Opposites Attract (Nerds of Paradise Book 1)

by Merry Farmer

  “We should probably go,” she whispered to Scott.

  “Uh, yeah,” he agreed. Melody rushed forward from the hall with Casey’s pea coat, and Scott took a moment to wave. “Hi, Melody, Calliope.”

  “Have a good time,” Calliope replied with a twinkle in her eye.

  “We won’t wait up,” Melody added as she shooed the two of them toward the door.

  The blast of cold air up Casey’s skirt at they walked outside sent second-thoughts slamming into her. It also kept the distinct tingle of knowing there was nothing between her and the great, wide open alive and well. She was grateful that Scott drove a sedan instead of a truck. She wasn’t sure she could have handled stepping up into a truck’s cab in her current state.

  “I know I said we’d do dinner at the hotel,” Scott started once they were down the driveway and out onto the main road, “but I have a little surprise for you instead.”

  “Oh?” Casey forced herself to give him her full attention, even as she tugged at the hem of her skirt to make sure it wasn’t riding up too high.

  Scott’s only reply was to wiggle his eyebrows and drive on.

  They talked about little things as they drove into town. It wasn’t that long of a trip, so by the time they turned onto the street that ended in the Paradise Space Flight building, they’d only had time to talk about how cold Wyoming was compared to L.A. and how Scott had been surprised at the diversity of Haskell when he arrived. He had just started in on how happy he was that there was such a variety of restaurants in downtown Haskell when he pulled into one of the best parking spaces in front of PSF.

  “Here we go,” he said with a mischievous smile before jumping out of the car.

  He came around to open the door for Casey, and as he gave her a hand up, she said, “You brought me to work on our pre-Valentine’s Day date?”

  “Of course.” He grinned and folded her arm into his to escort her to the door. “Don’t guys usually bring the girls they like to work with them?”

  Casey giggled and was about to smack his arm and tell him no, when seventeen-year-old Quintus Haskell—technically Howard Franklin Haskell V—jumped up from a chair just inside the front door and rushed out to hold it open for them. Quintus was wearing a full tuxedo with tails. Casey glanced up to Scott, excitement bubbling inside of her.

  “Hey, Quintus.” She waved at their doorman as they passed from the icy cold into the much warmer lobby. It wasn’t as decorated as it had been for the mixer, but it was still impressive.

  “Good evening, Miss Flint,” Quintus answered with a fake British accent. The boy was obviously having the time of his life. “May I take your coat?” he asked once the door was shut.

  “Thank you.” Casey played along, surrendering her coat and giving Quintus a smile.

  He took Scott’s coat as well, then Scott escorted Casey deeper into the building. “Nice kid,” he said. “Way nicer than you’d expect the boss’s son to be.”

  “Quintus has always been a doll,” Casey agreed. “Of course, with five older sisters, he’s been trained well.”

  Scott chuckled. “I guess Howie didn’t want to give up until he got Howie Five.”

  “Exactly,” Casey laughed.

  Her laughter stopped when Scott led her along the same route she’d taken with her friends, weeks before, straight into the planetarium. It didn’t matter that she’d already seen the planetarium in action at the party, it still took her breath away.

  “It’s beautiful,” she sighed as Scott shut the doors behind them and led her into the center of the room.

  “I’m glad you like it. I had it built just for you.”

  Casey laughed at his joke and turned back to him. There was just enough light from the starry canopy above to illuminate his solid, muscular figure. Casey licked her lips. It occurred to her that half of the time they’d spent together so far had been wrapped up in layers of winter clothes and jackets. Seeing just how fit and healthy Scott was without all that made her ten times more aware of her panty-less state.

  “Is that tonight’s sky?” She looked up and away from him so that she could steady the growing wobbly feeling in her knees.

  “Yep.” Scott answered, sliding up to her side. She could feel the warmth radiating from him and instinctively leaned closer. “How much do you know about the constellations?”

