Vance glanced past Boston a moment. She looked over her shoulder to see a rather unsavory looking man staring at her—specifically, staring at her rear end.
“Get in here,” Vance said, taking hold of her arm and pulling her into the room. He closed the door and twisted the deadbolt before turning to look at her once more.
“Now what are you doing here?” he asked. “Why did you follow me, and what does it matter if I’m not moved into my house yet?”
“You did this because of me,” she accused.
“I did this because of your pal Stephanie,” he corrected, folding strong arms across a chiseled, broad chest. He frowned and nearly growled, “Man, you had to get out from under that chick’s…sh-stuff! I couldn’t stand there and watch you take that any longer.” He ran one hand through his thick, dark hair, shook his head, and chuckled. “I knew you wouldn’t move in while I was still there…whether or not I slept on the couch. So I figured, what’s a couple of weeks here?” he asked, looking around. “I’m at work most of the time anyway. Danielle was all wound up over you too. You might as well have been letting that Steph chick beat you over the head with a shovel. So what’s sleeping here for a few weeks compared with all that?”
He was downplaying his own heroism—or he really didn’t see it as anything too concerning. As Boston’s heart swelled with appreciation, admiration, and delight, she smiled—and, unfortunately, spoke her thoughts aloud.
“Well, I’m not happy to find you living here. But I’m glad you’re actually living here and not just meeting someone,” she began, her tongue characteristically unleashed. “I mean, for a minute I had this horrible vision that you were meeting some hoochie here…you know…for…you know…for a reason I can’t even begin to verbalize because it would make me sick to talk about it…and to find out you’re living here instead of that…whew! I mean, I’m just so relieved about that…but I’m still mad at you for lying to us. You didn’t have to do this. I would’ve been fine…I could’ve just bunked in with Halle or something until your house was ready. I feel awful about this! In fact, the more I think about it, the worse I feel…but I’m just so glad you’re living here…you know…instead of…well, you know.”
“You thought I’d driven down to Central Street and pick up a hoo—” he began.
Boston’s hand clamping over his mouth silenced him, however—though it was obvious by the fury in his eyes that he was greatly offended.
“Don’t even say it!” Boston scolded. “I just watch too much Law and Order. You know I would never really think that you would—”
“You did!” he growled, pushing her hand from his mouth. “You thought I picked up some streetwalker and came back here to…I can’t believe you would think that of me!”
“I don’t!” Boston assured him emphatically. She shrugged with admitted guilt and said, “Well, I sort of did…but just for a minute…and just because I’ve watched too much TV lately. I swear it! I know you’re not that kind of guy.”
“Really?” he asked, scowling so thoroughly Boston looked around in search of a hole to crawl into. “Then what kind of a guy do you think I am? Obviously you think I’m scummy enough to—”
“I think you’re the kind of guy who lies to stupid girls who have stupid roommates and can’t handle their own stupid problems so that they don’t know he’s doing something to help them out…probably because you don’t like attention or some stupid thing like that,” she blurted. She felt the tears in her eyes—the ache in her heart—an emotional eruption of disbelief and gratitude welling up inside her. “I can’t believe you did this!” she said, her voice breaking as tears escaped her eyes and traveled over her cheeks. Boston brushed them away with the back of her hand, humiliated that she should show such weakness in front of him. However, her humiliation was not so great as to keep her tongue still, and she babbled on, glancing around the dim, shabby room.
“I mean…this cannot possibly be comfortable! And are there roaches? Oh my heck! I won’t be able to sleep at night if I know there’re roaches crawling all over you in here! Did you clean the bathroom before you used it the first time? Oh my heck! Did you wash the sheets? What are you doing here, Vance?” She bit the inside of her cheek and quit talking as he took hold of her shoulders.
