In Bed with the Boss Page 8

  Had she known then that it would come to this? Life was so strange, really.

  You went along, day-to-day, making do, making ends meet. Yes, there was joy. Fulfillment even—at doing good work. At watching your child grow from a helpless bundle in your arms to a kid with a great vocabulary and a passion for frogs and vanilla ice cream…

  It all seemed enough. A good life, a rich one in the ways that really mattered, though money was tight.

  So you went out, took a chance, got yourself something better.

  And then, suddenly…

  This: a certain look, a tone of voice, the touch of a certain hand.

  And everything changed. All at once there was such wonder, such mystery. All at once, there was desire. Excitement. A dream of a future with this one special man.

  “Hey,” he said again.

  And she reached up and touched his face, because at last she could. At last, they had come to this, to the two of them in a darkened room, alone. She ran her fingers up into his thick, dark hair. It felt so silky, so warm and alive.

  He caught her wrist. She folded her fingers around his hand and he kissed her knuckles, one by one. “That first day, when Verna sent you in to me…”

  A happy laugh escaped her. “I was just thinking of the first day, too.”

  “I thought you were exactly what I was looking for. I was so right.”

  “I thought you were a hunk.”

  “No kidding?” One side of his sinfully sexy mouth quirked up.

  “Oh, yeah. I wondered whether it would be a problem, having a hot guy for a boss. I decided your hotness wouldn’t be an issue. That I wouldn’t let it be. So much for what I decided, huh?” She pulled on his hand and they went, together, to the terrace window.

  Between the wide-open curtains, they saw the lights of Kyoto spreading into the distance, the faint dark shapes of rounded mountains beyond. “It’s beautiful,” she whispered.

  “You’re beautiful.” He turned her to face him.

  She found it difficult, all at once, to meet his eyes. So she focused on the top two buttons of his shirt. They were undone. He’d already taken off his jacket and his tie. The section of skin revealed between the open buttons was bronze-colored, tempting her.

  She couldn’t resist. She leaned into him, pressed her lips to that warm flesh between the open sides of his shirt. His skin felt so smooth beneath her kiss. She breathed in, slow and deep, scenting him.

  He wrapped his big arms around her, and held her close. She reveled in the sweet pressure of his lips in her hair, in the heat and hardness of his body, touching all along the length of hers. He tipped up her chin with a finger and covered her mouth with his in a kiss that was slow and lazy. And so deep.

  His warm fingers glided downward, skimming her hips. He gathered the skirt of her dress in his fists and slowly dragged it upward. Over her thighs, her hips, her panties, the curve of her waist.

  She sighed when he broke the kiss to pull the dress the rest of the way over her head.

  On the soft, cream-colored sheets, they lay together, naked. He caressed her, those tender hands of his learning her body, touching her in ways that aroused and excited her.

  She reveled in each separate caress. He cupped her breasts in both of his hands and he kissed them, lavishing attention on one and then the other. He trailed kisses upward, along her neck, over her chin, until he found her mouth again and claimed it in another deep, searing kiss.

  She whispered, “I love your kisses.” Which only encouraged him to kiss her some more.

  His hardness pressed against her hip and she eased her hand between them, to take him in her palm, to wrap her hungry fingers around him, to run her thumb over the silky head, until he moved in a rhythm like waves and groaned into her mouth. His breath was her breath, it was all one. She rolled to face him, so that he rubbed against her core, his body making promises.

  The kind he would be keeping.

  Soon.

  Oh, yes. So soon…

  His hand found her. With sure, knowing fingers, he parted her. She helped him, spreading her legs for him, still holding on to him, stroking him so that as he caressed her, he moaned at what she was doing to him.

  What he did to her thrilled her, made her weak and limp with pleasure. He took her over. Took control. So she let him go with a moan, used her hands instead to clutch the sheets.