  “Mmm, I know that one is Orion—” She pointed to the celestial archer. “And that’s the Big Dipper. Other than that, I’m a little lost.”

  Scott moved even closer to her, sliding an arm around her back. He took her arm and pointed it to another section of the sky. “That one is Cassiopeia.” He drew a zig-zag connecting some of the stars with her finger, then moved it slightly to the side. “And that’s Cepheus. Cassiopeia was the queen and Cepheus was her husband, the king.” His breath brushed her neck as he spoke, and he traced his hand down her arm and across her side.

  Casey sucked in a breath, tingling all over at the simple sweep of his hand. He had to know she wasn’t wearing a bra now. “King and queen of what?” she managed to get out…barely.

  Scott chuckled and took a step back. “I don’t actually know. I only know the constellations and the names, not the mythology behind it. I’m going to have to rely on you for the history of everything.”

  “Me?” The spell of his closeness and touch was far from being broken as she turned to face him.

  “You know everything about the history of Haskell, so I figured you probably know the history of everything else too.” The warmth and confidence in his voice was intoxicating.

  “I’ll work on it,” she answered, placing a hand over her thumping heart, one hundred percent certain her nipples were standing at obvious attention.

  One quick flicker of his glance in that direction and she was sure he’d noticed. Then came the calculated realization of what that meant. The dim planetarium light wasn’t enough to hide the raw, male appreciation of her underwearless state.

  He swallowed, cleared his throat, then gestured to something behind her. “Ready for a picnic?”

  Casey was so absorbed in the delicious idea of Scott turned on as he figured out her clothing situation that it took her a second to register his words. When she did, she turned and noticed that a blanket was spread out on the floor in the center of the room. A picnic basket and a small cooler sat waiting to be opened.

  Casey gasped. “You put together a picnic for me? In January?”

  “Yep.” He grinned and stepped forward, taking her hand to lead her on.

  Casey had a moment of panic as she realized she now had to sit on the floor in a relatively short skirt and no underwear. At least she could get away with trying to be dainty as she sat carefully and folded her legs, sitting “sidesaddle” on the blanket. Scott hadn’t even begun to impress her. He reached behind the basket and produced fancy plates and cutlery, not to mention wine glasses. He opened the cooler next and drew out a bottle of chilled wine. She had the feeling there was more in the cooler, but he switched to the basket next.

  The moment he opened it, tantalizing scents wafted into the air. He took out a few covered dishes that radiated warmth, then proceeded to serve her pasta with white sauce, herbed chicken, and steamed vegetables.

  “It’s not exactly picnic fare,” he apologized, “but I thought something warm would probably be best.”

  “It’s perfect,” she hummed low in her throat.

  Whoever had made the meal was an amazing cook. Casey didn’t think anything could distract her from Scott’s gorgeousness or the pure romance of the canopy of stars, but the food made everything else fade into the background. Even though it was slightly awkward to eat a formal meal while sitting on the floor. It hardly mattered. Between savoring each bite and making eyes at Scott as she did to let him know how much she’d like to devour him too, any inconvenience was nothing.

  By the time they moved on to dessert, Casey was fairly certain she’d never spent a better evening in her life, and she still had t
he sense that it had hardly begun.

  “We’re going to get out there someday,” Scott said as he selected a chocolate-covered strawberry from the plate he’d taken out of the cooler.

  “Where?” Casey asked, leaning back and looking up at the stars.

  “Well, Alpha Centauri is the closest star system to ours.”

  Casey pulled her gaze down to look at Scott just as he bit into his strawberry. “You’re serious?”

  He blinked, chewed, and swallowed. “About space travel?”

  Casey nodded.

  “Of course.” He burst into a smile. “It’s a natural progression, after all.”

  “Of what?” As wild as his ideas sounded, there was something about the confidence and imagination behind them that Casey loved.

