Beyond the locked door, her phone started ringing. He grabbed her closer, until her senses were filled with the feel and the smell and the touch of him….
The phone kept ringing.
She whispered, “I should get that.”
“Don’t you dare,” he growled against her throat. And then he kissed her there, a wet, sucking kiss that sent hot arrows of need shooting through her, a kiss that would leave a love bite, which she would have to be careful to cover with makeup.
She didn’t care. Not right then. She didn’t care about the phone ringing, or the fact that she was naked in her boss’s office, behaving in a manner that could only be called unprofessional. She didn’t care about anything at that moment, save the feel of his hands on her, the touch of his lips on her skin, the wet stroke of his tongue wherever he chose to use it.
He caressed her belly and laid her back against the arm of the sofa. And then he kissed her, a hot trail of kisses down the center of her body, all the way to the place she craved him the most. He lifted her right leg and braced it on his broad shoulder and he went on kissing her, wet, thrilling kisses—until she felt herself reaching, climbing toward the peak.
She lost the hot touch of his mouth and she moaned in protest as he rose up above her, one knee in the cushions, the opposite foot braced on the floor. He had the condom, unwrapped, in his hand and he rolled it down over himself. She reached for him, guided him where she yearned for him to be.
After that, she knew nothing but the lift and fall, the rise and retreat, the lovely wet, hot glide of his body within hers. She must have cried out at some point, because he covered her mouth so gently with his hand as he plunged deep within her.
He whispered, “Shhh…Shelly. Oh, yeah, like that…”
He kissed her when he climaxed, using the hot pressure of his mouth on hers to keep himself from crying out. It was a good thing, too, because she was also rising to completion, tightening around him, a hard moan rising from her throat as she hit the crest and slid on over it, into a long, hot shimmer of shuddering fulfillment.
She forgot everything. There was only the pleasure her body was taking from his.
When she came back to herself, he was tracing his tongue around the curve of her ear. He took her earlobe between his teeth and worried it lightly. She moaned softly at the pleasure the teasing kiss gave her.
They lay all tangled together and her head had kind of scrunched down off the couch arm and into the cushions. Not that she cared. She stroked his bare, muscled back and licked a drop of sweat from his cheek.
“I can’t believe what we just did,” she whispered.
By way of an answer, he made a low, rough, satisfied, extremely masculine sound deep in his throat.
She managed to extricate her left arm from the tangle of body parts so she could look at her watch. “Oh, God. Nine-twenty-two. We need to get to work.”
He nuzzled her shoulder, opening his mouth on her skin, teasing her with the wet touch of his tongue. “You taste so good—smell good, too. Better than anyone. They should bottle you. I could pour you all over me.”
Beyond the door, her phone started ringing again.
He groaned. “All right, all right. I’m letting you up. Now.” He slid one leg to the floor and pushed himself up, one knee still on the cushions.
She gazed up at him, so gloriously naked above her, and she wanted to forget all about that ringing phone, to grab him and pull him back down tight against her and start what they’d just finished all over again.
He said gruffly, “If you look at me like that, we’ll never get any work done.”
She threw an arm across her eyes. “Get dressed. Do it now.”
Tom let her use his private restroom to freshen up. She took extra care to cover the faint mark on her neck.
And fifteen minutes later, she sat, fully dressed, her hair combed and her expression serene, in a chair facing Tom’s wide desk. They went over the calendar, moving things around as they needed to in order to get back on track after most of last week away.
He left to meet with Helen at five to ten. He didn’t return before lunch. Shelly fielded his calls and got closer to catching up on her own workload.
Finally, after two, he dropped in to pick up messages. She asked him how things had worked out with Kimi.
He chuckled. “Well, they didn’t kick her out of the college yet, so that’s something.” And then he headed for another meeting.
At five, he appeared once more. “Five minutes,” he said as he passed her desk. “And then I’ll need you in my office.”
“Um. Sure.”
Without another glance her way, he went in and shut the door behind him.
Shelly smoothed her hair. Well, at least she’d gotten a lot of work done while he was in his meetings. And it was the end of the day, after all. They certainly had time for one more amazing encounter on the caramel-colored sofa before heading home. She felt a smile bloom wide across her mouth just at the thought.
But instead of demanding that she lock the door, he glanced up from his computer and asked, “How about dinner?” Before she could answer, he added, “And don’t tell me you’ve got to clean the house. I know that’s already handled.”
She approached his desk. Slowly. When she got there, she leaned close and said, “Dinner sounds great to me.”
They went out for Italian and then they went to his place, which was every bit as sleek and modern as Shelly had imagined it would be. A corner apartment, it had great views of the park. You could even see a sliver of Lake Michigan from the dining area, the water shining in the city lights beyond Lakeshore Drive.
Not that he gave her a lot of time to enjoy the view. Within ten minutes of getting in the door, he had them both naked, stretched out on his king-size platform bed.
The lovemaking they shared was as passionate and fulfilling as the office encounter that morning. Afterward, she lay in his arms and considered the possibility of drifting off to sleep and not waking up till the morning sun came pouring in his floor-to-ceiling windows.
