Lovers and Other Strangers Box Set: The Boston Stories (25 page)

She woke up slowly. She was achey but not in a bad way, like she had been really tense for way too long but now it was gone. She opened her eyes and nearly panicked, then she remembered last night. Mmmm, saying that was fun was like the sun was a little warm on its surface. She was finally starting to get what all the excitement was about. Of course where the hell was lover boy now. Ooh, she liked that.

"Joseph Camenitti is my lover." Then she slapped her hand over her mouth. Shit! What if he was in the bathroom and heard her. Of course, knowing him he'd probably be thrilled. She listened hard but there was no noise coming from inside so he must be somewhere else. She got out of bed and found his, or rather now- her, T-shirt and pulled it on. She looked everywhere for her panties but they were just gone. Eh, she was feeling daring after last night and the T-shirt came almost to her knees. She found her way down stairs and walked into the kitchen where he was reading the paper.

"Morning sleepyhead."

"Morning." She stretched to bring her limbs back to life. Her body was acting like she had been asleep for weeks not just overnight. When she looked at him again, he had taken his reading glasses off and had the devil's grin on his face. He was also coming toward her in a way that was making her shiver in anticipation. She gulped hard and finally found her voice. "What?"

"You are full of contradictions aren't you? He had circled around the back of her now so she turned to face him.

"What does that mean? He kept coming toward her and she kept backing up. Finally she bumped into the table where they had eaten dinner last night. He put out his hands on either side of her.

"It means that if you are going to walk around my kitchen without panties on my dear sweet wildcat. There are going to be consequences."

"Wha... What are you going to do?" Her voice shook.

"Up on the table."

"But..."

"Sweetheart, you will be worshiped like the goddess you are or... I could take you over my knee first and then worship that sweet pussy."

She could feel her eyes getting wider. "Now?, Delia?"

"Left half an hour ago. Up. Now." She perched on the edge of the table. She was already panting. This wasn't any different than last night except that it was. This felt naughty and daring. God, how she wanted to be that way with him. "Can I get a kiss good morning first before you 'worship' me. She leaned forward and he gave her a blistering kiss. The heat from it burst in her body setting fire to all her most sensitive spots. She told her self to stop thinking and just feel. So for once in her life she did. The kiss left her weak so he half lifted her onto the table. He held her hand while she lay back. His gentle touch on the inside of her thighs told her that he wanted her legs wider, so she moved them.

"The beautiful goddess on her altar." Something about the way he said it rolled a wave of desire over her so strong she shuddered before he even touched her. He kissed her thighs and ran his fingers through the curls between them.

"Oh God, I want you to worship me!" It came out as a sob she was so desperate for his touch.

"As you command!" Could she actually feel him smiling against her thigh? Then she stopped thinking, just felt how wonderful this all was, luxurious, decadent rapture. When her orgasm started he had to hold her down so she didn't fly off the table. As it was she ended up banging her head back on the table repeatedly, not in any way that would do real damage but it made her feel silly afterwards. Her hands had been free this time but there weren't sheets to grab so she had ended up slamming her fists against the table too. When she had finally come back to her senses he pulled her off the table on to his lap. If she could she would have purred. She felt well loved, warm and fuzzy. Curling up against his chest, listening to his heart beat was heavenly. He dipped his head to kiss her breast through the cotton of the T-shirt.

"You have the most wonderful tits."

"No I don't. I'm not big enough and my nipples stick out too far."

He jerked back. "Why do you do that?"

"What?"

"Stand up, take that shirt off, now." He sounded angry but why, what had she done? He also didn't sound like no was an acceptable answer so she slid off his lap. Her body missed the warmth of his almost immediately. She stood in the center of the room.

"I'm waiting. I want that damn shirt off now. I want to see every inch of you."

"Why?" Even though he was angry she wasn't afraid for some reason. She knew he would never hurt her no matter what.

