Between the Sheets (21 page)

He liked her.

Liked her awkwardness and her seriousness. He liked what she hid behind them. Suddenly, he wanted to see her smile. Hear that hooting laugh again.

He ran a thumb across the bottom of her bare foot, but she didn’t even twitch. Of course, Shelby Monroe wasn’t ticklish.

“Tell me about your grandfather’s shop.”

“Mostly we worked on motorcycles. Pop was one of the best in the business; he had customers from all over the country.”

As if she knew what he wasn’t saying, she brushed her hand over his tattoo, the stylized Indian 4 motorcycle on his shoulder, a brief, fleeting touch that he wanted to grab onto.

“When did he die?”

“Years ago.” He shook his head, surprised by the catch in his throat. But that was what great sex did, it just laid him out flat and emotions walked right over him. “All this stuff with Casey, though, makes me miss him. Makes me wish he were here so I could ask him what I’m supposed to do with the kid.”

“He would know the answer to that?”

“I moved in with my grandparents when I was thirteen. My parents died in a car wreck and I was wild. Totally wild.”

“So, what did your pop do with you?”

“Well, for one thing he had Nana. And she was a
hugger. A total lover—she just smothered me with the kind of affection I’d never had. That helped.”

Shelby laughed and he reached out to touch her fingers, the top knuckles, the half-moons at the base of her ravaged nails. She had competent hands. No rings. No nail polish. Just her. She spread her fingers out wide, giving him more room to play.

“Kids should have affection,” she said, her eyes trained on the small dance of his fingers over hers.

He imagined her as a child. So serious and tidy, her hair in pigtails.

“Did you?” he asked, hoping that serious, tidy girl was smothered in love.

But she pulled her hands away and looked up at him with an overly bright smile.
Uh-oh
, he thought.
I guess that’s a no on the affection question
.

“Well,” she said, “if you need help with Casey this week, I have after-school programs on Monday and Wednesday and a birthday party on Friday.”

He wanted to pull her hands back into his, get back to that quiet place between them that had felt so good, but that moment had passed. She was sharp and bristly again, and because he was perverse and loved a puzzle, he suddenly wanted to fuck her back into relaxing.

“I approve of the reasons he fought, but I don’t think I need to reward him with more art classes.”

“Oh, no,” she said with a devilish little half-smile. “The classes are for toddlers—I was going to make him work.”

Warmth surged through him. “I like the way you think, Shelby.”

She buried her face in her mug, the blush rising up her neck. Oh man, she just killed him with all her conflicting pieces.

He took her feet into his lap and when she stiffened he
gave her the chance to move, but after a moment she relaxed just slightly, just enough to seem like a yes.

“Can I ask you something?” He applied pressure with his thumb against the bottom of her foot and she melted.

“Anything if you keep doing that.”

“That Dean guy …”

“Why’d I do it?”

“You wanted to have sex. Seems pretty straightforward to me.”

She blinked at him, like an owl facing moonlight for the first time.

“I suppose for some people it is.”

“Not for you?”

“No.” She pulled her feet away from his lap. “Not for me.”

He stared at her, his lap feeling cold, his hands empty without her to touch.

“I have a reputation in town.”

“As what?”

“As a teacher. A good person.”

“And wanting to have sex makes you bad?”

“Don’t oversimplify something you know nothing about. I don’t imagine the world knowing you let someone fuck you like an animal ever damaged your reputation?”

He laughed in the face of her ire. “Are you calling me a slut?”

“No. I’m just saying …” He could see the moment on her face when she realized how little she knew him. The brief flicker of alarm that flashed across her face. “Well, maybe I am. I have no idea. Are you?”

“Nope. I’m dangerously monogamous. No matter how toxic or poisonous the relationship, I tend to go down with the ship.” He thought of Vanessa, begging her to marry him. “You?”

“I’ve never really had a ship to go down with. Though I imagine I would.”

“You haven’t had a serious relationship?”

“In college, I did. I moved back home afterward and I dated the guy long-distance, but it got complicated and, well, there just wasn’t anyone in town interested in dating me.”