But no. She didn’t even have her toothbrush with her. And in the morning, she’d need a change of clothes.
He seemed to sense the direction of her thoughts, because he whispered, “Stay the night….”
She pulled him closer. He laid his head on her breasts and she stroked his thick dark hair. “Can’t. I need to get home, for a hundred boring reasons we don’t even need to go into.”
He lifted up above her so he could gaze down into her eyes. “Tomorrow Max and your mom arrive.”
“Mmm-hmm.” She reached up to brush the hair at his temples and thought how she would probably never get enough of touching him.
“What time will they get there?”
“Probably late afternoon. For sure, before I get home from the office. My mom will be bustling around putting dinner together. She loves to cook—comfort food, you know? Give her a can of mushroom soup and a pound of frozen broccoli and she’ll amaze you with what she can whip up.”
“She sounds like a great mom.”
“She is. The best.”
He ran the back of his finger down the side of her neck, setting off little explosions of pleasure along the surface of her skin. “I can’t wait to get to know her and Max. Too bad they’re bound to have an adverse effect on my opportunities to get you naked.”
She made a low sound of amusement. “Consider it a whole new challenge. You high-powered executive types always love a challenge, right?”
He kissed her chin. “A challenge is good. You naked is better.”
In the light from the lamp, the tiny scar over his left eye shone pearly white. She traced it with her finger. “I’ve been wondering where you got this.”
“Swordfight.”
She rolled her eyes. “Come on.”
“A battle to the death with the evil ruler of an alternate universe?”
She grunted. “If your career in finance ever goes up in smoke, you should cons
ider trying your hand at adventure novels.”
“Hmm. A novelist. I like that sound of that….”
She made an effort to look stern, an expression which was seriously hindered by the fact that she was naked and he was cupping her left breast. “Tell,” she whispered, touching the small scar once more. “Please.”
“You’re cute. Even when you’re bossy.” He fell back to his side of the bed and gazed up at the recessed lights in the high ceiling.
Unwilling to be put off, she nudged him in the side. “Tell.”
“Okay, it was like this. I was seven. My mom was out in her garden. She always kept a garden, grew tomatoes and cucumbers, strawberries. String beans. She was big on canning, I remember. And baking. I thought she was the greatest, you know?”
Shelly made a small sound of agreement, pleased to hear the fondness in his voice when he spoke of his mom.
He went on. “Even then, I knew she was older than the other kids’ moms. She looked older, kind of tired. Her dark hair was more than half gray. But when she would look at me…Pure love. I think that’s everything to a kid. That his mom loves him, that his dad pays attention. And they did. Both of them. They had each other. And me. And that was enough, even though money was always short. Even then, at seven, I remember I wanted to do them proud….”
“And you did,” she softly reminded him, laying her hand on his chest.
He put his hand over it, gave a gentle squeeze. “No,” he said. “I didn’t make them proud. In the end, I didn’t make them proud in the least.”
Chapter Eight
Something in Tom’s voice broke her heart right in two, even though she didn’t have a clue what he might mean by what he’d just said.
No. I didn’t make them proud.
The words were heavy with pain. And longing. And regret, too.
Regret for what, exactly?
Shelly lifted up on an elbow and gazed down into his eyes. He stared back at her, unblinking. She had no idea what he might be thinking—only that he seemed to be studying her.
“You didn’t make them proud? I don’t get it. They loved you, you said. And even by the time they died, you had come so far in life. Oh, Tom. I don’t understand….”
He glanced to the side then. When he looked back at her, she had the strangest sense that an important moment had just slipped by. He smiled. A hank of her hair had fallen forward.
He caught the curl in his fingers and tugged on it. “Hey. Lighten up.”
“But you seemed so…sad, just then.”
He guided the strands back over her shoulder. “It’s nothing. I exaggerated. They died too soon for me, that’s all.”
Was it all? She didn’t think so. But she remembered her promise of the other night, in the Kyoto hotel room. She wanted to hear any secrets he was ready to share with her. But she wasn’t going to push him, as tempting as that might be. In some ways, she felt as if she’d known him forever, as if she’d only been waiting for him to finally show up in her life.
But she couldn’t go jumping too far, too fast. They both needed time, together, to really learn to know and understand each other.
It seemed to her a great adventure, these first awkward, thrilling steps toward what might someday be love. No, she wasn’t like her mother. She didn’t jump from attraction to love. But over time, as trust and respect continued to grow between them, well, she would call it love then, and proudly.
And on the subject of trust, what about Uncle Drake? The uncomfortable question popped, uninvited, into her mind.
Now she and Tom were growing closer, now he’d told her he trusted her, why shouldn’t she share with him the odd way she’d come to apply for the job as his assistant? Why shouldn’t she just go ahead and get it off her chest?
Tom grinned up at her. “What?”
She blinked—and grinned back. “Not a thing.”
In the end, what was Drake to her? She’d never set eyes on him in her life except for that one night when he’d popped up out of nowhere and taken her to dinner. He’d said on the phone that he would call and collect some sort of favor. But it had been two weeks since then.