"You wanted me to give you an honest critique of your sculpture even though I said I knew nothing about art. Well, you are going to get my honest appraisal of every square inch of your body and I can tell you I have been a connoisseur of women my whole life. Now. Get. The. Shirt. Off!" She jumped when he yelled that time. She pulled the shirt over her head and felt like a fool standing in the middle of the kitchen stark naked.

"Joseph, I..."

"You are going to stand there if it takes me all damn day and as much as I like the different parts of you it might. Got it. I think I'll start from the top down. So first, let's start with your hair. Your hair is long, thick, straight and heavy. And when it slid down my body last night I went from 'damn this is uncomfortable' hard to 'have mercy on my soul, I'm gonna die' hard. Do you have any idea what that does to a man?"

"Thanks but..."

"Hey! I just gave you a compliment. The appropriate response is thank you, period, no but, no qualifiers of any kind. So here is how we are going to do this. I am going to catalog each and every part of you I like and why and you are going to say thank you each and every time I do. Now, I love your forehead..."

"But..."

"Oh, you're right I forgot how much I love that little cowlick at your widow's peak. You see, you want this to be over with and I could go on and on. Would you like me to talk about each hair individually." She made a face of horror. "I didn't think so. Now what do you say?"

"Thank you."

"Good girl. See that wasn't so hard. Now, your forehead..." A full ten minutes later he had worked his way down to just her shoulders. At that point the compliments started coming along with caresses. She was getting more and more distracted by his touching her and she was forgetting to say thank you. Which made the whole process take even longer. By the time he reached her toenails, her toenails!, which, according to him, he wanted to paint while she was in the tub or tied to her bed, she could barely breathe she was so turned on.

"Evie, I know you spent way too long thinking of yourself as unremarkable but I don't see you that way. I didn't even when we were back in high school. You are a gorgeous woman and you will have to get used to accepting my compliments."

She smiled at him and he smiled back. "Thank you for all of it. Do you do this with all the women you date?" She was trying to feel like this was somehow normal when she felt this was so outside of her normal she could barely comprehend most of it.

"No, only the ones I fall in love with." He couldn't have said that! She must have heard him wrong. No man alive would admit to falling in love with a woman after knowing her less than a couple of days. She obviously had heard what she secretly wanted him to say, that had to be it. "You better get dressed and ready to go back to your place. We're gonna be late. I'll make you some breakfast while you get set. Eggs okay?"

"Oh, sorry, eggs are fine." She turned to leave to go back upstairs when he called her.

"Evie, I want you to know I have never lied to you about anything. Everything I just told you is true, every last word of it. Oh and sweetheart, you might want these?" Her panties dangled from his finger.

"You had them all along? You..."

"I didn't make you come downstairs bare-assed, I just increased the likelihood. You made that choice all on your own. I like the way you think, shows real possibilities." Ooh, she wanted to smack that smirk off his face. No she didn't, she wanted to kiss him senseless, leave him panting, and rock his world the way he'd done to hers and then gloat just like what he was doing now.

She ran upstairs when she got to her room she collapsed on the bed and screamed into the pillow then she put her hands over her face to try to cool the burning of her cheeks. This man made her crazy! That was the only explanation she had clearly lost her mind. She had spent the last 20 years dreaming about him and any minute she was going to wake up and find out all this was just a dream.

Except, in all the time she had been dreaming about him she'd never dreamed of him saying all the things about her he did this morning. He had looked at her like she was a beautiful work of art and she actually felt it all the way to her toenails. And then, had he really meant to say that he loved her? She'd thought she loved him years ago but her dream version of him was nothing compared to how the real flesh and blood man made her feel. Enough! She needed to get back to reality they had to meet the locksmith and they still had a forty-five minute ride across town. She was showered and dressed 15 minutes later. He had made her heuvos rancheros, which she devoured, she couldn't remember the last time she was so hungry.

With as late as they were now they were smack into the heart of rush hour so there were no seats on the T. People cleared a space where the wheel chair wouldn't trip anyone but there weren't any seats for Evie.