  “Mankind is meant to explore,” he said. “Ever since Urg stepped out of the first cave and looked over the horizon, then picked up his club and went to check it out.” Casey chuckled. “Mankind has always journeyed beyond the boundaries of what we know. It’s a natural impulse. Just because we’ve run out of things to discover on this planet doesn’t mean we’ll lose that instinct.”

  “But isn’t it impossible to travel fast enough to reach another planet where we could live?” she asked, hoping she wasn’t stepping on his dream.

  Scott shrugged. “With the technology we have now it is, but I’m sure someone will develop the means to get there eventually. That’s why I came to work for Paradise Space Flight.”

  Casey shook her head to be sure she heard right. “I thought you guys were just working on rockets to put satellites in orbit and things like that.”

  “That’s what we’re doing now,” he said, “but the sky’s the limit when it comes to reaching for the future. There’s no telling what innovations we’ll discover, what new ways of living we’ll have a part in.”

  Something about his obvious love of new things, future things, hit Casey strangely. “Yes, but we have to be sure that we preserve the past too. I mean, we can’t just go railroading over everything that we’ve built and accomplished so far in a huge rush to get to the future.”

  Scott looked down from the stars and at her, gentle understanding in his expression. “Of course not. Our history is just as important as our future, Miss Historian.” He reached out for her hand on the blanket.

  Casey struggled with whether she should pull away, but the moment his fingers twined with hers, she knew she would lose that battle. All the same, she said, “If we forget where we come from and who contributed to making us who we are, then what’s the point of some fancy future anyhow?”

  He held her gaze for a long time, as if trying to peer deep into her thoughts, before saying, “There’s an old Eastern proverb that says ‘Who we think we are and who we think we should be often hampers our freedom to change.’”

  A lump formed in Casey’s throat. “What’s that supposed to mean?” she asked, more hoarse than she wanted to be.

  Scott moved the plate of strawberries to the side and scooted closer to her, putting his arm around her. “It means that the past is a beautiful, precious thing that we should work hard to protect, but if we don’t also look forward to everything that we could be and do in the future, we’ll be stuck.”

  Casey didn’t answer. She wanted to argue with him and prove him wrong, but she also didn’t want to lose the warm, liquid, cozy feeling that the entire evening had wrapped her in. She wanted a break from feeling miserable, like everything around her was changing faster than she could keep up with. She didn’t want to think about the past or the future at all. She just wanted to be.

  “Where is Alpha Centauri?” she asked, leaning back and looking up. As far as she was concerned, the simple question was a ferocious effort not to let herself be pulled under into emotions she needed a break from.

  Scott hummed and studied the sky. “You can’t see it from the northern hemisphere,” he said. “I could see if the planetarium has a view from the southern hemisphere, though.”

  “Sure.”

  The pressure was off for a few minutes as Scott stood and walked to one side of the room. A light went on that seemed glaring in the planetarium’s dimness. A few seconds later, the entire sky above them blinked, and the stars rearranged themselves. Or rather, an entirely different set of stars appeared. Casey gasped at the sudden change. Her whole life, she’d taken the night sky for granted, but suddenly, looking up at an unfamiliar night, it struck her that there was a whole universe of things she’d never seen.

  Soft music filled the room, and a moment later the light from the control room went out. A few seconds after that, and Scott was at her side again.

  “I hope you don’t mind the music.”

  “Not at all.” Casey smiled up at him, her smile growing when she saw he had pillows with him. “It’s nice, sort of otherworldly.”

  Scott chuckled and lowered himself to sit by her side. “It’s music Howie had composed to go along with a video he wants to produce about the mission of Paradise Space Flight. Sort of New Age, right?” He settled the pillows on the blanket behind them. A few quick motions to clear their picnic aside and the two of them lay on their backs to gaze up at the southern stars.

  “New Age music always reminds me of having a massage,” Casey said as she wriggled to get comfortable on the floor. Her skirt seemed to want to ride up no matter what she did, but whether it was the unfamiliar stars or the music or the wine or the heat and scent of Scott right next to her, she didn’t mind the potential for sudden, intimate revelations so much. In fact, just knowing that there was barely anything between her and some seriously naughty behavior knocked the last of her worries clear out into space. Her nipples were once again poking wantonly through her dress.