  Whatever he wanted. She was open to him. She was his in that moment, as she’d never been anyone’s. Ever. Not in her whole life long…

  She tossed her head on the pillow as he touched her, as he moved down her body and captured her with his mouth, hooking one strong leg over her thigh, and then the other, sliding between her open legs to kiss her in the deepest, most intimate way.

  She reached for him, spearing her fingers into his hair, holding him there, against her, so tight, so right, as he continued to kiss her, to suck on the small bud of flesh that was her most sensitive spot.

  It didn’t take long.

  A few minutes of such concentrated attention and pleasure cascaded through her in waves, waves that centered down to the core of her, where he pleasured her so skillfully. The pleasure drew down, tight and shining—and then broke. Ripples of sensation claimed her whole body.

  She cried out his name at the finish—only to discover it wasn’t the finish at all. Her body humming in after-glow, she watched him through lazy-lidded eyes as he reached for the condom he’d left on the bedside table.

  He sheathed himself and she felt arousal bloom again within her, warm and dark and oh, so sweet. She sighed in newly stirred longing and reached out her arms to him.

  He held back. “Do you believe this is happening?”

  She knew exactly how he felt. “It’s like a dream, huh?”

  “I hope I never wake up.”

  “Come here. Please. Here to me…”

  He came down to her, bracing himself between her open thighs. His eyes were dark as agates then. The finely cut muscles of his chest and arms bulged as he held his weight above her. A fine sheen of sweat beaded his brow. She traced the sleek line of hair that tracked the center of his torso, all the way down…

  Until she found him, grasped him, guided him into her.

  Smooth. So smooth and easy. He filled her up and her body gave way to him, wanting him, needing him. She was ready.

  So ready. She wrapped herself so tightly around him, taking him deep.

  And he swept her away again, going with her that time. She let the rhythm carry her, she abandoned herself to sensation. He pushed in so deep and she took him hungrily.

  As she felt her body gather for another shuddering release, he pushed up on his hands again and reared up above her.

  “Shelly…” It was a rough whisper, an intimate call.

  She opened her eyes and looked at him. “Yes,” she answered. “Oh, yes…”

  And then the pleasure claimed her again. She tossed her head on the pillows, reaching, grabbing his hard shoulders and pulling him down close to her again, so his sculpted chest crushed her breasts and she could take his mouth in a hungry kiss.

  The finish washed over them, sweet as a honeycomb, intoxicating as the finest wine.

  Tom propped himself up on an elbow and gazed down at Shelly. Damn, she was beautiful. Her skin had a glow and her brown hair was so pretty, spread out in shining tangles on the pillow.

  “What?” She touched his face, her fingers soft and cool against his cheek.

  “I can’t believe…” he began.

  “What?” she asked again.

  “That it’s so easy for me to trust you.” His voice came out gruff-sounding, betraying way more emotion than he liked to let anyone see. He took a curl of her hair from the pillow between them and wrapped it in a ring around his finger.

  “And that’s strange,” she said, “that you feel you can trust me?”

  He studied her face in the glow from the lamp. “I’m not real big on trusting people, not right out of the gate li
ke I’ve been with you.” He chucked her under her determined-looking chin. “It’s that wide smile, I think. That all-American girl thing you’ve got going.”

  She laughed. The sound pleased him. Everything about her pleased him. “I look trustworthy, is that what you’re saying?”

  It was more than that, more than he knew how to tell her. So he settled for, “Trustworthy. That must be it.”

  She reached up and idly combed the hair at his temples with her fingers. Her whiskey-brown eyes were soft with what might have been tenderness. Or maybe understanding.

  “You don’t reveal a lot,” she said. “Tonight, at dinner, I talked about my family and Max. Helen and Mori went on about their children. You were right there in the conversation, interested. And involved. But I noticed you didn’t say anything about your family.”

  “You were observing me.” He gave her a cool look.

  She only grinned. “Yes, I was. I like observing you. I like everything I see.”

  What did she want to hear from him? “I told you about my mom and dad, remember?”

  “Mmm-hmm.”