“Hey, baby…dial it down a notch, okay?” he said, forcing her to look at him. He tweaked her nose as if she were a little girl and added, “It’s cool. It’s all good. First of all, it’s only for a couple more weeks. Second, I haven’t seen one roach…okay, maybe one. And I did clean the bathroom…and I’m even smart enough that I brought my own bedding. On the flip side, you’ve been liberated from that psycho chick you lived with…and Danielle can quit worrying.” He shrugged broad shoulders and shook his head. “I’m working so much and am so tired when I do get home that I don’t care where I crash.”
Boston, however, was little soothed. She turned away from him, brushing more tears from her cheeks. She couldn’t believe it! She couldn’t believe a guy she’d known only two weeks would make such a gesture of impeccable character. Furthermore, she still didn’t like the fact he was living in such ugly, frightening, and downright depressing circumstances—not to mention he was having to pay who knows how much to live there. Vance Nathaniel may have been working so hard that he didn’t care where he crashed, but Boston did care—and she knew she wouldn’t get a good night’s sleep as long as Vance was in the ratty motel.
“I…I can’t think of anything I can possibly do to thank you,” Boston said. “Not one thing.”
“Don’t worry about it,” he said. She heard him yawn and turned back around to look at him. He did look tired. His hair was tousled, his eyelids kind of droopy. She suspected Dempsey’s party had worn him out. After all, Dempsey’s parties always wore everyone out—and it was very late.
Boston knew Vance was probably anxious to get to bed, but she couldn’t leave without somehow conveying her gratitude. The barrel of Tootsie Pops from Mustang was nothing compared with this! He had to know how she felt. She wanted to be sure he knew how truly heroic his behavior was.
“You have to let me do something for you,” she said. “You can’t do a thing like this—make this kind of sacrifice—and not let me thank you, Vance…offer some sort of service in return. There’s got to be something I can do for you. Please…I won’t be able to settle down or sleep or work well until you let me repay you somehow. I already owe you for the suckers.”
He frowned a little, inhaled a deep breath, and exhaled slowly. He reached up, scratching the short whiskers on his chin.
“Well, I suppose asking you to sleep with me would be out of the question,” he began.
“What?” Boston exclaimed. She thought of Danielle’s request that she “seduce” her brother, and all Boston’s deep-seated fears of there not being one moral man left on the face of the earth (even including Vance Nathaniel) washed over her like a natural disaster.
Vance shrugged. “I mean, obviously that’s the kind of guy you think I am…the kind of guy who would meet a skank at a cheesy motel and—”
“I said I was sorry for that,” Boston interrupted. She realized then he was teasing her—raking her over the coals as punishment for even daring to have one suspicious thought about his character. She admitted that she deserved it. Only fifteen minutes ago—after the conversation she’d had with Danielle—she was ready to nearly marry Vance on the spot. She deserved to be pestered for doubting him so quickly, for letting Steph’s and the world’s poisonous assumptions win her over so swiftly.
“And I wouldn’t want to disappoint you by letting you find out that I really am an okay guy…so I guess that’s it. You can sleep with me, and I’ll count it as your thank you.”
“Vance Nathaniel, you cannot be serious. I know you’re just being a brat.”
“So, as I was saying,” he continued, “you can either sleep with me…because I am a depraved, wanton degenerate with an insatiable appetite for women…or…it’s been
a long time since I’ve had a really big, really good batch of homemade chocolate chip cookies. Danielle says you can bake like a bakery baker. So those are your options—sleep with me…or bake me cookies.”
He smiled, pure delight and mischief burning in his eyes. Boston sighed with relief in realizing he was totally teasing her. She giggled, suddenly all the more enchanted with his sense of humor.
“And just what would you do if I chose not to bake the cookies?” she flirted.
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” he chuckled.
“Well, I’ll bake your stupid cookies for you, Mr. Nathaniel,” Boston said, turning and unlocking the door. She had to leave—she wasn’t even certain why—but she felt that if she didn’t leave she might start thinking a little too much about how perfectly wonderful Vance Nathaniel was—how heroic. “But I’m still mad at you for lying to us…and I still won’t be able to sleep well as long as you’re here.”
