man who liked to win.

Like he was going to tonight. He wanted her, had been very honest about it. And he was just going to be there, ready, when she gave in.

Shelby was already giving in. He smelled so good, a musky soapy scent that tickled her nose and reminded her of what it had felt like to be under him out in the cornfield. From time to time his bare feet brushed over hers, and his soft jeans were thin and worn and she could feel the heat from his thighs under hers.

The red blinking light of the Channel Five camera kept her sane.

When his finger brushed over her breast, she shoved away from him. “The camera,” she said under her breath, curling her legs under her on the opposite side of the couch.

Boston didn’t say anything, and she thought she’d finally made him angry. But when she looked, he was standing and eating up the parlor with long determined strides. He yanked the camera from the curio cabinet and turned it off. “There, it’s off.”

Uh-oh. He set it down none too gently and turned to her. It was too dark to see his expression but she could feel his frustration, his desire, rolling off him in pulsing waves and just about knocking her over flat.

“It’s not just about the camera,” she said, crossing her arms so he wouldn’t think she was actually interested in responding to him.

“What is it about?” He took several steps toward her, the moonlight from the lace-covered windows spilling over him in a spidery pattern. “I know you said you don’t want to have a casual affair, but I don’t see how it can be called casual when I’m in love with you.”

Shelby froze. “Come again?” He could not have said that, she must have misunderstood, because it was just plain ridiculous for Boston Macnamara, city slicker extraordinaire, to have fallen in love with her, Shelby Tucker.

He leaned over, putting his arms on either side of her, boxing her in between his chest and the floral sofa. “I’m in love with you. Never in thirty-two years have I told a woman those words,
so
I hope you appreciate the enormity of what I’m saying to you.”

Shelby’s feet fell to the floor as her heart swelled. Oh, Lord, he loved her. That was so wonderful and incredible and tragically horrible. She sucked in a shuddering breath and lightly touched the front of his chest.

“Oh, Boston. I love you too, I really do.”

His jaw twitched, and a sigh of relief fell from his lips. She stroked his chin, felt the stubbly beard growing there, brought his face down to hers. The kiss he took and she gave was passionate, open, vulnerable, tongues meeting with a kind of aching appreciation.

The video had rewound and ejected and the TV was a bright blue screen, sending an eerie cobalt glow across Boston’s skin as he stood up and ripped his shirt off in one forward motion.

“Can I make love to you, Shelby? I want to show you what you mean to me.” His hands were on his leather belt with the silver buckle, and she could see how important this was to him.

It was to her as well. When he left, which he would, she couldn’t go with him. She wanted to be with him one last time, knowing they both loved each other.

“Let me make love to you first,” she said and scooted forward on the sofa.

Her fingers brushed his aside and she undid his belt. He swore and pushed her away.

“You don’t have to do that.”

“I want to.” She wanted to see him, to feel him. Popping his snap, she kissed his stomach, enjoyed the jerk he gave when her lips touched him.

There was a soft cluster of dark hair there that she nibbled at. She let her hands roll over his stomach, his sides, his tightly muscled back, wanting to taste him and explore, learn every inch of him.

He was standing still, but he wasn’t passive. His muscles were tense, his breathing labored and hard, his hands gripping her shoulders.

She took down his zipper, ran her fingers over the bulge in his boxer shorts, peeled back his jeans on either side. Then she nibbled at that bump, feeling the heat kiss her nose and lips as she tugged on the material and rubbed across him.

“Shelby…”

“Am I doing this wrong?” She hesitated, concerned that her pleasure wasn’t pleasing him.

“Absolutely not. You’re just making me insane with want, that’s all.”

A glance up showed his eyes were closed. He looked tortured and vulnerable. It made her swallow a small moan and clench her thighs together. “Have other women done this to you?” she asked, knowing the answer, not even sure why she was asking. She didn’t want to imagine cool blond businesswomen down on their knees in front of Boston.

She reached into his boxers and pressed her hand against his hot skin, finding him on the first try this time, even in the dark.

“Yes. But not one of them ever made me feel like this.”

“Like what?” She took a tentative lick across the head of his penis.

Boston shuddered. “Out of control. Immersed. Totally and completely in love.”