  “They died so long ago.” He unwound the curl of her hair from his finger. It fell in a soft coil to the pale, perfect skin of her shoulder. “And I’ve mentioned to Helen—and even to Mori, I think—that they’re gone. It didn’t seem necessary to tell you what you all already know. I don’t have brothers or sisters, so I can’t talk about them. And I have no children. So I don’t have a whole lot to say when people get going on their families.”

  “Hmm. Well, yes. That all makes perfect sense….” She was frowning, the smooth skin between her brows crinkling in the cutest way.

  He leaned close and kissed her, a quick one, on the end of her nose. “But?”

  “I’m greedy, I guess. I want to know everything. All your secrets.” She frowned. “Does that sound hopelessly pushy and a little bit scary?”

  “Scary, no. Pushy? Oh, yeah.”

  “Well, okay then. How about this? Anything you want to tell me, I can’t wait to hear.”

  “Shelly…” He kissed her again. This time on the lips. Hard and quick. He couldn’t get enough of kissing her. Of touching her. He wanted to tell her…More than he should. About his life, about all the times he’d started over and why. At the same time, he didn’t really understand why he even considered revealing all that. Sad stories from the past were better forgotten—or at least, not dredged up while a man was in bed with a desirable woman.

  She turned on her side and rose up on an elbow, so she faced him. He knew she longed to prompt him, to beg him to go on. He could see that so clearly in those big brown eyes of hers. But she knew that wouldn’t be right.

  And in the end, he was absolutely certain she only wanted to know what he was willing to tell her, to share with her.

  Now, that was strange. He wasn’t real big on sharing. He’d learned not to open himself up too much. It only made it hurt more when things went bad, which they always seemed to do in the end. The day always came when he had to move on.

  Would it come to that this time? He sure as hell hoped not. He liked Chicago, liked TAKA-Hanson. And he loved his work. The job fascinated him. It was never boring, kept him on his toes.

  Plus, now there was Shelly. She was the kind of woman who made a guy want to stick around.

  “Hello?” Shelly called softly. “Anybody in there?”

  He kissed her smooth forehead. “Sorry. Just thinking—Where was I?”

  “Hmm. Let’s see. I was being pushy and trying to learn all your secrets. And you started to say something…”

  He laughed. “And then I didn’t.”

  “Not yet, anyway.”

  Really, it was better if he didn’t get into the past. Instead, he gave her another truth, one that was a whole hell of a lot easier to reveal. “I envied you tonight, all three of you. When Mori and Helen were talking about their family. When you mentioned Max.”

  She took his hand, turned it over, traced one of the lines at the center of his palm. “Call me Madame Shelly. I see by this line here that you’re destined to have many children.”

  “Oh, yeah?”

  “Mmm-hmm. At least a dozen. It says right here.”

  “I didn’t know you read palms.”

  “I have so many talents. There’s no way you’ll ever discover them all.”

  “I plan to work on that. Hard.”

  “Oh, I’ll bet.” She said it teasingly—and then her mouth went soft and serious. She laid her palm against his. It felt good there, skin to skin. “You really want kids, huh? I mean, tonight, you felt jealous when everyone was talking about family. And there was last week, too, after Verna’s party, when you told me you always wanted kids.”

  “Yeah?”

  “You seem so sure you’ll never have them.”

  “It’s not that.”

  She pressed her lips into his hand. “Then what?” He felt her breath across his palm. She lifted her head, captured his gaze. “What?”

  And he realized right then he was going to do it, going to tell her one of the secrets he’d held back a moment before. It was the most painful one, the one that caused him the deepest regret. “I almost had a child once—or at least, I might have had a child. My girlfriend was pregnant. We were having problems. And she…terminated the pregnancy.”

  “Oh, Tom. Without telling you?”

  “She told me after the fact. When it ended between us. By then, it had been a few weeks since she…did it.”

