0215543001348293036 vaughn piper oshea m.j. (13 page)

I shook myself mentally, trying to get rid of the weird tactile haze I’d sunk into.
Haircut, Rue. Haircut.
I made myself focus.

I knew I wanted to work with his little flip and get rid of some of the bulk on top that made him look a bit mushroomy when it was humid. It should’ve been easy. But it wasn’t.

I tried to tell myself I didn’t like running my fingers through his hair, that it didn’t feel any different than the hundreds of cuts I’d done at school. But it
was
different. I liked the texture of his hair against my fingers as I snipped long layers into it. I liked how it was all soft and a little bit curly and how when I touched him, the fine hairs against his neck stood up. I swear to God he leaned into my touch too. I knew I didn’t want to stop. And I was right back to where I’d been only minutes before.

What are you thinking?

I wasn’t. That was the answer. I was
feeling
—more than I’d ever felt before. I leaned over, with the pretense of checking the fall of his hair, but all I did was inhale. Damn, he smelled wonderful, not like cologne or heavy aftershave, just fresh and clean and good.

He moaned a little louder and leaned back until my lips were touching the crown of his head. Instinctively I dropped a small, slow kiss there. He didn’t flinch away, only leaned closer….

I froze. Did that just happen? I wanted it to happen.
Oh my God, I
wanted it to happen. Erik? I want… Erik?
And then I wondered what would happen if, oddness and all, he might want me back. I cleared my throat. “Um, I think that’s about good. Do you want me to give you a blow out?”

Erik jumped and coughed. His face turned red. “A
what
?”
Oh, hell, that probably sounded really bad.
“A blow out means I’ll dry your hair if you want. Make it look nice.”

“O-oh. Um, sure.” He smiled tentatively and let out a nervous little laugh. “For a second I was wondering what kind of place you were running here.”

[82]

one small thing

“Yeah, none of those services.” I gave him my most flirtatious smile. Probably because it covered how much my stomach was fluttering. What the hell was I going to do? I couldn’t be attracted to
Erik
.

I dried his hair, making it swoop over his forehead and flip up at the ends. It looked adorable with his big brown eyes and fair skin. As I was drying it I decided it didn’t need highlights. It was pretty, a rich, dark mahogany, and I really didn’t want to mess with that. I took longer than necessary drying his hair, running my fingers through it and encouraging the little curls at the end. It was shiny and soft, and all the little damaged places he’d had were gone. After I (reluctantly) turned the dryer off, I ran my fingers over his neck one more time to get rid of all the little hairs. He shivered again. I wanted to run my fingers under the collar of his T-shirt and keep—oh, no effing way.
Stop it now.

It took some willpower, but I stepped away. “All done. Do you want to go look in the mirror?”

He smiled. “I trust you.” Was it my imagination or was his voice a little husky? “I’m itchy.”

Without warning, Erik took the hem of his (apparently too itchy) shirt and yanked it over his head, and I
sweartagod
my mouth went dry in two seconds flat.

He was
perfect
. Not ripped out, just toned and gorgeous, and damn, I wanted to touch. I wanted to touch Erik.
Erik
. It would be funny, except for the fact that it wasn’t. We stood there smiling awkwardly at each other for a few seconds. They ticked by so excruciatingly slow. If it had been anyone other than Erik, who was so off limits for so many reasons, I’d have already closed the distance between us and kissed him. I wanted to kiss him. A lot.
Shit. Mother of
holy damn shit, shit, shit. This cannot be happening.

Another few seconds of silence went by. I expected him to leave, to talk, to do
anything
other than stare at me the way he was, all half naked and
ohmygod
. It was excruciating.

My phone vibrated in my pocket.
Oh, thank you. Saved by the
bell.

[83]

Piper Vaughn & M.J. O’Shea

“Hey, Chad!” I’m sure my enthusiasm was confusing.

“Hey, back atcha, sexiness!” His voice blasted through the room.

Oh, damn!
I must have hit speaker when I picked it up.