"You wanna sit on my lap?"

She leaned down to whisper in his ear. "Promise to be good?"

"I haven't heard you complain yet?" She looked cold. Why, when the woman had lived her whole life in Boston did she not know it could get cold as hell without warning. He opened his coat up.

"Come here you look like you're shivering." She was, even if she tried to hide it. She curled up on his lap as he wrapped his coat around her. Within minutes she had snuck her hands under his sweater and shirt. He tried to tell himself that the trouble he was having breathing was because her hands were like ice but he suspected the truth was he would had shivered when she touched him even if they were in the tropics. He'd assumed she was just trying to get warm but when she started stroking his stomach he growled a soft warning in her ear. She looked up at him, smiled and then stuck her now warm fingers in the waist band of his jeans. His chest heaved. Damn! What the hell was she doing. When she popped the button, his cock woke up quick. She pulled one hand out from under his shirt and worked it down between them, running her fingers up and down the length of him over his jeans. His stomach clenched to have her touch him.

"You are playing with fire, sweetheart." He whispered, his voice hoarse from trying to not moan. She was rocking her hips in time to the motion of the car. Every turn and sway of the train added new sensations. No one around them could see what was going on between them but that didn't keep it from feeling damn public. When he whispered his warning she just smiled at him and kissed his jaw. Now she had pulled her other hand out of his sweater and was playing with the hair at the back of his neck. Her kisses turned into her nibbling his earlobe sending jolts of electricity straight to his groin. Fuck, he ached bad. If he survived this ride, she was going to get him off as soon as they got to her place. Shit, the locksmith was supposed to be meeting them there. Great! He'd be a drooling idiot by then.

When they got to Downtown Crossing she hopped off him and just about got away, she would have if he hadn't managed to grab her hand. When they finally caught the Redline to her place. There were less people headed toward Cambridge so she could sit next to him. He pinned her in with his chair. The cold air of the station had cooled him down some but he still couldn't think about anything but peeling her clothes off, maybe they should try out that giant mirror of hers. That would be a nice reinforcement of this morning's lesson. If anyone needed to be taught a lesson right now it was her.

"So now that you've lit the fire, what are you gonna do to put it out."

"Who says I want to put it out." She dared to give him a teasing smile.

"Maybe I should bury it someplace warm and wet, so no one gets hurt." She actually licked her lips. Oh. Hell. No. The goddamned locksmith could charge him double time he was taking her upstairs and teach her what happened to good girls that wanted to play bad before he did another fucking thing.

He raced from the T station to her loft with her nearly running along beside him. He couldn't even look at her for fear of losing it before he got her naked. Damn, he hadn't felt like this since he'd been a teenager. When he got closer to the door, he noticed a guy was standing in front of it. Dammit! He was going to have to deal with the locksmith after all, shit, this should be interesting with a raging hard on and the cause of it standing there laughing at him. He slowed down since his lungs were about to burst anyway. When he got closer to the door he heard the locksmith muttering. The guy turned around when he heard Cam pull up.

"So obviously you needed me, but I think you underestimated the damage. Also if you were going to be leaving you should have secured this somehow."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"You the guy that called me about fixing the lock on the door?"

"Yeah, but what the hell do you mean I underestimated the damage? It just needs a new mechanism put in."

"Not by a long shot." The guy moved to his right and Cam saw what he was talking about."

"Tell me you didn't touch anything."

"Nah, I just got here. Why, this not what it looked like when you left it?"

"No, I'm gonna need you to stick around or maybe come back later after the cops get through."

"Ooh, not good, I'll go get some coffee and stop back, if the cops are done I'll get to work if not, they'll have a better idea of when they'll be done by then."

"Sounds good." The locksmith walked away as Evie walked up and looked at her door.

"What the hell?"

"I think we can assume the bricks were not random." She went to reach for the door. "Don't touch anything! We need the cops to check things out." He pulled out his phone and called the Somerville guys to come over.