“Don’t worry about it, Boston,” he said. “It really isn’t a big deal.”
She turned to find him looming before her, close to her—so close she could smell his warm, suntanned skin and the residue of Juicy Fruit gum on his breath.
“It is to me,” she whispered, gazing up into the deep green of his eyes. She made the mistake of letting her gaze fall to his lips—swallowed when the excess moisture of desire flooded her mouth. What was done was done—there was no changing it now. Vance was living in the motel; she was all moved in with Danielle. There was nothing left to do but to express her thanks—prove to him she was grateful for his chivalry.
Reaching over, she quickly flipped the light switch near the door. The room went black, and Boston stood on the tips of her toes, took Vance’s whiskery face between her hands, and kissed him squarely on the mouth. She hadn’t expected to suddenly find his hands at her waist, to find that he had kissed her after she’d kissed him, that they were now standing in the complete darkness of the shabby motel room kissing each other. She’d meant to kiss him once—to thank him for championing her. She’d turned off the light first because—as Vance himself had twice taught her—somehow it wasn’t so intimidating to kiss someone in the dark. Yet now that he’d kissed her in return—now that his mouth was coaxing hers into a deeper, more intimate exchange like they’d shared in Dempsey’s pantry—she began to tremble.
Passion erupted not so unlike Mount Vesuvius! Vance’s arms banded around Boston like steel restraints, and she didn’t care. The moments in the pantry were flinging themselves through her memory, causing her to thirst for more of them.
Again she was struck by his skill in kissing her, by the manner in which she feared she would never be able to leave him. It was even worse—or more wonderful, whichever way one viewed it—for now her mind and soul had decided to seduce Vance toward the light and away from whatever secret darkness imprisoned him. Therefore, in admitting to herself that she wanted him—wanted him forever—Boston realized the weakness he found in her, the desire he toyed with.
Yet she couldn’t leave him—not yet—and so she kissed him—kissed him wildly, unbridled, and with insatiable thirst!
Abruptly, however, she pulled away from him, wiping the moisture from her still tingling lips as she flipped the light back on.
Vance grinned at her and teased, “I thought you’d changed your mind about baking the cookies there for a minute.”
Boston blushed and shook her head. “No, you idiot. I just…I just want you to know that what you’ve done…that I appreciate it more than you can—”
“It’s no big thing, Boston,” he interrupted. He opened the door, took hold of her arm, and led her from the room. “Come on. I’ll walk you to your car so you can get home and fire up the oven.”
On the way to the car, however, Boston’s emotions began to get the better of her once more, and she brushed new tears from her eyes.
“Really, Vance,” she began, “you didn’t have to do this.”
“It’s fine, Boston,” he said. “Just bake me a big batch of chocolate chip cookies, and we’ll call it even.” She took her keys out of her pocket, and he put out his hand for them. She smiled and dropped her keys in his hand. He winked at her, unlocked her car door, and held it open.
“Admit it,” he began. “Let logic dictate the truth of the fact that it’s far less difficult for me to sleep here for a few nights than it would’ve been for you to deal with that psycho chick for one more day. Then just let it go and bake those cookies for me.”
Boston slid into the seat of her car, and Vance pushed the key into the ignition.
“You…um…you’re not gonna tell Danielle, are you?” he asked, his handsome brow puckering with concern.
“She’ll find out sooner or later,” Boston warned. “But…but I won’t say anything if you don’t want me to.” The thought drifted through her mind that Vance and Danielle harbored a lot of secrets—even from each other.
“I’d appreciate it if you didn’t,” he said. “If she finds out, then she finds out…but I’d rather she didn’t. She worries a lot about me…especially since…she just worries a lot. You know how she does. I won’t ask you to lie if she flat out asks you. There’s no reason to drag you to hell for lying too. But just don’t offer the information for no reason. Okay?”
“Okay,” Boston said. She smiled at the lethally handsome man standing half-naked outside her car in the parking lot of a shady motel. “This will be our little secret.”
