A Date with the Other Side (Cuttersville #1)(47)
Author: Erin McCarthy

Shelby set the glass in the weeds and rolled onto her back, peering up into the limitless sky. “Maybe we are more alike than I thought.”

“Shelby . . . I’m leaving, you know.” He settled down closer to her, his thigh pressing against her arm.

It wasn’t unexpected, and she had thought all along she was okay with it, but when he said it out loud, she didn’t want to hear it. “Soon?”

“No. I don’t know. It could be. There’s some politics involved in this transfer and I don’t know when I’ll be sent back to Chicago, but it will probably be sooner than later, and when it happens, I’ll be leaving and not coming back.”

Shelby folded her hands across her tummy and kept her eyes trained on the sky, dropping into inky black darkness. “I know that, Boston. I’ve always known that.”

“I just wanted to be honest. Because whatever happens between us, this is all there is. Right here, right now.”

“Then we’d better make the most of it.”

Chapter Fourteen

Boston was leaning toward Shelby to claim that promise in her eyes, when a rocket launched into the sky and exploded over their heads in a purple cascade.

“Ooh!” Shelby said and jerked back away from him, propping her head up with her arms and smiling in delight at the fireworks.

Personally, he could care less about what was happening in the sky, focused as he was on what was occurring right there on the blanket between them. When Shelby spoke, when that wistful expression broke over her face, he wanted her, totally and completely and in all the ways that mattered.

He wanted her to be his, and that just couldn’t ever happen under any circumstances for whatever reason. It was insane even to contemplate.

But he’d told her the truth, that he was leaving, and his conscience could be clear that he’d never misled her. So when he made love to her, she would be there with him, and they’d enjoy each other for the short time they had.

“Look at that one!” she said, pointing up. “It looks like Christmas lights. And that one is crackling, like grease in a hot pan.”

And he still couldn’t drag his gaze off her long enough to appreciate a greasy firework. Draining his wine, he watched her watch them, the wonder and enthusiasm in her voice and on her face creeping into the jaded corners of his heart and warming it.

He had the sneaking suspicion that he was starting to fall in love with her.

Contrary to what he’d always assumed, he didn’t feel weak and frustrated, jealous and distracted. He just felt, well, good. Like he’d finally stopped running that race for just a minute and was standing on the sidelines admiring the view.

God, he needed something stiffer than wine. He was starting to feel freaking poetic.

So he ditched the glass in the weeds and lay on his side next to Shelby, dropping his hand onto the dip of her stomach. Corn plants were lazily swaying behind her and he almost laughed. He could honestly say he’d never made it with a woman in a field of corn.

Instead, he kissed the spot on her shoulder where it rounded the corner to her upper arm, startling a squeak out of her.

“What’re you doing?” She continued to watch the sky, but her breath had already picked up speed, her mouth parting in silent invitation.

“Kissing you.” Boston tasted down to her elbow, flickering out his tongue to slip into the crease there.

Shelby wiggled. “That tickles.”

With a quick shift, his mouth was on her waist, and he shoved her shirt out of the way, licking across the length of her and dipping into her belly button.

“Oh, stop that.” Her tone of voice wasn’t very convincing, even when she added, “I’m trying to watch the fireworks.”

“So watch them,” he murmured, nibbling across her abdomen, his fingers popping the snap on her ancient denim shorts.

He shifted his leg across her calf for better leverage, and let his thumb drift beneath her shorts, trailing over the front of her panties. They were crisp white cotton, glowing in the dark field, and he pictured her golden brown curls beneath the fabric. The fireworks sent a labyrinth of color over her body, and he brought her T-shirt up to her shoulders to better view her.

There was no bra to slow him down, just ripe round br**sts and taut ni**les. When he slowly drew one into his mouth, Shelby shuddered, eyes resolutely trained on the display in the sky. He sucked harder. She whimpered.

He pressed his thumb against her, deeper and deeper until he felt the moisture releasing from her, seeping through her panties. His erection was nudging painfully into her thigh, reminding him that it wanted part of the action too, but he ignored his own ache, enjoying the pleasure he could give Shelby.

Enjoying the pinch of her fingers into the blanket, the glassy desire of her wide-open eyes, the rich little moans that were coming faster and faster now as he slipped under her panties to cup her. Working her breast harder, he just let his hand rest on her, feeling the heat and dampness of her curls, until she thrust her hips off the ground in a blatant invitation for him to move.

“Do you want this?” he asked, sliding his finger along her clitoris and down into the hot wetness below.

“Yes.”

Out of vanity, out of jealousy, out of deeper emotions than he cared to admit, he asked, “I make you feel good, don’t I, Shelby?”

And he sank inside her.

“Yes,” she moaned, br**sts arching up toward him, nipple brushing against his lips.

It was an offer he wasn’t going to refuse. He bit her.

Lightly, but with enough force that she jerked beneath him and said, “Oh, Lord, Boston!”

Her hips had fallen wide open and he stroked inside her with one finger, then two, feeling her stretch to accommodate him, growing slicker and slicker, while he teased the tip of her nipple, rolling his lips back and forth.

Glancing up, he saw her head tilt back, her mouth forming a moan, before she said breathlessly, “Take my shorts off.”

If he did, he’d be in her faster than she could say fore-play. “No. I want you to see that I can make you come with your clothes off, and with your clothes on, and with me inside you . . .”

And before he could even finish the thought, she was gone, letting out a cry as her body broke, her hips thrusting to meet his fingers, nails raking across the blanket. He kept his head between her br**sts, breathing in the salty scent of her warm flesh beneath his lips, while he kept his fingers still and let her ride out her pleasure.

But the minute she relaxed back, her eyes drifting shut, he pulled back, ripped his shirt over his head, and undid his jeans. The noise alerted her, and when she saw what he was doing, she wiggled her shorts and panties down to her knees.