Love, Laughter, and Happily Ever Afters Collection (138 page)

“Shows, dinner, parties.”

With women, she was sure. He lived in Chicago and rubbed elbows with some very interesting people. The high-class parties and weekend getaways she’d experienced were probably nothing compared to what he was invited to.

“I like comedy,” she said. “There was a club in Chicago I used to love: Picadilly’s.”

“Never been there.”

“No? You should go.”

“So, it’s like jokes and stuff?”

She smiled. “Right.” She could only imagine his reaction to the raunchy, politically incorrect stuff he would hear at Picadilly’s.

They sat quietly, listening to the muffled screams and pounding going on below them.

“Did you hear about the cat that ate the ball of yarn?” Mason asked.

“No.” She was already smiling. Mason Riley was telling her a joke.

“It had mittens.”

There was a long pause and then she burst out laughing. Holy crap, he’d told her a joke and it was…corny, dumb and something she could tell a Sunday-school classroom. She loved it.

“Did you hear about the skeleton that walked into a bar?” she asked in return.

“No.”

She could hear the smile in his voice. “He ordered a beer…and a mop.”

Another long pause, and then Mason chuckled. “Nice.”

“I can do corny jokes all night long.”

They lapsed into silence again for nearly a minute.

“You didn’t like Chicago then?” Mason finally asked.

“No, I love Chicago. I needed…a break.”

She wasn’t going to tell him all about her heart. She wanted to, but that would be too much. They barely knew each other really. And he was still maybe a little mad, or at least suspicious. He didn’t need her dumping on him or sounding like a freak, as she knew she often did when it came to her heart stuff. She smiled. She and Mason had a lot in common. They were both…quirky.

“I had a really high-paced, high-stress job and I wanted a change. I knew the travel and strange routines were not good for me. When the chance came up to move to a small, quiet, slow-paced place like this, I jumped.” She sighed. “And I love it here. There are no sales quotas and high-pressure meetings. There’s no politics, no hidden agendas. I sleep in. I eat food out of my own garden. I kick back. I’m healthier than I’ve ever been.”

“You like Sapphire Falls better than Chicago?” He sounded completely disbelieving.

She understood. Three years ago, she wouldn’t have believed it either. But she knew exactly what it was that made her love the small town.

“I was popular,” she said. “I was on the inside. I was
that
girl
, seemed to have a lot of friends. But people were always putting on an act. I went to parties and had money but didn’t really ever have fun because I couldn’t fully relax. I was always first in everything and always came out on top, but I never felt satisfied.”

And all of it had almost killed her.

“So I gave it all up and came to a place as opposite from all of that as I could find.”

“That’s an understatement,” Mason muttered.

She shook her head. As much as she wanted everyone to genuinely like him, she also wanted him to like Sapphire Falls. Because she loved it.

“Did you know that Steve raises extra-sweet corn so that he can supply all the little old ladies at church all summer? And Mrs. Langston feeds stray cats? And Phoebe works after school teaching some of the adults Spanish? And Drew voluntarily drives the snowplow in town because he’s got insomnia and is the first person awake?” She stopped and took a deep breath. “I could go on.”

“I didn’t know any of those things,” Mason admitted.

“Are you surprised?” She truly wanted to know.

Mason paused and then said, “Not really, I guess.”

“These are good people who let me be who I am,” Adrianne said. “I would never judge any of them because they’re way better than me. I’m glad they let me be a part of this town.”

They were quiet for nearly two minutes. “You don’t miss the city at all then?” Mason asked.

She could honestly shake her head. “Except for the shopping, no.”

“You ever come for a weekend shopping spree?”

She looked over at him. Was he hinting at something? “I haven’t for a long time. But I think I’d like to.” She paused and waited. Then she chuckled. “I don’t know if it’s the dork thing again or what, but now would be a great time to say we could go to Picadilly’s if I come to town. And so you know, I’d say yes.”

“Damn.”

She sat up. “Damn?”

“Yeah, I…” He started patting his pockets. “Something…I need to take some notes.”