Erik shuffled back and forth, looking around at walls he’d seen a hundred times. “Uh, night, Rue. I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?” I hit the speaker button again. “Yeah, night, Erik. See you tomorrow.”

The door clicked quietly behind him.

“Oooh, who’s Erik?” Chad had laughter in his voice. “You tappin’ that?”

“He watches Alice for me.” It was so much more than that, but for some reason I couldn’t tell Chad. I wasn’t ready to tell anyone. “Is there some news about the job?”

“Oh.” Chad chuckled. “There may be. This girl, Charlene, is getting all diva like we’re on some reality show. Anyway, bitch is driving the owner nuts, and she might get the Prada boot in her ass on the way out the door.”

“Oh… that’s, uh, good.” Usually Chad made me laugh. I wasn’t in the mood.

“Uh, yeah, it’s good, sugar! If bitch gets fired, that is
your
chair.”

“Oh. Wow.” That
was
good, wasn’t it?

“Hey, you remember when I was there? That night by the river?” Chad chuckled, low and naughty.

I
really
wasn’t in the mood. “Hey, Chad, I’ve gotta go. Alice is getting fussy.” Alice was content in her rocker.

“Okay, babe. I’ll talk to ya soon?”

“Sure. Talk to you soon.”

I hung up the phone and sank slowly onto my couch.

I wasn’t disappointed Chad had called, right? I wasn’t disappointed Erik had left. I
wasn’t
.

Yeah, I was.

[84]

one small thing

Damn.

Erik

MY FACE was hot. I could feel the heat that radiated off my skin, the sweat that had beaded along my hairline. It seemed like I’d been blushing for the last forty-five minutes straight. I was sure if blushing were terminal, I would’ve already dropped dead.

I’d started reading the third book Bill had sent me after Rue picked up Alice earlier. The first two were less explicit with more of a romantic comedy feel, sexy but always with an undertone of humor.

But the one I was working on now, well, it was more graphic than anything I’d ever read in my life. The sex scenes were frequent and growing in intensity, and I wasn’t even halfway done yet. With the way it was going, I was sure I’d probably burst into flames and burn to ash before I reached the end.

See, the problem wasn’t so much the descriptions, though there were tongues going in places I’d never even considered before, and that had made me more than a little uncomfortable at first. The problem was I couldn’t get Rue out of my head. I couldn’t forget about the haircut the other day, the way his fingers felt as they brushed my nape and massaged my scalp, the way his touch, his nearness, had sent shivery tingles across the surface of my skin, like tiny electric shocks. He’d been so close I could smell his scent, something subtle and sweet and intoxicating. I hadn’t wanted it to end.

It was strange. I’d always been so nervous whenever I went somewhere to get my hair cut in the past. It never failed. I would fidget constantly and lean away whenever the stylist pressed too close.

Afterward, I would almost leap out of the chair in my rush to be gone.

Not with Rue, though. I wanted to linger there and let him keep touching me. And then at the end there’d been something in the air

[85]

Piper Vaughn & M.J. O’Shea

between us, a pull, a hushed kind of expectancy, as if I should have been
doing
something, but I had no idea what or why.

Then the phone rang and the moment was gone. Rue had seemed so happy to hear from whoever was on the other line. Chad, he’d said.

And there’d been something in his voice right then… eagerness maybe? Excitement?

I wasn’t sure why that bothered me. But it did.

Why couldn’t I stop thinking about it? About him?

Whatever the reason, my inability to put Rue from my thoughts made reading those sex scenes interesting, to say the least. I’d read a sentence and then
bam!
Suddenly, instead of the characters in the book, it was Rue with his head thrown back and me licking a path up his neck. Or Rue bent over the arm of a couch with my fingers gripping slender hips as I pushed into him. Rue straddling me in bed. Rue with his eyes on mine as he traced the underside of my cock with his tongue.

Always Rue and always with me. Touching and being touched. Doing things I’d never imagined doing with anyone else.