“Were there people you were interested in dating?”

“Sure.”

“And you didn’t ask?”

“Again, you’re oversimplifying things.”

He tugged her leg back into his lap. “I think you like making things more complicated.” He thought, quite seriously, that she was encased inside her reputation. Rusted over with who the world thought she should be.

“Who was he?”

“Who was who?” she asked, distracted by his fingers between her toes.

“The man you wanted to date?”

“A guy named Joe. A teacher.”

“And he hasn’t asked you out? Why?”

“I think because I’m the kind of woman men don’t think about dating. They think of me as a sister and a friend. Not someone they want to have sex with.”

“
I
want to have sex with you.”

“And that works out very well for me.”

He ran a hand up the leg of her pants, squeezing the firm muscle of her calf.

“I thought …” she said, all loose and unwound by his touch and the sex and the bourbon. He loved this gooey center of her, a woman with her edges softened, her defenses down. This version of her was just for him. Just for the guy who got through her guarded gates. “After the whole thing with Dean that maybe … maybe he … maybe everyone in town would think differently and someone would ask me out.”

“You’re kidding.”

“No.” She laughed, rightfully embarrassed. “I know, I should just have the guts to do it myself, but every time … I don’t know. The rejection doesn’t seem worth the risk.”

“So did men come knocking?”

“No one believed Dean. At least that’s what they say to my face. I’m not sure what they whisper behind my back. But the town line is no one believes I would ever do that.”

“Are you upset that your reputation is intact? Or upset that it’s not in ruins?”

“Both. A little.”

Nothing was ever easy with this woman. At least she was consistent in that way.

“Can I ask you another question?”

“You’re really chatty tonight.”

“Well, considering how much you know about me, I think it’s only fair I know a few things about you if we’re going to continue.”

“Continue what?”

He smiled. Honestly, he couldn’t help it; she was so damn easy. “Fucking each other like animals.”

That got the hoot laugh. “Sure,” she said. “Ask away.”

“Your mom.”

The words weren’t even out of his mouth before she was pulling not just her legs away, but her whole body. Her entire being was suddenly somewhere else.

“What about her?” she said, so stiff and absent he was utterly disarmed. How did she do that? How was she here and then gone from one minute to the next?

“Is she okay?”

Her lip curled with something angry, and if she were any other woman he would brace himself for some kind of viciousness.

I’m angry
, that’s what she’d said earlier, and he saw very clearly that she was.

And then that, too, vanished, her face once again schooled into calm and quiet lines. He wondered where she put that anger. Was there some pit she tossed it all into, all those things she tried not to feel?

He imagined at some point that pit would swallow her whole.

“Alzheimer’s,” she finally said.

“Do you have help?”

“I do.”

“Do you have enough?”

“We’re fine. Mom and I … have always been fine. Just us.”

“Are you—”

“I don’t want to talk about my mother.” She shifted on the sagging blue couch as if to stand but he pulled her back into his arms. Bourbon sloshed over her legs and she resisted him, pulling away.

“Calm down,” he said. “Just sit here for a second.”

“I don’t want to.”

He shifted her back against him so she was leaning against his chest, her ass nestled up against his growing erection. As what she was sitting on finally registered, she stopped pulling away and he dropped his arms.

“I don’t want to fight,” he whispered.

“Me neither. But there are some things—”

I don’t want to talk about. Things that hurt. Things I deal with on my own
.

She didn’t have to say the words, they were right there, strung like lights between them.

“I get it. I have some things, too.”

He felt her laugh. “Now I want to know what they are.”

For some stupid reason his heart soared at her words. At her interest. Even if it was just callous curiosity, she
was sitting on his dick, warm and heavy and beautiful, and they were just getting started. With everything.

She leaned back against him and he lifted her hair out of the way so he could kiss her neck. Her cheek, the pink shell curve of her ear. Slowly, she circled her hips against him, and he brought his hands up over her breasts. She was round and soft in his palms and he wanted very suddenly to see her.