Memories from the farm—it seemed like a week ago—hit her all at once and she had to catch her breath and clear her throat. “Oh, okay.”

She leaned over to search her purse for a pen as Mason pulled one from his pants pocket along with a little notebook.

Darn it anyway.

No, she wasn’t going to lose out to him being better prepared this time. She wanted him. She wanted him to know it—and to do something about it.

“You know, I’d love to be a part of saving the world. I want to do my part.” She stretched back as he turned toward her.

“What do you—”

She slid her legs out straight, inched up the hem of her shorts and stretched her arms overhead. “Plenty of note-taking surface. If you need it.”

It was the most bizarre seduction/flirtation/whatever that she’d ever been a part of, but it fit. And it seemed to be working. Mason’s gaze flared with heat and he licked his lips as he took in all of the bare skin she was offering.

“Believe it or not, I almost never get stuck like I have been for the past few weeks, and ideas don’t generally jump out at me in the midst of other normal conversations,” he said.

“How do your ideas usually come to you?”

“While working in the lab, or as a tangent from something else I’m doing, or when I’m brainstorming with Lauren or the team.”

“Never out of the blue?”

“Rarely. Maybe if I’m alone, reading something or on a run, but never when I’m doing something else. I promise you that I was focused on you and what we were talking about.”

She rolled to her side and reached out a hand, laying it on his arm. “We were telling dumb jokes and chatting. I’m not offended.”

“But I was focused on you. Completely. Like I was at the farm. These ideas…it’s like…”

She raised an eyebrow and waited.

He sighed. “It’s like you shake something loose for me.”

She laughed. “That doesn’t sound complimentary, but if it means that it’s helping you then I’m good with it.”

He shook his head, smiling ruefully. “It’s a good thing. But it’s not very…romantic.”

“You’re trying to be romantic with me?” Sure, they’d kissed—almost a hell of a lot more than that—but romantic made it sound more serious.

“I’m not that good at it,” he admitted.

She scooted closer. “That’s not what I meant. Mason, I…” Want to take my clothes off every time I see you. That would certainly reassure him that he was good at something.

“We’re off script here so I’m not sure what’s next.”

She didn’t know what that meant, but he did look a little confused. “Off script?” she asked.

“Things are usually very predictable with me. I’m usually in control, smooth, sure of what the next step is, but with you it’s all been—crazy, off the charts, erratic.”

She could tell that bothered him, but she really liked it.

“Even getting mad at you last night was new for me, unusual. I don’t want to be used—”

“Oh, Mason, I’m sorry—”

“No. I mean, the reason I was mad was legit, but I don’t get upset with the women I date. I don’t usually care that much, I guess. If we don’t agree on something, we finish dinner and don’t get together again. I only get upset about work.”

She could tell that meant something. Her heart skipped and she decided to give him some assurance.

“Mason, every time we’re together, I find myself smiling more and wanting to get naked more than I have in a really, really, really long time with a guy. Nothing else matters. I can tell you what the next step is, but if you roll over here, I’ll show you. Which will be way more fun.”

He gave an aroused groan. “I’m already having more fun than I can remember.”

Oh, she really liked that.

“So come here.”

He did. He turned and stretched out beside her, bracing himself on his left elbow, pen poised in his right hand. “I need to take some notes, before I forget.”

“I’m guessing you haven’t forgotten something in…ever,” she said with a smile.

“I haven’t been distracted by you before.”

He smiled too, but his eyes held a heat that made her tingle.

“Then you better start writing.” She inched the bottom of her shirt up to the bottom of her bra. “Because I’d like to get even more distracting. Soon.”

He took a shaky breath. Then the only sound in the room was the click of his pen. The tip touched the skin over her ribs and she felt her stomach quiver. He seemed intent on his task, but she noticed that he was definitely breathing faster. She felt like she was holding her breath and her heart thundered, but she didn’t feel the panicky tightness she usually got when that happened. This felt good.

He wrote notes across her stomach from left ribcage to right about an inch below the underwire of her bra. Then he started again, left to right above her belly button. Then below it.