I shook my head and tried to concentrate on the screen in front of me. I didn’t have time to be distracted. The thoughts about Rue, they didn’t make any kind of sense. I’d never felt even an inkling of what I’d call attraction for anyone before. Never once had an image of Dusty come into my mind when I read those scenes. Just Rue.

Stop it. Pay attention. You need to finish this.

I blinked and took a deep breath. The words on the screen finally came into focus.

Clay slid down Peter’s body, dragging his tongue along every
defined muscle of his six-pack abdomen on his way to the quickly
ripening cock jutting from a bed of soft reddish-brown hair. He buried
his nose in that nest of curls and moaned as Peter’s musky scent filled
his senses. Wrapping his hand around the base, Clay looked up and
gave Peter a wicked smile before engulfing Peter’s cock in the wet heat
of his mouth….

[86]

one small thing

God. I shifted in my seat and dragged a shaky hand over my face.

My eyes slid shut, and Rue was on my bed, his hair dark as ink against my pillows. My mouth was on his smooth, pale skin, tasting him, trailing down. His body was slender and perfect, toned but not muscular, his abdomen flat and taut. And below that, just below that, he was hot and hard and—

My eyes snapped open. No. It wasn’t right for me to be thinking those things about him. It wasn’t
right
. Rue had become a friend of sorts, but if you wanted to get technical about it, he was my employer.

My boss. He paid me to watch his child. I shouldn’t be having fantasies about him. Dirty, confusing, pulse-pounding fantasies that made me swell and ache and think about things that could never be.

I shouldn’t be thinking about how his body would feel under mine, on top of mine. The men in these books, they sucked and licked and did all sorts of things that seemed so very intimate, so… intrusive.

Putting your mouth on someone there, feeling them on your tongue, swallowing their—

Oh God, don’t think about it.

Some of it did disturb me. Mentally, it was hard to wrap my mind around. But on a deeper, baser level, outside of all my fears and uncertainties, my body was also affected. My breath hitched and my heart raced; my skin felt tight and overheated. But only when I thought of Rue.

“This is ridiculous,” I said aloud. It was going to take me forever to finish the book if every sex scene made me think of Rue and all the potentialities between us. I’d try one more time, and if that failed, then it looked like I’d be starting up a
Star Trek
marathon and calling it a night.

I sighed at myself and straightened my shoulders.
No. No giving
up.
I’d just scroll down a few paragraphs. Maybe if I just skipped the rest of this one scene, I could—

The words jumped out at me, practically screaming. I couldn’t keep going once I’d caught a glimpse of them. It was like they took up the whole page, top to bottom, side to side.

[87]

Piper Vaughn & M.J. O’Shea

The first swipe of Clay’s wet tongue along his delicate hole made
Peter jump. The second made him moan. Soon he was writhing on the
bed, lost in passion as Clay continued licking, sucking, and nibbling
around his puckered entrance. Strong hands kneaded his ass, and he
felt Clay’s thumbs work close to his tongue, gently pulling, rubbing,
and opening him up. He lifted the other knee and spread his legs wider.

Clay’s tongue delved into him, and Peter’s whole body shook with
desire. He groaned and pumped against Clay’s warm hands, and then
one thumb was gently working its way in next to that slick tongue as
Clay rimmed him.

Oh God. A tongue and a thumb… in his… at the same….

My brain short-circuited. Suddenly I could think of nothing else.

My tongue inside Rue, his legs spread wide, back arched, my fingers holding him open. Three months ago that image probably would’ve made me cringe. Right then all I could think about was how he would feel. How he would taste. What kind of sounds he would make. Would he say my name? Would he beg me for more?

I groaned and shifted in my chair again. My erection pressed painfully against the fly of my jeans. I reached down to adjust myself, but even through the layers of denim and cotton, the feel of my palm gripping my shaft sent a pulse of pleasure along my nerve endings. Oh, maybe it would help if I just….

The shrill ring of my cell phone made me snap upright in the chair. My hand flew away from my zipper, which I’d just managed to get undone, and I glanced guiltily around the room as an embarrassed flush worked its way up my neck.