“Take off your shirt,” he whispered. She leaned forward, and he hissed as the pressure on his cock got serious. Within seconds she’d whipped off her sweater and tee shirt. She shifted as if to lean back against him, but he undid the closure to her bra right between her shoulder blades. The straps fell away, revealing red marks where the elastic had bit into her skin.

Must suck, this part of being a woman
, he thought, touching each mark with his thumb. She was beautiful from behind. The muscles in her back shifted under pristine pale skin, and he ran his hand down her spine, his fingers spread wide to touch as much of her as he could.

But then she leaned back against him and he looked down her chest at her breasts.

“Ah, honey,” he sighed. “Look at you.”

Immediately she put her hands over her breasts. “They’re—”

“Beautiful.” As if to prove it to her, he lifted them reverently into his hands. They were big and soft and full and his hands were not nearly big enough, but he gave it his best shot. The pink nipples were buried in his palms, the blue veins stood out against her skin, and suddenly, he needed more.

He shifted her back onto the couch and spread himself out over her, lifting those breasts so he could kiss. Lick. Suck.

“Oh my God,” she breathed, and he sucked harder,
feeling her grow wild under him, her legs shifting, her hips arching hard against him. She spread herself out a little so he fell right into the deep vee between her legs and they both gasped. Her nipple popped from his mouth and he looked down at her while at the same time thrusting hard and high against her.

Her eyes went wide, her mouth fell open.

Bingo
.

“You like that,” he whispered.

She nodded, and to his delight her hands went under his shirt, ripping it off his body. He shrugged himself out of the sleeves and the shirt fell to the floor. His skin felt feverish from the inside. His whole body felt too hot. Her skin under his hands was cool.

He sucked on her flesh while he set a steady rhythm between her legs.

“Get a condom,” she whispered.

“I only brought one.”

“
What?
”

He laughed against her breast, licking her nipple. “I did just come over to talk. Don’t worry.” He bit her, holding the hard pink flesh of her nipple between his teeth with just enough force. “I’m going to make you come.”

“Like—” Her breath broke as he thrust against her again. He couldn’t feel her clit though the clothes, but the way she reacted, the jerk and jolt of her limbs, indicated he was in the right spot.

“Like this.”

He curled one hand over the arm of the sofa, burying his hips against her, giving her hard, fast friction until she began to tense against him. Her hands in fists in his hair.

“Come on,” he breathed, licking the arched line of her neck, and as if she’d just been waiting for the go-ahead, she bucked hard against him, a long, low moan
coming from her throat. He held himself against her until her hands dropped from his hair to his waist, pushing him away.

He sat back, aware she was probably sensitive. He sure as hell was. The front of his jeans were damp, from her, maybe from him.

“Did you …?” she asked, tucking her hair behind her ears.

Really, the most he could do was shake his head. He was so close, so nearly a mess.

She slipped to the floor between his knees and within breaths she had his pants undone and his cock out in her fist. Her lips slipped over him and his head fell back against the couch in ecstatic relief.

Shelby Monroe was not like any woman he’d ever known. And he didn’t know what that meant for him.

But he wanted to find out.

Chapter 15

Casey woke up with a start, his face throbbing in the blackness. His heart hammering in his throat.

What was that sound?

Moonlight fell in a big checkerboard across his bed and he sat up, blinking.

CRASH!

The sound came from outside. The dog, he guessed. The dog that had been sniffing around the garbage.

After Dad left to talk to Shelby, Casey had put his leftover ribs outside on the trash can hoping to lure the skinny gray dog back because it had been a few days since he’d seen it.

He scrambled up to his knees and looked out his window, which had a view over the garbage and the fields in back. The dog, skinnier than ever, was there, standing next to the spill of trash from the overturned garbage can.

Before running downstairs, he glanced at the digital clock by his bed. 2:10.

Ty’s door was open and he was snoring on his bed. Ty slept like he was dead. At first Casey had been scared; the only people he ever saw sleep like that were the drunk guys that sometimes hung out with his mom. But Ty always woke up when Casey shook him and he never smelled like booze, and Ty never hit Casey.