He cleared his throat and finally looked up at her. “I need a little more room.”

Without a word, still holding his gaze, she lifted her hips. Watching her face, he popped the snap at the top of her shorts, lowered the zipper and then sat up slightly to hook a finger in the waistband on both sides and slide the shorts down to mid-thigh.

Her panties dipped low in front, giving him a few more inches of skin, and his attention dropped from her face to the black silk. He traced the top edge of the panties with the pad of his index finger.

Then he chuckled.

She felt herself smile, though she had no idea why. “Thought of another joke?”

His finger kept moving between the elastic edge and her skin and she felt her entire body growing warmer from that one touch.

“I was thinking of all the books, all the researching…and it’s all deserting me at the moment. I can’t think of a single thing right now except that I want to touch you all over.”

She moved her legs restlessly. “Touching me all over sounds like a great plan. No offense, Mason, but I’m caring a little less about your plant research projects right at the moment.”

He chuckled again and dipped his finger deeper, skimming lightly over her soft curls. “Not plant research, Adrianne. You. Women. Sex.”

The word
sex
from him made her stomach flip. Which was stupid. It seemed rather obvious that they were heading in that direction, but that confirmation made her want it.

“What do you mean? You’ve been researching women?”

“Of course.” He gave her a grin. “Studying and analyzing is my natural reaction to things that fascinate me that I don’t fully understand. Women and female sexuality certainly fall into that category.”

It was funny. He’d been a nerd in high school by all counts, but that grin and the matter-of-fact statement about studying women and sex were full of confidence.

“How do you study female sexuality?” she asked, eyes narrowed as a thought occurred to her—how many women had Mason Riley been with since leaving Sapphire Falls?

“Like I study everything else—books, observation, interviews. Experiments.”

Her eyes widened. “You’re kidding, right?”

“I’ve used all of those methods.”

He had to be kidding. “How?”

“There are hundreds of books written on the subject. One I like in particular is Lou Paget’s
How to Give Her Absolute Pleasure
.”

Adrianne didn’t know who Lou Paget was or how he knew all about absolute pleasure, but Mason didn’t seem to be kidding.

“And the observation? Are we talking porn here?”

He grinned. “Some of that. But the mechanics of sex aren’t hard to understand. It’s the flirting and seduction that I needed to understand. So I observed men and women interacting in bars, restaurants, the office, anywhere I could to figure out what worked, what didn’t, what made women respond, how to tell if she was responding.”

“How do you tell?”

“With you, it’s your mouth.”

Her lips tingled and she pressed them together.

“Like that,” he said. “When you’re aroused, you press them together, you lick them.”

She did then without thinking.

He chuckled. “Drives me crazy. Then there are the other signs too—you breathe faster, your pupils dilate, your cheeks get a little pink.”

“I didn’t realize I was giving so much away,” she said softly.

“It’s natural. I see the effect I have on you and it makes me want to do even more.”

She swallowed. “Oh?”

“As nature intended.”

Right. Scientist. Nothing magical or special—just pheromones and the like.

His finger was still in the waistband of her panties, but it wasn’t moving. She tipped her head. “What about the interviews?”

“I’ve talked to dozens of women about what they like, what they want from men…”

“Are they naked while you do this?”

He raised an eyebrow and she was sure he noticed the jealous note in her voice, but he didn’t comment on it.

“Not usually,” he said. “Often they were fully dressed and drinking coffee.”

“You bought random women coffee and asked them about sex?”

“I knew all of these women in some capacity and had reason to believe they would be comfortable talking with me. You’d be surprised—women love to have a man who will listen to them and wants to know what they want. Sometimes it was a planned meeting, sometimes it was casual conversation.”

She wouldn’t be surprised. He had a point. Most women wouldn’t likely have that conversation with a total stranger, but if they got to know Mason she could see them being willing to spill. He was a researcher. She could imagine the sincere, intent way he’d look at them, the straightforward way he’d ask the questions.

“And then of course…the experimentation?” she asked.