He hadn’t called. He might never call.
Right now, there was simply no need to speak of the man. Why take the chance, however small, of ruining everything?
Uh-uh. She would stick with the plan and keep her mouth shut about her uncle until she saw some reason the truth needed to come out.
She kissed Tom’s hard, warm shoulder. “So. Back to your mom and her garden and how you got that little scar above your eye…”
His smile made her heart turn over. “After all this buildup, it’s pretty anticlimactic.”
“Not to me, it won’t be.”
“Don’t be so sure.”
“It’s about you, isn’t it? Nothing about you is anticlimactic.”
“Well, it is true. I’m pro climax all the way.”
“Okay. Groaning at that one. And not with pleasure.”
“Hey. You started it.”
“The scar,” she insisted. “Your mother. Her garden.”
“All right.” He sighed. “She was out in the yard, on her knees in the vegetable garden, digging with a red-handled spade and one of those metal clawed hand rakes, to break up the soil. I could see her out there through the sliding-glass door. I had something to show her. I don’t know…a picture I’d drawn or homework I’d finished. I slid open the door and called her. She got up and turned to me, smiling, holding the spade. I went running out there to show her what I’d done. Somehow, I tripped on the hand rake. It popped up and bopped me a good one, the claws digging into my forehead, one of them slicing me open right there over my eye. Blood everywhere. I remember I was screaming. I think it scared me more than it hurt. She scooped me up in her arms and took me inside and patched me up, gave me a Tootsie Pop—a grape one. My favorite. For a few days, I had my head wrapped in a white bandage. I considered it to be way cool-looking. All the other kids in the neighborhood were jealous.” He shrugged. “And that’s it. That’s all. The cut over my eye must have been deep enough to leave a scar.”
She bent close and kissed it. “It’s very…intriguing, a scar on a man.”
He grunted. “Not when you get them by tripping on a hand rake.”
She kissed him again. “I hate to, but I have to go….”
As usual, he insisted on calling her a cab. She rode home through the nighttime streets, thinking that she’d never been so happy in her life.
In the morning, after they’d finished the calendar, Tom told her he had to fly to San Francisco again the next day.
“Since Max and your mom are coming home today, somehow I’ll have to get along this trip without you.”
She sent him a look from under her lashes. “Okay, I’m torn. You know I want to go with you….”
He shook his head. “I can manage on my own this time. And you should be here, for your family.”
“If you’re sure…”
“I’m not. But I can deal. You’ll stay here.”
“Have I told you lately that you’re the best boss I ever had?”
“Keep looking at me like that. I’ll be ordering you to lock the door and we’ll be giving that couch over there another workout.”
“Too bad you’ve got a meeting in ten minutes.”
“Too bad I’ve got meetings all day.”
At noon, Shelly and Lil went to O’Connell’s. As it turned out, Shelly didn’t have to field as many nosy questions as she’d feared she might, since one of the clerks from HR and another secretary from the finance department spotted them in the pub and joined them. Shelly was grateful for the reprieve from Lil’s endless litany of who was doing what with whom, alternating with pointed questions about how things were going with the “hunky CFO.”
Shelly got back to work at a little after one and by the time she headed home, she was pretty much caught up after the four days away last week. Tom appeared from one of his meetings just as sh
e was getting ready to leave and gladness speared through her, sharp as a bright ray of light.
“Winston,” he said, and indicated that she should follow him.
In his office, with the door shut, they shared a long, delicious kiss. It wasn’t nearly enough. But it would have to hold them until his return. She laughed at how much she missed him already. It was only a one-day trip, to check in with Riki again. She would see him Thursday. And Friday would be the big Independence Day picnic.
They rode the elevator down together and parted on the Avenue. She tried not to feel down as he put her in a cab and waved her on her way.
Funny, when you were crazy about a man, it almost hurt to be away from him.
But then she got home and fifty pounds’ worth of boy came flying at her, calling, “Mom! I’m home. I know you’re so glad!” The house smelled of onion-soup-and-green-bean casserole and her mom came in from the kitchen, wiping her hands on a towel, beaming in welcome.
Yeah, she missed Tom, but it sure was great to have her son across the table from her at dinner, his bent-up glasses taped in three places and his hair sticking straight up from the top of his head as it always did.
And there was more. Her mom had whipped up not one, but two of her famous casseroles.
This was the life, all right.
It took an hour to put Max to bed. He had so much to fill her in on. He’d had to let his pollywog go before it finished its transformation into a frog.
“He still had his tail. But, Mom, he was so close!” Next year, Max said, he and the friends he’d made in Mount Vernon were going to build a fort down by the creek. They already had a secret club. “With a special handshake and everything. No girls allowed—well, except we’re going to have a meeting about Janella Trowley.”
“Janella Trowley?”
“She’s a girl.”
“Hmm. Kind of thought she might be.”
“She’s six like me. She lives two houses away from Granny and Grandpa and she’s not so bad, so we might let her in the club. After the vote, I mean.”
In Bed with the Boss Page 10