  She bit her soft lower lip. “How that must have hurt you…”

  Again, he considered explaining the bigger picture, telling her about Thatcher, going all the way back to his own disgrace and downfall. But not now. Now, it was way more information than she needed, more than he could bear for her to know. Yeah, something about her made him want to trust her all the way, with everything.

  Still. No.

  He said carefully, “I was…out of work for a while. That caused a lot of tension between us. And then I told her I had to relocate. I had an offer for a good job in New York. We were living in Dallas, which was where we had met. She had her family there. And she loved her own job. And, well, as I said, she and I weren’t getting along very well by then. When it ended for good, we had a hell of a fight. She let it out then, that she’d been pregnant. And that she wasn’t anymore. She said she just couldn’t keep the baby. She couldn’t do it alone. And she’d known I was leaving her. So she got rid of it.”

  “I’m…so sorry, Tom.”

  He laughed, a dry sound with little humor. “Yeah. Well. Me, too.”

  “She had no right to do that without consulting you.”

  He fell back on the pillows and shut his eyes. “But she did. And she was right.”

  “No…”

  “I mean, she had it right that I was leaving. I would have left even if she’d kept the baby. And since she refused to come with me, we never would have been…a family. You know?”

  “That’s not true. You and your child, you would have been a family.”

  He thought of her son. “I didn’t mean that you and Max weren’t—”

  “I know you didn’t. Life’s…strange. Choices get made, and you have to learn to get past them. You have to go on.”

  “Yeah. Well, and that’s what I did. I went on. To New York. And later, to Chicago.”

  “I can’t even begin to tell you how glad I am that you moved to Chicago.”

  “So am I. Especially tonight, I’m glad. Very, very glad.”

  She leaned over him, laid her soft fingers against the side of his face.

  He grunted. “I need a shave, huh?”

  She shook her head and the curving ends of her hair touched his shoulder, soft and light as feathers. Her breasts pressed into his arm, so firm and ripe. He felt himself getting hard again, from the touch of her hair on his skin, from the tempting pressure of those pretty breasts. She said, “I love the feel of you.”

  He answered roughly, “I
t’s mutual, trust me.”

  “I like your face all warm and scratchy with your end-of-the-day beard. Lately—the last week or so—I’ve imagined the two of us, like this. I’ve fantasized about being able to touch you openly….”

  “Incredible.” He gave her a slow grin.

  “What, that I want touch you?”

  “No, that I’ve been wanting to touch you, too. Touch you everywhere.”

  “No kidding?” She didn’t look especially surprised. In fact, she looked pretty damn confident in her power to drive him crazy with lust. He could hardly blame her, since he’d been making his interest more than clear since that night in front of the Newberry.

  “Kiss me,” he said. It was a command.

  She gave him her mouth. She tasted so good—womanly. Warm. And then, beneath the sheet, her hand found him. She stroked him and he hardened all the more, thickening and growing in her grip. She seemed to like that. From her throat came a low, satisfied sound. Like a purr. Only sexier.

  He groaned. “Again?”

  So sweetly, she answered, “Well, that would be very nice. But if you’re too tired…” While under the sheet, her soft hand was driving him wild.

  He made a guttural, animal noise as he strove to remember how to form words. “Never…too tired for you…”

  She kissed him again, opening those beautiful lips for him, giving him her tongue as, beneath the covers, she did amazing things with that hand of hers. He went with it, drinking the kiss from her open mouth, moving his body in time to the clever rhythm of her arousing strokes.

  The moment came when he had to still her hand—or lose it. He reached down and grabbed her wrist through the sheet, whispered in a voice that could hardly create sound, “Wait. You. I want you.…To be inside you.”

  “Oh, Tom…” She pressed her slim body against him.

  “You. Now.” He reached for the bed table, fumbling for a condom.

  “Please. Let me…” And she helped him, gently pushing his hand out of the way, taking the pouch, getting it open. She peeled the sheet back to reveal him and then she put it on him, rolling it down over the erect length of him, sighing as she did it, making him absolutely certain he was going to explode.