She covered him with her mouth and took the length of him into her as he swore again, cruder this time. Shadows covered them both, making Shelby feel bolder, more curious, more willing to go with her desires and throw caution aside. Hands on his hard thighs, she pulled him in and out, over and over, shocked at how with each stroke her own need grew and built and ached for release.

Slippery and eager, her lips fell off him and they both groaned in agony.

“Oh, Boston, you taste so good.” Pausing only to lick the bead of fluid squeezing out, Shelby closed her mouth over him again, flushed with passion, excitement, love.

The room was hot, the air still and humid, the only sounds the hum of the TV, the steady whirl of the ceiling fan, and their rapid breathing. Boston’s hips rocked to meet her, a fast hard rhythm, and then suddenly he was gone.

She blinked up at him, wiping her lips, struggling to see him. “What’s the matter?” she whispered, already reaching forward again.

He’d moved back, then he spoke, voice hoarse. “No. I’m going to come if you don’t stop.”

“What’s wrong with that?”

Boston dropped to his haunches and held her face between hands that trembled. “I want to be inside you. I want to feel your body wrapped around mine, and I want my eyes locked with yours when we both
come
together.”

He kissed her with such tenderness, such awe, that Shelby thought she might actually cry, something she hadn’t done since she’d lost out on head cheerleader to Mitzy Garvey in the tenth grade.

“You know that you’re beautiful.” Boston pulled back and took her T-shirt off over her head, wishing it weren’t so dark so he could see her luscious body. The light from the TV and the filtered moonlight drizzled over her, but it didn’t give him the golden glow of her skin, or the pink of her nipples as he dragged her bra down in the front.

“But you hate my clothes, don’t you?” she said with a laugh, brown eyes round and shining with moisture.

“Yes,” he said enthusiastically, stroking his tongue along the swell of her breast. He didn’t want to see Shelby in something that wasn’t her personality, like a suit or a designer cocktail dress, but he really didn’t think sack-like cotton shirts and shorts reflected her uniqueness either. “Except for those tight shorts and that sexy little halter top you wore when you took me on the tour. That was a hot outfit.”

“I think it was off me more than it was on me.”

Boston sucked her nipple lightly. “Exactly. It turned me on, so I took it off.”

“I like that you wear jeans, yet somehow it never looks casual. It turns me on, so take them off,” she said, digging her nails into his head.

He tasted her whole breast, from one end to the other and back again. “And you had the nerve to tell me
I’m
bossy.”

“Do it,” she said, taking her breasts out of his reach by sitting back on the couch. In a second, the bra was tumbling to the floor and she was wiggling out of her shorts effortlessly since they were so loose on her.

Boston didn’t want to be left behind, so he shoved his jeans down and kicked them aside. His boxers dropped beside them, and he positioned himself over Shelby on the couch. “Lie down, and spread your legs for me.”

He almost expected her to tell him to go to hell. But he underestimated Shelby and her ability to drive him mindless with lust.

She fell back, ponytail pushing her hair out on either side of her face, her small lips open, her tongue trailing across the bottom with instinctive sensuality. Her arms went up on either side of her head, her white bandage still covering her stitches. Her breasts pushed out toward him, round and smooth and glowing in the moonlight. Her stomach rose and fell with her breathing, and as he focused on her nest of curls, she dropped her knees and spread her legs for him.

“Perfect,” he said with a fascinated nod.

He was holding himself over her and wanted to just push inside her, but he had forgotten a condom. He fell down onto her lightly, and rushing his lips over her belly, he felt around on the floor for his jeans. He’d been carrying condoms in his pants pockets hoping optimistically for a repeat performance, and whether in a barn or a field or the living room, he had wanted to be prepared.

Thank God.

Shelby didn’t complain about his weight pressing on her, just wiggled restlessly under him, stroking his back and nudging her hot little mound into his thigh. He could feel her heat, her moisture, and it made him blind with impatience. She kissed his chin, his neck, while he hooked a finger through the pocket of his pants and hauled them toward him.

A second later, he had the condom on and was stroking between her thighs, making sure she was ready for him. She was more than ready, and she whimpered as his fingers slid over her.

“I want you to know,” Boston said as he nudged gently with the tip of his cock, “that I really…”

He sank just inside her.

“Do…”

Straining for control, he went a little deeper.

“Love…”

He thrust fully inside her, taking all of her, her muscles clamping on to him, her chin tipped up, her eyes warm with answering emotion.