“Secret,” he said. “That’s always a scary word.”
“Oh, it’s a fun word, Vance,” she said. “I like secrets.”
He smiled and said, “Drive safe.”
“I will.”
Boston giggled, reached over to the glove compartment, and retrieved a chocolate Tootsie Pop. She quickly removed the wrapper and popped it in her mouth. She twisted the key and started her car.
Just before Vance closed her door, however, he reached out and pulled the sucker from her mouth, popping it into his own mouth and saying, “You’re gonna rot your teeth out with these things.” He closed the car door then and nodded at her, an indication he would wait for her to drive off before returning to his hovel.
Boston waved at him, and he nodded again as she drove away.
After retrieving a fresh Tootsie Pop from the glove compartment, Boston sighed and smiled. There was something rather intimate about the way he took her suckers out of her mouth and pressed them into his own without hesitation. She liked it! Her delight was quickly squelched, however, by the remembered knowledge that Vance would be spending the next however many nights in a nasty motel. Still, it was heroic in the true sense! Maybe guys didn’t wear armor anymore and ride white steeds and slay dragons for a girl, but lying about his house, staying in a dive like that one—Boston figured it pretty much evened the field.
Chapter Eleven
“So,” Danielle began, “how’d you manage to get a double batch of Boston’s best chocolate chippers?”
Vance sat sprawled on Danielle’s couch, watching COPS—a large rattan basket heaping with chocolate chip cookies sitting in his lap.
“Last night she refused to sleep with me, so I told her I’d take a batch of cookies instead,” Vance nonchalantly answered.
“What?” Danielle exclaimed, looking to Boston, her mouth gaping open in astonishment.
“He’s kidding, Danielle,” Boston said, rolling her eyes.
Danielle sighed and shook her head. “Vance Nathaniel, you are so bad! Quit being so naughty all the time. Boston will think you’re a…a…”
“A normal, red-blooded, American man?” Vance asked.
“Oh my heck!” Danielle breathed with exasperation. “Just watch your stupid show and eat your cookies!”
“That’s what I was doing in the first place,” Vance mumbled.
Danielle frowned and stared at Boston. “You never make cookies for boys anymore.”
“That’s right…but I’m a man,” Vance interjected.
Boston giggle
d, and Danielle rolled her eyes again. Still, Danielle leaned forward and whispered, “Cookies…a great seduction tool! Good idea!”
Boston leaned forward to meet Danielle’s conspiratorial stance. “He said you told him I can bake like a bakery baker…and I wanted to prove to him that I could,” she explained. It wasn’t really a lie—both statements were true. So she didn’t tell Danielle that her brother was living in a dive. So she didn’t tell her that he’d lied to them about moving into his house. It was still true that Danielle had told Vance Boston was a good baker, and she did want to prove it to him.
Danielle shook her head. “I knew when I’d told him that he’d eventually figure out a way to weasel cookies out of you. If there’s one certainty in life…it’s that Vance loves chocolate chip cookies.” Danielle picked a cookie up from the plate on the table. Boston never made cookies to give away without making sure there were some left for friends.
“He’s a piece of work, my brother,” Danielle sighed, smiling.
“Oh, yeah,” Boston agreed. “He sure is.”
Boston looked past Danielle to the couch where Vance was sitting. Her stomach was suddenly attacked by wave after wave of butterflies. He was the one she wanted—and she’d started the journey of finding out if he could even want her.
She’d lain awake half the night, thinking over what had erupted between them in the pantry and then at his lousy motel room. Once she’d started to look at the situation from the viewpoint of the real Boston Rhodes instead of the Steph-tainted Boston, she could see a little clearer. She and Vance did gravitate to one another as Danielle had implied. He did smile at her, wink at her often. He went out of his way to please her, like bringing home the barrel of Tootsie Pops—not to mention his current living conditions. Surely he wouldn’t have forced himself into such undesirable living circumstances for just anybody.
Kiss in the Dark Page 18