  “Have you ever been to Australia before?” Scott asked, his honeyed tone a tiny clue about how much he had noticed her mood shifting. “South America?”

  “No.” Casey let out a breath, trying not to focus on the brush of fabric against her nipples and the complete lack of fabric in other areas. “I’ve never been outside of the U.S.”

  “No problem.” Scott snuggled closer to her, sending electricity through her, and pointed up. “That’s the Southern Cross, of course.”

  “Oh! Wait! And that’s Orion again.” Casey extended her arm up to the familiar constellation. It was the wrong thing to do if she wanted to keep physical sensation to a minimum. Her skirt inched higher, and her nipples tightened even more. “Only he’s in a different place.”

  “A lot of what you see in the night sky is the same, no matter where you view it from, because of the Earth’s tilt as it revolves. Only some things are different,” Scott explained. “There.” He pointed up at a specific point lower in the sky. “That’s where Alpha Centauri is.”

  Casey blinked and tried hard to focus on the spot of sky where Scott was pointing. It was hard to focus on anything but the fact that she was lying on her back with her blood-pressure steadily rising.

  “There?” She turned her face slightly more toward him even as she kept her eyes on the stars.

  “Right…there.” Scott turned his head to face her, their eyes met, and the stars were forgotten.

  He surged forward, kissing her lips with cautious tenderness. Casey’s heart swelled at the thought that he wasn’t just swooping in on her like an eagle snatching up a mouse. He was testing whether she was ready, whether she was willing. Lucky for him, she totally was.

  “Yes,” she whispered, twisting slightly so that she could throw an arm over his side. She returned his kiss with enough enthusiasm to answer any other questions he might have about her willingness.

  “Yes what?” he asked through their kiss, laughing just enough to produce an incredibly satisfying vibration against her.

  “Yes to anything you want to do next,” she said, then nipped at his bottom lip. She let her hand venture lower on his side, over the waist of his trousers, and around the side of his butt just to make sure he got the point.

  Sh
e could feel the tension double in him as he rolled to his side and slipped his arms around her. “Anything?” he teased her.

  Casey giggled. She couldn’t help herself. She hadn’t been so happy or so turned on in ages. “Do you need me to spell it out for you?”

  She could feel his grin against her lips as he tried to keep kissing her. One of his hands moved from her side to cup her breast. “Okay, why not? Spell it out for me.”

  Her entire body went restless with the need to meld with him. She lifted one of her knees over his thigh, feeling every inch of her leg that was exposed as she did, and knowing how close she was to utter shamelessness.

  “Well,” she murmured, tugging his shirt out of his trousers and spreading her hands along every inch of his back and sides that she could. “For one, I’m not wearing any underwear.”

  He chuckled, the sound and the vibration doing far more to her than any man’s laugh ever had. “I was wondering about that,” he said, brushing his thumb over her hard nipple while the rest of his hand squeezed her. “I can’t lie, I’ve been watching these babies flirt with this dress all night.” His thumb continued to rub to the point where Casey was beginning to feel it between her legs.

  Then again, it wasn’t like there was nothing going on down there. She could feel things getting slippery in a hurry.

  “No,” she whispered, bringing her hand around to toy with the buckle of his belt. “I mean, I’m not wearing any underwear.”

  He went still beside her. His eyes widened, pupils dilating. The tension that rippled off him had her breathing in shallow, expectant gasps, waiting to see what he’d do. She grinned, settling into the role of daring vixen far more comfortably than she should.

  He let out a breath and his hands began to move. The one was trapped between them as they lay on their sides facing, facing each other, but the other made a quick journey to the hem of her skirt, which was now most of the way up her thigh. He grabbed hold of the hem and pulled it up farther, all the way to her hip. She felt a hitch in his breath as his knuckles raked the point where her panties should have been.